XXIV
IN THE CITADEL OF THE MILLIONS
John Wingfield, Sr. sat at a mahogany table without a single drawer, inthe centre of a large room with bare, green-tinted walls. His oculist hadsaid that green was the best color for the eyes. Beside the greenblotting-pad in front of him was a pile of papers. These would either bedisposed of in the course of the day or, if any waited on the morrow'sdecision, would be taken away by Peter Mortimer overnight. When he roseto go home it was always with a clear desk; a habit, a belief of hissingularly well-ordered mind in the mastery of the teeming detail thatthrobbed under the thin soles of his soft kid shoes. On the other side ofthe pad was the telephone, and beyond it the supreme implements of hiswill, a row of pearl-topped push-buttons.
The story of John Wingfield, Sr.'s rise and career, as the lieutenants ofthe offices and the battalions of the shopping floors knew it, was notthe story, perhaps, as Dr. Bennington or Peter Mortimer knew it; but,then, doctors and private secretaries are supposed to hold their secrets.There was little out of the commonplace in the world's accepted version.You may hear its like from the moneyed host at his dinner table in NewYork or as he shows you over the acres of his country estate, enthusingwith a personal narrative of conquest which is to him unique. JohnWingfield, Sr. makes history for us in the type of woman whom hemarried and the type of son she bore him.
He was the son of a New England country clergyman, to whom working hisway through college in order to practise a profession made no appeal.Birth and boyhood in poverty had taught him, from want of money, thepower of money. He sought the centre of the market-place. At sixteen hewas a clerk, marked by his industry not less than by his engagingmanners, on six dollars a week in the little store that was the site ofhis present triumph. Of course he became a partner and then owner. It washis frequent remark, when he turned reminiscent, that if he could onlyget as good clerks as he was in his day he would soon have a monopoly ofsupplying New York and its environs with all it ate and wore and neededto furnish its houses; which raises the point that possibly such anequality of high standards in efficiency might make all clerks employers.
The steady flame of his egoism was fanned with his Successes. Withoutreal intimates or friends, he had an effective magnetism in making othersdo his bidding. It had hardly occurred to him that his discovery of theprinciple of never doing anything yourself that you can win others to dofor you and never failing, when you have a minute to spare, to do a thingyourself when you can do it better than any assistant, was already apractice with leaders in trade and industry before the Pharaohs.
Life had been to him a ladder which he ascended without any glances toright or left or at the rung that he had left behind. The adaptableprocesses of his mind kept pace with his rise. He made himself at homein each higher stratum of atmosphere. His marriage, delayed until he wasforty and already a man of power, was still another upward step. AliceJamison brought him capital and position. The world was puzzled why sheshould have accepted him; but this stroke of success he now considered asthe vital error of a career which, otherwise, had been flawlesslyplanned. Yet he could flatter his egoism with the thought that it wasless a fault of judgment than of the uncertainty of feminine temperament,which could not be measured by logic.
New York saw little of Mrs. Wingfield after Jack's birth. Her friendsknew her as a creature all life and light before her marriage; theyrealized that the life and light had passed out of her soon after the boycame; and thenceforth they saw and heard little of her. She had givenherself up to the insistent possessorship and company of her son. Thosewho met her when travelling reported how frail she was and howconstrained.
Jack was fourteen when his mother died. He was brought home and sent toschool in America; and two-years later Dr. Bennington announced that theslender youngster, who had been so completely estranged from the affairsof the store, must matriculate in the ozone of high altitudes instead ofin college, if his life were to be saved. Whether Jack were riding overthe _mesas_ of Arizona or playing in a villa garden in Florence, JohnWingfield, Sr.'s outlook on life was the same. It was the obsession ofself in his affairs. After the eclipse of his egoism the deluge. The verythought that anyone should succeed him was a shock reminding him ofgrowing age in the midst of the full possession of his faculties, whilehe felt no diminution of his ambition.
"I am getting better," came the occasional message from that strangerson. And the father kept on playing the tune of accruing millions on thepush-buttons. His decision to send Dr. Bennington to Arizona camesuddenly, just after he had turned sixty-three. He had had an attack ofgrip at the same time that his attention had been acutely called to thedemoralization of another great business institution whose head had diedwithout issue, leaving his affairs in the hands of trustees.
Two days of confinement in his room with a high pulse had broughtreflection and the development of atavism. What if the institution builtas a monument to himself should also pass! What if the name of Wingfield,his name, should no longer float twelve stories high over his building!He foresaw the promise of companionship of a restless and ghastlyapparition in the future.
But he recovered rapidly from his illness and his mental processes wereas keen and prehensile as ever. Checking off one against the other, withcustomary shrewdness, he had a number of doctors go over him, and allagreed that he was good for twenty years yet. Twenty years! Why, Jackwould be middle-aged by that time! Twenty years was the differencebetween forty-three and sixty-three. Since he was forty-three he hadquintupled his fortune. He would at least double it again. He was notold; he was young; he was an exceptional man who had taken good care ofhimself. The threescore and ten heresy could not apply to him.
Bennington's telegram irritated him with its lack of precision. Fifteenhundred dollars and expenses to send an expert to Arizona and inreturn this unbusinesslike report: "You will see Jack for yourself. Heis coming."
In the full enjoyment of health, observing every nice rule forlongevity, his slumber sweet, his appetite good, John Wingfield, Sr.had less interest in John Wingfield, Jr. than he had when his boneswere aching with the grip. Jack's telegram from Chicago announcing thetrain by which he would arrive aroused an old resentment, which datedfar back to Jack's childhood and to a frail woman who had been proofagainst her husband's will.
Did this home-coming mean a son who could learn the business; a strong,shrewd, cool-headed son? A son who could be such an adjutant as only onewho is of your own flesh and blood can be in the full pursuit of the samefamily interest as yourself? If Jack were well, would not Bennington havesaid so? Would he not have emphasized it? This was human nature as JohnWingfield, Sr. knew it; human nature which never missed a chance toingratiate itself by announcing success in the service of a man of power.
The spirit of his farewell message to Jack, which said that strengthmight return but bade weakness to remain away, and the injured pride ofseeing a presentment of wounded egoism in the features of a sickly boy,which had kept him from going to Arizona, were again dominant. Yet thatmorning he had a pressing sense of distraction. Even Mortimer noticed itas something unusual and amazing. He kept reverting to Jack's historybetween flashes of apprehension and he was angry with himself over hisinability to concentrate his mind. Concentration was his god. He couldturn from lace-buyer to floor-walker with the quickness of the swing ofan electric switch. Concentrate and he was oblivious to everything butthe subject in hand. He was in one of the moments of apprehension, halfstaring at the buttons on the desk rather than at the papers, when heheard the door open without warning and looked up to see a lean, sturdyheight filling the doorway and the light from the window full on abronzed and serene face.
More than ever was Jack like David come over the hills in his incarnationof sleeping energy. Instead of a sling he carried the rose. Into theabode of the nicely governed rules of longevity came the atmosphere ofsome invasive spirit that would make the stake of life the foam on thecrest of a charge in a splendid moment; the spirit of Senor Don't Carepausing
inquiringly, almost apologetically, as some soldier in dustykhaki might if he had marched into a study unawares.
Jack was waiting, waiting and smiling, for his father to speak. In aswift survey, his features transfixed at first with astonishment, thenglowing with pride, the father half rose from his chair, as if in animpulse to embrace the prodigal. But he paused. He felt that somethingunder his control was getting out of his control. He felt that he hadbeen tricked. The boy must have been well for a long time. Yes! But hewas well! That was the vital point. He was well, and magnificent inhis vigor.
The father made another movement; and still Jack was waiting, inquiringyet not advancing. And John Wingfield, Sr. wished that he had gone tothe station; he wished that he had paid a visit to Arizona. This thoughtworking in his mind supplied Jack's attitude with an aspect which madethe father hesitate and then drop back into his chair, confused anduncertain for the first time in his own office.
"Well, Jack, you--you surely do look cured!" he said awkwardly. "You see,I--I was a little surprised to see you at the office. I sent thelimousine for you, thinking you would want to go straight to the houseand wash off the dust of travel. Didn't you connect?"
"Yes, thank you, father--and when you didn't meet me--"
"I--I was very busy. I meant to, but something interrupted--I--" Thefather stopped, confounded by his own hesitation.
"Of course," said Jack. He spoke deferentially, understandingly. "I knowhow busy you always are."
Yet the tone was such to John Wingfield, Sr.'s ears that he eyed Jackcautiously, sharply, in the expectancy that almost any kind ofundisciplined force might break loose from this muscular giant whom hewas trying to reconcile with the Jack whom he had last seen.
"I thought I'd stretch my legs, so I came over to the store to see how ithad grown," said Jack. "I don't interrupt--for a moment?"
He sat down on the chair opposite his father's and laid his fadedcowpuncher hat and the rose on the desk. They looked odd in the companyof the pushbuttons and the pile of papers in that neutral-toned roomwhich was chilling in its monotony of color. And though Jack was almostboyishly penitent, in the manner of one who comes before parentalauthority after he has been in mischief, still John Wingfield, Sr.could not escape the dead weight of an impression that he was speaking toa stranger and not to his own flesh and blood. He wished now that he hadshown affection on Jack's entrance. He had a desire to grip the brownhand that was on the edge of the desk fingering the rose stem; but thelateness of the demonstration, its futility in making up for his previousneglect, and some subtle influence radiating from Jack's person,restrained him. It was apparent that Jack might sit on in silenceindefinitely; in a desert silence.
"Well, Jack, I hear you had a ranch," said the father, with a fainteffort at jocularity.
"Yes, and a great crop of alfalfa," answered Jack, happily.
"And it seems that all the time you were away you have never used yourallowance, so it has just been piling up for you."
"I didn't need it. I had quite sufficient from the income of mymother's estate."
"Yes--your mother--I had forgotten!"
"Naturally, I preferred to use that, when I was of so little service toyou unless I got strong, as you said," Jack said, very quietly.
Now came another silence, the silence of luminous, unsounded depthsconcealing that in the mind which has never been spoken or even takenform. Jack's garden of words had dried up, as his ranch would dry up forwant of water. He rose to go, groping for something that should expressproper contrition for wasted years, but it refused to come. He picked upthe rose and the hat, while the father regarded him with stony wonderwhich said: "Are you mine, or are you not? What is the nature of thisnew strength? On what will it turn?"
For Jack's features had set with a strange firmness and his eyes, lookinginto his father's, had a steady light. It seemed as if he might stalk outof the office forever, and nothing could stop him. But suddenly heflashed his smile; he had looked about searching for a talisman and foundit in the rose, which set his garden of words abloom again.
"This room is so bare it must be lonely for you," he said. "Wouldn't itbe a good idea to cheer it up a bit? To have this rose in a vase on yourtable where you could see it, instead of riding about in an emptyautomobile box?"
"Why, there is a whole cold storage booth full of them down on the firstfloor!" said the father.
"Yes, I saw them in their icy prison under the electric light bulbs. Thebeads of water on them were like tears of longing to get out for the joyof their swan song under a woman's smiles or beside a sick bed," saidJack, in the glow of real enthusiasm.
"Good line for the ad writer!" his father exclaimed, instinctively. "Youalways did have fanciful ideas, Jack."
"Yes, I suppose I have!" he said, with some surprise and verythoughtfully. "I suppose that I was born with them and never weededthem out."
"No doubt!" and the father frowned.
Surveying the broad shoulders before him, he was thinking how nothing butaimlessness and fantasies and everything out of harmony with the careerto come had been encouraged in the son. But he saw soberness coming intoJack's eyes and with it the pressure of a certain resoluteness ofpurpose. And now Jack spoke again, a trifle sadly, as if guessing hisfather's thoughts.
"It will be a case of weeding for me in the future, won't it?" he askedwanly, as he rose. "I am full of foolish ideas that are just bound to runaway with me."
"Jack! Jack!" John Wingfield, Sr. put his hands out to the shouldersof his son and gripped them strongly, and for a second let his ownweight half rest on that sturdy column which he sensed under the grip.His pale face, the paleness of the type that never tans, flushed."Jack, come!" he said.
He permitted himself something like real dramatic feeling as he signalledhis son to follow him out of the office and led the way to a corner ofone of the balconies where, under the light from the glass roof of thegreat central court, he could see down the tiers of floors to the jewelrycounter which sparkled at the bottom of the well.
"Look! look!" he exclaimed, rubbing his palms together with a peculiarcrisp sound. "All selling my goods! All built from the little store whereI began as a clerk!"
"It's--it's immense!" gasped Jack; and he felt a dizziness and confusionin gazing at this kind of an abyss.
"And it's only beginning! It's to go on growing and growing! You see whyI wanted you to be strong, Jack; why it would not do to be weak if youhad all this responsibility."
This was a form of apology for his farewell to Jack, but the message wasthe same: He had not wanted a son who should be of his life and heart andever his in faults and illnesses. This was the recognizable one of theshadows between them now recalled. He had wanted a fresh physical machineinto which he could blow the breath of his own masterful being and instilthe cunning of his experience. He saw in this straight, clean-limbedyouth at his side the hope of Jack's babyhood fulfilled, in theprojection of his own ego as a living thing after he himself was gone.
"And it is to go on growing and growing, in my name and your name--JohnWingfield!"
Jack was swallowing spasmodically; he moistened his lips; he grasped thebalcony railing so tight that his knuckles were white knobs on the bronzeback of his hand. The father in his enthusiasm hardly noticed this.
"What couldn't I have done," he added, "if I had had all this to beginwith! All that you will have to begin with!"
Jack managed a smile, rather thin and wavering.
"Yes, I am going to try my best."
"All I ask! You have me for a teacher and I know one or two littlethings!" said the father, fairly grinning in the transmission of hisjoke. "Now, you must be short on clothes," he added; "so you can getsomething ready-made downstairs while you have some making atThompson's."
"Don't you buy your clothes, your best clothes, I mean, in your ownstore?" Jack asked. It was his first question in getting acquainted withhis future property.
"No. We cater to a little bigger class of trade--one of t
he many twistsof the business," was the answer. "And now we'll meet at dinner, shallwe, and have a good long talk," he concluded, closing the interview andturning to the door, his mind snapping back to the matter he was about totake up when he had been interrupted with more eagerness than ever, nowthat his egoism thrilled with a still greater purpose.
"I--I left my hat on your desk," Jack explained, as he followed hisfather into the office.
"Well, you don't want to be carrying packages about," said JohnWingfield, Sr. "That is hardly the fashion in New York, though JohnWingfield's son can make it so if he wants to. I'll have thatflat-brimmed western one sent up to the house and you can fit out withanother when you go downstairs for clothes. That is, I suppose you willwant to keep this as a memento, eh?" and he held out the cowpuncher,sweeping it with a sardonic glance.
"No," Jack answered decisively, out of the impulse that came with thesight of the veteran companion that had shielded him from the sun onthe trail. It was good to have any kind of an impulse after hisgiddiness on the balcony at sight of all the phantasmagoria of detailthat he must master.
If he were to be equal to this future there must be an end of temptation.He must shake himself free of the last clinging bit of chrysalis of theold life. His amazed father saw the child of the desert, where conventionis made by your fancy and the supply of water in your canteen, go to thewindow and raise the sash. Leaning out, he let the hat drop intoBroadway, with his eyes just over the line of the ledge while he watchedit fall, dipping and gliding, to the feet of a messenger boy, who pickedit up, waved it gleefully aloft before putting it over his cap, and withmock strides of grandeur went his way.
"That gave him a lot of pleasure--and a remarkably quick system fordelivering goods, wasn't it?" said Jack, cheerfully.
"Yes, I should say so!" assented his father, returning to his seat."Dinner at seven!" he called before the door closed; and as his fingersought one of the push-buttons it rested for a moment on the metal edgeof the socket, his head bowed, while an indefinable emotion, mixed ofprophecy and recollection, must have fluttered through the routinechannels of his vigorous mind.
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