Эптон Синклер - Oil!

“Well, Dad, I’ve been expecting that for quite a while. I’m sure you will be happy.”

Dad looked very much relieved—had he feared a tantrum, after the fashion of Bertie? He hastened to say, “I want to tell you—Alyse and I have talked the matter over, and we agree—she is fond of you, and appreciates your standing by me and all, and she wants you to know that she’s not marrying me for my money.”

“No, Dad, I don’t think that.”

“Well, you know Bertie, and what she thinks. Bertie is mercenary—I suppose she got it from her mother. Anyhow, I’m not a-goin’ to say anything to her about this, it is none of her business; we’ll jist get married on the quiet, and Bertie can read about it in the papers. What I’m a-goin’ to do is this—Alyse says she hasn’t had anything to do with helping me make my money, and she don’t want my children to hate her, as they will if she comes in and takes a big share.”

“Oh, but I won’t, Dad!”

“We’ve agreed that I’m to make a will, and leave a million dollars to her, and the rest will go to you and Bertie, and Alyse will be satisfied with that—it will give her enough to carry on the psychic work she’s interested in. You understand, she wants to do that—”

“Yes, of course, Dad. I am a propagandist too!”

“I know, son; and what I’ve been thinking—you have a right to express your ideas. And while I don’t agree with that little paper, I can see that it’s honest, it says what you think; so I’m a-goin’ to make over a million dollars worth of Ross stock to you, and you can jist go ahead and do what you please with that. I hope you won’t turn into a Bolsheviki like Paul, and I hope you won’t find it necessary to get into jail.”

“It would be pretty hard to keep me in jail if I had a million dollars, Dad.”

The old man grinned; the mediums and the spirits had not yet driven the old devil entirely out of him. He went on to say that of course they weren’t going to have as much money as he had once thought. Those government suits were a-goin’ to dig a big hole in it—no doubt the politicians would fix it so Dad and Verne would lose. Of course they might get a pile out of these new deals abroad, but that was speculative—not the sort of thing Dad fancied, but he was leaving it to Verne.

“What are you and Mrs.—Alyse going to do, Dad?”

“Well, we want to have a sort of—you might call it a Spiritualist honeymoon. We’ll go see that medium in Vienna, and there’s another in Frankfort that we’ve heard about. It’ll depend for one thing on what you want. Maybe you’ll go back to California.”

“I think I will, Dad, for a while—if you are sure you can spare me.”

Yes, Dad said he and Alyse would get along all right; his secretary had learned enough French for practical purposes, and they would have a courier or interpreter for their stay in Germany. He hoped the climate there would agree with him; he didn’t seem ever to be strong now. That flu had sort of done him up.

The preliminary steps were taken, and Bunny and his father and the secretary and Mrs. Alyse Huntington Forsythe Olivier all put on their best glad rags and appeared before the maire of one of the small towns on the outskirts of Paris and were duly wedded, and Bunny kissed his new stepmother on both cheeks, and the maire did the same, and also kissed Bunny and Dad on both cheeks. And then Dad took his son to one side and placed an envelope in his hands. It was an order on Verne to turn over thirty-two hundred shares of Ross Consolidated Class B stock; a little more than a million at the market. They were “street certificates,” Dad explained—he had already signed them and left them with Verne, in case they wished to market them. “And now, son,” said the old man, “have a little sense—this is a pile of money, and don’t throw it away. Take your time, and be sure what you want to do, and don’t let yourself be plucked by grafters that will come round jist as soon as they smell it!”

The same old Dad! They gave each other hugs and squeezes; there were tears in everybody’s eyes, even the secretary, and the maire and his clerks, who had never heard of such fees for a wedding—marvelous people, ces Americains! And Bunny said for Dad to write all the news, and Dad said for Bunny to write all the news; and Bunny said he would return to France next summer if Dad were not able to come to America, and Dad said he was sure Verne would have it all fixed up before that. And then Bunny kissed his stepmother again, and then he hugged Dad again, and then shook hands with the secretary—a regular debauch of the sweet sorrows of parting, with the officials and a crowd of street urchins standing by on the sidewalk, staring at the grand rich car and the grand rich Americans. Bunny was glad to look back on it in after years—at least that once the old man had been happy! All the chatter, and the messages, and the flowers, the baggage to be seen to and the robes to be tucked in—and then at last they were rolling down the street, amid waving of hands and cheers—headed for a Spiritualist seance in Frankfort-am-Main!

Bunny took a train back to Paris, and wrote out two messages announcing that he was sailing for home; one to Ruth Watkins and one to Rachel Menzies—playing no favorites! Then he bought a paper, and read a brief despatch—“Great California Oil Fire.” A bolt of lightning had struck one of the storage tanks of the Ross Consolidated Oil Company at Paradise, California, and as a high wind was blowing, it was not thought possible to save any portion of the tank-farm, and possibly the whole field might be destroyed.

When Bunny got back to the hotel, there was a cablegram from Angel City. It was impossible to make any guess what the damage would be, but they were fully insured and nothing to worry about, “A. H. Dory”—still Verne’s signature when he wanted to be playful. Bunny forwarded the message to his father, and asked if he should wait; but Dad’s answer was, no, whatever he had to say could be said by letter or cable, and he would be glad to have Bunny on the scene to report. “Love and best wishes,” were the concluding words—the last that Dad was ever to say to his son, except through the channel of the spirits!

A steamer took Bunny out to sea—one of those floating hotels, like the one he had left in Paris, fitted in the style of a palace, mahogany finish and silken draperies and cushions, and the most elegant society, flashing jewels and costly gowns—five thousand dollars per female person would have been a modest estimate for evenings in the dining saloon. And very soon the tongues of gossip began to buzz—“His father’s the California oil man, they say he owns whole fields out there, but one of them is burning up, according to the papers. The Ross that was in the scandal, you remember, he’s hiding abroad, been there nearly a year, but the son can come back, of course. They say he was one of the lovers of Viola Tracy, but she chucked him and married the Roumanian prince. Catch him on the rebound, my dear!”

So everybody was lovely to Bunny; so many charming young things to dance with, until any hour of the morning; or to stroll on deck and be lost in the darkness with, if one preferred. All day they flitted about him, casting coy and seductive glances: they were interested in everything he was interested in, even the book he was reading—provided he would talk about it instead of reading it. There were some who would say that they were interested in Socialism, they didn’t know much about it, but were eager to learn. Until the second morning out, when the young Socialist received a wireless which entirely removed him from fashionable society:

“Your father very ill with double pneumonia have obtained best medical attention will keep you informed deepest sympathy and affection Alyse.”