David Fleming's Forgiveness

by Margaret M. Robertson

It would have been no longer possible for Clifton Holt to refuse all active interest in the business that had hitherto been carried on by Jacob in the name of himself and father. The brothers had long known the arrangements made by their father with regard to the division of his property among his children after his death, and this division made it necessary that Clifton should give both time and pains to a right understanding of how affairs stood.

Elizabeth was to have the house in the village and the home farm, together with a certain sum of money, part of which was invested in the business. She was not to be a partner in the business. It would be wrong, her father said, at least it would be uncomfortable for her to be made in that way responsible for risks of which she knew nothing. If all should agree that her money should be retained in the business, then of course her brothers would give her the same security that they would give to any one else who intrusted property to them. The sum was a large one, but, had all things been going well with them during the last few years, not larger than was right as her share of her father’s wealth.

For the rest, the business was to be equally in the hands of the two brothers, and the real estate equally divided between them. All this had been arranged at the time when Jacob was formally received as his father’s partner. It was a just arrangement, giving the younger brother no undue advantage, though it might seem to do so, for Jacob had before that time spent a large part of the share of the property to which, according to Canadian law, he had a claim at his father’s second marriage. He had acknowledged the arrangement to be just at the time it was made, and still acknowledged it, although the fact that his brother had not, as was expected, come to take his share of the work and risks of the business when he came of age might have given him some cause to complain.

He might have complained if all this time he had been prospering in his management of their affairs; but as it was, he said little, and allowed Clifton to come gradually to a knowledge of how it was with them.

Up to a late date Clifton’s plan had been, either to remain as a sort of sleeping partner in the business, thus securing a certain income to himself without trouble; or to claim a division of the property, and take his share, leaving Jacob to carry on the business in his own name. This was the course which his sister foresaw and feared, knowing that such a course must bring trouble and loss to them all.

But within the last few months Clifton’s idea and plans had undergone a change. By the way in which he set himself to work, intent on mastering the details of the business in all its branches, it became evident that before many years were over he would stand fair to take his father’s place as the first man in that part of the country.

The more Clifton looked into the state of their affairs, the less satisfaction he felt with regard to them. When, in the course of his investigation, he discovered the extent of the sacrifice of real estate which had attended the settling up of the mining operations, it is scarcely too much to say that he was for the moment utterly appalled. He was, upon the whole, moderate in his expression of surprise and vexation at the state of things, and whatever he said which went beyond moderation, his brother did not often resent, at least he rarely answered otherwise than mildly. But Jacob’s cool way of answering questions and suggesting expedients that might serve for a time, as though he had been freed by his brother’s presence from any special responsibility with regard to their present straits, amazed and provoked Clifton. Of course he could not now abandon the concern without dishonour to the name, and without the sacrifice of plans and projects to which he had of late been giving many of his thoughts.

No, there was nothing to be done but to make the best of matters as they stood.

“If you had come into the firm two years ago, as you should have done,” said Jacob one day, returning, as his manner was, to matters discussed and dismissed too often already, in his brother’s opinion; “if you had thrown yourself right into it, you might have made the Gershom Manufacturing Company go. I hadn’t the time to give to it. And I haven’t the power of talking folks over to see a thing, as you have. It was all square with us then, as far as folks generally knew, and if the company had been formed, and the mills put right up and set a-going, it would have made all the difference in the world to us.”

“It’s too late to talk now,” said Clifton, shortly, and he rose and left the room.