The Governors - E. Phillips Oppenheim
THE GOVERNORS
By
E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM
Author of "A Maker of History," "The Long Arm of
Mannister," "The Missioner," etc.
1909
ILLUSTRATED
BY WILL GREFE AND HOWARD SOMERVILLE
CONTENTS
BOOK I.
CHAPTER
I. MR. PHINEAS DUGE
II. COUSIN STELLA
III. STORM CLOUDS
IV. A MEETING OF GIANTS
V. TREACHERY
VI. MR. WEISS IN A HURRY
VII. A PROFESSIONAL BURGLAR
VIII. FIREARMS
IX. CONSPIRATORS
X. MR. NORRIS VINE
XI. MR. LITTLESON, FLATTERER
XII. STELLA SUCCEEDS
XIII. BEARDING THE LION
XIV. STELLA PROVES OBSTINATE
XV. THE WARNING
XVI. A TRUCE
BOOK II.
I. MY NAME IS MILDMAY
II. REFLECTIONS
III. "WILL YOU MARRY ME?"
IV. THE AMERICAN AMBASSADOR
V. A QUESTION OF COURAGE
VI. MR. MILDMAY AGAIN
VII. AN APPOINTMENT
VIII. DEFEATED
IX. INGRATITUDE
X. A NEW VENTURE
XI. CONSCIENCE
XII. DUKE OF MOWBRAY
XIII. AN INTRODUCTION
XIV. ANOTHER DISAPPEARANCE
XV. MR. DUGE THREATENS
XVI. TRAPPED
XVII. MR. DUGE FAILS
XVIII. ADVICE FOR MR. VINE
XIX. THE CRISIS
XX. BEWITCHED
XXI. A LESSON LEARNED
XXII. A SURPRISE
XXIII. A DINNER PARTY
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VIRGINIA
"AS I DARESAY YOU KNOW, I AM NOT ON SPEAKING TERMS WITH MY FATHER!"
ONE OF THE BLOCKS SPRANG UP A LITTLE WAY AND WAS EASILY REMOVED
A BULLET WHISTLED ONLY A FEW INCHES FROM HIS HEAD
PHINEAS DUGE DROPPED HIS CIGARETTE, AND FELL ON HIS KNEES BY HER SIDE
"FOR GOD'S SAKE, TELL ME WHO HAS IT, MISS DUGE!" HE IMPLORED
"ISN'T IT THE BUSINESS OF ANY MAN TO LOOK AFTER A CHILD LIKE YOU?"
VIRGINIA, WITH A LITTLE MURMUR OF DELIGHT, RECOGNIZED MR. MILDMAY
STANDING BEFORE HER
SIMULTANEOUSLY SHE HEARD A STEALTHY MOVEMENT OUTSIDE
THEN HE CAME SLOWLY BACK, AND PUTTING HIS ARM AROUND VIRGINIA'S WAIST,
KISSED HER
SHE THOUGHT NOTHING OF THE MOTIVE OF HER COMING, ONLY TO PLACE THE DOOR
BETWEEN HER AND THIS!
HE HAD AN OPPORTUNITY OF WATCHING A SEARCH CONDUCTED UPON SCIENTIFIC
PRINCIPLES
THEN IN THE MIDST OF HER WONDERING CAME THE ELUCIDATION OF THESE THINGS
HE WAS ONLY JUST IN TIME TO SAVE HER FROM FALLING
THE GOVERNORS
BOOK I
CHAPTER I
MR. PHINEAS DUGE
Virginia, when she had torn herself away from the bosom of her sorrowing
but excited family, and boarded the car which passed only once a day
through the tiny village in Massachusetts, where all her life had been
spent, had felt herself, notwithstanding her nineteen years, a person of
consequence and dignity. Virginia, when four hours later she followed a
tall footman in wonderful livery through a stately suite of reception
rooms in one of the finest of Fifth Avenue mansions, felt herself
suddenly a very insignificant person. The roar and bustle of New York
were still in her ears. Bewildered as she had been by this first contact
with all the distracting influences of a great city, she was even more
distraught by the wonder and magnificence of these, her more immediate
surroundings. She, who had lived all her life in a simple farmhouse,
where every one worked, and a single servant was regarded as a luxury,
found herself suddenly in the palace of a millionaire, a palace made
perfect by the despoilment of more than one of the most ancient homes
in Europe.
Very timidly, and with awed glances, she looked around her as she was
conducted in leisurely manner to the sanctum of the great man at whose
bidding she had come. The pictures on the walls, magnificent and
impressive even to her ignorant eyes; the hardwood floors, the wonderful
furniture, the statuary and flowers, the smooth-tongued servants--all
these things were an absolute revelation to her. She had read of such
things, even perhaps dreamed of them, but she had never imagined it
possible that she herself might be brought into actual contact
with them.
At every step she took she felt her self-confidence decreasing; her
clothes, made by the village dressmaker from an undoubted French model,
with which she had been more than satisfied only a few hours ago, seemed
suddenly dowdy and ill-fashioned. She was even doubtful about her
looks, although quite half a dozen of the nicest young men in her
neighbourhood had been doing their best to make her vain since the day
when she had left college, an unusually early graduate, and returned to
her father's tiny home to become the acknowledged belle of the
neighbourhood. Here, though, she felt her looks of small avail; she
might reign as a queen in Wellham Springs, but she felt herself a very
insignificant person in the home of her uncle, the great railway
millionaire and financier, Mr. Phineas Duge. Her courage had almost
evaporated when at last, after a very careful knock at the door, an
English footman ushered her into the small and jealously guarded sanctum
in which the great man was sitting. She passed only a few steps across
the threshold, and stood there, a timid, hesitating figure, her dark
eyes very anxiously searching the features of the man who had risen from
his seat to greet her.
"So this is my niece Virginia," he said, holding out both his hands. "I
am glad to see you. Take this chair close to me. I am getting an old
man, you see, and I have many whims. I like to have any one with whom I
am talking almost at my elbow. Now tell me, my dear, what sort of a
journey you have had. You look a little tired, or is it because
everything here is strange to you?"
All her fears seemed to be melting away. Never could she have imagined a
more harmless-looking, benevolent, and handsome old gentleman. He was
thin and of only moderate stature. His white hair, of which he still had
plenty, was parted in the middle and brushed away in little waves. He
was clean-shaven, and his grey eyes were at once soft and humorous. He
had a delicate mouth, refined features, and his slow, distinct speech
was pleasant, almost soothing to listen to. She felt suddenly an immense
wave of relief, and she realized perhaps for the first time how much she
had dreaded this meeting.
"I am not really tired at all," she assured him, "only you see I have
never been in a big city, and it is very noisy here, isn't it? Besides,
I have never seen anything so beautiful as this house. I think it
frightened me a little."
He laid his hand upon hers kindly.
"I imagine," he said, smiling, "that you will very soon get used to
this. You will have the opportunity, if you choose."
She laughed softly.
"If I choose!" she repeated. "Why, it is all like fairyland to me."
He nodded.
"You come," he said, "from a very quiet life. You will find things here
different. Do you know what these are?"
He touched a little row of black instruments which stood on the top of
his desk. She shook her head doubtfully.
"I am not quite sure," she admitted.
"They are telephones," he said. "This one"--touching the first--"is a
private wire to my offices in Wall Street. This one"--laying a finger
upon the second--"is a private wire to the bank of which I am president.
These two," he continued, "are connected with the two brokers whom I
employ. The other three are ordinary telephones--two for long distance
calls and one for the city. When you came in I touched this knob on the
floor beneath my foot. All the telephones were at once disconnected here
and connected with my secretaries' room. I can sit here at this table
and shake the money-markets of the world. I can send stocks up or down
at my will. I can ruin if I like, or I can enrich. It is the fashion
nowadays to speak lightly of the mere man of money, yet there is no king
on his throne who can shake the world as can we kings of the
money-market by the lifting even of a finger."
"Are you a millionaire?" she asked timidly. "But, of course, you must
be, or you could not live in a house like this."
He laid his hand gently upon hers.
"Yes," he said, "I am a millionaire a good many times over, or I should
not be of much account in New York. But there, I have told you enough
about myself. I sent for you, as you know, because there are times when
I feel a little lonely, and I thought that if my sister could spare one
of her children, it would be a kindly act, and one which I might perhaps
be able to repay. Do you think that you would like to live here with
me, Virginia, and be mistress of this house?"
She shrank a little away. The prospect was not without its terrifying
side.
"Why, I should love it," she declared, "but I simply shouldn't dare to
think of it. You don't understand, I am afraid, the way we live down at
Wellham Springs. We have really no servants, and we do everything
ourselves. I couldn't attempt to manage a house like this."
He smiled at her kindly.
"Perhaps," he said, "you would find it less difficult than you think.
There is a housekeeper already, who sees to all the practical part of
it. She only needs to have some one to whom she can refer now and then.
You would have nothing whatever to do with the managing of the servants,
the commissariat, or anything of that sort. Yours would be purely
social duties."
"I am afraid," she answered, "that I should know even less about them."
"Well," he said, "I have some good friends who will give you hints. You
will find it very much easier than you imagine. You have only to be
natural, acquire the art of listening, and wear pretty gowns, and you
will find it a simple matter to become quite a popular person."
She nerved herself to ask him a question. He looked so kind and
good-natured that it did not seem possible that he would resent it.
"Uncle," she said, "of course I am very glad to be here, and it all
sounds very delightful. But what about--Stella?"
He leaned back in his chair. There was a pained look in his face. She
was almost sorry that she had mentioned his daughter's name.
"Perhaps," he said, "it is as well that you should have asked me that
question. I have always been an indulgent father, as I think you will
find me an indulgent uncle. But there are certain things, certain
offences I might say, for which I have no forgiveness. Stella deceived
me. She made use of information, secret information which she acquired
in this room, to benefit some man in whom she was interested. She used
my secrets to enrich this person. She did this after I had warned her. I
never warn twice."
"You mean that you sent her away?" she asked timidly.
"I mean that my doors are closed to her," he answered gravely, "as they
would be closed upon you if you behaved as Stella has behaved. But, my
dear child," he added, smiling kindly at her, "I do not expect this from
you. I feel sure that what I have said will be sufficient. If you will
stay with me a little time, and take my daughter's place, I think you
will not find me very stern or very ungrateful. Now I am going to ring
for Mrs. Perrin, my housekeeper, and she will show you your room.
To-night you and I are going to dine quite alone, and we can talk again
then. By the by, do you really mean that you have never been to New
York before?"
"Never!" she answered. "I have been to Boston twice, never anywhere
else."
He smiled.
"Well," he said, "the sooner you are introduced to some of its wonders,
the better. We will dine out to-night, and I will take you to one of the
famous restaurants. It will suit me better to be somewhere out of the
way for an hour or two this evening. There is a panic in Chicago and
Illinois--but there, you wouldn't understand that. Be ready at
8 o'clock."
"But uncle--" she began.
He waved his hand.
"I know what you are going to say--clothes. You will find some evening
dresses in your room. I have had a collection of things sent round on
approval, and you will probably be able to find one you can wear. Ah!
here is Mrs. Perrin."
The door had opened, and a middle-aged lady in a stiff black silk gown
had entered the room.
"Mrs. Perrin," he said, "this is my niece. She comes from the country.
She knows nothing. Tell her everything that she ought to know. Help her
with her clothes, and turn her out as well as you can to dine with me at
Sherry's at eight o'clock."
A bell rang at his elbow, and one of the telephones began to tinkle. He
picked up the receiver and waved them out of the room. Virginia
followed her guide upstairs, feeling more and more with every step she
took that she was indeed a wanderer in some new and enchanted land of
the _Arabian Nights_.
CHAPTER II
COUSIN STELLA
"Well," he said, smiling kindly at her over the bank of flowers which
occupied the centre of the small round table at which they were dining,
"what do you think of it all?"
Virginia shook her head.
"I cannot tell you," she said. "I haven't any words left. It is all so
wonderful. You have never been to our home at Wellham Springs, or else
you would understand."
He smiled.
"I think I can understand," he said, "what it is like. I, too, you know,
was brought up at a farmhouse."
Her eyes smiled at him across the table.
"You should see my room," she said, "at home. It is just about as large
as the cupboard in which I am supposed to keep my dresses here."
"I hope," he said, "that you will like where Mrs. Perrin has put you."
"Like!" she gasped. "I don't believe that I could have ever imagined
anything like it. Do you know that I have a big bathroom of my own, with
a marble floor, and a sitting-room so beautiful that I am afraid almost
to look into it. I don't believe I'll ever be able to go to bed."
"In a week," he said indulgently, "you will become quite used to these
things. In a month you would miss them terribly if you had to give
them up."
Her face was suddenly grave. He looked across at her keenly.
"What are you thinking of?" he asked.
"I was thinking," she answered, after a moment's hesitation, "of Stella.
I was wondering what it must be to her to have to give up all these
beautiful things."
His expression hardened a little. The smile had passed from his lips.
"You never knew your cousin, I think?" he asked.
"Never," she admitted.
"Then I do not think," he said, "that you need waste your sympathy upon
her. Tell me, do you see that young lady in a mauve-coloured dress and a
large hat, sitting three tables to the left of us?"
She looked across and nodded.
"Of course I do," she answered. "How handsome she is, and what a
strange-looking man she has with her! He looks very clever."
Her uncle smiled once more, but his face lacked its benevolent
expression.
"The man is clever," he answered. "His name is Norris Vine, and he is a
journalist, part owner of a newspaper, I believe. He is one of those
foolish persons who imagine themselves altruists, and who are always
trying to force their opinions upon other people. The young lady with
him--is my daughter and your cousin."
Virginia's great eyes were opened wider than ever. Her lips parted,
showing her wonderful teeth. The pink colour stained her cheeks.
"Do you mean that that is Stella?" she exclaimed.
Her uncle nodded, and paused for a moment to give an order to a passing
_maitre d'hotel_.
"Yes!" he resumed, "that is Stella, and that is the man for whose sake
she robbed me."
Virginia was still full of wonder.
"But you did not speak to her when she came in!" she said. "You nodded
to the man, but took no notice of her!"
"I do not expect," he said quietly, "ever to speak to her again. I have
been a kind father; I think that on the whole I am a good-natured man,
but there are things which I do not forgive, and which I should forgive
my own flesh and blood less even than I should a stranger."
The colour faded from her cheeks.
"It seems terrible," she murmured.
"As for the man," he continued, "he is my enemy, although it is only a
matter of occasional chances which can make him in any way formidable.
We speak because we are enemies. When you have had a little more
experience, you will find that that is how the game is played here."
She was silent for several minutes. Her uncle turned his head, and
immediately two _maitres d'hotel_ and several waiters came rushing up.
He gave a trivial order and dismissed them. Then he looked across at his
niece, whose appetite seemed suddenly to have failed her.
"Tell me," he said, "what is the matter with you, Virginia?"
"I am a little afraid of you," she answered frankly. "I should be a
little afraid of any one who could talk like that about his own child."
He smiled softly.
"You have the quality," he said, "which I admire most in your sex, and
find most seldom. You are candid. You come from a little world where
sentiment almost governs life. It is not so here. I am a kind man, I
believe, but I am also just. My daughter deceived me, and for deceit I
have no forgiveness. Do you still think me cruel, Virginia?"
"I am wondering," she answered frankly. "You see, I have read about you
in the papers, and I was terribly frightened when mother told me that I
was to come. Directly I saw you, you seemed quite a different person,
and now again I am afraid."
"Ah!" he sighed, "that terrible Press of ours! They told you, I suppose,
that I was hard, unscrupulous, unforgiving, a money-making machine, and
all the rest of it. Do you think that I look like that, Virginia?"
"I am very sure that you do not," she answered.
"You will know me better, I hope, in a year or so's time," he said. "If
you wish to please me, there are two things which you have to remember,
and which I expect from you. One is absolute, implicit obedience, the
other is absolute, unvarying truth. You will never, I think, have cause
to complain of me, if you remember those two things."
"I will try," she murmured.
Her thoughts suddenly flitted back to the poor little home from which
she had come with such high hopes. She thought of the excitement which
had followed the coming of her uncle's letter; the hopes that her
harassed, overworked father had built upon it; the sudden, almost
trembling joy which had come into her mother's thin, faded face. Her
first taste of luxury suddenly brought before her eyes, stripped bare
of everything except its pitiful cruelty, that ceaseless struggle for
life in which it seemed to her that all of them had been engaged, year
after year. She shivered a little as she thought of them, shivered for
fear she should fail now that the chance had come of some day being able
to help them. Absolute obedience, absolute truth! If these two things
were all, she could hold on, she was sure of it.
A messenger boy was brought in, and delivered a letter to her uncle. He
read and destroyed it at once.
"There is no answer," he said.
The messenger protested.
"I am to wait, sir, until you give me one," he said. "The gentleman said
it was most important. I was to find you anywhere, anyhow, and get an
answer of some sort."
"How much," Mr. Phineas Duge asked, "were you to receive if you took
back an answer?"
"The gentleman promised me a dollar, sir," the boy answered.
Mr. Duge put his hand into his pocket.
"Here are two dollars," he said. "Go away at once. There is no answer.
There will not be one. You can tell Mr. Hamilton that I said so."
The boy departed. Her uncle looked across at Virginia and smiled.
"That is how we have to buy immunity from small annoyances here," he
said. "All the time it is the same thing--dollars, dollars, dollars!
That messenger boy was clever to get in. When we leave this restaurant,
you will find that there are at least half a dozen people waiting to
speak to me. It will be telephoned to several places in the city that I
am dining here to-night. From where I am sitting, I can see two
reporters standing by the entrance. They are waiting for me."
She looked at him with interested eyes.
"But why?" she asked timidly.
"Oh! it is simply a matter," he said, "of the money-markets. I have been
doing some things during the last few days which people don't quite
understand. They don't know whether to follow me or stand away, and the
Press doesn't know how to explain my actions; so you see I am watched.
You heard what I said," he asked, somewhat abruptly, "about those two
things, obedience and truth?"
"Yes!" she answered.
"They say," he resumed, "that a wise man trusts no one. I, on the other
hand, do not believe this. There are times when one must trust. Your
mother and your father were both as honest as people could be, whatever
their other faults may have been. I like your face. I believe that you,
too, are honest."
"Remember," she said, smiling, "that I have never been tempted."
"There could be no bidders for your faithfulness," he answered, "whom I
could not outbid. I am going to trust you, Virginia. There are sometimes
occasions when I do things, or am concerned in matters, which not even
my secretaries have any idea of. You only, in the future, will know. I
think, dear, that we shall get on very well together. I am not going to
offer you a great deal of money, because you would not know what to do
with it, but so long as you remain with me, and serve me in the way that
I direct, I am going to do what I feel I ought to have done long ago for
your people down at Wellham Springs."
Her face shone, and her beautiful eyes were more brilliant still with
unshed tears.
"Uncle!" she murmured breathlessly.
He nodded.
"That will do," he said. "I only wanted you to understand. For the next
week or two, all that you have to do is to get used to your position.
The small services which I shall require of you will commence later on.
Now try some of that ice. It has been prepared specially. How do you
like our New York cooking?"
"It is all too marvellous," she declared.
Then there came a sudden interruption. She heard the rustle of a gown
close to their table, and looking up found to her amazement that it was
Stella who was standing there.
"So you are my cousin!" Stella said, "little Virginia! I only saw you
once before, but I should have known you anywhere by your eyes. No! of
course you don't remember me! You see I am six years older. I mustn't
stop, because, as I dare say you know, I am not on speaking terms with
my father, but I felt that I must just shake hands with you, and tell
you that I remembered you."
"You are very kind," Virginia faltered.
Her uncle had risen to his feet, and was standing in an attitude of
polite inattention, as though some perfect stranger had addressed the
lady who was under his care. He appeared quite indifferent; in his
daughter's voice there had not been the slightest trace of any
sentiment. A careless word or two passed between him and the man Norris
Vine, who was waiting for Stella. Then they passed out together, and
Phineas Duge calmly resumed his chair. Virginia, who had expected to
find him angry, was herself amazed.
"By the by," Mr. Duge said, as he lit a cigarette, "always remember what
I told you about that man. Be especially on your guard if ever you are
brought into contact with him. I happen to know that he registered a
vow, a year ago, that before five years were past he would ruin me."
"I will remember," Virginia faltered.
CHAPTER III
STORM CLOUDS
Mr. Phineas Duge, since the death of his wife, had closed his doors to
all his friends, and entertained only on rare occasions a few of the men
with whom he was connected in his many business enterprises. On the
arrival of Virginia, however, he lifted his finger, and Society stormed
at his doors. The great reception rooms were thrown open, the servants
were provided with new liveries, an entertainment office was given carte
blanche to engage the usual run of foreign singers and the best known
mountebanks of the moment. Mrs. Trevor Harrison, the woman whom he had
selected as chaperon for Virginia, more than once displayed some
curiosity, when talking to her charge, as to this sudden change in the
habits of a man whose lack of sociability had become almost proverbial.
"If it were not, my dear," she said one day to Virginia, when they were
having tea together in her own more modest apartment, "that I firmly
believe your uncle incapable of any affection for any one, we should all
have to believe that he had lost his heart to you."
Virginia, who had heard other remarks of the same nature, looked
puzzled.
"I cannot see," she exclaimed, "why every one speaks of my uncle as a
heartless person. I do not think that I ever met any one more kind, and
he looks it, too. I do not think that I ever saw any one with such a
benevolent face."
Mrs. Trevor Harrison laughed softly as she rocked herself in her chair.
"Dear child," she said, "New York has known your uncle for twenty-five
years, and suffered for him. These men who make great fortunes must make
them at the expense of other people, and there are very many who have
gone down to make Phineas Duge what he is."
"I cannot understand it," Virginia said.
"Your uncle," Mrs. Trevor Harrison continued, "has a will of iron, is
absolutely self-centered; sentiment has never swayed him in the least.
He has climbed up on the bodies of weaker men. But there, in America we
blame no one for that. It is the strong man who lives, and the others
must die. Only I cannot quite understand this new development. I have
never known your uncle to do a purposeless thing."