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Destiny, a novel by Charles Neville Buck |
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Part 2. The Book Of Life - It Might Have Been - Chapter 8 |
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_ PART II. THE BOOK OF LIFE - IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN CHAPTER VIII When he had stepped from the car to the sidewalk, Hamilton Burton stood there for a while in apparent abstraction. A private policeman in cadet gray waited deferentially with his hand on the knob of the grilled bronze door which gave entrance to the office building. Burton's eyes were resting on Paul's face, but the pupils were focused for no such circumscribed range. Their vistas were of the future and empire-wide. The fire that had wakened in them with the pronunciamento, "Above me there shall be no one," lingered and the smile which hovered on the lips held a certain grimness in its curve. It was not a reassuring smile for such interests as ran counter to his own. A passing reporter who fancied himself wise in the lore of the Street, halted to observe, and muttered to himself, "Ursus Major wearing his fighting face! This may prove a day worth watching." A floor representative of a brokerage office caught the expression, too, and into his memory came flooding the events of another day when this same man, wearing the same smile, hurled himself upon the Stock-Exchange, in a bear raid which had cost bull millions. "The Great Bear, damn him!" he exclaimed with savage vehemence. "The buccaneer's got some fresh piracy on foot if I know that sardonic grin." Within the half-hour a mysteriously fathered rumor passed from mouth to mouth on the floor of the Exchange, that Hamilton Burton was drawing his battle-lines and that somewhere his bolt would fall. Because the report was untraceable it was the more disquieting, and the Stock-Exchange is ever ready to rock to an alarm. Yet just now, the man whose silent smile could give birth to such sweeping potentialities did nothing more significant than gaze absently at the tide of life which eddied through Broadway's canon and at the disintegrating tombstones which spoke of death in the shadow of Trinity. There was something of tawny and tigerish splendor about this young man who had sprung with mushroom swiftness from nowhere into the fierce eminence of a financial conqueror. The supple grace of his movements attested ready power. The immaculate elegance of his apparel challenged notice by a flawlessness which went beyond the art of the tailor who clothed him and assumed a distinction as though it had been the belted uniform of a field marshal. Though pronounced the best-dressed man in New York, he escaped all seeming of foppishness. Each small detail, from the flower in his lapel to his gloves and shoes, seemed a significant touch. Hamilton Burton lent qualities from himself to everything that marked him--and these qualities seemed to go like heralds at his front, proclaiming, "This man is led by a star--his head overlooks the crowd!" Men and women staring out from a sight-seeing car turned their heads with a common accord, their attention arrested by something intangible. Then as the megaphone operator lowered his voice it became pregnant with importance. To visitors from Paris, Kentucky, Berlin, Iowa, and Cairo, Illinois, he confided, "The gentleman by the car with the broken wind-shield is Hamilton Burton." It was enough. It conjured up to memory newspaper stories of a genie to whose wand fabulous tides of gold responded. These sight-seers were beholding a man credited with the power to cause or avert panics; one of the most lauded, the most hated and the most feared men in finance, and, for some inexplicable reason, after they looked at him it was no longer difficult to believe the stories of his wizardry. He nodded to Paul and turned toward the door. Once more he repeated, "Then above me there shall be--no other man," and though he said it with all the arrogant and ruthless spirit of a tyrant who would take no count of razed cities as he rode to his victory, yet he said it in a low and pleasant voice; a voice even tinged with musical gentleness. At the twentieth floor where the elevator stopped to let him alight, Hamilton's eyes were aglow with the reflected light of his thoughts. He was still young and before him lay conquests that should dwarf those of the past. Posterity should link his name with achievements so titanic that history would be beggared for a precedent. Kingdoms would be his clients and kings his vassals. Of late, a persistent idea had been creeping into his thoughts. The world was to know him as one of its mightiest rulers--so mighty that for him a crown would be too tawdry a toy--but some day he must die. Who then, demanded his sublimely arrogant self-appraisement, would carry on the work that had called him on to conquest from hills where the burned stumps stood up stark and black in the forest? It is the hallucination of superlative egotism to imagine that the world demands of her great sons--a succession. Whatever gods looked on must have laughed as they read the vast audacity of this man's conceit. Never had it occurred to him that such an ambition as his own meant a mere greed for power--that no great cause or motive impelled him forward. Never had a whisper come to his soul that power is a trust which should make its recipient a crusader. The world thought of him as a man of great potentiality. He thought of himself grown to the proportions and stature of his dreams--the financial Titan expanded to the _n_th power. There must be an heir to this empire of his building. "I suppose I could marry any woman in the world I wanted," he reflected as he strode along the hall to the door of his office suite, "but the devil of it is I don't want any of them." A fresh thought brought to his face an expression a shade saner and less self-centered. "Mary is as beautiful and as charming as I am efficient, moreover she has brains," he soliloquized. "Mary must marry brilliantly and her son shall be my successor." In a sort of audience hall waited the Coal and Ore directors who had been burning up valuable time and burning up as well a patience unschooled to such delays, but as the door opened and the young field marshal of great business appeared on the threshold, they masked their irritation in smiles. These men were neither sycophants nor fawning suppliants. Each of them held high prominence in the aristocracy of wealth, but Hamilton Burton topped them--and the singular power upon which he had risen was one-half pure charm and hypnotism of personality. Men might swear at the Hamilton Burton who kept them twiddling their thumbs until he came, yet _when_ he came it seemed that the sunlight came with him and the mists of impatience were dissipated. A half-hour later he bowed them out, and they went smiling and telling one another as they left, "Remarkable fellow, Burton! Absolutely surmounts ordinary rules and ordinary difficulties. Most remarkable and able man!" He next passed through the outer offices to the door marked "private," and there, near the window of his sanctum, sat a stout and elderly gentleman. In the unsparing revelation of the morning sunshine the visitor's face declared all its wrinkles. The whitening hair, growing sparse, was carefully combed across an arid patch of scalp. Hamilton Burton's smile died and his face grew for a moment solicitous as he read his father's troubled eyes. Old Thomas Burton was shaven and manicured and betailored into a model of well-nourished--possibly over-nourished--senectitude. His mustaches and beard were waxed and pointed. Once he had deplored the necessity and trouble of the Sabbath shave--and his hair had known no law of shears or shampoo. In his lapel a gardenia was carefully placed so that it should not obscure the button which proclaimed him a Son of the American Revolution. He restlessly tapped his gaitered boots with a stick upon whose gold head was carven the Burton crest. As Hamilton came forward the elder man rose and turned with some embarrassment. In his movements the son read with a pang of sudden realization the approaching atrophy of age. "I'm sorry to intrude on your office hours, Hamilton," began the father, "but the fact is--I--er--I--" he broke off confusedly. Tom Burton was mightily changed, but now and again an echo of the old self harassed his reincarnation. He had never learned to beg for money with the unabashed ease of an aristocratic parasite. While it was in his pocket he could top the extravagance of a drunken sailor, but when its lack drove him again to his bountiful son he came haltingly--covered with confusion. "What is it, father?" Hamilton clapped the old gentleman on the shoulder and declared, "When you come others can wait." Tom Burton flushed deeply. "I--er--well, I've had a notice of over-draft from my bank." Hamilton Burton's brows contracted. "Did they keep you sitting here, cooling your heels like a book-agent until I arrived? Why didn't you go direct to Corbin? He has _carte blanche_ to accommodate you in every demand you choose to make." Again Tom Burton spoke hesitantly. "I did--er--mention it to Mr. Corbin. He was very polite, but he suggested that, unless I was in urgent haste, I'd better wait until you came in.... He reminded me that--er--that I'd made rather heavy demands of late, and I'm bound to say it's true." The young financier threw back his head and his eyes burst into a blaze of white-hot anger. "Hell-fire and damnation!" he stormed. "Is my money my own or is it to be doled out by parsimonious hirelings? Must I beg my servants' consent to supply my family with funds?" "Mr. Corbin was very courteous," placated the old man in a mild voice. "Courteous!" The word crackled like a mule whip. "Who is Corbin to be patronizingly courteous to my father? Are you to approach me only through a cordon of lackeys?" He broke off and started to slam his palm down on a table-bell that should bring the too-careful subordinate face to face with his anger, but he stayed his hand half-way, and began talking again. "Back there in those damned hills, when I begged you to gamble on me, didn't I tell you that I meant to give you more than you could ever want? Didn't I tell you that it would be my pride to anticipate and outdo your whims--to dwarf them with bigger things? You _did_ gamble on me, when a little money was a frail barrier between you and the wolf--you gambled to go stark-broke." He was pacing the room now as he talked, and his voice mounted. "To me money is a passionless slave, the eunuch that serves my bidding, and serves blindly. Cash has been my watchword. There is not outside the United States Treasury another sum of unencumbered cash equal to that which I command. Any part of it is yours at any time; how much do you want?" "Why--er--a few thousand for the present." "Just state your figure and I'll triple it. You don't have to make explanations--or apologies." Then with a rather grim smile Ham added: "That's for Corbin to do." Tom Burton carefully drew down his waistcoat over his rotund middle and settled his hat on his head at an exact angle. His son accompanied him to the elevator with an arm about his shoulder and as he returned to the outer office he directed curtly, "Carl, come into my room. I want to see you." Inside he pointed to the bell. "I had my hand three inches from that button a few minutes back to call Corbin in here and fire him. I think I meant to sack everybody in this damned office--except yourself, Carl. I'm sick of these economists that hedge me round with unsolicited safeguards and try to defend me against myself and my family." "If Mr. Burton had come to me--" began the secretary, but Hamilton Burton interrupted him. "Have I failed to make myself entirely clear to my employees?" he inquired. "Do I have to tell them every day that they need not be so damned economical with my money? Haven't I ordered that my father and my brother shall always be accommodated without question?" Bristoll nodded, but made no comment. "Carl, please try once more to make Corbin understand that one of the things I pay him for is to obey orders. Please make it plain beyond cavil that one of my most explicit orders is this: When the Governor comes for money, his job is to begin digging. Find out how much the Governor wants and give him some more." The secretary was valuable in part because he was frank and because in his sincere loyalty dwelt no taint of sycophant fawning. "To be entirely just, sir, I think Corbin does understand you, but a cashier who gives out money with no check on disbursements feels the burden of his responsibility. Any item that your father forgot would leave Corbin unpleasantly close to seeming a thief. Of late, your father's demands have been heavy." "Yes, yes, I know about all that." A sudden change of mood brought a twinkle to the financier's eyes. "My father has been under very heavy expenses of late, Carl. If you had known him as I knew him--back there close to 'God's immortal granite,' as you so aptly phrased it, you would agree with me that the humor of the situation is worth whatever it costs. He had to count the pennies, Carl, and when one threatened to get away he had to chase around it and head it off. He led the simple life and though his middle name was Standish, he regarded it as a sinful vanity to think of his ancestors." Hamilton's smile was one of whimsical and naive humor as he fished from a desk drawer a thick sheaf of papers and laid them before the other. "Times have changed. Cast your eye on those. They represent some of the Governor's expenses. They are bills from the Anglo-Saxon Bureau of Genealogy." "What is this bureau?" inquired Carl, and Burton raised his brows. "Don't you know? Why, it's a concern that outfits one with a full line of ancestors. My father is now prominent in many orders predicated on ancestors. His mail runs over with epistles beginning, 'Dear Sir and Compatriot.' Such excavating of tombs and catacombs is costly." The young money baron paused and grinned. "Once the old gentleman got warmed up, he went the full route and took all the jumps, Carl. He started out modestly enough to establish his descent from Miles Standish, but when they had run the Plymouth captain to earth, the trail was hot and their appetites were whetted. They had tasted blue blood. Now they've worked back to a king or two, and the Governor spoke recently of going to England to consult cathedral records. I believe he secretly covets William the Conqueror." Hamilton shook his head and added sadly, "I hate to think how Corbin will grieve when he learns what William the Conqueror costs. Also, father has a beautiful family crest--you may have noticed it on his walking stick. I haven't yet mastered the niceties of heraldry so I can't properly describe it, but, to me, it looks like a rabbit leaping over an Edam cheese with sprigs of lettuce on either side. A delicatessen shop will steal it some day and father's heart will break." Carl Bristoll filled and lighted a pipe and Hamilton Burton seated himself on the edge of the desk with his eyes fixed on a swinging foot. "We all have our vanities," he mused. "I named myself Montagu--arbitrarily and of my own unbiased will. I nominated and elected myself a Montagu, Carl, and I had an equal right to be a Capulet." "I call that a moderately innocent offense," admitted the secretary. There were moments when these two came near forgetting the relationship of chief and lieutenant, meeting on the level of a joint affection. "But that is not all. My father has other even more burdensome expenses at the present time," continued the elder young man. "He is deeply interested in charity." "Really?" The inquiry was courteously vague, and Ham's nod of response was solemn. "Yes, sir. There are various sorts of charities, Carl. Some folks send silk hats and neckties to the heathen in their blindness, and some found hospitals for three-legged dogs. My father does none of these impractical things. He has dedicated himself to establishing a fund for supplying Havana cigars and motor cars to the Idle Rich. Each day finds him waiting for a quorum up at the National Union Club. When enough are gathered together for a rubber he makes it royal and doubles until everyone save his partner feels a warm glow of wealth stealing gratefully through his arteries." Hamilton broke off and smiled, shaking his head. "Far be it from me to criticize my father," he declared with mock plaintiveness, "but I sometimes wonder why the devil he doesn't learn to play bridge or stop trying." Then the April change of mood came once more and his eyes darkened into seriousness. "Well, if it amuses him, why not?" he demanded, almost as fiercely as though someone had contradicted old Tom Burton's right to mellow into a self-indulgent decay. "All his hard life until ten years ago he sweated and toiled for those he loved. I thought recently it might amuse him to take charge of one of my country places--to try farming with no hardships. He was as much good there as an armless man in a billiard tournament. All his farming had been done with calloused hands on the plowshare. All he knew of dairies was nestling his head against the flank of a flea-bitten cow. Let him take his pleasure as he fancies. Thank God he can." _ |
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