Chapter 25

Joseph, who had believed that he could never again experience the anguish of human emotion, and that he was removed from the common torments of men, was appalled and distraught over the grief he felt for Mr. Healey. No matter how his disciplined mind fought with sorrow the sorrow kept emerging like a vomiting well of blood, to darken and distort his thoughts, to drown out rationality, to flood over plans and conjectures. He tried to think over his now-threatened future, but it faded before he could consider it in new torrents of grief. He was incredulous to discover how deeply Mr. Healey had intruded into his cold and isolated spirit. He found himself listening for the roaring laughter, the spill of genial obscenities, the robust slamming of doors, the pound of heavy boots. The house appeared to darken, the halls became attenuated, and even the golden warmth of April days became dun. As for the horror that gripped the nation over the assassination of President Lincoln—Joseph never knew it, nor cared.

It was Harry Zeff who arranged for the funeral, and sent for the priest of the little Catholic church. The priest had heard of Mr. Healey. He had not thought of him as a Catholic man, he, the owner of brothels and gambling houses and saloons and the runner of bootleg whiskey. He had never seen Mr. Healey in his church. He had not even thought of him as Irish. (God forbid!) Dubiously, the timid old man surveyed the remains in a long silence. Then he had sighed, and said, “Yes, he was Irish. I can see that. Knew many such as he on the ould sod.” So Mr. Healey, though he had died unshriven, was given Christian burial, even if the old priest sincerely doubted that he had died in a state of grace, and certainly he had not received Extreme Unction and was probably laden with sins which would take him an eternity to expiate. “He was a good man,” Harry told the priest. “He had never turned a sufferer away from his door.” The priest sighed again. “That’s more than many professed Christians can say,” he admitted.

The old priest marveled, in his innocence, at the overflowing of his church by gorgeously clad and very young damsels, handsome middle-aged ladies, florid gentlemen in embroidered waistcoats and ruffles, and sleek lithesome characters in expensive gray and fawn pantaloons—and with high silk hats and rich boots. He could not recall seeing these before and decided they must have come “from distant parts” and certainly not from Titusville. Then, of course, to the priest’s stupefaction, the governor arrived, and the splendid senator, Mr. Tom Hennessey, and his lady and their pretty young daughter, and various other politicians, and supercilious gentlemen rumored from New York, Philadelphia, and Boston, all outfitted as the butterfly and all decorous and low-voiced. The obscure little church almost disappeared in a welter of brilliant carriages. There were many newspapermen and photographers. (One noble-looking gentleman wanted to deliver a eulogy from the pulpit, but the priest, recovering a little from his shock and bewilderment, stammeringly refused, and with considerable umbrage. However, he was still shocked. He had considered Mr. Healey only a local sinner and not one of such awesome dimensions.)

Mr. Healey was buried in the little Catholic graveyard near the church, in a fine plot. The undertaker had come from Philadelphia with an entourage. He ordered—after consultation with Mr. Spaulding—a giant cross of marble fully fourteen feet high. Mr. Healey may not have lived as a Catholic Christian, but, as Harry Zeff contentedly remarked, “He was buried as one, and never was there a kinder man.” The old priest, whom doubt had begun to plague, was stupefied when Mr. Spaulding gave him a sheaf of money totaling fifteen hundred dollars. “Mr. Healey would like that,” he said, with a grandiloquent gesture. The priest had visions of a roast of beef and a statue of the Blessed Mother which would truly honor her and the Poor Box, not to mention two more pews and a new cassock for himself and a month of good meals for the two Sisters of Charity who taught in the tiny church school on the outskirts of Titusville, and something for the Missions. “He never came to see me,” the priest mentioned, to which Harry replied, “He was a very modest and humble man. A Christian.”

Joseph did not attend the Requiem Mass. Harry did not press him nor make any comment. Joseph sat alone in the house, with its long booming echoes, and tried to control his grief and his emotions, and their destructive scream in his mind. He had forgotten such sorrow, which he had known when his mother had died and the news of his father’s death had been brought to him. Now it came to him again like fresh blood newly spilled, and as terrible, and he knew that sorrow was ageless and vital and part of a man’s being. The thought that Mr. Healey was dead was incredible to him, and then the incredulity turned to anguish and a hatred of death, itself. He, himself, he thought in his youth, was invulnerable to death. To him it was a loathsome and humiliating thing.

Two days after the funeral he received a note by hand from Mr. James Spaulding:

The honor of your presence is requested at the office of Mr. Spaulding of Titusville at 2:00 p.m., Thursday, of this week, in connection with various bequests in the matter of the concern of the last will and testament of Mr. Edward Cullen Healey, late and lamented citizen of this fair city.

In spite of his sorrow Joseph’s heart gave a great bound. Was it possible that Mr. Healey had remembered him in his will, and if so, why? He was thinking of this when Harry came into his room and showed him a similar letter, and the two young men looked at each other eagerly, ashamed of their hope, yet hoping. “A thousand dollars apiece, I bet!” cried Harry, in a hushed voice, then looked embarrassed. “Discussing it when he’s just in his grave!”

“Why should he leave us anything?” said Joseph. When he went to the offices he discovered that all the present thirty-five men who worked for Mr. Healey were in a state of excitement, for they, too, had received the same formal notice. There was not a man who had not been sincerely fond of Mr. Healey, and now they looked at each other in silent query. Only Mr. Montrose was without question, and he kept glancing at Joseph who was as astonished as the others, and he shook his head a little and reproached himself for his former cynicism.

They had all met at Mr. Spaulding’s office on the designated day and time, quietly tiptoeing into the room as if a corpse lay there, and seating themselves in a series of small rows of chairs which the lawyer had caused to be set up. It was unusually warm for April and the windows were open and the hills could be seen beyond, over the rooftops, all brilliant gold with new leaves, all bluish shadow and bronze clefts and patches of the deep green of pines and spruces, A nation was in mourning for its murdered President, and flags stood at half-mast and black crepe and bunting hung from every doorway and window, and groups stopped on the streets to talk and to cry vengeance, and newsboys were appearing almost on the hour every hour with fresh headlines in the papers, which were caught up at once by grim faced men who had, in the past, had nothing but contempt for the dead man.

But no one thought of Mr. Lincoln in Mr. Spaulding’s offices, for a fortune lay palpitating there in a sheaf of papers on his desk, and it seemed to many that they had the shine of gold on them. Mr. Spaulding sat like a high priest or at least the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, behind his desk, gravely clad in black, with a black cravat, his hair decorously smoothed down, his rubbery face set in an expression of solemn sorrow and reverence, his eyes downcast, his hands folded before the papers as if, thought Joseph, he were waiting for the sacred moment to place them as in a monstrance. A faint and mournful scent as of funereal fern emanated from him.

Seeing that all were gathered, Mr. Spaulding let his big head drop as in prayer, or as if overcome and too burdened to speak immediately. All the men decorously waited; not even Mr. Montrose smiled. But Joseph was filled with a wild exasperation. The swine had surely calculated on that ray of sunshine touching his dyed hair in a halo-like glow, for Joseph had caught his sidelong look at the ray just before bending his head, and he had moved a little forward in his big chair to catch it better.

Mr. Spaulding began to speak. It was his grandest hour, for never before had the evidence of so much money lain before him. His voice was like a choir, throbbing and trembling. Now he lifted his eyes, big and hollow and ponderable, full of portentousness and grief, and all at once he looked a very parody of a prophet and Joseph felt an alarming urge to laugh out loud, to shout a ridiculing execration.

“I have here, before me,” said Mr. Spaulding, touching the papers with a reverent hand, “the last Will and Testament of my beloved friend, Edward Cullen Healey, who died on the day our even more beloved President died—and perhaps there—there is a portent, a meaning we of feeble intellect and dark understanding cannot penetrate. We can only bow our heads in wonder. We can only Meditate, Reflect, seeking humility, overcome by Awe.”

The gathering said not a word. But Joseph thought he heard a ghostly echo of Mr. Healey’s boisterous laughter and even, perhaps, a ribald word. Mr. Spaulding took out his scented kerchief and elaborately and slowly wiped brow, then eyes, then blew his nose sonorously. He replaced the kerchief. He began to read again, and every word was like an invocation.

Each man employed in Mr. Healey’s offices was to receive a year’s full salary in addition to his regular salary, and a bonus of five hundred dollars extra at Christmas, provided he remain for that period at least “in the employ of my major legatee, who inherits my residuary estate.” He was also to receive an immediate lump sum of three thousand dollars, “in gratitude for loyal services.” Each Christmas he remained in the employ of the “major legatee” he would receive an additional five hundred dollars.

Mr. Montrose received twenty thousand dollars outright, and “a prayer that he serve my major legatee for a period of “one year at least.” He also received sundry little treasures he had admired in Mr. Healey’s house, “notably a Sanger portrait of George Washington.” In addition, he received one hundred shares in the Pennsylvania. Railroad and “three of the producing wells next to the Parker Farm.” “There are no words,” Mr. Healey had dictated, “which can convey my affection for Mr. Montrose, who has served me well for over two decades before the date of this Will.”

Mr. Healey prayed that Mr. Montrose would find it in his heart to remain with “my major legatee” until his conscience is satisfied that said Major Legatee was fully qualified to continue “without that supreme wisdom, delicacy of tact, perfection of judgment, of which my dear friend, Mr. Montrose is the Proud Possessor.”

Joseph glanced at Mr. Montrose who seemed greatly moved. His fine catlike face became very serious, and he looked aside.

Harry Zeff was left the sum of five thousand dollars, and at this Harry let out a loud and involuntary whistle which made everyone jump in his chair. A slight ripple of laughter ran through the room, shaken, unintended, and Mr. Spaulding looked as horrified as a priest might look if the Host were desecrated. He hid the will with his spread hands. He gulped. He implored the ceiling for mercy with uplifted eyes. His jaw trembled; his mouth shook. The sun ray quivered in his hair which, all at once, appeared to rise, on his head in a holy breeze.

Harry was immediately thrown into immense embarrassment and confusion, though everyone eyed him with sympathy as well as with smothered mirth. His dusky face was crimson. He cowered in his chair. Even Joseph was amused, and he thought of young Liza.

The unpardonable interruption was ignored by Mr. Spaulding, and after a prolonged delay he began to read again. There were small sums to the girls who worked in his house, a sum of money for a madam he particularly appreciated, ten thousand dollars to St. Francis’s Working Boys’ Home in Philadelphia, gifts to a seminary, an orphanage in Pittsburgh and—to Joseph’s dark amazement—the sum of two thousand dollars for Masses for his unregenerate soul. Mrs. Murray received the sum of one thousand dollars “provided she quits my house and Titusville within ten days” of Mr. Healey’s death.

There were other small but pleasant remembrances to friends in various cities. Miss Emmy received an income for life of five thousand dollars a year, an incredible sum, riches.

Joseph had never heard a will read before. When Mr. Spaulding stopped reading he felt a slight sadness, for there had been no mention of his name, no remembrance. It is not the money, he thought. But I believed that we were friends, that he had some regard for me. If he had left me but his watch, a trinket from his chain, a book, a picture—Only recently Mr. Healey had had a daguerreotype taken of himself, and had had it artfully colored, and it stood on his desk. Joseph wondered if Mr. Spaulding would permit him to buy it. He felt the familiar dull aching in his throat. He pushed back his chair, then waited for others to rise, also. There was a smarting in his eyes and a dryness in his mouth.

The small scraping of his chair aroused Mr. Spaulding from his devout reverie. No one else but Joseph had moved. Joseph subsided. Mr. Spaulding, to his surprise, was fixedly gazing at him as at a wonder, a miracle, a sight not to be believed. He seemed in a state of transport.

Now Mr. Spaulding’s voice rose on a radiant crest. “We now come to the Major Legatee mentioned in this last Will and Testament of my beloved friend, Edward Cullen Healey.”

Long breaths were taken in the room, except for Joseph, who felt nothing but impatience now, nothing but a desire to leave, to feel his hurt alone, and, he thought vaguely, to run back to the house and steal the daguerreotype. (Surely no one wanted it but himself, and Mr. Spaulding’s natural malice would be delighted to refuse any offer from him and cut him with any disappointment and frustration.)

Mr. Spaulding leaned forward in his chair. He had the attention of all, except for Joseph. Then Joseph heard his name—“my dear young friend, my son in all but birth, my countryman, who has so often shown me his affection and loyalty—though he did not know this himself—Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh—”

A deep murmur ran through the office, and every head turned and every eye stared at Joseph, whose mouth opened in a muttered, “What? What?”

Mr. Spaulding rose slowly and majestically, like Neptune rising from the sea, royal sceptre in hand. Mr. Spaulding came from behind his desk. He went weightily down the rows of chairs. He paused beside Joseph. His eyes were filled with shining liquid. He held out his hand, and bowed. “My felicitations, Mr. Francis,” he said, “or, I should say, Mr. Armagh.”

Joseph was stunned. He had heard nothing but his name and a few other words. He did not want to touch Mr. Spaulding’s hand but thinking of that portrait on the desk in Mr. Healey’s study he forced himself to take the warm damp fingers. He said, “All I want is that daguerreotype, on his desk, in the gilt frame. I will pay for it—”

At that everyone in the room burst into loud and affectionate laughter. Harry leaned towards Joseph and slapped him heartily on the back, recovering from his own stunned disbelief. Even Mr. Spaulding smiled tenderly, bent down to place his hand gently on Joseph’s thin shoulder. Great grins spread from face to face, and Joseph’s words were repeated over and over, to renewed laughter.

“All that, and all else too, my dear boy,” Mr. Spaulding said. “An Empire. A mountain of gold.”

It was indeed. Joseph Francis Xavier Armagh was the Major Legatee of Edward Cullen Healey. Mr. Healey’s vast “interests” now belonged to him, “without let or hindrance.” Brothels. Refineries. Saloons. Newspaper mortgages. Property in Pittsburgh, Titusville, Boston, New York, Philadelphia. Wells. Endless investments. Enormous sums of money in various banks. A hotel, flourishing, in Philadelphia. Mines. Investments in several lavish hotels in New York, stocks, bonds in countless industries, including munitions and railroads. He was the sole executor, though the assistance of Mr. Spaulding—at a large annual fee—was designated.

“I don’t believe it,” said Joseph, and he looked about him and the room swam in a shifting mist and the sunlight seemed to dance in the confines of the windows and the blue sky beyond tilted dizzily. He had brilliantly enlarged visions of his brother and sister, of Sister Elizabeth, of Green Hills, and he thought, over and over, that he had lost his mind. Someone was pressing a glass of whiskey against his mouth. He drank it, dumbly. He stared at the head in front of him, and saw every hair on it ensheathed in too-vivid light, and the eyes looking at him were the eyes of a Cyclops. He saw Mr. Montrose’s face floating in front of him, dreamlike, wavering. He felt the hard clasp of Harry’s hand. His own was cold and sweating. Then he had an awful impulse to burst into tears.

“I don’t believe it,” he repeated, helplessly, over and over. His hand was shaken by others. He heard voices. He closed his eyes and hid in the darkness for a while.