Chapter XXII: The Grapes of Wrath

Thane Court, August third, eighteen-ninety-two. Now that a son is
born to me, Fielding Thaneford of King William county, Maryland, it
is fitting that I set down in order the form and measure of my
vengeance upon the traitor Yardley Hildebrand; also upon those who
may come after him until the end of time.

Back in 1854 I was a young man of nine-and-twenty. Yardley
Hildebrand was some twenty years my senior, yet we were close
friends owing to our common interest in scientific studies, he as a
chemist and I as a physicist, specializing in optics. Then Evelyn
Mansfield came and stood between us.

It was his wealth which turned the scale. Not that Evelyn was
mercenary, but financial disaster had overtaken the Mansfields, and
Yardley Hildebrand had promised to play the part of a ministering
angel in rehabilitating the family fortunes, the inexorable
condition being that Evelyn should favor his suit. And I was a
comparatively poor man.

They were married in 1855, she a slip of a girl of barely nineteen
years, and he a mature man of fifty. It is hardly necessary to say
that he kept none of his lavish promises. I cared nothing about
that, but when he began to mistreat his wife, to the extent of
using personal violence, my half-formed plans started to take
definite shape.

Evelyn died suddenly in the late summer of 1860, the same year that
Yardley Hildebrand succeeded his father in the ownership of the
"Hundred." As S. Saviour's was then undergoing repairs, the funeral
had to take place from the house. I stood by her coffin, set up in
state in the long ballroom; and, snatching a favorable opportunity,
I pushed back the loose sleeve of her gown, and saw with my own
eyes the blue and purple marks of his hands on her delicate flesh.
Whereupon, I made oath that both Yardley himself and his heirs
forever should pay in their own bodies for all that Evelyn had
suffered and endured. Perhaps I was a little mad then; it may be
that I am still of a disordered brain, and so not fully responsible
for the things which I have done in making up the tale of my
revenge. Whatever the legal aspects of the case, be sure of this: I
am neither sorry nor ashamed.

My opportunity quickly came. Yardley determined to go abroad; the
pretense was that he needed a change to divert his mind and blunt
the keen edge of his grief. But I managed to keep a straight face
when he mumbled out his excuses and explanations.

Yardley Hildebrand had it in mind to build an adequate library at
the "Hundred"; the villain had his cultivated tastes, and he wanted
something which should be unique of its kind. Since my regular
profession was that of an architect he naturally consulted me. I
sketched out my ideas, and they met with his approval; he offered
me the commission, and I accepted with alacrity. Then he sailed
away, leaving me to carry out the plans--those in my sketchbook and
some others that I had not taken the trouble to show him.

Modern physicists are just now beginning to talk about the
invisible heat and light rays composed of high frequency
vibrations. But long before Crooks gave the X-ray to the world I
had discovered and had succeeded in isolating what I choose to call
the Sigma ray. Some fine day it will be rediscovered, and the lucky
man will get a new lot of capital letters to tack onto his name;
and perhaps a ribbon for his buttonhole, and a pension from his
grateful government. I shall not care; the Sigma ray has repaid me
a thousandfold for the trouble I took to establish its existence;
as a lethal agent it stands without a peer, instantaneously
destructive to all forms of organic life.

Naturally, I do not propose to state the formula by means of which
I was enabled to construct a filter capable of segregating my
beloved Sigma ray _from ordinary sunlight_. Ah, that statement is
illuminating, is it not! Suffice it to say that my filter looks
like common glass. It may be moulded so as to resemble the familiar
bullseye lens; and, if desirable, it can be colored. Now do you
begin to appreciate the significance of the stained glass window on
the right of the great fireplace in the library of "Hildebrand
Hundred," the one depicting the Israelitish spies carrying their
clusters of purple grapes?

If you choose to make an interesting experiment, arrange for the
erection of a staging or an extension ladder outside the "Spy"
window, so as to bring your eye on a level with the third grape in
the upper row of the largest bunch. You will find that the line of
your view, through this particular bullseye, impinges upon the head
of any person who may chance to be sitting in the swivel-chair
before the big, teakwood desk. As the chair is immovably secured to
the floor by steel bolts passing through its mushroom base, it is
evident that the relationship of the chair and of that particular
bullseye will remain fixed; at any rate, one would have to go to
some trouble to disturb it.

But the mere haphazard introduction of the Sigma ray into the room
would not suit my purpose; my revenge would not be complete unless
I could see it in operation. And so it was necessary to arrange
some sort of clockwork mechanism to spring the trap. I confess to
being somewhat grandiose in my conceptions, and accordingly I
decided to press into my service no less an agency than the solar
system itself.

If you will go into the library of "Hildebrand Hundred" on any
month of the year outside of June you will see that the direct rays
of the sun never reach the upper part of the "Spy" window;
consequently, the Sigma ray is not brought into being. But, as the
summer solstice approaches, the sun continues to rise higher and
higher in the heavens until, in the three or four days around the
twenty-first of June, it has reached its ultimate altitude with
reference to the zenith. For the few minutes immediately before or
after high noon on any of the aforesaid days the sun is in such a
position that its beams will pass through the purple bullseye lens
that forms the third grape in the upper row of the largest
cluster. And in passing through it will become decomposed into the
Sigma ray, and will fall on the head of him who sits at the great
desk, exercising the authority of his lordship over "Hildebrand
Hundred."

This is all plain and straightforward, I think. It is unfortunately
true that any innocent person who chances to be occupying the seat
perilous at the fateful moment will have to bear the weight of the
vengeance intended for the guilty. But that risk is really remote,
since the great desk and chair are the natural appanage of the
Master of the "Hundred"; it will not be usual for anyone else to
trespass upon that prerogative. And what more natural procedure
than that the Master of the "Hundred," after a tour of his hay
fields on a hot June day, should go to the cool of his library and
finish up his office business at his desk?

True, there are other contingencies. The Master may come to the
room and yet choose to sit elsewhere. Or he may forestall the
hammer stroke of doom through the chance of rising from his chair
to select a book from a distant shelf; or, finding his match-safe
empty, he may go over to the chimney-breast on the hunt for a
vesta.

Or again, he may be away from home during the three or four days of
fate, or lying ill in an upstairs room. Finally, should the period
of danger be cloudy and overcast the sun may not shine at all, and
the whole business must go over for another year. But my patience
is very long; I have learned how to wait.

I need not go into the intricate calculations necessary to provide
for all the conditions of the problem. Fortunately for my purpose
the walls of the projected addition lay at a favorable angle for
the carrying out of my designs, and I had only to work out the
correct position for the windows and make the proper allowance for
the overhang of the roof cornice. The stained glass was made from
my own drawings, and I personally set the bullseye lens in its
appointed place. The work was finished in May, 1861, and I should
have liked to have made a test of my apparatus before Yardley's
return from abroad; if there had been any error in my calculations
and measurements it would be difficult, later on, to trump up an
excuse for making the necessary structural alteration. But, as it
turned out, I had made no mistakes.

However, Yardley forestalled my intentions by appearing at the
"Hundred" early in May. I bade him welcome, and showed him my
completed work. He was pleased and said so, frequently and warmly.
I could only smile in acknowledgment of his plaudits and fulsome
thanks.

June the twentieth of that same year I sat in my observation post
on Sugar Loaf. Through my high-powered telephoto lens I saw Yardley
come into the room and sit down at his desk. It was then ten
minutes of twelve o'clock. Five minutes later, what looked like a
streak of purple flame leaped through the semi-darkness of the
room, and Yardley Hildebrand toppled to the floor. The apparatus
had worked with meticulous exactness, and Evelyn Mansfield was
avenged--at least in part.

Since then I have watched two others of that black line of
Hildebrands go to their doom--Randall and Horace. Poor spirited
creatures, both of them, and hardly worthy to receive the accolade
of my splendid Sigma ray. Randall held his sovereignty for just a
year, but Horace had the devil's own luck. Cloudy days saved him,
together with one quite unforeseen contingency, an eclipse of the
sun on June 21, 1864. On June 20 and 21, 1865, there were heavy
rains, and I was furious. But the twenty-second was clear and fine,
and lo! he, too, was gathered to his fathers.

Finally, my dearly beloved brother-in-law, Richard, succeeded to
the family honors, and perils. That was in 1865 and for
seven-and-twenty years he has managed to evade the stroke through
the annoying accident that he prefers the summer climate of "Old
White." I intend to give him still further leeway now that my son
John, born July 16, 1892, to me and Richard's sister, Jocelyn, is
in the field. For Richard is a bachelor, and John Thaneford is the
natural heir to the estate. If Richard will listen to reason and
make due provision in his will, I am agreeable to allow him full
usufruct of the "Hundred" until my son arrives at his majority.
Otherwise he, in his turn, shall die like the dog he is, even as
the Hildebrands before him have died, alone and in silence, with
none to pity and none to save. The instrument of my vengeance is
very sure and very patient, and the passage of the years is as
nothing to me, sitting perdu in my secret seat on the cliff of
Sugar Loaf.

* * * * *

October 1, 1892. Richard is not inclined to listen to my proposal
to recognize John as his rightful heir; he even talks of leaving
the "Hundred" to his great-nephew on the distaff side, one Francis
Graeme.

Be it so; let him eat of the grapes of wrath, and let his teeth be
set on edge, even to the third and fourth generation of that
accursed race upon which my hate is poured out, now and for
evermore.

FIELDING THANEFORD.

June 20, 1918. Richard Hildebrand died to-day, and Francis Graeme
became Master of the "Hundred."

July 10, 1918. I have offered Francis Graeme his chance on the same
terms. He has accepted, and John Thaneford is to be nominated the
heir in his will of the residuary estate. But the Sigma ray stands
on guard until I am convinced that he intends to keep his plighted
word.

F. T.