Chapter XXVIII
It was in the face of this very altered situation that Cowperwood arrived at Stener’s office late this Monday afternoon.
Stener was quite alone, worried and distraught. He was anxious to see Cowperwood, and at the same time afraid.
“George,” began Cowperwood, briskly, on seeing him, “I haven’t much time to spare now, but I’ve come, finally, to tell you that you’ll have to let me have three hundred thousand more if you don’t want me to fail. Things are looking very bad today. They’ve caught me in a corner on my loans; but this storm isn’t going to last. You can see by the very character of it that it can’t.”
He was looking at Stener’s face, and seeing fear and a pained and yet very definite necessity for opposition written there. “Chicago is burning, but it will be built up again. Business will be all the better for it later on. Now, I want you to be reasonable and help me. Don’t get frightened.”
Stener stirred uneasily. “Don’t let these politicians scare you to death. It will all blow over in a few days, and then we’ll be better off than ever. Did you see Mollenhauer?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what did he have to say?”
“He said just what I thought he’d say. He won’t let me do this. I can’t, Frank, I tell you!” exclaimed Stener, jumping up. He was so nervous that he had had a hard time keeping his seat during this short, direct conversation. “I can’t! They’ve got me in a corner! They’re after me! They all know what we’ve been doing. Oh, say, Frank”—he threw up his arms wildly—“you’ve got to get me out of this. You’ve got to let me have that five hundred thousand back and get me out of this. If you don’t, and you should fail, they’ll send me to the penitentiary. I’ve got a wife and four children, Frank. I can’t go on in this. It’s too big for me. I never should have gone in on it in the first place. I never would have if you hadn’t persuaded me, in a way. I never thought when I began that I would ever get in as bad as all this. I can’t go on, Frank. I can’t! I’m willing you should have all my stock. Only give me back that five hundred thousand, and we’ll call it even.” His voice rose nervously as he talked, and he wiped his wet forehead with his hand and stared at Cowperwood pleadingly, foolishly.
Cowperwood stared at him in return for a few moments with a cold, fishy eye. He knew a great deal about human nature, and he was ready for and expectant of any queer shift in an individual’s attitude, particularly in time of panic; but this shift of Stener’s was quite too much. “Whom else have you been talking to, George, since I saw you? Whom have you seen? What did Sengstack have to say?”
“He says just what Mollenhauer does, that I mustn’t loan any more money under any circumstances, and he says I ought to get that five hundred thousand back as quickly as possible.”
“And you think Mollenhauer wants to help you, do you?” inquired Cowperwood, finding it hard to efface the contempt which kept forcing itself into his voice.
“I think he does, yes. I don’t know who else will, Frank, if he don’t. He’s one of the big political forces in this town.”
“Listen to me,” began Cowperwood, eyeing him fixedly. Then he paused. “What did he say you should do about your holdings?”
“Sell them through Tighe & Company and put the money back in the treasury, if you won’t take them.”
“Sell them to whom?” asked Cowperwood, thinking of Stener’s last words.
“To any one on ’change who’ll take them, I suppose. I don’t know.”
“I thought so,” said Cowperwood, comprehendingly. “I might have known as much. They’re working you, George. They’re simply trying to get your stocks away from you. Mollenhauer is leading you on. He knows I can’t do what you want—give you back the five hundred thousand dollars. He wants you to throw your stocks on the market so that he can pick them up. Depend on it, that’s all arranged for already. When you do, he’s got me in his clutches, or he thinks he has—he and Butler and Simpson. They want to get together on this local street-railway situation, and I know it, I feel it. I’ve felt it coming all along. Mollenhauer hasn’t any more intention of helping you than he has of flying. Once you’ve sold your stocks he’s through with you—mark my word. Do you think he’ll turn a hand to keep you out of the penitentiary once you’re out of this street-railway situation? He will not. And if you think so, you’re a bigger fool than I take you to be, George. Don’t go crazy. Don’t lose your head. Be sensible. Look the situation in the face. Let me explain it to you. If you don’t help me now—if you don’t let me have three hundred thousand dollars by to-morrow noon, at the very latest, I’m through, and so are you. There is not a thing the matter with our situation. Those stocks of ours are as good to-day as they ever were. Why, great heavens, man, the railways are there behind them. They’re paying. The Seventeenth and Nineteenth Street line is earning one thousand dollars a day right now. What better evidence do you want than that? Green & Coates is earning five hundred dollars. You’re frightened, George. These damned political schemers have scared you. Why, you’ve as good a right to loan that money as Bode and Murtagh had before you. They did it. You’ve been doing it for Mollenhauer and the others, only so long as you do it for them it’s all right. What’s a designated city depository but a loan?”
Cowperwood was referring to the system under which certain portions of city money, like the sinking-fund, were permitted to be kept in certain banks at a low rate of interest or no rate—banks in which Mollenhauer and Butler and Simpson were interested. This was their safe graft.
“Don’t throw your chances away, George. Don’t quit now. You’ll be worth millions in a few years, and you won’t have to turn a hand. All you will have to do will be to keep what you have. If you don’t help me, mark my word, they’ll throw you over the moment I’m out of this, and they’ll let you go to the penitentiary. Who’s going to put up five hundred thousand dollars for you, George? Where is Mollenhauer going to get it, or Butler, or anybody, in these times? They can’t. They don’t intend to. When I’m through, you’re through, and you’ll be exposed quicker than any one else. They can’t hurt me, George. I’m an agent. I didn’t ask you to come to me. You came to me in the first place of your own accord. If you don’t help me, you’re through, I tell you, and you’re going to be sent to the penitentiary as sure as there are jails. Why don’t you take a stand, George? Why don’t you stand your ground? You have your wife and children to look after. You can’t be any worse off loaning me three hundred thousand more than you are right now. What difference does it make—five hundred thousand or eight hundred thousand? It’s all one and the same thing, if you’re going to be tried for it. Besides, if you loan me this, there isn’t going to be any trial. I’m not going to fail. This storm will blow over in a week or ten days, and we’ll be rich again. For Heaven’s sake, George, don’t go to pieces this way! Be sensible! Be reasonable!”
He paused, for Stener’s face had become a jelly-like mass of woe.
“I can’t, Frank,” he wailed. “I tell you I can’t. They’ll punish me worse than ever if I do that. They’ll never let up on me. You don’t know these people.”
In Stener’s crumpling weakness Cowperwood read his own fate. What could you do with a man like that? How brace him up? You couldn’t! And with a gesture of infinite understanding, disgust, noble indifference, he threw up his hands and started to walk out. At the door he turned.
“George,” he said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for you, not for myself. I’ll come out of things all right, eventually. I’ll be rich. But, George, you’re making the one great mistake of your life. You’ll be poor; you’ll be a convict, and you’ll have only yourself to blame. There isn’t a thing the matter with this money situation except the fire. There isn’t a thing wrong with my affairs except this slump in stocks—this panic. You sit there, a fortune in your hands, and you allow a lot of schemers, highbinders, who don’t know any more of your affairs or mine than a rabbit, and who haven’t any interest in you except to plan what they can get out of you, to frighten you and prevent you from doing the one thing that will save your life. Three hundred thousand paltry dollars that in three or four weeks from now I can pay back to you four and five times over, and for that you will see me go broke and yourself to the penitentiary. I can’t understand it, George. You’re out of your mind. You’re going to rue this the longest day that you live.”
He waited a few moments to see if this, by any twist of chance, would have any effect; then, noting that Stener still remained a wilted, helpless mass of nothing, he shook his head gloomily and walked out.
It was the first time in his life that Cowperwood had ever shown the least sign of weakening or despair. He had felt all along as though there were nothing to the Greek theory of being pursued by the furies. Now, however, there seemed an untoward fate which was pursuing him. It looked that way. Still, fate or no fate, he did not propose to be daunted. Even in this very beginning of a tendency to feel despondent he threw back his head, expanded his chest, and walked as briskly as ever.
In the large room outside Stener’s private office he encountered Albert Stires, Stener’s chief clerk and secretary. He and Albert had exchanged many friendly greetings in times past, and all the little minor transactions in regard to city loan had been discussed between them, for Albert knew more of the intricacies of finance and financial bookkeeping than Stener would ever know.
At the sight of Stires the thought in regard to the sixty thousand dollars’ worth of city loan certificates, previously referred to, flashed suddenly through his mind. He had not deposited them in the sinking-fund, and did not intend to for the present—could not, unless considerable free money were to reach him shortly—for he had used them to satisfy other pressing demands, and had no free money to buy them back—or, in other words, release them. And he did not want to just at this moment. Under the law governing transactions of this kind with the city treasurer, he was supposed to deposit them at once to the credit of the city, and not to draw his pay therefor from the city treasurer until he had. To be very exact, the city treasurer, under the law, was not supposed to pay him for any transaction of this kind until he or his agents presented a voucher from the bank or other organization carrying the sinking-fund for the city showing that the certificates so purchased had actually been deposited there. As a matter of fact, under the custom which had grown up between him and Stener, the law had long been ignored in this respect. He could buy certificates of city loan for the sinking-fund up to any reasonable amount, hypothecate them where he pleased, and draw his pay from the city without presenting a voucher. At the end of the month sufficient certificates of city loan could usually be gathered from one source and another to make up the deficiency, or the deficiency could actually be ignored, as had been done on more than one occasion, for long periods of time, while he used money secured by hypothecating the shares for speculative purposes. This was actually illegal; but neither Cowperwood nor Stener saw it in that light or cared.
The trouble with this particular transaction was the note that he had received from Stener ordering him to stop both buying and selling, which put his relations with the city treasury on a very formal basis. He had bought these certificates before receiving this note, but had not deposited them. He was going now to collect his check; but perhaps the old, easy system of balancing matters at the end of the month might not be said to obtain any longer. Stires might ask him to present a voucher of deposit. If so, he could not now get this check for sixty thousand dollars, for he did not have the certificates to deposit. If not, he might get the money; but, also, it might constitute the basis of some subsequent legal action. If he did not eventually deposit the certificates before failure, some charge such as that of larceny might be brought against him. Still, he said to himself, he might not really fail even yet. If any of his banking associates should, for any reason, modify their decision in regard to calling his loans, he would not. Would Stener make a row about this if he so secured this check? Would the city officials pay any attention to him if he did? Could you get any district attorney to take cognizance of such a transaction, if Stener did complain? No, not in all likelihood; and, anyhow, nothing would come of it. No jury would punish him in the face of the understanding existing between him and Stener as agent or broker and principal. And, once he had the money, it was a hundred to one Stener would think no more about it. It would go in among the various unsatisfied liabilities, and nothing more would be thought about it. Like lightning the entire situation hashed through his mind. He would risk it. He stopped before the chief clerk’s desk.
“Albert,” he said, in a low voice, “I bought sixty thousand dollars’ worth of city loan for the sinking-fund this morning. Will you give my boy a check for it in the morning, or, better yet, will you give it to me now? I got your note about no more purchases. I’m going back to the office. You can just credit the sinking-fund with eight hundred certificates at from seventy-five to eighty. I’ll send you the itemized list later.”
“Certainly, Mr. Cowperwood, certainly,” replied Albert, with alacrity. “Stocks are getting an awful knock, aren’t they? I hope you’re not very much troubled by it?”
“Not very, Albert,” replied Cowperwood, smiling, the while the chief clerk was making out his check. He was wondering if by any chance Stener would appear and attempt to interfere with this. It was a legal transaction. He had a right to the check provided he deposited the certificates, as was his custom, with the trustee of the fund. He waited tensely while Albert wrote, and finally, with the check actually in his hand, breathed a sigh of relief. Here, at least, was sixty thousand dollars, and to-night’s work would enable him to cash the seventy-five thousand that had been promised him. To-morrow, once more he must see Leigh, Kitchen, Jay Cooke & Co., Edward Clark & Co.—all the long list of people to whom he owed loans and find out what could be done. If he could only get time! If he could get just a week!
Chapter XXIX
But time was not a thing to be had in this emergency. With the seventy-five thousand dollars his friends had extended to him, and sixty thousand dollars secured from Stires, Cowperwood met the Girard call and placed the balance, thirty-five thousand dollars, in a private safe in his own home. He then made a final appeal to the bankers and financiers, but they refused to help him. He did not, however, commiserate himself in this hour. He looked out of his office window into the little court, and sighed. What more could he do? He sent a note to his father, asking him to call for lunch. He sent a note to his lawyer, Harper Steger, a man of his own age whom he liked very much, and asked him to call also. He evolved in his own mind various plans of delay, addresses to creditors and the like, but alas! he was going to fail. And the worst of it was that this matter of the city treasurer’s loans was bound to become a public, and more than a public, a political, scandal. And the charge of conniving, if not illegally, at least morally, at the misuse of the city’s money was the one thing that would hurt him most.
How industriously his rivals would advertise this fact! He might get on his feet again if he failed; but it would be uphill work. And his father! His father would be pulled down with him. It was probable that he would be forced out of the presidency of his bank. With these thoughts Cowperwood sat there waiting. As he did so Aileen Butler was announced by his office-boy, and at the same time Albert Stires.
“Show in Miss Butler,” he said, getting up. “Tell Mr. Stires to wait.” Aileen came briskly, vigorously in, her beautiful body clothed as decoratively as ever. The street suit that she wore was of a light golden-brown broadcloth, faceted with small, dark-red buttons. Her head was decorated with a brownish-red shake of a type she had learned was becoming to her, brimless and with a trailing plume, and her throat was graced by a three-strand necklace of gold beads. Her hands were smoothly gloved as usual, and her little feet daintily shod. There was a look of girlish distress in her eyes, which, however, she was trying hard to conceal.
“Honey,” she exclaimed, on seeing him, her arms extended—“what is the trouble? I wanted so much to ask you the other night. You’re not going to fail, are you? I heard father and Owen talking about you last night.”
“What did they say?” he inquired, putting his arm around her and looking quietly into her nervous eyes.
“Oh, you know, I think papa is very angry with you. He suspects. Some one sent him an anonymous letter. He tried to get it out of me last night, but he didn’t succeed. I denied everything. I was in here twice this morning to see you, but you were out. I was so afraid that he might see you first, and that you might say something.”
“Me, Aileen?”
“Well, no, not exactly. I didn’t think that. I don’t know what I thought. Oh, honey, I’ve been so worried. You know, I didn’t sleep at all. I thought I was stronger than that; but I was so worried about you. You know, he put me in a strong light by his desk, where he could see my face, and then he showed me the letter. I was so astonished for a moment I hardly know what I said or how I looked.”
“What did you say?”
“Why, I said: ‘What a shame! It isn’t so!’ But I didn’t say it right away. My heart was going like a trip-hammer. I’m afraid he must have been able to tell something from my face. I could hardly get my breath.”
“He’s a shrewd man, your father,” he commented. “He knows something about life. Now you see how difficult these situations are. It’s a blessing he decided to show you the letter instead of watching the house. I suppose he felt too bad to do that. He can’t prove anything now. But he knows. You can’t deceive him.”
“How do you know he knows?”
“I saw him yesterday.”
“Did he talk to you about it?”
“No; I saw his face. He simply looked at me.”
“Honey! I’m so sorry for him!”
“I know you are. So am I. But it can’t be helped now. We should have thought of that in the first place.”
“But I love you so. Oh, honey, he will never forgive me. He loves me so. He mustn’t know. I won’t admit anything. But, oh, dear!”
She put her hands tightly together on his bosom, and he looked consolingly into her eyes. Her eyelids, were trembling, and her lips. She was sorry for her father, herself, Cowperwood. Through her he could sense the force of Butler’s parental affection; the volume and danger of his rage. There were so many, many things as he saw it now converging to make a dramatic denouement.
“Never mind,” he replied; “it can’t be helped now. Where is my strong, determined Aileen? I thought you were going to be so brave? Aren’t you going to be? I need to have you that way now.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Are you in trouble?”
“I think I am going to fail, dear.”
“Oh, no!”
“Yes, honey. I’m at the end of my rope. I don’t see any way out just at present. I’ve sent for my father and my lawyer. You mustn’t stay here, sweet. Your father may come in here at any time. We must meet somewhere—to-morrow, say—to-morrow afternoon. You remember Indian Rock, out on the Wissahickon?”
“Yes.”
“Could you be there at four?”
“Yes.”
“Look out for who’s following. If I’m not there by four-thirty, don’t wait. You know why. It will be because I think some one is watching. There won’t be, though, if we work it right. And now you must run, sweet. We can’t use Nine-thirty-one any more. I’ll have to rent another place somewhere else.”
“Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”
“Aren’t you going to be strong and brave? You see, I need you to be.”
He was almost, for the first time, a little sad in his mood.
“Yes, dear, yes,” she declared, slipping her arms under his and pulling him tight. “Oh, yes! You can depend on me. Oh, Frank, I love you so! I’m so sorry. Oh, I do hope you don’t fail! But it doesn’t make any difference, dear, between you and me, whatever happens, does it? We will love each other just the same. I’ll do anything for you, honey! I’ll do anything you say. You can trust me. They sha’n’t know anything from me.”
She looked at his still, pale face, and a sudden strong determination to fight for him welled up in her heart. Her love was unjust, illegal, outlawed; but it was love, just the same, and had much of the fiery daring of the outcast from justice.
“I love you! I love you! I love you, Frank!” she declared. He unloosed her hands.
“Run, sweet. To-morrow at four. Don’t fail. And don’t talk. And don’t admit anything, whatever you do.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t worry about me. I’ll be all right.”
He barely had time to straighten his tie, to assume a nonchalant attitude by the window, when in hurried Stener’s chief clerk—pale, disturbed, obviously out of key with himself.
“Mr. Cowperwood! You know that check I gave you last night? Mr. Stener says it’s illegal, that I shouldn’t have given it to you, that he will hold me responsible. He says I can be arrested for compounding a felony, and that he will discharge me and have me sent to prison if I don’t get it back. Oh, Mr. Cowperwood, I am only a young man! I’m just really starting out in life. I’ve got my wife and little boy to look after. You won’t let him do that to me? You’ll give me that check back, won’t you? I can’t go back to the office without it. He says you’re going to fail, and that you knew it, and that you haven’t any right to it.”
Cowperwood looked at him curiously. He was surprised at the variety and character of these emissaries of disaster. Surely, when troubles chose to multiply they had great skill in presenting themselves in rapid order. Stener had no right to make any such statement. The transaction was not illegal. The man had gone wild. True, he, Cowperwood, had received an order after these securities were bought not to buy or sell any more city loan, but that did not invalidate previous purchases. Stener was browbeating and frightening his poor underling, a better man than himself, in order to get back this sixty-thousand-dollar check. What a petty creature he was! How true it was, as somebody had remarked, that you could not possibly measure the petty meannesses to which a fool could stoop!
“You go back to Mr. Stener, Albert, and tell him that it can’t be done. The certificates of loan were purchased before his order arrived, and the records of the exchange will prove it. There is no illegality here. I am entitled to that check and could have collected it in any qualified court of law. The man has gone out of his head. I haven’t failed yet. You are not in any danger of any legal proceedings; and if you are, I’ll help defend you. I can’t give you the check back because I haven’t it to give; and if I had, I wouldn’t. That would be allowing a fool to make a fool of me. I’m sorry, very, but I can’t do anything for you.”
“Oh, Mr. Cowperwood!” Tears were in Stires’s eyes. “He’ll discharge me! He’ll forfeit my sureties. I’ll be turned out into the street. I have only a little property of my own—outside of my salary!”
He wrung his hands, and Cowperwood shook his head sadly.
“This isn’t as bad as you think, Albert. He won’t do what he says. He can’t. It’s unfair and illegal. You can bring suit and recover your salary. I’ll help you in that as much as I’m able. But I can’t give you back this sixty-thousand-dollar check, because I haven’t it to give. I couldn’t if I wanted to. It isn’t here any more. I’ve paid for the securities I bought with it. The securities are not here. They’re in the sinking-fund, or will be.”
He paused, wishing he had not mentioned that fact. It was a slip of the tongue, one of the few he ever made, due to the peculiar pressure of the situation. Stires pleaded longer. It was no use, Cowperwood told him. Finally he went away, crestfallen, fearsome, broken. There were tears of suffering in his eyes. Cowperwood was very sorry. And then his father was announced.
The elder Cowperwood brought a haggard face. He and Frank had had a long conversation the evening before, lasting until early morning, but it had not been productive of much save uncertainty.
“Hello, father!” exclaimed Cowperwood, cheerfully, noting his father’s gloom. He was satisfied that there was scarcely a coal of hope to be raked out of these ashes of despair, but there was no use admitting it.
“Well?” said his father, lifting his sad eyes in a peculiar way.
“Well, it looks like stormy weather, doesn’t it? I’ve decided to call a meeting of my creditors, father, and ask for time. There isn’t anything else to do. I can’t realize enough on anything to make it worth while talking about. I thought Stener might change his mind, but he’s worse rather than better. His head bookkeeper just went out of here.”
“What did he want?” asked Henry Cowperwood.
“He wanted me to give him back a check for sixty thousand that he paid me for some city loan I bought yesterday morning.” Frank did not explain to his father, however, that he had hypothecated the certificates this check had paid for, and used the check itself to raise money enough to pay the Girard National Bank and to give himself thirty-five thousand in cash besides.
“Well, I declare!” replied the old man. “You’d think he’d have better sense than that. That’s a perfectly legitimate transaction. When did you say he notified you not to buy city loan?”
“Yesterday noon.”
“He’s out of his mind,” Cowperwood, Sr., commented, laconically.
“It’s Mollenhauer and Simpson and Butler, I know. They want my street-railway lines. Well, they won’t get them. They’ll get them through a receivership, and after the panic’s all over. Our creditors will have first chance at these. If they buy, they’ll buy from them. If it weren’t for that five-hundred-thousand-dollar loan I wouldn’t think a thing of this. My creditors would sustain me nicely. But the moment that gets noised around!... And this election! I hypothecated those city loan certificates because I didn’t want to get on the wrong side of Davison. I expected to take in enough by now to take them up. They ought to be in the sinking-fund, really.”
The old gentleman saw the point at once, and winced.
“They might cause you trouble, there, Frank.”
“It’s a technical question,” replied his son. “I might have been intending to take them up. As a matter of fact, I will if I can before three. I’ve been taking eight and ten days to deposit them in the past. In a storm like this I’m entitled to move my pawns as best I can.”
Cowperwood, the father, put his hand over his mouth again. He felt very disturbed about this. He saw no way out, however. He was at the end of his own resources. He felt the side-whiskers on his left cheek. He looked out of the window into the little green court. Possibly it was a technical question, who should say. The financial relations of the city treasury with other brokers before Frank had been very lax. Every banker knew that. Perhaps precedent would or should govern in this case. He could not say. Still, it was dangerous—not straight. If Frank could get them out and deposit them it would be so much better.
“I’d take them up if I were you and I could,” he added.
“I will if I can.”
“How much money have you?”
“Oh, twenty thousand, all told. If I suspend, though, I’ll have to have a little ready cash.”
“I have eight or ten thousand, or will have by night, I hope.”
He was thinking of some one who would give him a second mortgage on his house.
Cowperwood looked quietly at him. There was nothing more to be said to his father. “I’m going to make one more appeal to Stener after you leave here,” he said. “I’m going over there with Harper Steger when he comes. If he won’t change I’ll send out notice to my creditors, and notify the secretary of the exchange. I want you to keep a stiff upper lip, whatever happens. I know you will, though. I’m going into the thing head down. If Stener had any sense—” He paused. “But what’s the use talking about a damn fool?”
He turned to the window, thinking of how easy it would have been, if Aileen and he had not been exposed by this anonymous note, to have arranged all with Butler. Rather than injure the party, Butler, in extremis, would have assisted him. Now...!
His father got up to go. He was as stiff with despair as though he were suffering from cold.
“Well,” he said, wearily.
Cowperwood suffered intensely for him. What a shame! His father! He felt a great surge of sorrow sweep over him but a moment later mastered it, and settled to his quick, defiant thinking. As the old man went out, Harper Steger was brought in. They shook hands, and at once started for Stener’s office. But Stener had sunk in on himself like an empty gas-bag, and no efforts were sufficient to inflate him. They went out, finally, defeated.
“I tell you, Frank,” said Steger, “I wouldn’t worry. We can tie this thing up legally until election and after, and that will give all this row a chance to die down. Then you can get your people together and talk sense to them. They’re not going to give up good properties like this, even if Stener does go to jail.”
Steger did not know of the sixty thousand dollars’ worth of hypothecated securities as yet. Neither did he know of Aileen Butler and her father’s boundless rage.
Chapter XXX
There was one development in connection with all of this of which Cowperwood was as yet unaware. The same day that brought Edward Butler the anonymous communication in regard to his daughter, brought almost a duplicate of it to Mrs. Frank Algernon Cowperwood, only in this case the name of Aileen Butler had curiously been omitted.
Perhaps you don’t know that your husband is running with another woman. If you don’t believe it, watch the house at 931 North Tenth Street.
Mrs. Cowperwood was in the conservatory watering some plants when this letter was brought by her maid Monday morning. She was most placid in her thoughts, for she did not know what all the conferring of the night before meant. Frank was occasionally troubled by financial storms, but they did not see to harm him.
“Lay it on the table in the library, Annie. I’ll get it.”
She thought it was some social note.
In a little while (such was her deliberate way), she put down her sprinkling-pot and went into the library. There it was lying on the green leather sheepskin which constituted a part of the ornamentation of the large library table. She picked it up, glanced at it curiously because it was on cheap paper, and then opened it. Her face paled slightly as she read it; and then her hand trembled—not much. Hers was not a soul that ever loved passionately, hence she could not suffer passionately. She was hurt, disgusted, enraged for the moment, and frightened; but she was not broken in spirit entirely. Thirteen years of life with Frank Cowperwood had taught her a number of things. He was selfish, she knew now, self-centered, and not as much charmed by her as he had been. The fear she had originally felt as to the effect of her preponderance of years had been to some extent justified by the lapse of time. Frank did not love her as he had—he had not for some time; she had felt it. What was it?—she had asked herself at times—almost, who was it? Business was engrossing him so.
Finance was his master. Did this mean the end of her regime, she queried. Would he cast her off? Where would she go? What would she do? She was not helpless, of course, for she had money of her own which he was manipulating for her. Who was this other woman? Was she young, beautiful, of any social position? Was it—? Suddenly she stopped. Was it? Could it be, by any chance—her mouth opened—Aileen Butler?
She stood still, staring at this letter, for she could scarcely countenance her own thought. She had observed often, in spite of all their caution, how friendly Aileen had been to him and he to her. He liked her; he never lost a chance to defend her. Lillian had thought of them at times as being curiously suited to each other temperamentally. He liked young people. But, of course, he was married, and Aileen was infinitely beneath him socially, and he had two children and herself. And his social and financial position was so fixed and stable that he did not dare trifle with it. Still she paused; for forty years and two children, and some slight wrinkles, and the suspicion that we may be no longer loved as we once were, is apt to make any woman pause, even in the face of the most significant financial position. Where would she go if she left him? What would people think? What about the children? Could she prove this liaison? Could she entrap him in a compromising situation? Did she want to?
She saw now that she did not love him as some women love their husbands. She was not wild about him. In a way she had been taking him for granted all these years, had thought that he loved her enough not to be unfaithful to her; at least fancied that he was so engrossed with the more serious things of life that no petty liaison such as this letter indicated would trouble him or interrupt his great career. Apparently this was not true. What should she do? What say? How act? Her none too brilliant mind was not of much service in this crisis. She did not know very well how either to plan or to fight.
The conventional mind is at best a petty piece of machinery. It is oyster-like in its functioning, or, perhaps better, clam-like. It has its little siphon of thought-processes forced up or down into the mighty ocean of fact and circumstance; but it uses so little, pumps so faintly, that the immediate contiguity of the vast mass is not disturbed. Nothing of the subtlety of life is perceived. No least inkling of its storms or terrors is ever discovered except through accident. When some crude, suggestive fact, such as this letter proved to be, suddenly manifests itself in the placid flow of events, there is great agony or disturbance and clogging of the so-called normal processes. The siphon does not work right. It sucks in fear and distress. There is great grinding of maladjusted parts—not unlike sand in a machine—and life, as is so often the case, ceases or goes lamely ever after.
Mrs. Cowperwood was possessed of a conventional mind. She really knew nothing about life. And life could not teach her. Reaction in her from salty thought-processes was not possible. She was not alive in the sense that Aileen Butler was, and yet she thought that she was very much alive. All illusion. She wasn’t. She was charming if you loved placidity. If you did not, she was not. She was not engaging, brilliant, or forceful. Frank Cowperwood might well have asked himself in the beginning why he married her. He did not do so now because he did not believe it was wise to question the past as to one’s failures and errors. It was, according to him, most unwise to regret. He kept his face and thoughts to the future.
But Mrs. Cowperwood was truly distressed in her way, and she went about the house thinking, feeling wretchedly. She decided, since the letter asked her to see for herself, to wait. She must think how she would watch this house, if at all. Frank must not know. If it were Aileen Butler by any chance—but surely not—she thought she would expose her to her parents. Still, that meant exposing herself. She determined to conceal her mood as best she could at dinner-time—but Cowperwood was not able to be there. He was so rushed, so closeted with individuals, so closely in conference with his father and others, that she scarcely saw him this Monday night, nor the next day, nor for many days.
For on Tuesday afternoon at two-thirty he issued a call for a meeting of his creditors, and at five-thirty he decided to go into the hands of a receiver. And yet, as he stood before his principal creditors—a group of thirty men—in his office, he did not feel that his life was ruined. He was temporarily embarrassed. Certainly things looked very black. The city-treasurership deal would make a great fuss. Those hypothecated city loan certificates, to the extent of sixty thousand, would make another, if Stener chose. Still, he did not feel that he was utterly destroyed.
“Gentlemen,” he said, in closing his address of explanation at the meeting, quite as erect, secure, defiant, convincing as he had ever been, “you see how things are. These securities are worth just as much as they ever were. There is nothing the matter with the properties behind them. If you will give me fifteen days or twenty, I am satisfied that I can straighten the whole matter out. I am almost the only one who can, for I know all about it. The market is bound to recover. Business is going to be better than ever. It’s time I want. Time is the only significant factor in this situation. I want to know if you won’t give me fifteen or twenty days—a month, if you can. That is all I want.”
He stepped aside and out of the general room, where the blinds were drawn, into his private office, in order to give his creditors an opportunity to confer privately in regard to his situation. He had friends in the meeting who were for him. He waited one, two, nearly three hours while they talked. Finally Walter Leigh, Judge Kitchen, Avery Stone, of Jay Cooke & Co., and several others came in. They were a committee appointed to gather further information.
“Nothing more can be done to-day, Frank,” Walter Leigh informed him, quietly. “The majority want the privilege of examining the books. There is some uncertainty about this entanglement with the city treasurer which you say exists. They feel that you’d better announce a temporary suspension, anyhow; and if they want to let you resume later they can do so.”
“I’m sorry for that, gentlemen,” replied Cowperwood, the least bit depressed. “I would rather do anything than suspend for one hour, if I could help it, for I know just what it means. You will find assets here far exceeding the liabilities if you will take the stocks at their normal market value; but that won’t help any if I close my doors. The public won’t believe in me. I ought to keep open.”
“Sorry, Frank, old boy,” observed Leigh, pressing his hand affectionately. “If it were left to me personally, you could have all the time you want. There’s a crowd of old fogies out there that won’t listen to reason. They’re panic-struck. I guess they’re pretty hard hit themselves. You can scarcely blame them. You’ll come out all right, though I wish you didn’t have to shut up shop. We can’t do anything with them, however. Why, damn it, man, I don’t see how you can fail, really. In ten days these stocks will be all right.”
Judge Kitchen commiserated with him also; but what good did that do? He was being compelled to suspend. An expert accountant would have to come in and go over his books. Butler might spread the news of this city-treasury connection. Stener might complain of this last city-loan transaction. A half-dozen of his helpful friends stayed with him until four o’clock in the morning; but he had to suspend just the same. And when he did that, he knew he was seriously crippled if not ultimately defeated in his race for wealth and fame.
When he was really and finally quite alone in his private bedroom he stared at himself in the mirror. His face was pale and tired, he thought, but strong and effective. “Pshaw!” he said to himself, “I’m not whipped. I’m still young. I’ll get out of this in some way yet. Certainly I will. I’ll find some way out.”
And so, cogitating heavily, wearily, he began to undress. Finally he sank upon his bed, and in a little while, strange as it may seem, with all the tangle of trouble around him, slept. He could do that—sleep and gurgle most peacefully, the while his father paced the floor in his room, refusing to be comforted. All was dark before the older man—the future hopeless. Before the younger man was still hope.
And in her room Lillian Cowperwood turned and tossed in the face of this new calamity. For it had suddenly appeared from news from her father and Frank and Anna and her mother-in-law that Frank was about to fail, or would, or had—it was almost impossible to say just how it was. Frank was too busy to explain. The Chicago fire was to blame. There was no mention as yet of the city treasurership. Frank was caught in a trap, and was fighting for his life.
In this crisis, for the moment, she forgot about the note as to his infidelity, or rather ignored it. She was astonished, frightened, dumbfounded, confused. Her little, placid, beautiful world was going around in a dizzy ring. The charming, ornate ship of their fortune was being blown most ruthlessly here and there. She felt it a sort of duty to stay in bed and try to sleep; but her eyes were quite wide, and her brain hurt her. Hours before Frank had insisted that she should not bother about him, that she could do nothing; and she had left him, wondering more than ever what and where was the line of her duty. To stick by her husband, convention told her; and so she decided. Yes, religion dictated that, also custom. There were the children. They must not be injured. Frank must be reclaimed, if possible. He would get over this. But what a blow!