The Quest of the Silver Fleece: A Novel Page 11

  _Ten_

  MR. TAYLOR CALLS

  "Thinking the matter over," said Harry Cresswell to his father, "I'minclined to advise drawing this Taylor out a little further."

  The Colonel puffed his cigar and one eye twinkled, the lid of the otherbeing at the moment suggestively lowered.

  "Was she pretty?" he asked; but his son ignored the remark, and thefather continued:

  "I had a telegram from Taylor this morning, after you left. He'll bepassing through Montgomery the first of next month, and proposescalling."

  "I'll wire him to come," said Harry, promptly.

  At this juncture the door opened and a young lady entered. HelenCresswell was twenty, small and pretty, with a slightly languid air.Outside herself there was little in which she took very great interest,and her interest in herself was not absorbing. Yet she had a curiouslysweet way. Her servants liked her and the tenants could count on herspasmodic attentions in time of sickness and trouble.

  "Good-morning," she said, with a soft drawl. She sauntered over to herfather, kissed him, and hung over the back of his chair.

  "Did you get that novel for me, Harry?"--expectantly regarding herbrother.

  "I forgot it, Sis. But I'll be going to town again soon."

  The young lady showed that she was annoyed.

  "By the bye, Sis, there's a young lady over at the Negro school whom Ithink you'd like."

  "Black or white?"

  "A young lady, I said. Don't be sarcastic."

  "I heard you. I did not know whether you were using our language orothers'."

  "She's really unusual, and seems to understand things. She's planning tocall some day--shall you be at home?"

  "Certainly not, Harry; you're crazy." And she strolled out to the porch,exchanged some remarks with a passing servant, and then nestledcomfortably into a hammock. She helped herself to a chocolate and calledout musically:

  "Pa, are you going to town today?"

  "Yes, honey."

  "Can I go?"

  "I'm going in an hour or so, and business at the bank will keep me untilafter lunch."

  "I don't care, I just must go. I'm clean out of anything to read. And Iwant to shop and call on Dolly's friend--she's going soon."

  "All right. Can you be ready by eleven?"

  She considered.

  "Yes--I reckon," she drawled, prettily swinging her foot and watchingthe tree-tops above the distant swamp.

  Harry Cresswell, left alone, rang the bell for the butler.

  "Still thinking of going, are you, Sam?" asked Cresswell, carelessly,when the servant appeared. He was a young, light-brown boy, his mannerobsequious.

  "Why, yes, sir--if you can spare me."

  "Spare you, you black rascal! You're going anyhow. Well, you'll repentit; the North is no place for niggers. See here, I want lunch for two atone o'clock." The directions that followed were explicit and given witha particularity that made Sam wonder. "Order my trap," he finallydirected.

  Cresswell went out on the high-pillared porch until the trap appeared.

  "Oh, Harry! I wanted to go in the trap--take me?" coaxed his sister.

  "Sorry, Sis, but I'm going the other way."

  "I don't believe it," said Miss Cresswell, easily, as she settled downto another chocolate. Cresswell did not take the trouble to reply.

  Miss Taylor was on her morning walk when she saw him spinning down theroad, and both expressed surprise and pleasure at the meeting.

  "What a delightful morning!" said the school-teacher, and the glow onher face said even more.

  "I'm driving round through the old plantation," he explained; "won't youjoin me?"

  "The invitation is tempting," she hesitated; "but I've got just oodlesof work."

  "What! on Saturday?"

  "Saturday is my really busy day, don't you know. I guess I could getoff; really, though, I suspect I ought to tell Miss Smith."

  He looked a little perplexed; but the direction in which herinclinations lay was quite clear to him.

  "It--it would be decidedly the proper thing," he murmured, "and wecould, of course, invite Miss--"

  She saw the difficulty and interrupted him:

  "It's quite unnecessary; she'll think I have simply gone for a longwalk." And soon they were speeding down the silent road, breathing theperfume of the pines.

  Now a ride of an early spring morning, in Alabama, over a leisurely oldplantation road and behind a spirited horse, is an event to be enjoyed.Add to this a man bred to be agreeable and outdoing his training, and apretty girl gay with new-found companionship--all this is apt to make amorning worth remembering.

  They turned off the highway and passed through long stretches ofploughed and tumbled fields, and other fields brown with the dead ghostsof past years' cotton standing straggling and weather-worn. Long,straight, or curling rows of ploughers passed by with steaming,struggling mules, with whips snapping and the yodle of workers or thesharp guttural growl of overseers as a constant accompaniment.

  "They're beginning to plough up the land for the cotton-crop," heexplained.

  "What a wonderful crop it is!" Mary had fallen pensive.

  "Yes, indeed--if only we could get decent returns for it."

  "Why, I thought it was a most valuable crop." She turned to himinquiringly.

  "It is--to Negroes and manufacturers, but not to planters."

  "But why don't the planters do something?"

  "What can be done with Negroes?" His tone was bitter. "We tried tocombine against manufacturers in the Farmers' League of last winter. Myfather was president. The pastime cost him fifty thousand dollars."

  Miss Taylor was perplexed, but eager. "You must correspond with mybrother, Mr. Cresswell," she gravely observed. "I'm sure he--" Beforeshe could finish, an overseer rode up. He began talking abruptly, with aquick side-glance at Mary, in which she might have caught a gleam ofsurprised curiosity.

  "That old nigger, Jim Sykes, over on the lower place, sir, ain't showedup again this morning."

  Cresswell nodded. "I'll drive by and see," he said carelessly.

  The old man was discovered sitting before his cabin with his head inhis hands. He was tall, black, and gaunt, partly bald, with tufted hair.One leg was swathed in rags, and his eyes, as he raised them, wore acowed and furtive look.

  "Well, Uncle Jim, why aren't you at work?" called Cresswell from theroadside. The old man rose painfully to his feet, swayed against thecabin, and clutched off his cap.

  "It's my leg again, Master Harry--the leg what I hurt in the gin lastfall," he answered, uneasily.

  Cresswell frowned. "It's probably whiskey," he assured his companion, inan undertone; then to the man:

  "You must get to the field to-morrow,"--his habitually calm, unfeelingpositiveness left no ground for objection; "I cannot support you inidleness, you know."

  "Yes, Master Harry," the other returned, with conciliatory eagerness; "Iknows that--I knows it and I ain't shirking. But, Master Harry, theyain't doing me right 'bout my cabin--I just wants to show you." He gotout some dirty papers, and started to hobble forward, wincing with pain.Mary Taylor stirred in her seat under an involuntary impulse to help,but Cresswell touched the horse.

  "All right, Uncle Jim," he said; "we'll look it over to-morrow."

  They turned presently to where they could see the Cresswell oaks wavinglazily in the sunlight and the white gleam of the pillared "Big House."

  A pause at the Cresswell store, where Mr. Cresswell entered, affordedMary Taylor an opportunity further to extend her fund of information.

  "Do you go to school?" she inquired of the black boy who held the horse,her mien sympathetic and interested.

  "No, ma'am," he mumbled.

  "What's your name?"

  "Buddy--I'se one of Aunt Rachel's chilluns."

  "And where do you live, Buddy?"

  "I lives with granny, on de upper place."

  "Well, I'll see Aunt Rachel and ask her to send you to school."

  "Won't d
o no good--she done ast, and Mr. Cresswell, he say he ain'tgoing to have no more of his niggers--"

  But Mr. Cresswell came out just then, and with him a big, fat, andgreasy black man, with little eyes and soft wheedling voice. He wasfollowing Cresswell at the side but just a little behind, hat in hand,head aslant, and talking deferentially. Cresswell strode carelessly on,answering him with good-natured tolerance.

  The black man stopped with humility before the trap and swept a profoundobeisance. Cresswell glanced up quizzically at Miss Taylor.

  "This," he announced, "is Jones, the Baptist preacher--begging."

  "Ah, lady,"--in mellow, unctuous tones--"I don't know what we poor blackfolks would do without Mr. Cresswell--the Lord bless him," said theminister, shoving his hand far down into his pocket.

  Shortly afterward they were approaching the Cresswell Mansion, when theyoung man reined in the horse.

  "If you wouldn't mind," he suggested, "I could introduce my sister toyou."

  "I should be delighted," answered Miss Taylor, readily.

  When they rolled up to the homestead under its famous oaks the hour waspast one. The house was a white oblong building of two stories. In frontwas the high pillared porch, semi-circular, extending to the roof with abalcony in the second story. On the right was a broad verandah lookingtoward a wide lawn, with the main road and the red swamp in thedistance.

  The butler met them, all obeisance.

  "Ask Miss Helen to come down," said Mr. Cresswell.

  Sam glanced at him.

  "Miss Helen will be dreadful sorry, but she and the Colonel have justgone to town--I believe her Aunty ain't well."

  Mr. Cresswell looked annoyed.

  "Well, well! that's too bad," he said. "But at any rate, have a seat amoment out here on the verandah, Miss Taylor. And, Sam, can't you findus a sandwich and something cool? I could not be so inhospitable as tosend you away hungry at this time of day."

  Miss Taylor sat down in a comfortable low chair facing the refreshingbreeze, and feasted her eyes on the scene. Oh, this was life: a smoothgreen lawn, and beds of flowers, a vista of brown fields, and the darkline of wood beyond. The deft, quiet butler brought out a little table,spread with the whitest of cloths and laid with the brightest of silver,and "found" a dainty lunch. There was a bit of fried chicken breast,some crisp bacon, browned potatoes, little round beaten biscuit, androse-colored sherbet with a whiff of wine in it. Miss Taylor wondered alittle at the bounty of Southern hospitality; but she was hungry, andshe ate heartily, then leaned back dreamily and listened to Mr.Cresswell's smooth Southern _r_'s, adding a word here and there thatkept the conversation going and brought a grave smile to his pale lips.At last with a sigh she arose to her feet.

  "I must go! What shall I tell Miss Smith! No, no--no carriage; I mustwalk." Of course, however, she could not refuse to let him go at leasthalf-way, ostensibly to tell her of the coming of her brother. Heexpressed again his disappointment at his sister's absence.

  Somewhat to Miss Taylor's surprise Miss Smith said nothing until theywere parting for the night, then she asked:

  "Was Miss Cresswell at home?"

  Mary reddened.

  "She had been called suddenly to town."

  "Well, my dear, I wouldn't do it again."

  The girl was angry.

  "I'm not a school-girl, but a grown woman, and capable of caring formyself. Moreover, in matter of propriety I do not think you have usuallyfound my ideas too lax--rather the opposite."

  "There, there, dear; don't be angry. Only I think if your brotherknew--"

  "He will know in a very few weeks; he is coming to visit theCresswells." And Miss Taylor sailed triumphantly up the stairs.

  But John Taylor was not the man to wait weeks when a purpose could beaccomplished in days or hours. No sooner was Harry Cresswell's telegramat hand than he hastened back from Savannah, struck across country, andthe week after his sister's ride found him striding up the carriage-wayof the Cresswell home.

  John Taylor had prospered since summer. The cotton manufacturers'combine was all but a fact; Mr. Easterly had discovered that his chiefclerk's sense and executive ability were invaluable, and John Taylor wasslated for a salary in five figures when things should be finallysettled, not to mention a generous slice of stock--watery at present,but warranted to ripen early.

  While Mr. Easterly still regarded Taylor's larger trust as chimerical,some occurrences of the fall made him take a respectful attitude towardit. Just as the final clauses of the combine agreement were to besigned, there appeared a shortage in the cotton-crop, and prices beganto soar. The cause was obviously the unexpected success of the newFarmers' League among the cotton-growers. Mr. Easterly found itcomparatively easy to overthrow the corner, but the flurry made some ofthe manufacturers timid, and the trust agreement was postponed until ayear later. This experience and the persistence of Mr. Taylor inducedMr. Easterly to take a step toward the larger project: he let in someeager outside capital to the safer manufacturing scheme, and withdrew acorresponding amount of Mrs. Grey's money. This he put into JohnTaylor's hands to invest in the South in bank stock and industries withthe idea of playing a part in the financial situation there.

  "It's a risk, Taylor, of course, and we'll let the old lady take therisk. At the worst it's safer than the damned foolishness she has inmind."

  So it happened that John Taylor went South to look after largeinvestments and, as Mr. Easterly expressed it, "to bring back facts,not dreams." His investment matters went quickly and well, and now heturned to his wider and bigger scheme. He wrote the Cresswellstentatively, expecting no reply, or an evasive one; planning to circlearound them, drawing his nets closer, and trying them again later. Tohis surprise they responded quickly.

  "Humph! Hard pressed," he decided, and hurried to them.

  So it was the week after Mary Taylor's ride that found him atCresswell's front door, thin, eagle-eyed, fairly well dressed andradiating confidence.

  "John Taylor," he announced to Sam, jerkily, thrusting out a card. "Wantto see Mr. Cresswell; soon as possible."

  Sam made him wait a half-hour, for the sake of discipline, and thenbrought father and son.

  "Good-morning, Mr. Cresswell, and Mr. Cresswell again," said Mr. Taylor,helping himself to a straight-backed chair. "Hope you'll pardon thisunexpected visit. Found myself called through Montgomery, just after Igot your wire; thought I'd better drop over."

  At Harry's suggestion they moved to the verandah and sat down overwhiskey and soda, which Taylor refused, and plunged into the subjectwithout preliminaries.

  "I'm assuming that you gentlemen are in the cotton business for makingmoney. So am I. I see a way in which you and your friends can help meand mine, and clear up more millions than all of us can spend; for thisreason I've hunted you up. This is my scheme.

  "See here; there are a thousand cotton-mills in this country, half ofthem in the South, one-fourth in New England, and one-fourth in theMiddle States. They are capitalized at six hundred million dollars. Nowlet me tell you: we control three hundred and fifty millions of thatcapitalization. The trust is going through capitalization at a billion.The only thing that threatens it is child-labor legislation in theSouth, the tariff, and the control of the supply of cotton. Pretty bighindrances, you say. That's so, but look here: we've got the stock soplaced that nothing short of a popular upheaval can send any Child Laborbill through Congress in six years. See? After that we don't care. Samething applies to the tariff. The last bill ran ten years. The presentbill will last longer, or I lose my guess--'specially if Smith is in theSenate.

  "Well, then, there remains raw cotton. The connection of cotton-raisingand its raw material is too close to risk a manufacturing trust thatdoes not include practical control of the raw material. For that reasonwe're planning a trust to include the raising and manufacturing ofcotton in America. Then, too, cornering the cotton market here means thewhip-hand of the industrial world. Gentlemen, it's the biggest idea ofthe century. It beats steel."
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  Colonel Cresswell chuckled.

  "How do you spell that?" he asked.

  But John Taylor was not to be diverted; his thin face was pale, but hisgray eyes burned with the fire of a zealot. Harry Cresswell only smileddimly and looked interested.

  "Now, again," continued John Taylor. "There are a million cotton farmsin the South, half run by colored people and half by whites. Leave thecolored out of account as long as they are disfranchised. The halfmillion white farms are owned or controlled by five thousand wholesalemerchants and three thousand big landowners, of whom you, ColonelCresswell, are among the biggest with your fifty thousand acres. Tenbanks control these eight thousand people--one of these is the JeffersonNational of Montgomery, of which you are a silent director."

  Colonel Cresswell started; this man evidently had inside information.Did he know of the mortgage, too?

  "Don't be alarmed. I'm safe," Taylor assured him. "Now, then, if we canget the banks, wholesale merchants, and biggest planters into line wecan control the cotton crop."

  "But," objected Harry Cresswell, "while the banks and the largemerchants may be possibilities, do you know what it means to try to getplanters into line?"

  "Yes, I do. And what I don't know you and your father do. ColonelCresswell is president of the Farmers' League. That's the reason I'mhere. Your success last year made you indispensable to our plans."

  "Our success?" laughed Colonel Cresswell, ruefully, thinking of thefifty thousand dollars lost and the mortgage to cover it.

  "Yes, sir--success! You didn't know it; we were too careful to allowthat; and I say frankly you wouldn't know it now if we weren't convincedyou were too far involved and the League too discouraged to repeat thedose."

  "Now, look here, sir," began Colonel Cresswell, flushing and drawinghimself erect.

  "There, there, Colonel Cresswell, don't misunderstand me. I'm a plainman. I'm playing a big game--a tremendous one. I need you, and I knowyou need me. I find out about you, and my sources of knowledge are wideand unerring. But the knowledge is safe, sir; it's buried. Last yearwhen you people curtailed cotton acreage and warehoused a big chunk ofthe crop you gave the mill men the scare of their lives. We had a hastyconference and the result was that the bottom fell out of your credit."

  Colonel Cresswell grew pale. There was a disquieting, relentless elementin this unimpassioned man's tone.

  "You failed," pursued John Taylor, "because you couldn't get the banksand the big merchants behind you. We've got 'em behind us--with bigchunks of stock and a signed iron-clad agreement. You can wheel theplanters into line--will you do it?" John Taylor bent forward tense butcool and steel-like. Harry Cresswell laid his hand on his father's armand said quietly:

  "And where do we come in?"

  "That's business," affirmed John Taylor. "You and two hundred and fiftyof the biggest planters come in on the ground-floor of thetwo-billion-dollar All-Cotton combine. It can easily mean two millionto you in five years."

  "And the other planters?"

  "They come in for high-priced cotton until we get our grip."

  "And then?"

  The quiet question seemed to invoke a vision for John Taylor; the grayeyes took on the faraway look of a seer; the thin, bloodless lips formeda smile in which there was nothing pleasant.

  "They keep their mouths shut or we squeeze 'em and buy the land. Wepropose to own the cotton belt of the South."

  Colonel Cresswell started indignantly from his seat.

  "Do you think--by God, sir!--that I'd betray Southern gentlemen to--"

  But Harry's hand and impassive manner restrained him; he cooled assuddenly as he had flared up.

  "Thank you very much, Mr. Taylor," he concluded; "we'll consider thismatter carefully. You'll spend the night, of course."

  "Can't possibly--must catch that next train back."

  "But we must talk further," the Colonel insisted. "And then, there'syour sister."

  "By Jove! Forgot all about Mary." John Taylor after a little desultorytalk, followed his host up-stairs.

  The next afternoon John Taylor was sitting beside Helen Cresswell on theporch which overlooked the terrace, and was, on the whole, thinking lessof cotton than he had for several years. To be sure, he was talkingcotton; but he was doing it mechanically and from long habit, and wasreally thinking how charming a girl Helen Cresswell was. She fascinatedhim. For his sister Taylor had a feeling of superiority that was almostcontempt. The idea of a woman trying to understand and argue aboutthings men knew! He admired the dashing and handsome Miss Easterly, butshe scared him and made him angrily awkward. This girl, on the otherhand, just lounged and listened with an amused smile, or asked the mostchild-like questions. She required him to wait on her quite as a matterof course--to adjust her pillows, hand her the bon-bons, and hunt forher lost fan. Mr. Taylor, who had not waited on anybody since his motherdied, and not much before, found a quite inexplicable pleasure in theselittle domesticities. Several times he took out his watch and frowned;yet he managed to stay with her quite happily.

  On her part Miss Cresswell was vastly amused. Her acquaintance with menwas not wide, but it was thorough so far as her own class was concerned.They were all well-dressed and leisurely, fairly good looking, and theysaid the same words and did the same things in the same way. They paidher compliments which she did not believe, and they did not expect herto believe. They were charmingly deferential in the matter of droppedhandkerchiefs, but tyrannical of opinion. They were thoughtful aboutcandy and flowers, but thoughtless about feelings and income. Altogetherthey were delightful, but cloying. This man was startlingly different;ungainly and always in a desperate, unaccountable hurry. He knew nopretty speeches, he certainly did not measure up to her standard ofbreeding, and yet somehow he was a gentleman. All this was new to HelenCresswell, and she liked it.

  Meanwhile the men above-stairs lingered in the Colonel's office--theolder one perturbed and sputtering, the younger insistent andimperturbable.

  "The fact is, father," he was saying, "as you yourself have said, onebad crop of cotton would almost ruin us."

  "But the prospects are good."

  "What are prospects in March? No, father, this is the situation--threegood crops in succession will wipe off our indebtedness and leave usfacing only low prices and a scarcity of niggers; on the other hand--"The father interrupted impatiently.

  "Yes, on the other hand, if we plunge deeper in debt and betray ourfriends we may come out millionaires or--paupers."

  "Precisely," said Harry Cresswell, calmly. "Now, our plan is to take nochances; I propose going North and looking into this matter thoroughly.If he represents money and has money, and if the trust has really gotthe grip he says it has, why, it's a case of crush or get crushed, andwe'll have to join them on their own terms. If he's bluffing, or thething looks weak, we'll wait."

  It all ended as matters usually did end, in Harry's having his way. Hecame downstairs, expecting, indeed, rather hoping, to find Taylorimpatiently striding to and fro, watch in hand; but here he was,ungainly, it might be, but quite docile, drawing the picture of apower-loom for Miss Cresswell, who seemed really interested. Harrysilently surveyed them from the door, and his face lighted with a newthought.

  Taylor, espying him, leapt to his feet and hauled out his watch.

  "Well--I--" he began lamely.

  "No, you weren't either," interrupted Harry, with a laugh that wasunmistakably cordial and friendly. "You had quite forgotten what youwere waiting for--isn't that so, Sis?"

  Helen regarded her brother through her veiling lashes: what meant thissudden assumption of warmth and amiability?

  "No, indeed; he was raging with impatience," she returned.

  "Why, Miss Cresswell, I--I--" John Taylor forsook social amenities andpulled himself together. "Well," shortly, "now for that talk--ready?"And quite forgetting Miss Cresswell, he bolted into the parlor.

  "The decision we have come to is this," said Harry Cresswell. "We are indebt, as you know."

 
; "Forty-nine thousand, seven hundred and forty-two dollars and twelvecents," responded Taylor; "in three notes, due in twelve, twenty-four,and thirty-six months, interest at eight per cent, held by--"

  The Colonel snorted his amazement, and Harry Cresswell cut in:

  "Yes," he calmly admitted; "and with good crops for three years we'd beall right; good crops even for two years would leave us fairly welloff."

  "You mean it would relieve you of the present stringency and put youface to face with the falling price of cotton and rising wages," wasJohn Taylor's dry addendum.

  "Rising price of cotton, you mean," Harry corrected.

  "Oh, temporarily," John Taylor admitted.

  "Precisely, and thus postpone the decision."

  "No, Mr. Cresswell. I'm offering to let you in on the groundfloor--_now_--not next year, or year after."

  "Mr. Taylor, have you any money in this?"

  "Everything I've got."

  "Well, the thing is this way: if you can prove to us that conditions areas you say, we're in for it."

  "Good! Meet me in New York, say--let's see, this is March tenth--well,May third."

  Young Cresswell was thinking rapidly. This man without doubt representedmoney. He was anxious for an alliance. Why? Was it all straight, or didthe whole move conceal a trick?

  His eyes strayed to the porch where his pretty sister sat languidly, andthen toward the school where the other sister lived. John Taylor lookedout on the porch, too. They glanced quickly at each other, and eachwondered if the other had shared his thought. Harry Cresswell did notvoice his mind for he was not wholly disposed to welcome what was there;but he could not refrain from saying in tones almost confidential:

  "You could recommend this deal, then, could you--to your own friends?"

  "To my own family," asserted John Taylor, looking at Harry Cresswellwith sudden interest. But Mr. Cresswell was staring at the end of hiscigar.