Matthew Brent

Front matter

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Chapter I

S IMON Brent sat alone in his private office intently studying the three-column picture of a girl’s face on the front page of his morning paper.

This might not have been considered an unusual occu¬ pation for the ordinary man, as girls’ pictures have al¬ ways been an attraction, and the picture at which Simon Brent gazed was that of an unusually pretty girl.

But Simon Brent was not an ordinary man.

At that moment—the early spring of 19—, —and for some years previous—Simon Brent had been the dom¬ inant figure in the world of finance. He was the manag¬ ing director and owned the controlling interest in a score or more of the most gigantic industrial, transportation and financial corporations. No man of the day was more generally in the public mind.

It is not surprising, therefore, that he was at once the most greatly envied, the most cordially hated, the most assiduously courted, the most bitterly excoriated, the most loudly praised and the most ardently admired man in America. He was everything good to his friends and admirers. He was everything bad to his critics and enemies.

Friend and foe alike, however, were forced to admit that it was his grasping nature and almost total disre¬ gard for the rights of others that had made him the undisputed money king of the land.

If any of the millions of persons upon whose lips the 9 name of Simon Brent was so familiar could have seen him at this moment, they would have wondered what there was in the picture to attract a man of his age—for Simon was past eighty, while the picture was that of a girl not more than eighteen.

“I wonder!” he muttered to himself, “I wonder!”

He held the paper closer to the light and studied it carefully. Then he read the caption above the picture.

“Mary Brent!” he ejaculated. “Mary! That was her grandmother’s name, if she is really whom she pretends to be.”

He arose slowly from his chair and approached a small case filled with books. Opening the case, he had just laid his hand upon one of the volumes w r hen a dapper office boy entered.

“A personal letter for you, sir,” and he held out the missive.

“What’s that?” asked Simon in a thin querulous voice.

“A personal letter for you.”

“A begging letter, you mean! I don’t get any personal letters. Give it to Morris.”

“Prichard says this is personal, sure enough,” insisted the boy. “He says it’s from your brother.”

“My brother!” gasped Simon as he reached out his hand. “Did Prichard say that?”

Then as he took the letter from the boy’s hand and held it toward the light: “Why didn’t Prichard bring it himself?”

“He didn’t look like he could, sir. He looks shakier than you.”

Simon turned his eyes from the letter and frowned down upon the boy over the rim of his spectacles—for in spite of his eighty years, Simon was still erect, although almost as thin as a shingle.

“Tell Prichard to come here!” he snapped.

The boy hastily left the room and Simon returned to his seat at the desk. With trembling fingers he unfolded the letter and held it up to the light, intently examining the signature.

“Yes,” he muttered, “it’s Matthew’s signature all right. It’s been close to fifty years since I’ve heard from him, but the signature is the same. I wonder what he is writ¬ ing about?”

Then the picture again caught his eye.

“That’s it!” he mused aloud. “It’s about the girl! It’s about the girl!”

“What’s that about the girl?” queried a voice at his elbow, whose tones were almost as agitated as his own.

“Oh, it’s you, is it, Prichard ?” exclaimed Simon looking up at the man who had silently entered the office and whose manner, appearance and gestures proclaimed him the old confidential clerk. “You recognized the signature, too, did you?”

“Yes, sir, although it’s been many years since I saw it.”

“It must be about the girl,” said Simon. “You’ve been reading the papers, I suppose?” the last words in a peev¬ ish and aggravated tone.

“Yes, sir!” stammered Prichard apologetically, “I couldn’t very well help seeing it, sir.”

“No, I suppose not.”

Then, in a rather uncertain manner as he held out the letter. “Here, you read it!”

Prichard carefully closed all the doors before he took the letter from Simon’s hand. Then, seating himself on a chair at his employer’s side, he read:

“Tonga, February 10, 19—, —■”

“Tonga, did you say?” interrupted Simon. “Where is Tonga?”

“Somewhere in the South Seas. It must be a long ways off. The letter is dated more than two months ago.” “Well; go on; maybe we shall find out.”

Prichard continued to read:

“My dear Simon:—

So many years have passed since I have written any thing but the briefest of business letters—even these being confined to one or two a year—that my hand has lost its cunning and my brain, too, I fear. You will, therefore, forgive me if I write of nothing but the matter in hand.

If I remember, my last letter to you was written at the time of my wife’s death, some forty-five years ago. We were then living in Samoa.”

“Oh, yes,” interrupted Simon. “I remember—and that reminds me, Prichard, how about that Hawaiian sugar concession? The matter has been before the House com¬ mittee long enough. If it’s necessary to bring pressure to bear, let me know. It’s too valuable to neglect.” Then suddenly, “but go on with Matthew’s letter.”

Again Prichard read:

“After my wife died I took my little boy, Horace, and came here to Tonga. I suppose you would best know the place as the Friendly Islands. You remember we used to read about them in the voyages of Captain Cook, when we were boys.”

“Yes, yes,” exclaimed Simon rubbing his hands, “I remember! Why they’re all cannibals down there!”

“Not now, I guess,” ventured Prichard, “but if you like I’ll have some of the clerks find out something about them.”

“No, no, never mind! Go on with the letter!”

“When Horace grew up he married—•”

“Whom, I wonder,” again interrupted Simon, “a cannibal?” Prichard again read:

“—an English girl, the daughter of a missionary. Sixteen years ago, in an epidemic of tropical fever, both Horace and his wife were taken away, leaving to my care their two-year-old daughter, Mary; and now then to the business in hand.”

Prichard stopped to fold the sheet and Simon pushed the morning paper toward him.

“Mary!” he exclaimed pointing to the picture.

Prichard gave the picture but a casual glance as he continued to read:

“Some weeks ago, while in Nukaulofa, the capital of the Islands, I saw a New York paper and in' it was your picture. It did not tell much about you, but enough to convince me that you are a man of some wealth and prominence.”

“Huh!” grunted Simon. “They must have spoken better of me than usual.”

Prichard read on:

“It then occurred to me that Mary ought to see something of her own race and people, and so I have decided to send her up to you for a little visit. There is in the harbor a tramp ship, which will sail for San Francisco tomorrow. I am sending Mary to you in care of the captain and his good wife, who happens to be with him. They tell me that it is now possible to put her on a train in San Francisco, on which she can go right through to New York without change. The captain will do this for me. I trust—inasmuch as she is my granddaughter—that you will so far overlook our past differences as to let her stay with you and your wife for a few months and then find some suitable way of sending her back to me. She is all I have.

Mary will tell you all about me when you see her. My heart is too sad to write more, but I owe this much to Mary.

Your brother, Matthew Brent.

P.S.

Believe me, you will not find Mary quite such a savage as you may expect.

During the reading of the last of the letter Simon had made no comment, but sat with eyes fixed on the picture before him. Even after Prichard had finished, he still remained silent until Prichard remarked in a questioning voice:

“Well?”

Then he broke forth, not in a torrent of words, but in that cold even voice which those who had found them¬ selves in his power had learned to fear.

“It is not well! Matthew is the same idealistic fool he always was. My wife, indeed! Does he think I was insane enough to get married? After all the quarrels we have had, doesn’t he know my only wife is ‘business’? I have no time to waste on children. I won’t have her!”

“She doesn’t look like much of a child, sir,” suggested Prichard indicating the picture.

“The picture is probably a fake. ’Phone over to the Planet and find out. Tell Duvall I want to know what he means by printing a fake picture and saying it is my niece.”

Prichard did as bidden. Without ringing off he re¬ ported to Simon that the picture was a snapshot made by the Planet's special correspondent in San Francisco five days previous.

“Let me talk to him,” said Simon savagely, taking the ’phone from Prichard’s hand.

“That you, Duvall?” he demanded.

Being assured that it was, he exclaimed: “What do you mean by printing a picture of my niece in the Planet without my permission?”

“We didn’t say she was your niece, Mr. Brent,” was what he heard over the ’phone. “We said she was the young woman who claims to be your niece.”

“That’s worse yet. Of course she’s my niece! The only living relative I have—except my brother.”

“But we knew the other papers might have the picture and we—”

“I can’t help what the other papers do! Don’t I own the Planet? Hadn’t I ought to be able to have a little something to say as to how it is run?”

“But you’ve said so often that you didn’t want to bother with it; that you didn’t care what was in it, except when you wanted to use it—”

“Never mind what I said! After this if any one ever dares to hint that she isn’t my niece, he shall pay for it. She has come half around the world to make me a visit,” and he set the ’phone down with no little vehemence.

Prichard looked at him in amazement.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t have her?”

“Who said I wouldn’t have her! Isn’t she Matthew’s granddaughter ? Where else would she come if she didn’t come here? Find out where she is and see that she has a private car the rest of the way. And Prichard,” rising to his feet in his excitement, “you take a week off and see that proper accommodations are prepared for her. Get your wife to help you, and have the bills sent to me.”

Then as an after thought: “I can’t be bothered with children myself, but they have to be looked after just the same.”

After Prichard had gone, Simon sat for a long time with his brother’s letter in his hand—not reading it, but with half closed eyes, running back in his mind over the years since he had started to attain the place in the finan¬ cial world which he now occupied. Presently he sum¬ moned the office boy.

“Billy,” he ordered, “bring me all the morning papers.”

The command having been obeyed, Simon spent the next half hour in reading all they had to say about the girl, who upon landing in San Francisco six days before, had set the reporters wild by announcing that she was the grandniece of Simon Brent.

He was still reading when Billy, the office boy, an¬ nounced :

“Mrs. James Buchanan Durham. She says she wants to see you on a matter of great importance.”

Simon’s face grew hard.

James Buchanan Durham had been the only close friend Simon Brent had ever had. At the age of fifty he had married a young wife, a thing for which Simon never forgave him. When he died, some three years pre¬ vious to the date upon which the story opens, he left his widow and son in affluence; but contrary to Simon’s ad¬ vice, the widow had insisted upon making some bad invest¬ ments, which had so disgusted the aged financier that for the past six months he had refused to see her. He was now about to refuse again; but as he glanced at the picture of Mary Brent spread out on the desk before him, a thought came into his mind which caused him to order the boy to admit her.

“This seems to be my off day,” he muttered. “I might as well have all the foolishness over at once and be done with it.”

He slowly arose to his feet and awaited Mrs. Durham’s entrance.

It is not difficult to describe Mrs. Durham. She was a type with which all are familiar. Well rounded in figure and with a face made free from wrinkles by the aid of the masseur’s art, she easily could have passed for forty, had it not been for her son, Arthur, whose twenty-seven years were well outlined upon his handsome features. With an inherited hauteur, which had not been in the least dimin¬ ished when she married James Buchanan Durham and his wealth, Mrs. Durham was so trained in social diplomacy, that for the moment her graciousness almost deceived the aged financier.

“I am so much indebted to you for granting me this interview,” she declared, as she extended her hand with a smile that would have done credit to a Talleyrand. “I am in such distress.”

“Indeed!” replied Simon, not to be outdone in diplo¬ macy now that he had put his hand to the plow. “And how can I serve you, madam?”

“I am almost afraid to tell you.”

“Tut! Tut!” from Simon as he proffered her a chair with studied politeness. “Fear is the father of failure.”

“I know your time is valuable,” she began.

“Then don’t waste it!” snapped Simon.

Her face flushed.

“I won’t,” she said crisply. “I need forty thousand dollars at once.”

Simon eyed her quizzically.

“On what security?” he asked.

“These,” and she drew from her sable muff a little package of bonds.

Simon gave them a hasty glance as she held them towards him.

“I wouldn’t give you four thousand for the lot,” he exclaimed without even taking them from her hand. “Where did you get them?”

“Mr. Morris bought them for me.”

“Morris ? Uh huh! I see!” and Simon raised his spectacles to his forehead and looked at her searchingly from under his shaggy eyebrows.

After a moment he reached out and took the bonds from her hands, now trembling with anxiety.

“No,” he continued as he slowly turned them over. “I wouldn’t loan you forty thousand dollars on these, but,” and he rubbed his sharp chin meditatively, “I will let you have the money on one condition.”

She regarded him in the utmost surprise. “What is it?” she finally asked.

“That you will look after my niece during her visit to me.”

“I was not aware that you had a niece,” she said coldly,

“and my position in society is not to be compromised for twice forty thousand dollars.”

“Oh, you women!” he exclaimed under his breath. Then as he pulled his spectacles down over his eyes: “I am not surprised at your attitude. Neither was I aware that I had a niece until an hour ago—although—” he added grimly, “the papers have been suggesting it, as the law¬ yers say, for the past week.”

Mrs. Durham’s face cleared. “I understand,” she said, “So she really is your niece?”

“Matthew vouches for her over his own signature,” and he held out to her his brother’s letter.

Mrs. Durham perused it carefully.

“She must be a perfect savage,” was her only remark as she handed back the epistle.

“So it seems.”

“And I believe she has a savage for a companion.”

Simon raised his eyebrows.

“They call her a tropical violet,” he said grimly. “She can’t be so bad.”

“Am I to take charge of both of them?”

“Who else?”

Mrs. Durham slowly shook her head.

“Porty thousand dollars is too little; unless,” she added, “you will find me a purchaser for these bonds.”

Simon raised his head and regarded her intently.

“Madam,” he said in his short snappy manner, “I have been misjudging you. I did not think you had that much business in you. Leave the bonds with me and con¬ sider the matter settled.”

Mrs. Durham arose to go.

“When do you expect your niece?” she asked.

“In two or three days. I will advise you as soon as she arrives. In the meantime I will see that forty thou¬ sand dollars is placed to your credit. Good morning!”

Chapter II

H AD Mary Brent known the sensation her arrival in America would occasion, it is doubtful if either she or her grandfather would have consented to her coming; but it was in total ignorance of the prominent position her uncle occupied that she landed in San Francisco one beautiful day in April and was taken by Captain Eckstrom and his estimable wife to the Golden Gate Hotel, a modest hostelry much frequented by sea-faring men of the higher rank.

There are good newspaper men in San Francisco.

That is why there are good newspapers.

One of these men, whose business it was to seek for news from incoming steamers, ran afoul of Captain Eckstrom before he had been ashore an hour.

The good captain, although he had heard at various times of Simon Brent, was not aware of his importance— the importance given a man by the possession of many millions of dollars; but Captain Eckstrom was enough of an old salt to see that a good yarn could be spun about a girl who had spent her whole life on a South Sea Island and was now making a twelve thousand mile trip to visit her grandfather’s brother—a relative who was in ignor¬ ance of her very existence.

Because the reporter knew his business, it did not take him ten seconds after the name of Mary Brent’s uncle was mentioned to see the value of the story. He asked for an interview, which was readily granted, and the sight of Mary but added zest to the story—for Mary was a beautiful girl. There was no denying this, no matter what particular style one might prefer. Her figure was as slender as a Naiad and fully as graceful. Fair-haired and blue-eyed, her pearly teeth glistened through lips of cherry red, which matched to perfection her rosy cheeks. As for her attire—but why go into details. Suffice it to say that she was clad in garments which had been her grandmother’s—garments which her grandfather had guarded sacredly for forty-five years. He had bestowed them upon Mary as she was leaving Tonga with the declaration that she would be “right in style, for styles are sure to come around every fifty years.” Whether the statement was true or not, the gown of flowered silk, with the tight fitting bodice and deeply flounced skirt became her well, and never did a newspaper camera have a fairer subject.

Inspired by Mary’s blue eyes, the reporter gave full play to his fancy; and no more romantic story—if you are willing to take the reporter’s w T ord for it—ever came in through the Golden Gate.

The following morning, not only his own paper, but all the other papers belonging to the same service, played it for a feature, and Mary awoke, after a quiet night’s rest, to find herself the news center of the day.

For a few hours the story was received without question. Then the papers which had been scooped on the story began to get busy. When Simon was inter¬ viewed in New York and refused to confirm the relation¬ ship, it was hinted in broad language that Mary was an adventuress. All of which disturbed Mary not at all, for she did not read the papers and was unconscious of what was said about her.

Ignorant of what a big city looked like, for the first two days after landing in San Francisco the girl was completely dazed by its noise and confusion. After that, her curiosity began to get the better of her fear, and she tried to make the city fit into her ideas of what was going on about her—ideas based almost entirely upon her knowledge of life as gleaned from the writings of one William Shakespeare, the study of which had been made her daily occupation by her grandfather.

“If you are familiar with Shakespeare and the Bible,” he had often told her—and he still believed it—“you can be dropped into any part of the civilized globe and be considered well educated.”

So it was that she read both books diligently, and from the former had gained most of her ideas of men and the world.

Because of her timidity and the unusual attention she attracted, she was greatly embarrassed, said little, and for a time experienced a touch of homesickness. This soon passed away and she was quite her natural self by the time she and her Tonganese traveling companion, Ila-Ila, were placed in charge of the Pullman Company en route for New York.

“I think Uncle Simon must have received Daddy’s letter by this time,” Mary said to Ila-Xla as the train was nearing Kansas City on its way eastward. “Captain Eckstrom said he ought to get it early Saturday morning.”

“Ila-Ila doesn’t know,” was the calm reply. “Ila-Ila is not awake. Ila-Ila must be in a dream. Isn’t Missy afraid she will awake?”

Mary laughed, her spirits having been completely restored by her three days in the Pullman and the atten¬ tion bestowed upon her by the passengers, who were greatly interested in the girl and her quaint speech.

“No, indeed,” she replied, “Daddy has told me all about the cars and I seem to have been expecting this all my life. Methinks I should hardly be surprised if I were to meet Hamlet.”

“Who is Hamlet? Ila-Ila doesn’t know.”

“Of course you do not. Hamlet was a prince of Den¬ mark, a fair land in the North Sea. He no longer lives; but perchance Uncle Simon will take us to Denmark. It cannot be far distant from New York,” and she let her eyes wander over the rapidly changing landscape.

“Uncle Simon will be surprised to see us,” said Ila- Ila, again referring to Simon Brent by the only name she knew.

“Yes,” replied Mary, thoughtfully, “methinks he will. Daddy says he is a stern man, but that nobody could be displeased with so fair a grandniece—and Daddy wouldn’t lie.”

“Lie?” queried Ila-Ila. “Lie about what?”

“About my being pretty, forsooth.”

The little maid looked at her with wide open eyes.

“Are the sunshine and the flowers and the birds beautiful?” she asked in a soft musical voice, “and is not Missy’s face like the flowers, her voice like the birds and her hair like the sunshine?”

Mary’s cheeks grew pink. She twined her arms lov¬ ingly about Ha-Ha’s neck as she whispered:

“Mayhap; but Ila-Ila is like the starlight, and her voice like the water that ripples against the shore at the foot of the great palm. Look!”

She turned Ila-Ila’s face to the little mirror between the car windows and peeped over her head.

“It is the twilight and the dawn,” she laughed, and Ila-Ila laughed with her out of the love in her heart.

When the train stopped in Kansas City, a strange thing happened. The conductor, who, up to this time had seemed to the girls a most important personage, ap¬ proached with his cap in his hand, followed by two other important-looking men and two white-coated porters.

“This is Miss Brent,” said the conductor to the most important-looking man.

Then to Mary: “This is Superintendent Barry of the M. and T. He has an order from Mr. Simon Brent to furnish you with a private car for the rest of your journey.”

Mary looked at him in astonishment.

“A private car!” she exclaimed. “I do not understand you, good sir. Prithee explain!”

The passengers crowded around.

“What is it?” asked one.

The conductor repeated his words.

“Then she really is Simon Brent’s niece?” queried another.

Mary turned toward the speaker wuth flashing eyes.

“Has any one ever dared doubt it?” she asked; and for the life of him the speaker could not reply, but slowly sank back out of sight.

Her words and actions were so different from the gentleness she had heretofore displayed that the other passengers regarded her with mingled surprise and admiration.

“She’s a Brent, all right!” laughed one of them as the porters gathered up her luggage, and Mary and Ila-Ila were escorted from the car. “You can call Simon Brent all the hard names you please and he will only smile; but let any one question his veracity and he becomes a tornado.”

Installed in the private car of the General Manager, Mary entered upon an entirely new phase of life.

Now that she was recognized as the possible heiress of Simon Brent, she became a personage of importance. Although the only persons about her through whose demeanor the change could manifest itself were the porter, waiter and train crew, Mary was quick to detect it; but it did not affect her in the least. It w T as right in line with all the other experiences through which she had passed since landing in the United States. Not for one instant, however, did she consider that this exaltation was any more her portion than that of Ila-Ua.

“It is just like the gorgeousness of Solomon,” Mary said to Ila-Ila, “and I feel like the Queen of Sheba must have felt when she first beheld it.”

“It must be a dream!” Ila-Ua insisted. “It cannot be real. Even the birds do not fly as fast as we.”

“Prithee, do not talk so foolishly,” was Mary’s reply. “It is just as Daddy told me it would be—only,” she added after a moment, “he wot not that Uncle Simon had a car all his own.”

“She acts just like she was done born to it,” remarked the white-aproned waiter to the white-jacketed porter.

And why shouldn’t she?

In Tonga, every native on the Island had always done her bidding and she had taken their homage as a matter of course. She would have done as much for one of them had it been necessary—but it never was.

Her first disappointment came upon her arrival in New York, where she was met at the train by Prichard.

“Oh, Uncle Simon!” she exclaimed as she threw both arms around Prichard’s neck and kissed him. “I am so glad to see you! This is Ila-Ila!” and she pulled her companion forward.

Prichard blushed at the honor shown him, but managed to stammer out:

“I—I’m not your Uncle Simon. I’m his clerk!”

“His clerk!” exclaimed Mary, drawing back. “A scrivener? Prithee, good sir, where is my uncle? Kindly take me to him at once!”

“Why—,” again stammered Prichard, completely

MATTHEW BKENT abashed in the presence of this regal young person, “he’s busy. He couldn’t come to the train, but he’ll be at the hotel.”

“Hotel 1” exclaimed Mary. “Perchance you mean an inn. Does my uncle, forsooth, reside at an inn?”

“Your uncle lives at his club.”

“Club?” repeated Mary, completely at a loss to com¬ prehend the statement. “I do not know—” If Prichard heard he paid no attention to her words, but added abruptly: “This way, please,” as he hurried toward the automobile, wondering what Simon would think of this beautiful, old-fashioned young woman, who was about as different from those who surrounded her as one could possibly imagine.

“I hope I’ll be forgiven the lie,” he thought to himself as they sped toward the hotel, “and I do hope he will go and see her.”

Prichard need not have been concerned.

Simon had done nothing but think about the girl from the minute he had given his first order regarding her.

As soon as he knew the train was in, Simon left his office secretly and made his way to the hotel. Here he secured a place from which he could see her when she entered, without being seen himself.

With the very first sight, his heart stirred.

“My own flesh and blood,” he muttered, as he grasped the back of a chair for support.

As he stood thus observing her, it would have been im¬ possible to put his thoughts into words. For years he had been thinking of himself as absolutely alone; and now to be suddenly confronted with this beautiful creature, who appeared to have just stepped out of another period, and to realize she was actually something to him—that she had come half way around the world to see him—was almost more than he could believe.

Such an impression did she make upon Simon that his complete conquest was achieved then and there. It even angered him to see the curiosity seekers who had gathered to catch a glimpse of her—for from the minute he had admitted to the public that Mary was his niece, her progress eastward had been minutely noted by every metropolitan daily.

“I’ll put a stop to this curiosity business,” he muttered between his thin lips as he surveyed the crowd. I’ll buy a house. Yes, I’ll buy a house today.”