Where There's a Will
Page 3
CHAPTER III
A WILL
Well, we got the poor old doctor moved back to his room, and had one ofthe chambermaids find him there, and I wired to Mrs. Van Alstyne, whowas Mr. Dicky Carter's sister, and who was on her honeymoon in SouthCarolina. The Van Alstynes came back at once, in very bad tempers, andwe had the funeral from the preacher's house in Finleyville so as not toharrow up the sanatorium people any more than necessary. Even as it wasa few left, but about twenty of the chronics stayed, and it looked as ifwe might be able to keep going.
Miss Patty sent to town for a black veil for me, and even went to thefuneral. It helped to take my mind off my troubles to think who it wasthat was holding my hand and comforting me, and when, toward the endof the service, she got out her handkerchief and wiped her eyes I wasalmost overcome, she being, so to speak, in the very shadow of a throne.
After it was all over the relatives gathered in the sun parlor of thesanatorium to hear the will--Mr. Van Alstyne and his wife and abouttwenty more who had come up from the city for the funeral and stayedover--on the house.
Well, the old doctor left me the buttons for his full dress waistcoatand his favorite copy of Gray's Anatomy. I couldn't exactly set uphousekeeping with my share of the estate, but when the lawyer read thatpart of the will aloud and a grin went around the room I flounced out ofmy chair.
"Maybe you think I'm disappointed," I said, looking hard at the family,who weren't making any particular pretense at grief, and at the housepeople standing around the door. "Maybe you think it's funny to see anunmarried woman get a set of waistcoat buttons and a medical book. Well,that set of buttons was the set he bought in London on his wedding trip,and the book's the one he read himself to sleep with every night fortwenty years. I'm proud to get them."
Mr. Van Alstyne touched me on the arm.
"Everybody knows how loyal you've been, Minnie," he assured me. "Now sitdown like a good girl and listen to the rest of the will."
"While I'm up I might as well get something else off my mind," I said."I know what's in that will, but I hadn't anything to do with it, Mr.Van Alstyne. He took advantage of my being laid up with influenza lastspring."
They thought that was funny, but a few minutes later they weren't socheerful. You see the sanatorium was a mighty fine piece of property,with a deer park and golf links. We'd had plenty of offers to sell itfor a summer hotel, but we'd both been dead against it. That was one ofthe reasons for the will.
The whole estate was left to Dicky Carter, who hadn't been able to come,owing to his being laid up with an attack of mumps. The family sat upand nodded at one another, or held up its hands, but when they heardthere was a condition they breathed easier.
Beginning with one week after the reading of the will--and not a daylater--Mr. Dick was to take charge of the sanatorium and to stay therefor two months without a day off. If at the end of that time the placewas being successfully conducted and could show that it hadn't lostmoney, the entire property became his for keeps. If he failed it was tobe sold and the money given to charity.
You would have to know Richard Carter to understand the excitement thewill caused. Most of us, I reckon, like the sort of person we've neverdared to be ourselves. The old doctor had gone to bed at ten o'clock allhis life and got up at seven, and so he had a sneaking fondness for theone particular grandson who often didn't go to bed at all. Twice tomy knowledge when he was in his teens did Dicky Carter run away fromschool, and twice his grandfather kept him for a week hidden in theshelter-house on the golf links. Naturally when Mr. Van Alstyne and Ihad to hide him again, which is further on in the story, he went to theold shelter-house like a dog to its kennel, only this time--but that'sahead, too.
Well, the family went back to town in a buzz of indignation, and Icarried my waistcoat buttons and my Anatomy out to the spring-houseand had a good cry. There was a man named Thoburn who was crazy for theproperty as a summer hotel, and every time I shut my eyes I could see"Thoburn House" over the veranda and children sailing paper boats in themineral spring.
Sure enough, the next afternoon Mr. Thoburn drove out from Finleyvillewith a suit case, and before he'd taken off his overcoat he came out tothe spring-house.
"Hello, Minnie," he exclaimed. "Does the old man's ghost come back todope the spring, or do you do it?"
"I don't know what you are talking about, Mr. Thoburn," I retortedsharply. "If you don't know that this spring has its origin in--"
"In Schmidt's drug store down in Finleyville!" he finished for me. "Oh,I know all about that spring, Minnie! Don't forget that my father'scows used to drink that water and liked it. I leave it to you," he said,sniffing, "if a self-respecting cow wouldn't die of thirst before shedrank that stuff as it is now."
I'd been filling him a glass--it being a matter of habit with me--and hetook it to the window and held it to the light.
"You're getting careless, Minnie," he said, squinting at it. "Some ofthose drugs ought to be dissolved first in hot water. There's a lump oflithia there that has Schmidt's pharmacy label on it."
"Where?" I demanded, and started for it. He laughed at that, and puttingthe glass down, he came over and stood smiling at me.
"As ingenuous as a child," he said in his mocking way, "a nice, littlered-haired child! Minnie, how old is this young Carter?"
"Twenty-three."
"An--er--earnest youth? Willing to buckle down to work and make the oldplace go? Ready to pat the old ladies on the shoulder and squeeze theyoung ones' hands?"
"He's young," I said, "but if you're counting on his being a fool--"
"Not at all," he broke in hastily. "If he hasn't too much characterhe'll probably succeed. I hope he isn't a fool. If he isn't, oh, friendMinnie, he'll stand the atmosphere of this Garden of Souls for about aweek, and then he'll kill some of them and escape. Where is he now?"
"He's been sick," I said. "Mumps!"
"Mumps! Oh, my aunt!" he exclaimed, and fell to laughing. He was stilllaughing when he got to the door.
"Mumps!" he repeated, with his hand on the knob. "Minnie, the old placewill be under the hammer in three weeks, and if you know what's good foryou, you'll sign in under the new management while there's a vacancy.You've been the whole show here for so long that it will be hard for youto line up in the back row of the chorus."
"If I were you," I said, looking him straight in the eye, "I wouldn'tpick out any new carpets yet, Mr. Thoburn. I promised the old doctor I'dhelp Mr. Dick, and I will."
"So you're actually going to fight it out," he said, grinning. "Well,the odds are in your favor. You are two to my one."
"I think it's pretty even," I retorted. "We will be hindered, so tospeak, by having certain principles of honor and honesty. You have nohandicap."
He tried to think of a retort, and not finding one he slammed out of thespring-house in a rage.
Mr. Van Alstyne and his wife came in that same day, just before dinner,and we played three-handed bridge for half an hour. As I've said, they'dbeen on their honeymoon, and they were both sulky at having to stay atthe Springs. It was particularly hard on Mrs. Van Alstyne, because, withseven trunks of trousseau with her, she had to put on black. But sheused to shut herself up in her room in the evenings and deck out for Mr.Sam in her best things. We found it out one evening when Mrs. Biggs setfire to her bureau cover with her alcohol curling-iron heater, and Mrs.Sam, who had been going around in a black crepe dress all day, rushedout in pink satin with crystal trimming, and slippers with cut-glassheels.
After the first rubber Mrs. Van Alstyne threw her cards on the floor andsaid another day like this would finish her.
"Surely Dick is able to come now," she said, like a peevish child."Didn't he say the swelling was all gone?"
"Do you expect me to pick up those cards?" Mr. Sam asked angrily,looking at her.
Mrs. Sam yawned and looked up at him.
"Of course I do," she answered. "If it wasn't for you I'd not havestayed a moment after the funeral. Isn't it bad enough to h
ave seventrunks full of clothes I've never worn, and to have to put on poky oldblack, without keeping me here in this old ladies' home?"
Mr. Sam looked at the cards and then at her.
"I'm not going to pick them up," he declared. "And as to our stayinghere, don't you realize that if we don't your precious brother willnever show up here at all, or stay if he does come? And don't you alsorealize that this is probably the only chance he'll ever have in theworld to become financially independent of us?"
"You needn't be brutal," she said sharply. "And it isn't so bad foryou here as it is for me. You spend every waking minute admiring MissJennings, while I--there isn't a man in the place who'll talk anythingbut his joints or his stomach."
She got up and went to the window, and Mr. Sam followed her. Nobodypays any attention to me in the spring-house; I'm a part of it, like thebrass rail around the spring, or the clock.
"I'm not admiring Miss Jennings," he corrected, "I'm sympathizing, dear.She looks too nice a girl to have been stung by the title bee, that'sall."
She turned her back to him, but he pretended to tuck the hair at theback of her neck up under her comb, and she let him do it. As I stoopedto gather up the cards he kissed the tip of her ear.
"Listen," he said, "there's a scream of a play down at Finleyvilleto-night called Sweet Peas. Senator Biggs and the bishop went down lastnight, and they say it's the worst in twenty years. Put on a black veiland let's slip away and see it."
I think she agreed to do it, but that night after dinner, Amanda King,who has charge of the news stand, told me the sheriff had closed theopera-house and that the leading woman was sick at the hotel.
"They say she looked funny last night," Amanda finished, "and I guessshe's got the mumps."
Mumps!
My joint gave a throb at that minute.