The Preliminaries Part 3

"One ought to try, yes. That is common prudence. But the point is that, whatever you do or get, you are n't after all secure. There is no such condition, and the harder you demand it, the more risk you run. So it is up to a man to take all reasonable precautions about his money, or his happiness, or his life, and trust the rest. What every man in the world is looking for is the sense of having the mastery over life. But I tell you, boy, there is only one thing that really gives it!"

"And that is--?"

Lannithorne hesitated perceptibly. For the thing he was about to tell this {47} undisciplined lad was his most precious possession; it was the piece of wisdom for which he had paid with the years of his life.

No man parts lightly with such knowledge.

"It comes," he said, with an effort, "with the knowledge of our power to endure. That's it. _You are safe only when you can stand everything that can happen to you._ Then and then only! Endurance is the measure of a man."

Oliver's heart swelled within him as he listened, and his face shone, for these words found his young soul where it lived. The chasms and abysses in his path suddenly vanished, and the road lay clear again, winding uphill, winding down, but always lit for Ruth and him by the light in each other's eyes. For surely neither Ruth nor he could ever fail in courage!

"Sometimes I think it is harder to {48} endure what we deserve, like me," said Lannithorne, "than what we don't. I was afraid, you see, afraid for my wife and all of them. Anyhow, take my word for it.

Courage is security. There is no other kind."

"Then--Ruth and I--"

"Ruth is the core of my heart!" said Lannithorne thickly. "I would rather die than have her suffer more than she must. But she must take her chances like the rest. It is the law of things. If you know yourself fit for her, and feel reasonably sure you can take care of her, you have a right to trust the future. Myself, I believe there is Some One to trust it to. As for the next generation, G.o.d and the mothers look after that! You may tell your father so from me. And you may tell my wife I think there is the stuff of a man in you. And Ruth--tell Ruth--"

{49}

He could not finish. Oliver reached out and found his hand and wrung it hard.

"I'll tell her, sir, that I feel about her father as she does! And that he approves of our venture. And I'll tell myself, always, what you've just told me. Why, it _must_ be true! You need n't be afraid I'll forget--when the time comes for remembering."

Finding his way out of the prison yard a few minutes later, Oliver looked, unseeing, at the high walls that soared against the blue spring sky. He could not realize them, there was such a sense of light, air, s.p.a.ce, in his spirit.

Apparently, he was just where he had been an hour before, with all his battles still to fight, but really he knew they were already won, for his weapon had been forged and put in his hand. He left his boyhood behind him as he {50} pa.s.sed that stern threshold, for the last hour had made a man of him, and a prisoner had given him the master-key that opens every door.

{51}

THE LONG INHERITANCE

{52}

{53} THE LONG INHERITANCE

I

My niece, Desire Withacre, wished to divorce her husband, Dr. Arnold Ackroyd,--the young Dr. Arnold, you understand,--to the end that she might marry a more interesting man.

Other men than I have noticed that in these latter days we really do not behave any better than other people when it comes to certain serious issues of life, notably the marital. "We" means to me people of an heredity and a training like my own,--Americans of the old stock, with a normal Christian upbringing, who presumably inherit from their forebears a reasonable susceptibility to high ideals of living.

I grew {54} up with the impression that such a birth and rearing were a kind of moral insurance against the grosser human blunders and errors. Without vanity, I certainly did

"Thank the goodness and the grace That on my birth had smiled."

It puzzled me for a long while, the light-hearted, careless way in which some of the younger Withacres, Greenings, Raynies, Fordhams, and so on (I name them out of many, because they are all kin to me) kicked over the traces of their family responsibilities. I could understand it in others but not in them.

It was little Desire Withacre who finally illuminated the problem for me. I am about to tell what I know of Desire's fling. If it seems to be a story with an undue amount of moral, I must {55} refer the responsibility of that to Providence. The tale is of its making, not of mine.

I am afraid that, to get it all clearly before you, I shall have to prose for a while about the families involved.

I am Benjamin Stubbins Raynie, Desire's bachelor uncle, and almost the last of the big-nosed Raynies. My elder sister, Lucretia Stubbins Raynie, married Robert Withacre, one of the "wild Withacres" in whose blood there is a streak of genius and its revolts. The Withacres all have talent--mostly ineffectual--and keen aesthetic sensibilities. All of them can talk like angels from Heaven. By no stretch of the imagination can they be called thrifty. We considered it a very poor match for Lucretia. The Raynies are quiet people, not showy, but substantial and sensible; with a certain sentimental {56} streak out-cropping here and there, especially in the big-nosed branch; while the red-headed Raynies are the better money-makers.

I know now that Lucretia secretly believed her offspring were destined to unite Withacre talent and Raynie poise. She prayed in her heart that the world might be the richer by a man child of her race who should be both gifted and sane. But her children proved to be twin girls, Judith and Desire. Queer little codgers I thought them, big-eyed, curly-headed, subdued when on exhibition. Lucretia told long stories, to which I gave slight attention, intended to prove that Judith was a marvelous example of old-head-on-young-shoulders, and that Desire, demure, elfin Desire, was a miracle of cleverness and winning ways.

In view of Desire's career, I judge {57} that these maternal prepossessions were not wholly misplaced. As a small child she captivated her Uncle Greening as well as her aunt (our sister, Mary Stubbins Raynie, married Adam Greening of the well-known banking firm of Greening, Bowers & Co.). The Greenings were childless, and Desire spent much of her early life and nearly all her girlhood under Mary Greening's care and chaperonage. I confess to fondness for a bit of repartee with Desire now and then, myself. Perhaps I had my share in spoiling her. I take it a human being is spoiled when he grows up believing himself practically incapable of wrong-doing. That is what happened to Desire. Approval had followed her all of her days. How should she know, poor, petted little sc.r.a.p, any thing about the predestined pitfalls of all flesh?

{58}

Of course the Robert Withacres were always as poor as poverty, and of course our family was always planning for and a.s.sisting them.

Fortunately both the twins married early, and exceptionally well.

Judith became engaged to a promising young civil engineer when visiting a school friend in Chicago. He said she reminded him of the New London girls. He was homesick, I think. At all events the engagement was speedy.

But our little Desire did better than that. She witched the heart out of young Arnold Ackroyd.

Do I need to explain the Ackroyds to any one? They are one of those exceptional families whose moral worth is so prominent that it even dims the l.u.s.tre of their intellectual stability and their financial rating. They are so many other, better things that no one ever {59} thinks or speaks of them as "rich." And in this day and generation that is real achievement.

Desire's marriage gratified me deeply, and for a wedding present I gave her the Queen Anne silver tea-set I inherited from great-aunt Abby. I believe in the Ackroyds, root and branch. They have, somehow or other, accomplished what all the rest of us are striving for. They have actually lifted an entire family connection to a plane where ability, worth, accomplishment, are matters of course. n.o.body has ever heard of a useless, incompetent Ackroyd. Their consequent social preeminence, which possibly meant something to Mary Greening and which certainly counted with Desire, is merely incidental to their substantial merit. They are prominent for the rare reason that they deserve to be. They are the Real Thing.

{60}

Unless you happen to be in touch with them intellectually, however, this is not saying that you will always find all of them the liveliest of companions. The name connotes honor, ability, character; it does not necessarily imply humor, high spirits, the joy of life.

Desire herself told me of her engagement. I don't, somehow, forget how she looked when she came to tell me about it--shy, excited, radiant.

She fluttered into my office and stood at the end of my desk, looking down at me. Desire was very pretty at twenty-one, with her pointed face and big expressive eyes, her white forehead shadowed by a heap of cloudy, curling, dark hair. Palpitating with life, she looked like some kind of a marvelous human hummingbird. It did not surprise me that Arnold Ackroyd found her

"All a wonder and a wild desire."

{61}

For all her excitement she spoke very softly.

"Uncle Ben, mother wants me to tell you something. I have n't told anybody else but her."

"What is it, Desire?"

"I--why, Uncle Ben--I've promised to marry Arnold Ackroyd!"

"Well, well," I said inadequately, "this is news!"

Desire nodded wistfully.

"It seems a little curious, does n't it? We're not a bit alike," she said. "But he is splendid! I'm sure I shall never meet a finer man, nor one I trust more."

"Very true, Desire, and I am glad you are going to marry such a man,"

I observed, arising slowly to the occasion and to my feet, and offering a congratulatory hand.