Again Ralston felt that sharp thrust of pain which a man feels under a wholly unjust accusation brought against him when he has been doing his best and has more than partially succeeded. The fiery temper — barely under control when he had entered the house — broke out again.
“If you’ve sent for me to lecture me on my habits, I shall go,” he said, moving as though about to rise.
“I didn’t,” answered the old gentleman, with flashing eyes. “I asked you to come here on a matter of business — and you’ve come smelling of whiskey and flying into a passion at everything I say — and I tell you — pah! I can smell it here!”
He took a cigar from the table and lit it hastily. Meanwhile Ralston rose to his feet. He evidently had no intention of quarrelling with his uncle unnecessarily, but the repeated insult stung him past endurance. The old man looked up, with the cigar between his teeth, and still holding the match at the end of it. With the other hand he took a bit of paper from the table and held it out towards Ralston.
“That’s what I sent for you about,” he said.
Ralston turned suddenly and faced him.
“What is it?” he asked sharply.
“Take it, and see.”
“If it’s money, I won’t touch it,” Ralston answered, beginning to grow pale, for he saw that it was a cheque, and it seemed just then like a worse insult than the first.
“It’s not for you. It’s a matter of business. Take it!”
Ralston shifted his hat into his left hand and took the cheque in his right, and glanced at it. It was drawn in favour of Katharine Lauderdale for one hundred thousand dollars. He laughed in the old man’s face, being very angry.
“It’s a curiosity, at all events,” he said with contempt, laying it on the table.
“What do you mean?” cried his uncle, growing redder as Ralston turned white.
“There is no Katharine Lauderdale, in the first place,” answered the young man. “The thing isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. If it were worth money, I’d tear it up — if it were for a million.”
“Oh — would you?” The old gentleman looked at Ralston with a sort of fierce, contemptuous unbelief.
“Yes — I would. So would Katharine. I daresay she told you so.”
Robert Lauderdale bit his cigar savagely. It was a little too much to be browbeaten by a mere boy, when he had been used to commanding all his life. Whether he understood Ralston, or whether he completely lost his head, was never clear to either of them, then, or afterwards. He took a fresh cheque and filled it in carefully. His face was scarlet now, and his sandy eyebrows were knitted angrily together. When he had done, he scrutinized the order closely, and then laid it upon the end of the desk under Ralston’s eyes.
‘Pay to the order of John Ralston one million dollars, Robert Lauderdale.’
Ralston glanced at the writing without touching the paper, and involuntarily his eyes were fascinated by it for a moment. There was nothing wrong about the cheque this time.
In the instant during which he looked at it, as it lay there, the temptation to take it was hardly perceptible to him. He knew it was real, and yet it did not look real. In the progress of his increasing anger there was a momentary pause. The exceeding magnitude of the figure arrested his attention and diverted his thoughts. He had never seen a cheque for a million of dollars before, and he could not help looking at it, for its own sake.
“That’s a curiosity, too,” he said, almost unconsciously. “I never saw one.”
A moment later he set down his hat, took the slip of paper and tore it across, doubled it and tore it again, and mechanically looked for the waste-paper basket. Robert Lauderdale watched him, not without an anxiety of which he was ashamed, for he had realized the stupendous risk into which his anger had led him as soon as he had laid the cheque on the desk, but had been too proud to take it back. He would not have been Robert the Rich if he had often been tempted to such folly, but the young man’s manner had exasperated him beyond measure.
“That was a million of dollars,” he said, in an odd voice, as the shreds fell into the basket.
“I suppose so,” answered Ralston, with a sneer, as he took his hat again. “You could have drawn it for fifty millions, I daresay, if you had chosen. It’s lucky you do that sort of thing in the family.”
“You’re either tipsy — or you’re a better man than I took you for,” said Robert Lauderdale, slowly regaining his composure.
“You’ve suggested already that I am probably drunk,” answered Ralston, brutally. “I’ll leave you to consider the matter. Good evening.”
He went towards the door. Old Lauderdale looked after him a moment and then rose, heavily, as big old men do.
“Jack! Come back! Don’t be a fool, my boy!”
“I’m not,” replied the young man. “The wisest thing I can do is to go — and I’m going.” He laid hold of the handle of the door. “It’s of no use for me to stay,” he said. “We shall come to blows if this goes on.”
His uncle came towards him as he stood there. Hamilton Bright was more like him in size and figure than any of the other Lauderdales.
“I don’t want you to go just yet, Jack,” he said, more kindly than he had spoken yet, and laying his hand on Ralston’s arm very much as Bright had done in the club.
Ralston shrank from his touch, not because he was in the least afraid of being violent with an old man, but because the mere thought of such a thing offended his sense of honour, and the position in which the two were standing reminded him of what had happened but a short time previously.
“Just tell me one thing, my dear boy,” began Robert Lauderdale, whose short fits of anger were always succeeded immediately by a burst of sunshiny good humour. “I want to know what induced you to go and marry Katharine in that way?”
Ralston drew back still further, trying to avoid his touch. It was utterly impossible for him to answer that he had very reluctantly yielded to Katharine’s own entreaties. Nor was his anger by any means as transient as the old man’s.
“I entirely refuse to discuss the matter,” he said, and paused. “Do you want a plain statement?” he asked, a moment later. “Very well. It was understood that Katharine was to tell you about the marriage, and she has done so. You’re the head of the family, and you have a right to know. If I ever had any intention of asking anything of you, it certainly wasn’t money. And I’ve asked nothing. Possibly, just now, you meant to be generous. It struck me in rather a different light. I thought it was pretty clear, in the first place, that you took me for the sort of man who would be willing to live on his wife’s money, if she had any. If you meant to give her the money, there was no reason for putting the cheque into my hands — nor for writing a cheque at all. You could, and you naturally should, have written a note to Beman to place the sum to her credit. That was a mere comedy, to see what I would do — to try me, as I suppose you said to yourself. Thank you. I never offered myself to be a subject for your experiments. As for the cheque for a million — that was pure farce. You were so angry that you didn’t know what you were doing, and then your fright — yes, your fright — calmed you again. But there’s no harm done. You saw me throw it into the waste-paper basket. That’s all, I think. As you seem to think I’m not sober, you may as well let me take myself off. But if I’m drunk — well, don’t try any of those silly experiments on men who aren’t. You’ll get caught, and a million is rather a high price to pay for seeing a man’s expression of face change. Good night — let me go, please.”
During this long tirade Robert Lauderdale had walked up and down before him with short, heavy steps, uttering occasional ejaculations, but at the last words he took hold of Ralston’s arm again — rather roughly this time.
“You’re an insolent young vagabond!” he cried, breaking into a fresh fit of anger. “You’re insulting me in my own house.”
“You’ve been insulting me in your own house for the last quarter of an hour,” retorted Ralston.
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br /> “And you’re throwing away the last chance you’ll ever get from me—”
“It wasn’t much of a chance — for a gentleman,” sneered the young man, interrupting him.
“Confound it! Can’t you let me speak? I say—” He hesitated, losing the thread of his intended speech in his anger.
“You don’t seem to have anything especial to say, except in the way of abuse, and there’s no reason at all why I should listen to that sort of thing. I’m not your son, and I’m not your butler — I’m thankful I’m not your dog!”
“John!” roared the old man, shaking him by the arm. “Be silent, sir! I won’t submit to such language!”
“What right have you to tell me what I shall submit to, or not submit to? Because you’re a sort of distant relation, I suppose, and have got into the habit of lording it over the whole tribe — who would lick the heels of your boots for your money — every one of them, except my mother and Katharine and me. Don’t tell me what I’m to submit to—”
“I didn’t say you!” shouted old Lauderdale. “I said that I wouldn’t hear such language from you — you’re drunk, John Ralston — you’re mad drunk.”
“Then you’ll have to listen to my ravings just as long as you force me to stay under your roof,” answered Ralston, almost trembling with rage. “If you keep me here, I shall tell you just what I think of you—”
“By the Eternal — this is too much — you young — puppy! You graceless, ungrateful—”
“I should really like to know what I’m to be grateful to you for,” said Ralston, feeling that his hands were growing icy cold. “You’ve never done anything for me or mine in your life — as you know. You’d much better let me go. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
“And you dare to threaten me, too — I tell you — I’ll make you—” His words choked him, and again he shook Ralston’s arm violently.
“You won’t make me forget that you’re three times my age, at all events,” answered the young man. “But unless you’re very careful during the next ten minutes you’ll have a fit of apoplexy. You’d much better let me go away. This sort of thing isn’t good for a man of your age — and it’s not particularly dignified either. You’d realize it if you could see yourself and hear yourself — oh! take care, please! That’s my hat.”
Robert Lauderdale’s fury had boiled over at last and expressed itself in a very violent gesture, not intended for a blow, but very like one, and utterly destructive to Ralston’s hat, which rolled shapeless upon the polished wooden floor. The young man stooped as he spoke the last words, and picked it up.
“Oh, I say, Jack! I didn’t mean to do that, my boy!” said the old gentleman, with that absurdly foolish change of tone which generally comes into the voice when one in anger has accidentally broken something.
“No — I daresay not,” answered Ralston, coldly.
Without so much as a glance at old Lauderdale, he quickly opened the door and left the room, as he would have done some minutes earlier if his uncle had not held him by the arm. The library was downstairs, and he was out of the house before Lauderdale had sufficiently recovered from his surprise to call him back.
That, indeed, would have been quite useless, for Ralston would not have turned his head. He had never been able to understand how a man could be in a passion at one moment and brimming with good nature at the next, for his own moods were enduring, passionate and brooding.
It had all been very serious to him, much more so than to the old gentleman, though the latter had been by far the more noisy of the two in his anger. If he had been able to reflect, he might have soon come to the conclusion that the violent scene had been the result of a misunderstanding, in the first instance, and secondly, of Robert Lauderdale’s lack of wisdom in trying to make him take money for Katharine. In the course of time he would have condoned the latter offence and forgiven the former, but just now both seemed very hard to bear.
After being exceptionally abstemious, — and he alone knew at what a cost in the way of constant self-control, — he had been accused twice within an hour of being drunk. And as though that were not enough, with all the other matters which had combined to affect his temper on that day, Robert Lauderdale had first tried to make him act dishonourably, as Ralston thought, or at least in an unmanly way, and had then tried to make a fool of him with the cheque for a million. He almost wished that he could have kept the latter twenty-four hours for the sake of frightening the old man into his senses. It would have been a fair act of retaliation, he thought, though he would not in reality have stooped to do it.
It was quite dark when he came out upon Fifty-ninth Street, and the weather was foggy and threatening, though it was not cold. He had forgotten his overcoat in his hurry to get away, and did not notice even now that he was without it. Half mechanically he had pushed his high hat into some sort of shape and put it on, and had already forgotten that it was not in its normal condition. His face was very pale, and his eyes were bright. Without thinking of the direction he was taking, he turned into Fifth Avenue by force of habit. As he walked along, several men who knew him passed him, walking up from their clubs to dress for dinner. They most of them nodded, smiled rather oddly and went on. He noticed nothing strange in their behaviour, being very much absorbed in his own unpleasant reflections, but most of them were under the impression, from the glimpse they had of him under the vivid electric light, that he was very much the worse for drink, and that he had lost his overcoat and had his hat smashed in some encounter with a rough or roughs unknown. One or two of his rows had remained famous. But he was well known, too, for his power of walking straight and of taking care of himself, even when he was very far gone, and nobody who met him ventured to offer him any assistance. On the other hand, no one would have believed that he was perfectly sober, and that his hat had been destroyed by no less a person than the great Robert Lauderdale himself.
He certainly deserved much more pity than he got that day. But good and bad luck run in streaks, as the winds blow across land-locked waters, and it is not easy to get across from one to the other. Ralston was drifting in a current of circumstances from which he could not escape, being what he was, a man with an irritable temper, more inclined to resent the present than to prepare the future. Presently he turned eastwards out of Fifth Avenue. He remembered afterwards that it must have been somewhere near Forty-second Street, for he had a definite impression of having lately passed the great black wall of the old reservoir. He did not know why he turned just there, and he was probably impelled to do so by some slight hindrance at the crossing he had reached. At all events, he was sure of having walked at least a mile since he had left Robert Lauderdale’s house.
The cross street was very dark compared with the Avenue he had left. He stopped to light a cigar, in the vague hope that it might help him to think, for he knew very well that he must go home before long and dress for a dinner party, and then go on to the great Assembly ball at which he was to meet Katharine. It struck him as he thought of the meeting that he would have much more to tell her about their uncle Robert than she could possibly have to relate of her own experience. He lit his cigar very carefully. Anger had to some extent the effect of making him deliberate and precise in his small actions. He held the lighted taper to the end of his cigar several seconds, and then dropped it. It had dazzled him, so that for the moment the street seemed to be quite black in front of him. He walked on boldly, suspecting nothing, and a moment later he fell to his full length upon a heap of building material piled upon the pavement.
It is worth remarking, for the sake of those who take an interest in tracing the relations of cause and effect, that this was the first, the last and the only real accident which happened to John Ralston on that day, and it was not a very serious one, nor, unfortunately, a very unfrequent one in the streets of New York. But it happened to him, as small accidents so often do, at an hour which gave it an especial importance.
He lay stunned as he had fallen fo
r more than a minute, and when he came to himself he discovered that he had struck his head. The brim of his already much injured hat had saved him from a wound; but the blow had been a violent one, and though he got upon his feet almost immediately and assured himself that he was not really injured, yet, when he had got beyond the obstacle over which he had stumbled, he found it impossible to recollect which way he should go in order to get home. The slight concussion of the brain had temporarily disturbed the sense of direction, a phenomenon not at all uncommon after receiving a violent blow on the head, as many hard riders and hunting men are well aware. But it was new to Ralston, and he began to think that he was losing his mind. He stopped under a gas-lamp and looked at his watch, by way of testing his sanity. It was half past six, and the watch was going. He immediately began a mental calculation to ascertain whether he had been unconscious for any length of time. He remembered that it had been after five o’clock when he had been called to the telephone at the club. His struggle with Bright had kept him some minutes longer, he had walked to Robert Lauderdale’s, and his interview had lasted nearly half an hour, and on recalling what he had done since then he had that distinct impression of having lately seen the reservoir, of which mention has already been made.
He walked on like a man in a dream, and more than half believing that he was really dreaming. He was going eastwards, as he had been going when he had entered the street, but he found it impossible to understand which way his face was turned. He came to Madison Avenue, and knew it at once, recognizing the houses, but though he stood still several minutes at the corner, he could not distinguish which was up town and which down town. He believed that if he could have seen the stars he could have found his way, but the familiar buildings, recognizable in all their features to his practised eye even in the uncertain gaslight, conveyed to him no idea of direction, and the sky was overcast. In despair, at last, he continued in the direction in which he had been going. If he was crossing the avenue he must surely strike the water, whether he went forwards or backwards, and he was positive that he should know the East River from the North River, even on the darkest night, by the look of the piers. But to all intents and purposes, though he knew where he was, he was lost, being deprived of the sense of direction.
Complete Works of F Marion Crawford Page 683