Chapter VII: "slade's Blessing"

To begin with, I was unfortunate in being born the son of an overseer. The generation that has come since the war recks little how pregnant this simple statement is. It bestowed upon me an ethic value somewhat lower than that possessed by the meanest nigger on Richard Fairchild's plantation. They had a place; I had none. Besides, my father was a rascal and a thief, possessing not a single leavening trait or characteristic; for he was without any refinement or culture, impenetrable to any noble sentiment--coarse and vulgar to the end. God! Could human effort come to aught in the face of such overwhelming odds? Yet, one helping hand, an occasional encouraging word from those who usurped position and authority, one sympathetic soul to spur my honorable aspirations, and I had been a better man. But, with one exception, that helping hand, the encouraging word, were withheld; the sympathetic spirit did not exist. God bless Elinor Clay, and reward her with a saint's crown of glory; may He everlastingly damn the rest! ...

Most vicious of all--proud, stiff-necked, sick in his self-esteem, overweening, and malicious--was Peyton Westbrook. From the first he stood in my path, thwarting and despising me, looking upon William Slade as something less than the dirt beneath his aristocratic feet. What was Peyton Westbrook that I was not? We were man and man. Had our positions been reversed, his would have been a wretched lot, indeed. Small of soul, narrow of mind, regardless of any interest that did not harmonize with his own, he would have remained the overseer's son, to live unhonored, and, dying, to pass into an oblivion merited by his worth; while I, William Slade, endowed with intellect and fine sensibilities, might have risen to greatness, the limits of which I hesitate to define. But no; he was born to the purple; it was given him to make such futile and petty uses of his father's fortune and position as his little mind and mediocre abilities could devise; while I, not lacking in all those naturally inherent qualities which made me in every way his superior--except the one of position--must stand in the background of obscurity and console myself as best I could for Life's cruel arbitrariness in the selection of her favorites....

Peyton Westbrook loved--nay, I cannot prostitute the word to such base use; he coveted Elinor Clay and her acres. I loved Elinor Clay. So did Richard Fairchild, poor creature that he was....

Peyton Westbrook's nature was so mean that he could applaud his conduct in turning from her to Louise Shepardson. The world marvelled at the time; but the truth, like all puzzles of simple solution, was never hit upon. Louise Shepardson, when the Judge, her father, died, became possessed of more acres than would ever come to Elinor Clay. Good, broad acres constituted the only bait to which so cold-blooded a fish as Westbrook would ever rise. Did gracious Elinor ever suspect this simple explanation? No; her gentle soul never could comprehend such infamy. She wedded Richard Fairchild, believing she had driven Peyton Westbrook from her--blaming her pure self for his heartless baseness. Were I to attempt a writing of the curse which rises to my lips when I think of this soulless, bowelless nature, its scorching fervor would dry the ink on my pen. "Slade's Blessing" it has been called! "Blessing," indeed! Heaven grant that it may land him in the midst of the torment whither it has consigned him again and again, and is at last made eternal by the ineffaceable record which preserves forever the prayers of dying men!

Did I aspire to Elinor Clay's hand? God help me, if I did! I was young and ambitious; I was full of the dreams of youth--the young blood pulsed hotly in my body; and this was sweet--the one incident in my miserable past that I can look back upon and feel a shadow of pleasure's glow mount to my withered cheek. Even now, soured as I am by adversity, that beautiful name stirs a warmth in my heart; and I can pity myself and her in tears, and not by curses for those who wronged us. So does it soften the heart of bitterness. My sentiment was a matter of repression, my adoration silent; Elinor was as far from me as the stars. Because I was son of an overseer I was lonely enough; besides, what had I to do with boys of my own age, their foolish sports and inane pastimes? We had nothing in common.

But Elinor Clay never spoke aught to me but gentle words; and in the end I came to set her up in the shrine of my thoughts as the object of an adoration which, could she but have had a glimpse of it, surely would have melted her tender heart to pity. To have lived for her; to have toiled and laid up year by year, that in the end she might alone benefit; to have done this with a singleness of purpose that never faltered--does this signify selfishness or meanness? Then I am the meanest and most selfish that ever encumbered the earth....

I realized in my love-madness that I must have patience; that I must toil and labor unceasingly to attain to the place merited by my talents and intellect; for naturally I was superior to them all, being possessed of mental gifts of no mean order. I knew that with the advantages I could acquire I could rise above them; then I could take what to ask for then would have brought forth only derision and mockery. But here again the world was against me; I was only the overseer's son. But they feared me, and every hand was extended to keep me down....

Although my father was a rascal, he was a far-seeing one. Long before war's dire besom swept our fair land, he had a sure knowledge of the outcome, and with commendable enterprise laid his plans accordingly. He had put by a little money, and, as opportunity offered (and such opportunities were by no means lacking), he would lend a bit here and a bit there to the planters about our neighborhood, that they might be able to stem the rising tide of misfortune. Richard Fairchild was a poor weakling, and my father kept him from going under. There are those who may term it ingratitude to speak thus of my "benefactor." Bah! Benefactor! Fool! I pen the epithet in scorn and contempt. I can select no better evidence to support my opinion of him than that he should have opened wide the fast-emptying Fairchild purse, to take thence the gold that was exchanged for my education. The act was prompted by no spirit of kindness, but was animated by the same foolish vanity and love of ostentation that marked the wasting of all his substance. How carefully I could have husbanded it! Even at this late day the thought of the small fortune that he wasted upon his niggers alone makes me quiver with indignation. No; such learning as I have was come by through sore labor. His mean gift was thrown to me as a bone is tossed to a vagrant cur.

But no mortal could have saved that man. My father's error lay in taking payment twice, and somewhat over, for the money he had lent him. The highest tribute I can pay to Richard Fairchild's astuteness is that he never suspected this, although, during a period covering many years, he made many payments to my father, and probably had continued doing so had not every resource become exhausted.

My father used to say, in his vulgar way: "I fit for my country against the greasers,"--meaning thereby the Mexicans,--"and while I am too old to fight now, I may save some of these broad acres. But old association cannot be ignored; so long as my poor neighbors have a chance of keeping up their brave show, my small means are at their service. If they go down--well, I shall not." And not to place upon them any sense of obligation to an overseer, they never knew whence the money came. I might observe that, had they known, they would not have touched a penny of it. But thus my father went about his charitable work, with his tongue in his cheek, and one eye knowingly closed.

Also, I may say here that my father was a conscienceless liar. He never fought anything but occasional virtuous impulses, the same being ever put to an inglorious rout; for during the Mexican War he was nothing more nor less than a sutler, although there is much to be commended in providing nourishment, raiment, and refreshment to those who are battling for their country's honor. But he prospered, and in Mexico became connected with a certain young hidalgo of Spain who had moneys to invest. Why this partnership was severed I can only conjecture. My father was wont to accuse him of ingratitude, saying that Don Juan del Castillo was an ungrateful creature, who turned upon those that befriended him; but at the same time my parent would loudly forgive him for certain dim and unspecified wrongs, the which, I shrewdly suspect, were of my father's doing rather than the Spanish gentleman's. However that may be, it was largely the latter's money that went to Richard Fairchild as a loan for such of his acres as remained unincumbered. My father could well be the agent of Don Juan in these transactions, even though the gentry would not tolerate him as a principal. My father was a shrewd rascal.

As I have already stated, the money advanced to Richard Fairchild was repaid more than twice over. (A schedule will be found in the envelope with my will.) Hence, I have been no more than a trustee--a faithful one--of Richard Fairchild's property. Take it, Clay and Charlotte; I ask nothing for my lifetime of toil and care, because I know it will not be granted me. It is yours, freely and joyously bestowed. I have added to it many fold; but that is of no moment. I seek no credit for this generous impulse. I could not have the desire of my heart: Elinor has gone from me for ever. I want nothing else. Heaven give you happiness in the property that I, William Slade, the overseer's despised son, have laid up for you....

Only one single time did fate, or Providence, favor me, and then only to turn in the end and discomfit me. But for Elinor's sake, I may not tell all thereof.

On a night shortly after the Mexican man was overtaken by a most righteous wrath in the Nettleton Building, certain evidences that Peyton Westbrook had for once gone a step too far in his villany came to my hands. I gave thanks to God that I should have been the one chosen as the humble instrument of that man's undoing. The testimony was irrefragable--as we lawyers say, conclusive--and I held him in the hollow of my hand. Here, my lifelong affection led me into error of judgment--something that I am not often guilty of; my tenderness of heart blinded me to my hatred of this man, and instead of stripping him of his smug and gaudy trappings of virtue, and showing him up to be the scoundrel he was, I ended by allowing that evidence to be taken from me--I standing by complaisant--and the opportunity to unmask him to be destroyed. So did gentle Elinor reward him for his base heartlessness of other days! What is the use for me to say that Peyton Westbrook was a scoundrel, if I cannot prove it? Although it is the bare truth, I will refrain from telling it. Besides, sweet Elinor has begged me not to....

For a time I thought of that snip of a girl who bears the Westbrook name with about as much dignity as really invests it--

But enough of her. I was wrong, and I bear her no ill will for being a witless butterfly. Butterflies, I dare say, have their uses in the vast scheme of creation.

To return to my error of judgment. When I had satiated my senses by gloating over this evidence, I was possessed of an idea. Never had I breathed a word to any living soul of my love for Elinor Clay; it was a secret locked safely in the treasure-house of my heart; and now I could overwhelm her with gratitude. I would go to her--now that her foolish girl sentiment for the bowelless Westbrook had long been dead--and at once show her what a hypocrite he was, how basely he had treated her, and then present the immense contrast offered by my lifelong devotion and generosity. Could any mortal--especially a woman--resist such an appeal? I pride myself on my knowledge of the sex; to the intelligent, observant mind they are as open books; and I unhesitatingly answer, No. But alas for human frailty! When I appeared to my beloved Elinor, I had not taken into account her years of enervating illness; I failed to consider that she was not the woman she had been; but I did not hesitate--to me she would ever remain unchanged.

When she comprehended the tenor of my errand, the shock was too much for her gentle nature; she was quite overcome and rendered irresponsible, and all unconsciously she reviled me,--she who had ever been all gentleness and tenderness,--and treated me with a harshness that was very, very painful. What could I do but deliver my testimony over to her? How could I refrain, when her delirium or hallucination was so great that it actually led her to defending Peyton Westbrook! to calling him by many endearing names! And presently, her daughter--who, I make no doubt, had been listening at the door--entered, and I thoughtfully and considerately desisted in my importunities for the testimony's return (for my beloved Elinor had it at the moment); and I decided to leave her until a more propitious time. Alas! that time was destined never to come.

But enough. I reap from my trust no material benefit. The envious call my conduct Miserliness; I spell it differently; Fidelity.

Charlotte, Clay, dear children of my beloved Elinor, take what is yours. I ask for no meed of thanks. My reward is the consciousness of a duty well accomplished, of a trust faithfully guarded. But never forget that William Slade, son of an overseer, despised and spurned by an unfeeling and heartless world, ever had your interests near to his heart. If the reader in his soul does not say that my unselfishness is sublime, then are you inhuman, cold, and bloodless; for I end my trust with the firm conviction that the _cestuis que trust_ are in no wise worthy or deserving of this magnificent gift of fortune.