In Jeopardy

by Van Tassel Sutphen

My dear Sir,—The funeral services for the late Francis Hildebrand Graeme Esqre., of "Hildebrand Hundred," King William County, Maryland, will be held at S. Saviour's Church, Guildford Corners, Maryland, on Thursday, June 24, 1919, at three o'clock post meridian.

In view of the fact that you are a beneficiary under Mr. Graeme's will I am forwarding this communication by special delivery, in the hope that you may be able to attend the services and be present at the reading of the testament.

I am enclosing a time schedule of the Cape Charles route, and would suggest that you take the morning express from Baltimore. By giving notice to the conductor the train will be stopped at Crown Ferry, the nearest railway point to "Hildebrand Hundred." If you will advise me by telegraph of your coming I will see that a conveyance is in waiting. Trusting that you may find it possible to make the journey, and taking the liberty of placing our legal services at your disposal,

I remain, my dear sir,

Your obedient servant,
John Eldon.
Hugh Hildebrand, Esqre.

Yes, this was all perfectly plain and understandable. Francis Graeme, the distant cousin whom I had seen just once in my life, had died suddenly at his Maryland home; as a member of the family and a presumptive legatee it was my duty to offer the last respects in person. Yet there had been something more or less odd about the whole business. It had been the Civil War which had made a lasting breach between the Northern and Southern branches of the Hildebrand family; for more than a generation there had been no social intercourse whatever. Moreover, during that period, the name had shown a tendency to disappear for good and all, the usual fate of old families who live too close to the ancestral soil and dislike the noisy wheels of the world's progress. The late owner of the "Hundred" did not even bear the family patronymic, his Hildebrand descent being on the distaff side. I, in turn, am an orphan, without brothers or sisters; more than that I have no near relatives in the paternal connection; indeed I had never heard of any immediate bearers of my name until one day, some three months ago, when Francis Graeme called at my Philadelphia office, introduced himself, claimed me as kin, and carried me off to a luncheon which extended itself into dinner and then lasted to a midnight supper. It had been a case of liking at first sight, although Graeme was a man of forty-five or so, while I lacked three years of thirty. However, years—mere years—don't signify if people really "belong," and Graeme and I had lost no time in laying the foundations of a friendship that promised a more than ordinary degree of permanence. It had been arranged that I should come down to "Hildebrand Hundred" for a long visit, but one thing after another had happened to prevent; I had been presented with an actual law case, Graeme was called West for a month, one of my college class reunions had been scheduled for the first part of June; so it went. And now poor Graeme was dead and nothing could be as we had planned it during that long afternoon and night at the old University Club on Walnut Street. Strange, I had not heard that he was ill, but our correspondence had been most irregular, and most likely the attack had been a sudden one—heart disease or perhaps a stroke. Of course I must go down to Maryland, albeit the journey would be a depressing one; I might even find it a little awkward to appear at the house in the character of a new-found relative. I ought to explain that the family at the "Hundred" now consisted of Miss Lysbeth Graeme and her cousin, Miss Eunice Trevor. Of course I had never met either of them, but Graeme had spoken of both girls at our first and only meeting; he seemed especially fond of Lysbeth, or Betty, as he called her. Betty Graeme—rather an attractive name I think—was some half dozen years my junior, and any normal-minded young man would find the acquisition of a brand-new feminine cousin an interesting possibility. But that was before this distressing business of Francis Graeme's death, and I should feel more or less the intruder. It was evident, however, that Mr. Eldon's letter must have been sanctioned by Miss Graeme, and, I dare say, Graeme had spoken to his daughter of having made my acquaintance, and warmly, too; consequently, I should have to go and be decent, stay over night if that were unavoidable, and then slip away Friday morning with my legacy—perhaps a hundred dollars with which to procure the mourning-ring so dear to the hearts of mid-Victorian novelists.

In spite of the special delivery stamp the letter had been delayed somewhere, and it was not handed over to me until early Thursday morning, the messenger awaking me out of an unusually sound sleep by the simple expedient of keeping his finger pressed firmly upon the electric push button of my tiny room-and-bath lodgings in the "Clarendon." When I had rubbed the Sandman's dust out of my eyes, and had taken in the general purport of the epistle, I glanced at the clock and saw that I had less than an hour in which to make my toilet, settle my business affairs and catch the train. Yet I made it easily enough, for, outside of bath and breakfast, I had only to telephone the friend with whom I shared a diminutive law office that I should not be back until Friday, and that our progressive match at golf would have to be postponed to that date. Happily or unhappily, as you choose to look at it, there were no clients to put off and no real business exigencies to consider. Come to think of it, I am not so sure that I was ever intended for the bench and bar, and certainly the world has not gone out of its way to avail itself of my store of legal knowledge. Mine was just the usual case of a young man reading law because, on leaving the university, nothing more tangible had presented itself. Moreover, the quarterly paid income from my mother's estate is sufficient for my modest needs and perhaps deprives me of any real incentive for hard work. Now the successful man is usually self-made, meaning that he has been forced to play the role of a creator and make something out of nothing. It makes me blush sometimes when I reflect what would happen if that quarterly cheque ever failed to turn up in the mail; had I anything of real value to offer the world in exchange for shelter, raiment, and what my newsboy calls three "squares" a day? Not that I am altogether a cumberer of the ground (as a golfer I have been well-trained and always take care to replace my divots), but there is no particular reason for my existence on this planet, and there are not many people who would either know or care that I was no longer of their number. Cynical? not at all; at least I had not intended to give that impression. But my two years' war service destroyed some illusion, even though I hadn't the luck to get across the water.

Finally, I may call myself a decent enough chap when compared to the ordinary run of men, and while I don't pretend to philanthropic activities I can say quite honestly that there is no man, or woman either, who may truthfully affirm being the worse off for having enjoyed the distinction of my personal acquaintance. At best, this is only a negative virtue, and there are times when I feel keenly that I ought to be adding something definite to the world's stock of material good or ethical treasure. I can't flatter myself that I possess anything more than the one talent, and my quarterly dividend makes a convenient napkin in which to enwrap it; the old allegory seems to fit my case precisely. I dare say that life for me has been a trifle too pleasant and well-ordered; people who live on Easy Street become more and more attached to their otium-cum-dig; I have visions of myself less than a score of years away: portly, tonsured, inclined to resent the existence of boys and dogs, fussily addicted to carrying about to dinner parties my own particular brand of pepper in a little, flat, silver box. Perhaps if I should fall in love, but pooh! I have been invoking that contingency so long and so unavailingly that it has lost a large portion of its pristine appeal. No, I can't see that there is anything better for me to do than to go on drawing my income, sitting religiously for at least six hours a day in my office, sticking at golf until I finally get the best of that hideous tendency to hook, and dining as usual on Mondays with the Mercers en famille; in short, whittling my individual peg to fit my allotted hole. I do think, however, that I'll tell Bob Mercer he can count upon me for one evening a week at his Julian Street settlement. Bob is the right sort of a cleric, and I know that he talks by the card when he insists that giving and getting are really interchangeable terms. But one always hates to make the effort and so prove the truth of the assertion; it is infinitely less trouble to let some other fellow get the true meaning and joy out of life while you content yourself with the corner seat at the club fireside and the comfortable certainty that the chef understands to a dot how you like your cutlets and asparagus tips. Just the same I will speak to Bob—and meanwhile I have awakened to the realization that it is ten minutes to nine and that only a taxi-driver with no reverence for the speed laws can deliver me at the Pennsylvania station in time for the southbound train. I do make it, with a quarter of a minute to spare, and now I remember that I have forgotten to send a wire to Mr. Eldon. I can telegraph him at Wilmington, but there is small chance of its being delivered in time; probably I shall have to rustle my own means of conveyance to "Hildebrand Hundred." I shall have full two hours between the arrival of my train at Crown Ferry and the time appointed for the funeral. That ought to be sufficient even if I have to walk.

The ride over the Cape Charles route is not particularly interesting; moreover, it was infernally dusty, and the food provided by the buffet on the Pullman seemed extraordinarily unappetizing. Where on earth does the company procure such tasteless provender? Everything tastes so desiccated and deodorized, the mere shadow of really substantial viands, a veritable feast of Barmecide. There was the usual delay owing to a freight wreck, and my two hours of leeway had shrunken to a scant sixty minutes by the time I had alighted at the little flag station of Crown Ferry.

Not a very inviting place, this shabby way station set in a wilderness of jack-pine and hackberry trees. There was not a soul in sight, outside of the depressed looking individual who served as general utility man and who apparently resented the intrusion of a stranger upon his lonely domain. To my inquiry concerning the possibility of obtaining some sort of conveyance, he returned a monosyllabic "Nope," and he showed not the smallest inclination to give me any real assistance in finding my way to "Hildebrand Hundred"; he pointed out the general direction, with a lean, tobacco-stained finger, and let it go at that.