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Clark's Field, a novel by Robert Herrick |
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Chapter 5 |
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_ CHAPTER V A good deal had happened in a quiet way during these seven days that had much influence upon the fate of Clark's Field and of Adelle Clark. Up to this time Judge Orcutt had never heard of Clark's Field or of the Clarks. He lived on the other side of B----, in the country, and was not much of a gossip. But he had ways of finding out about what was going on when he wanted to. A word lightly cast forth at the club table where he always lunched, and he could get a clue to almost anything of current interest. And that noon, after he had first seen Mrs. Clark and her niece, my friend Edsall happened to be at the judge's table. Orcutt asked him what he knew about the Clark property in Alton. Edsall happened to know almost all of importance that has been told here and more. He knew of the movement on foot to develop the property, so long held in idleness, but he did not know who were the persons interested. He could find out. He did so, and within the week he had given the probate judge the outline of as pretty a story of cheap knavishness as the judge had come across for years. "No one can say what the property is worth now," Edsall reported, "but it must be millions." "Millions!" the judge growled. "And they're trying to get it from an old woman and a girl for twenty-five thousand dollars." "A plain steal," the real estate man remarked. "Sculduggery--I smelt it!" laughed the judge. One of the first results of this was that Mr. Osmond Bright, senior member of Bright, Seagrove, and Bright, was invited to call upon Judge Orcutt in his chambers, and there received probably the worst lecture this eminent corporation lawyer ever took from any man. He blustered, of course, and defended his clients on the ground that they were taking a great risk with the title, which was unsound, etc., etc. The poet judge dealt him a savage look and curtly advised him to withdraw at once from the position of counsel to the men involved in this shady transaction; at least never to appear in his court in the guardianship case. (It may be said here that the firm did withdraw from the case, as there was, in their words, "nothing doing." But not much was accomplished, for another equally eminent and unscrupulous firm of lawyers was employed the next day and went to work in a more devious manner to get hold of the Field.) Next the judge devoted half an hour to meditation over the fate of Adelle Clark, more time than any one in her whole career hitherto had given to consideration of her. It was clear enough to him that Mrs. John Clark, honest woman though she appeared to be, could not cope with the situation that must present itself. Nor, of course, could the girl. The nefarious agreement to sell out all the Clark equity in the Field which John Clark had executed prior to his departure for the Grand Army Reunion, and which Judge Orcutt had forced the elder Bright to produce, was evidence enough that the little girl needed some strong defender if she were not to be fleeced utterly of her property. For she was heir now to nearly three fourths of what the Clark estate might bring, and her aunt to the remaining portion--so said the law. But who could be found, modern knight, honest and disinterested and able enough to take upon his shoulders the difficult defense of the girl's rights? Judge Orcutt had not been greatly impressed by the appearance of the girl. She was nearly fourteen now, and seemed to the discriminating taste of the judge to be a quite ordinary young girl with a rather common aunt. Nevertheless that must not enter into the question: she had her rights just as much as if she had been all that his poet's heart might desire a young girl to be! Rights--a curious term over which the judge often stumbled. Had she any more real right to the property than the sharks who were trying to steal it from her? Who had any right to this abandoned field that for fifty years had been waiting for an absent heir to announce himself? Did it really belong to the Public? When he got thus far in his speculation, the judge always pulled himself up with a start. That wasn't his business. He was bound to administer the antiquated and curious system of laws concerning the bequest of property with a serious sense of their sacredness whether he felt it or not. They seemed to be an essential part of the crazy structure of society that must not be questioned, least of all by a probate judge! If men had devised these unreal rules and absurd regulations, probably there was some divine necessity for them beyond his human insight. Judge Orcutt never got farther than this point in his speculations. With a sigh he dropped the Clark case, and the next morning sent for the two women to appear in his court. It did not take him long this time to discover that they were singularly without good friends or advisers. They had no known relatives, no one who could be expected to take a friendly interest in their affairs and trusted to manage the business wisely. In earlier days Judge Orcutt would have tried to find, in such a case, some able and scrupulous young lawyer to perform the necessary function, somebody like himself who would have a chivalrous regard for the defenseless condition of the two women. Either that breed of lawyers had run out, or the judge was becoming less confiding. For latterly, since the introduction of trust companies, he had more than once put such cases in charge of these impersonal agents. Trust companies were specially designed to meet two pressing human wants,--permanence and honesty. They might not always be efficient, for they were under such strict legal supervision that they must always take the timid course, and they charged highly for their services. But they could not very well be dishonest, nor die! They would go on forever, at least as long as there was the institution of private property and an intricate code of laws to safeguard it. Thus the judge argued to himself again in considering the plight of these Clarks, and decided to use the Washington Trust Company of B----, whose officers he knew.... After explaining all this in simple terms to Mrs. Clark, he proposed to her that her niece's interest in the Clark estate should be placed in the hands of the trust company rather than hers, if they would accept such an involved guardianship as Adelle Clark's promised to be. "You know, my good woman," he said in conclusion, "you must be careful in this matter." (The judge's manner towards "ordinary people" was aristocratically condescending, and he considered the rooming-house keeper very ordinary.) "Of course, you understand that I--that this court--has no control whatever over your acts. You can if you like carry out your husband's intention and convey to these parties all your interest in his estate. But I cannot permit you to jeopardize the interests of this minor, who is a ward of my court, by conveying her share of the estate to them on any such terms as they propose." "I'm sure," Mrs. John Clark mumbled in an aggrieved tone, "I had no idea of doing any harm to the girl." "No, of course not, my good woman. But you don't understand. As I have told you, it looks as if there might be some money, considerable money, coming to you and to her from this land when the title is straightened out, and you don't want to do anything foolish now." "I s'pose not," Mrs. Clark assented, somewhat dubiously. The "good woman" had heard of this bonanza to come from Clark's Field when the title was made right for so many years that she was humanly anxious to touch a tangible profit at once. But she knew only too well that her husband was a poor business man and probably the judge was right in telling her not to sell the Field yet. The probate judge seemed to take a good deal of interest in them for a gentleman of his importance. So she listened respectfully to what he went on to say. "You can do whatever you like, as I said. But if you should decide to dispose of your husband's estate as he intended, your niece's representative might be forced to oppose you, which would add another bad complication to the legal troubles of Clark's Field, and necessarily defer the time when either of you could sell the land or derive an adequate return from it." He paused after this polite threat, to let the idea sink in. "I'm sure she and me don't want to fight," Mrs. Clark quickly replied with a touch of humor, and the first expression that the judge had seen upon the little girl's mute face appeared. A smile touched her lips, flickered and went out. She sat stiffly beside her aunt in the judge's great leather chair,--a pale, badly dressed little mouse of a girl, who did not seem to understand the conversation. "Well, then, I take it you will be guided in your actions about your estate by the advice of your niece's guardian, whom I shall appoint." He explained to them what a trust company was, and said that he hoped to get the Washington Trust Company to undertake the guardianship of the little girl. Then he dismissed them, appointing another meeting a week hence when they were to return for final settlement of the matter. So they left the judge's chambers. The girl neither dropped a curtesy, as the judge would have thought suitable, nor gave him another smile, nor even opened her lips. She faded out of his chambers after her black aunt like a pale winter shadow. The judge thought she showed a deplorable lack of breeding. He was conscious that he had probably saved a fortune for the girl by all the pains he was taking in this matter and felt that at least common politeness was his due. But one was never paid for these things except by a sense of duty generously performed. What was duty? And off the judge went into another thorny speculation that would have made Bright, Seagrove, and Bright laugh, and they were not inclined to laugh either at or with Judge Orcutt these days. For in the words of the junior member, this old maid of a probate judge had cut them out of the fattest little piece of graft the office had seen in a twelvemonth! If judges had been elective in the good old Commonwealth of M----, Judge Orcutt's chances of reelection would have been slim, for Bright, Seagrove, and Bright had strange underground connections with the politicians then governing the city. Perhaps the poet in the judge would have rejoiced at such a misadventure and profited thereby. As it was, whenever Bright, Seagrove, and Bright had business in the probate court, which was not often, they got other lawyers to represent them. Even "eminent counsel" shrink from appearing before a judge who knows their real character. _ |
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