Auld Jeremiah/Chapter 4

Mr. David Archibald Wishart—so named from a thrifty old bachelor uncle, who was expected to make him his heir, but did not—was a young man whose dual object in life was wealth and respectability. The latter quality he was quite content to maintain as it already stood, but the limit to his ambition for the former could be compassed only by the bright blue sky.

David was the eldest son of old Jeremiah's brother, who had followed the example of his senior in emigrating to America some few years later. Starting as a clerk in a stockbroker's office, he had managed to secure enough of his brother's business in time to enable him to become a member of the firm, when, by thrift and a plodding industry, he had managed to accumulate quite a respectable fortune, and in due time to become the head of a respected and conservative business house.

David was the mediocre son of a mediocre father. The commonplace is apt to beget its kind, just as genius is apt to reproduce its opposite, based perhaps on the principle that the product of the means is equal to the product of the extremes. David looked, thought, felt, and behaved like his father, to the entire satisfaction of them both.

Wishart, senior, was the head of the firm; Wishart, junior, the tail, in a manner of speaking. Wishart, senior, rode a large bay gelding each morning before breakfast in the park, passed the contribution box in the main aisle of the church, was superintendent of the Sabbath school. Wishart, junior, rode a polo pony before breakfast in the park, passed the contribution box in a small side aisle of the church, and taught a Bible class. Wishart, senior, was tall and heavy, and wore a mustache and beard. Wishart, junior, was tall, and would some day be heavy, and wore a mustache without the beard. When all is said and done, he was merely a later planting of the same seed.

Both father and son stood in great awe of Jeremiah, and no doubt really felt that peculiar affection for him that one finds in the attitude of a mean-spirited, avaricious person for a rich relative. Jeremiah, for his part, held them both in supreme contempt, and sort of fluctuating dislike, depending on his mood. The old man was an eagle—fierce, predatory, swift, looting as much for the pleasure of the raid as for the spoils thereof. His brother and nephew were merely barnyard hen hawks, venturing at times to seize an incautious hen, which they bore off promptly to their nest.

Both father and son knew of Jeremiah's sentiment for them, and deplored it, while not daring the effort to correct it. Jeremiah's satire could pierce any skin that was not actually petrified, and, social and religious infidel as he professed to be, he attacked his relatives at their most tender point—their respectability. In the matter of his will, he had treated them far more decently than either strictly deserved, for the simple reason that neither interested him sufficiently to arouse any particular emotion—such, for instance, as he felt toward Archie.

It was, therefore, with considerable surprise that David learned on returning to his office after lunch that Mr. Jeremiah Wishart had called him up on the phone, and wished him to call at the house at his very earliest convenience. Leaving instructions to call up Mr. Wishart's house to say that he was already on his way, David hurried to the street, jumped into a taxi, and sped away uptown.

Jeremiah greeted him with a brief nod. “Sit down,” he growled. David did so. Jeremiah swung painfully in his chair, and stared at the young man out of his cavernous sockets in a way that suggested some beast of prey glaring from its cave.

“How old are ye?” he asked.

“Thirty, Uncle Jeremiah,” answered David.

“Ye do not look it. A fine, temperate man, are ye not? Y'are tall and broad, and beef to the heel. Never smoke, nor drink, nor—nor anny of those things. I know your kind. Now, tell me, have ye never thought of marryin', David, me man?

“I hope some day to marry and perpetuate our good old Highland stock, Uncle Jeremiah; but up to this time I have not felt that I could afford it.”

“I see, 'Tis an expensive luxury in these days, the rearin' of young Wisharts. Your Cousin Archie did not feel he could afford to tackle it for twenty million dollars.”

“I'm afraid I don't quite get you, Uncle Jeremiah.”

“Then I will make myself plain, as the auld wife said when she took off her wig. I have just offered your Cousin Archibald the bulk of my fortun' if he would marry a girl of my choosin'. The gowk refused.”

David's jaw dropped, and he stared at his uncle in startled dismay. The young man found himself utterly at a loss for what to say. Perhaps it was fortunate for him that he did, as both he and his father had often lamented the puzzling fact that any words of theirs were invariably wont to irritate Jeremiah.

“Ye see,” continued the old man, “I was minded to make Archie my heir, not wishin' to break up the fortun', and because I never really disliked the lad, for all his folly. Besides that, he needs it, havin' gone through the scant savin's of his miserly father.”

“A most excellent reason for not leaving him your fortune, I should have thought, Uncle Jeremiah.”

“Oh, should ye, now?” sneered the old man. “Now, I advise ye to keep your thoughts to yourself, David, or I might be tempted to do it yet. For all his faults and foolishness, Archie is at least a man. But I was no such fool as to give him the money to squander as best pleased him”

“Very wise of you, Unc”

“Will ye no hauld your gawp until I finish? So, bein' interested in a fine young woman, the granddaughter of an auld friend, who has lost a decent fortun' through no fault o' his, I was minded to see the two married as soon as might be, and leave them the bulk of my estate”

“But, Unc”

“Haud your tongue, ye loon! Ye maun know I ha'e never likit ye, and I'm likin' ye less every minute! Anither ward may cost ye millions, mon. Archie and the girl were to meet here to-day, but the wench disappointed me, and when I broached the matter to Archie he would have none of it. So now he may scratch for himself for all o' me, and so I am minded to make you my heir in his place—if the girl will have ye, which I am inclined to doubt. Ye see, David, 'tis not that I like ye, but that Archie has failed me and the girl as well, for if the lad had seen her I'm thinkin' he would have felt different about it. Now, I am sick of the business, and wish to have done. If Ailsa Graeme will marry ye, I will make the two of ye my joint heirs. So what do ye say?”

David cleared his throat. “H'm!” said he, and buttoned his coat. “Does the young lady know of your plans, Uncle Jeremiah?”

“She does. But she does not know which of my nephews I had in mind—or that there was more than one, for that matter. I may have mentioned the name 'Archie,' but as you have yourself an Archibald in your name, that does not matter.”

“And what did she think of the arrangement, if I may ask?”

“She is a sensible girl. She said that if the young man was pleasin' to her, and she to him, it might result in the makin' of a match—or words to that effect. Ye had best go see her, and talk it over between ye. I am sick of the business, and will have no more to do with it beyond leavin' ye both the fortun'. But ye'd best be quick, for the doctors tell me I have not long to last, and if y'are not married before I go the bulk of my fortun' will go across the water. Here is her address. Take it, and clear out, for I am tired, and wish to sleep.”

David left the house in something of a daze, going straight home, where he told the taxi to wait, and gave orders that the office be informed that business would keep him away for the rest of the afternoon. In the privacy of his room, he sat down for a moment to think.

His reflections were brief, their principal trend being that there was very little time to lose. Old Jeremiah had impressed him as a dying man, and David shuddered at the possibility of his going off before his matrimonial arrangements might be completed.

It was late in June, and Mr. and Mrs. Wishart had moved out to their country house on Long Island—Wishart, senior, going in and out of town every day on the train. David, who disliked the country, had preferred to remain in the city, running out only for the week-end. The following week, however, he would be compelled to move out to Bonny Brae, as the Wishart place was called, there to remain for about a month with his maternal grandmother, while Mr. and Mrs. Wishart were absent on their annual visit to Bar Harbor.

Yes, Uncle Jeremiah was right. There was no time to lose. David dressed with care, jumped into his waiting taxi, and set out for some vague address in Brooklyn. His destination proved to be on one of those dreary, forgotten side streets, where the grass sprouts up between the Belgian blocks, and the alanthus tree blooms with tropical luxuriance. The houses were small, but respectable, and the only sounds were the distant roar of traffic on some adjacent thoroughfare and the wail of babies with prickly heat floating dismally through the open windows.

Telling his driver to wait, David rang the bell, and a moment later the door was opened by a clean little girl with very bright, inquiring eyes and a pigtail. David offered his card, which she took gingerly by one corner.

“Miss Graeme, if you please,” said David.

“Yes, sir. She is upstairs with mother. I'll tell her” And the little girl made a dash for the stairs. Half-way there she suddenly remembered herself, darted back, and opened the door of a small, sad room.

“Sit down, please, sir,” said the little girl, and fled incontinently.

David entered the room, which was cool and dark. Stepping to the window, he drew back the shutters, then turned, and looked around him. The place was spotlessly clean, with hair-cloth furniture, a center table of Japanese inlay work, and a tiny fireplace, on the mantel of which was a sticky-looking clock under a bell-domed glass with a plush fringe around its edge. Above the clock was a large, framed photograph of a benignant-looking middle-aged man in the uniform of a marine engineer officer. There were also some of the curiosities that sailors pick up in their voyages.

“Evidently a seafaring household,” said David to himself, and sat himself upon the haircloth sofa, from the inwards of which there came the bell-like vibration of rusty spiral springs.

The confectionery clock ticked off the minutes slowly and sadly, as if deploring the waste of the precious time that it was its mournful duty to register. “First time I ever knew one of those wretched things to go,” said David to himself. The minute hand moved reluctantly through the arc of a quarter hour, and David's tension gave way to a lugubrious depression. It returned like the stringing of a bow at the sound of a rustle on the stair, and David was far from being a nervous man. He rose

And then a delightful vision was framed in the narrow doorway. David was not an imaginative man, and had formed no mental image of his possible future bride, beyond the vague idea that she would probably coincide with her abode in being plain and dreary and of middle-class respectability. He was totally unprepared for this radiant girl, with her vivid coloring, wealth of glossy auburn hair, and tall, supple, deliciously rounded figure She was dressed in a simple muslin gown, with a fringe of old lace about the neck and elbow sleeves.

For an instant David was actually guilty of a stare; then, recovering himself, he bowed.

“Miss Graeme,” said he, “I hope that you will pardon the informality of this call. I have just left my uncle, Mr. Wishart, who asked me to look you up immediately.”

Ailsa, her face aflame, stepped inside the room, closing the door behind her.

“It is very kind of you, I am sure, Mr. Wishart,” said she, in her low, rich voice, with its hint of a Highland accent. “Will you not sit down?”

She seated herself, and looked up at him with very wide gray eyes. David was, indeed, a fine figure of a man. Over six feet in height, with a big frame, like all the Wisharts, he was a personality that had never failed to command respect. His face, which was rather long, would have been handsome but for the eyes, which were set a trifle too close together, and a long, acquisitive nose. His type was, in fact, thoroughly that of his race; and as such Ailsa found it far from displeasing.

David reseated himself on the sofa, and leaned slightly forward, his elbow resting on one knee. At a little distance sat Ailsa, very erect, her hands tightly clasped, and her eyes dark with excitement.

“My uncle tells me,” said David, speaking easily, and with a slight, reassuring smile, “that he has submitted to you what must seem to us both as a most extraordinary proposition.”

“Now, is it not?” she answered, a little breathlessly, “I have never heard the like.”

“Nor I,” he answered. “And yet, Miss Graeme, from the old gentleman's point of view, it is all quite reasonable enough. You see, he is long past the age of understanding the emotions of younger people, and his whole life has been spent and his mind directed to but one single object—the acquiring of an enormous fortune. Now that he is nearing his end, he cannot bear to think of this fortune being shattered and dissipated.”

“That is easy to understand,” said Ailsa, whose natural clear-headedness was returned under David's Bible-class manner. “But what I cannot understand is why he should ever have selected a simple Scotch country girl like me to—to” She paused, blushing furiously.

“To be one of his cobeneticiaries? asked David smoothly. “That also is not difficult when we confine ourselves to Uncle Jeremiah's viewpoint. A multimilliomaire is in some respects like royalty. He represents what we might call a dynasty of power based on wealth. He is like a king, and his heir represents a financial crown prince. Like all other kings, he wishes to preserve his dynasty intact, and to assure himself of its succession. Consequently he demands the right of selecting what he feels shall prove a proper consort for his heir. But this, of course, is largely dependent on the personal desires of those selected. In these days, even actual royalties do not try to coerce their successors into alliances that are opposed to their own free wills.”

Ailsa was silent, and looked down at the tips of her little shoes. She was thinking how different this fine young gentleman, with his elegant manner of speaking, was from the harum-scarum individual whom old Jeremiah had described. David slightly cleared his throat, and continued.

“In your case, Miss Graeme,” said he, “the situation is peculiarly parallel to that which I have described, because, aside from your own very obvious attractions, you are the granddaughter of one of Uncle Jeremiah's oldest friends—perhaps his only friend—and you come of a stock that he admires and esteems. He abominates the usual type of American woman, whom he considers selfish, superficial, undomestic, and extravagant—and I am not sure but that I agree with him. I have certainly never seen one whom I would care to marry.

“Besides that, we both believe in pure strains. You are a Dornoch Graeme, and I am a Dornoch Wishart, though American born. But we are both of the good old Highland blood, and therefore what more natural than that we should form this alliance? By this I do not mean that I should think of urging you to engage yourself to marry me until you have had the opportunity to know and understand, and find yourself in sympathy with me.”

“And you with me,” said Ailsa almost inaudibly. She raised her drooping head, and looked searchingly into David's eyes; and, cold as had always been the nature of the young man, he was conscious of a sudden acceleration of his pulse and a quickening of the breath. It startled him, and for the moment swept away the precise formality of his tone. Nothing, perhaps, could have better furthered his interests, as for the moment he found himself face to face with the first genuine emotion of his life, aside from that of greed, and spoke from the heart instead of from the head.

“Ailsa Graeme,” said he, and his bass voice held an involuntary tremor, “I have seen you for a scant five minutes, but I tell you that, all material benefits aside, you are the first woman I have ever met whom I would want to make my wife.”

Ailsa leaned forward, her face very pale. “Do you mean,” she asked, “that you would be wishing to marry me if I had nothing but myself?”

“I do,” said David hotly; and for the moment he meant it.

Ailsa's eyes fell. She began to trace patterns with the toe of her little shoe.

“It is very wonderful,” she whispered. “I cannot understand it. Why should you? What can you find in me?”

“Sweetness and charm and a true, honest heart,” said David. There was no longer need for diplomatic utterances. The thought that this lovely girl might soon be his roused all the desire of possession latent in his masculine, Gaelic nature. He rose from his seat, and took a step toward her.

Ailsa looked up quickly, and clasped her hands. Her face was frightened, almost terrified. This big, masterful personality moved her strangely, as she had never been moved before. And yet—he frightened her also, as she had never been frightened before.

David saw the look, and restrained himself with an effort, for his arms were hungry for her. But he realized that here were great matters at stake. The chances are that if he had not realized it, and had refused to allow the cold wall of Jeremiah's millions to give him pause, he might have swept the girl off her feet, all aquiver as she was, in the rush of swiftly liberated passion, so long dormant in the man. He might have claimed her then and there, taking no negative answer, and moved by what was left in his nature of the old, predatory instincts of his ancestors, whirled her off in his taxi to the nearest official of due authority, and married her upon the spot.

But the sudden realization of all that was at stake halted David, as sometimes it has halted too calculating a general, who had only to charge home to secure the victory already in his grasp. The violence of his own emotion startled him, and he sank back upon the dingy, haircloth sofa.

“Forgive me, Miss Graeme,” he said. “You see, I spoke from the heart. I am sorry if I frightened you. I should give you time to accustom yourself to this most unusual situation. Now, I have a plan. My mother shall write to you, and ask you to come out to visit us at our country place on Long Island. That will give you an opportunity to become acquainted with my people and myself.”

“You are very kind,' Ailsa murmured. She raised her face a little fearsomely to his. “You will tell your mother?”

“Yes—and she will be delighted. She has been urging me to marry for the last three or four years, and she is bound to be charmed with you. Besides, mother is rather a worldly woman, I am afraid”—he smiled slightly—“and she will be tremendously pleased at the prospect of our being so well provided for. But of course you are under no obligation, and if you find on getting to know me better that you cannot bring yourself to care for me enough to be my wife, you have only to say so, and remain my very good friend. Now I will go, and leave you to think the matter over.”

He rose, and stood before her, tall, erect, masterful, smiling down at her with perfect friendliness. Ailsa rose also, and gave him her hand. David took it in his own, stooped, and brushed it lightly with his lips, then turned smartly on his heel, and the front door closed behind him.