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The Moneychangers

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Charles Aldarondo and the Online Distributed Proofreading team.



THE MONEYCHANGERS

By Upton Sinclair

NEW YORK

1908






To Jack London






CHAPTER I





"I am," said Reggie Mann, "quite beside myself to meet this Lucy
Dupree."

"Who told you about her?" asked Allan Montague.

"Ollie's been telling everybody about her," said Reggie. "It sounds
really wonderful. But I fear he must have exaggerated."

"People seem to develop a tendency to exaggeration," said Montague,
"when they talk about Lucy."

"I am in quite a state about her," said Reggie.

Allan Montague looked at him and smiled. There were no visible signs
of agitation about Reggie. He had come to take Alice to church, and
he was exquisitely groomed and perfumed, and wore a wonderful
scarlet orchid in his buttonhole. Montague, lounging back in a big
leather chair and watching him, smiled to himself at the thought
that Reggie regarded Lucy as a new kind of flower, with which he
might parade down the Avenue and attract attention.

"Is she large or small?" asked Reggie.

"She is about your size," said Montague,--which was very small
indeed.

Alice entered at this moment in a new spring costume. Reggie sprang
to his feet, and greeted her with his inevitable effusiveness.

When he asked, "Do you know her, too?"

"Who? Lucy?" asked Alice. "I went to school with her."

"Judge Dupree's plantation was next to ours," said Montague. "We all
grew up together."

"There was hardly a day that I did not see her until she was
married," said Alice. "She was married at seventeen, you know--to a
man much older than herself."

"We have never seen her since that," added the other. "She has lived
in New Orleans."

"And only twenty-two now," exclaimed Reggie. "All the wisdom of a
widow and the graces of an ingénue!" And he raised his hands with a
gesture of admiration.

"Has she got money?" he asked.

"She had enough for New Orleans," was the reply. "I don't know about
New York."

"Ah well," he said meditatively, "there's plenty of money lying
about."

He took Alice away to her devotions, leaving Montague to the
memories which the mention of Lucy Dupree awakened.

Allan Montague had been in love with Lucy a half a dozen times in
his life; it had begun when she was a babe in arms, and continued
intermittently until her marriage. Lucy was a beauty of the creole
type, with raven-black hair and gorgeous colouring; and Allan
carried with him everywhere the face of joy, with the quick, mobile
features across which tears and laughter chased like April showers
across the sky.

Lucy was a tiny creature, as he had said, but she was a well-spring
of abounding energy. She had been the life of a lonely household
from the first hour, and all who came near her yielded to her spell.
Allan remembered one occasion when he had entered the house and seen
the grave and venerable chief justice of the State down upon his
hands and knees, with Lucy on his back.

She was a born actress, everybody said. When she was no more than
four, she would lie in bed when she should have been asleep, and
tell herself tragic stories to make her weep. Before long she had
discovered several chests full of the clothes which her mother had
worn in the days when she was a belle of the old plantation society;
and then Lucy would have tableaus and theatricals, and would
astonish all beholders in the role of an Oriental princess or a
Queen of the Night.

Her mother had died when she was very young, and she had grown up
with only her father for a companion. Judge Dupree was one of the
rich men of the neighbourhood, and he lavished everything upon his
daughter; but people had said that Lucy would suffer for the lack of
a woman's care, and the prophecy had been tragically fulfilled.
There had come a man, much older than herself, but with a glamour of
romance about him; and the wonder of love had suddenly revealed
itself to Lucy, and swept her away as no emotion had ever done
before.

One day she disappeared, and Montague had never seen her again. He
knew that she had gone to New Orleans to live, and he heard rumours
that she was very unhappy, that her husband was a spendthrift and a
rake. Scarcely a year after her marriage Montague heard the story of
his death by an accident while driving.

He had heard no more until a short time after his coming to New
York, when the home papers had reported the death of Judge Dupree.
And then a week or so ago had come a letter from Lucy, to his
brother, Oliver Montague, saying that she was coming to New York,
perhaps to live permanently, and asking him to meet her and to
engage accommodations for her in some hotel.

Montague wondered what she would be like when he saw her again. He
wondered what five years of suffering and experience would have done
for her; whether it would have weakened her enthusiasm and dried up
her springs of joy. Lucy grown serious was something that was
difficult for him to imagine.

And then again would come a mood of doubt, when he distrusted the
thrill which the memory of her brought. Would she be able to
maintain her spell in competition with what life had brought him
since?

His revery was broken by Oliver, who came in to ask him if he wished
to go to meet her. "Those Southern trains are always several hours
late," he said. "I told my man to go over and 'phone me."

"You are to have her in charge," said Montague; "you had better see
her first. Tell her I will come in the evening." And so he went to
the great apartment hotel--the same to which Oliver had originally
introduced him. And there was Lucy.

She was just the same. He could see it in an instant; there was the
same joyfulness, the same eagerness; there was the same beauty,
which had made men's hearts leap up. There was not a line of care
upon her features--she was like a perfect flower come to its
fulness.

She came to him with both her hands outstretched. "Allan!" she
cried, "Allan! I am so glad to see you!" And she caught his hands in
hers and stood and gazed at him. "My, how big you have grown, and
how serious! Isn't he splendid, Ollie?"

Oliver stood by, watching. He smiled drily. "He is a trifle too epic
for me," he said.

"Oh, my, how wonderful it seems to see you!" she exclaimed. "It
makes me think of fifty things at once. We must sit down and have a
long talk. It will take me all night to ask you all the questions I
have to."

Lucy was in mourning for her father, but she had contrived to make
her costume serve as a frame for her beauty. She seemed like a
flaming ruby against a background of black velvet. "Tell me how you
have been," she rushed on. "And what has happened to you up here?
How is your mother?"

"Just the same," said Montague; "she wants you to come around
to-morrow morning."

"I will," said Lucy,--"the first thing, before I go anywhere. And
Mammy Lucy! How is Mammy Lucy?"

"She is well," he replied. "She's beside herself to see you."

"Tell her I am coming!" said she. "I would rather see Mammy Lucy
than the Brooklyn Bridge!"

She led him to a seat, placed herself opposite him, devouring him
with her eyes. "It makes me seem like a girl again to see you," she
said.

"Do you count yourself aged?" asked Montague, laughing.

"Oh, I feel old," said Lucy, with a sudden look of fear,--"you have
no idea, Allan. But I don't want anybody to know about it!" And then
she cried, eagerly, "Do you remember the swing in the orchard? And
do you remember the pool where the big alligator lived? And the
persimmons? And Old Joe?"

Allan Montague remembered all these things; in the course of the
half hour that followed he remembered pretty nearly all the exciting
adventures which he and Oliver and Lucy had had since Lucy was old
enough to walk. And he told her the latest news about all their
neighbours, and about all the servants whom she remembered. He told
her also about his father's death, and how the house had been
burned, and how they had sold the plantation and come North.

"And how are you doing, Allan?" she asked.

"I am practising law," he said. "I'm not making a fortune, but I'm
managing to pay my bills. That is more than some other people do in
this city."

"I should imagine it," said Lucy. "With all that row of shops on
Fifth Avenue! Oh, I know I shall spend all that I own in the first
week. And this hotel--why, it's perfectly frightful."

"Oliver has told you the prices, has he?" said Montague, with a
laugh.

"He has taken my breath away," said Lucy. "How am I ever to manage
such things?"

"You will have to settle that with him," said Montague. "He has
taken charge, and he doesn't want me to interfere."

"But I want your advice," said Lucy. "You are a business man, and
Ollie never was anything but a boy."

"Ollie has learned a good deal since he has been in New York," the
other responded.

"I can tell you my side of the case very quickly," he went on after
a moment's pause. "He brought me here, and persuaded me that this
was how I ought to live if I wanted to get into Society. I tried it
for a while, but I found that I did not like the things I had to do,
and so I quit. You will find us in an apartment a couple of blocks
farther from Fifth Avenue, and we only pay about one-tenth as much
for it. And now, whether you follow me or Ollie depends upon whether
you want to get into Society."

Lucy wrinkled her brows in thought. "I didn't come to New York to
bury myself in a boarding-house," she said. "I do want to meet
people."

"Well," said Montague, "Oliver knows a lot of them, and he will
introduce you. Perhaps you will like them--I don't know. I am sure
you won't have any difficulty in making them like you."

"Thank you, sir," said Lucy. "You are as ingenuous as ever!"

"I don't want to say anything to spoil your pleasure," said the
other. "You will find out about matters for yourself. But I feel
like telling you this--don't you be too ingenuous. You can't trust
people quite so freely here as you did at home."

"Thank you," said Lucy. "Ollie has already been lecturing me. I had
no idea it was such a serious matter to come to New York. I told him
that widows were commonly supposed to know how to take care of
themselves."

"I had a rather bad time of it myself, getting adjusted to things,"
said Montague, smiling. "So you must make allowances for my
forebodings."

"I've told Lucy a little about it," put in Oliver, drily.

"He told me a most fascinating love story!" said Lucy, gazing at him
with a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "I shall certainly look out
for the dazzling Mrs. Winnie."

"You may meet her to-morrow night," put in Oliver. "You are invited
to dinner at Mrs. Billy Alden's."

"I have read about Mrs. Billy in the newspapers," said Lucy. "But I
never expected to meet her. How in the world has Oliver managed to
jump so into the midst of things?"

Oliver undertook to explain; and Montague sat by, smiling to himself
over his brother's carefully expurgated account of his own social
career. Oliver had evidently laid his plans to take charge of Lucy,
and to escort her to a high seat upon the platform of Society.

"But tell me, all this will cost so much money!" Lucy protested.
"And I don't want to have to marry one of these terrible
millionaires."

She turned to Montague abruptly. "Have you got an office somewhere
down town?" she asked. "And may I come to-morrow, and see you, and
get you to be my business adviser? Old Mr. Holmes is dead, you know.
He used to be father's lawyer, and he knew all about my affairs. He
never thought it worth while to explain anything to me, so now I
don't know very well what I have or what I can do."

"I will do all I can to help you," Montague answered.

"And you must be very severe with me," Lucy continued, "and not let
me spend too much money, or make any blunders. That was the way Mr.
Holmes used to do, and since he is dead, I have positively been
afraid to trust myself about."

"If I am to play that part for you," said Montague, laughing, "I am
afraid we'll very soon clash with my brother."

Montague had very little confidence in his ability to fill the part.
As he watched Lucy, he had a sense of tragedy impending. He knew
enough to feel sure that Lucy was not rich, according to New York
standards of wealth; and he felt that the lure of the city was
already upon her. She was dazzled by the vision of automobiles and
shops and hotels and theatres, and all the wonders which these held
out to her. She had come with all her generous enthusiasms; and she
was hungry with a terrible hunger for life.

Montague had been through the mill, and he saw ahead so clearly that
it was impossible for him not to try to guide her, and to save her
from the worst of her mistakes. Hence arose a strange relationship
between them; from the beginning Lucy made him her confidant, and
told him all her troubles. To be sure, she never took his advice;
she would say, with her pretty laugh, that she did not want him to
keep her out of trouble, but only to sympathise with her afterwards.
And Montague followed her; he told himself again and again that
there was no excuse for Lucy; but all the while he was making
excuses.

She went over the next morning to see Oliver's mother, and Mammy
Lucy, who had been named after her grandmother. Then in the
afternoon she went shopping with Alice--declaring that it was
impossible for her to appear anywhere in New York until she had made
herself "respectable." And then in the evening Montague called for
her, and took her to Mrs. Billy Alden's Fifth Avenue palace.

On the way he beguiled the time by telling her about the terrible
Mrs. Billy and her terrible tongue; and about the war between the
great lady and her relatives, the Wallings. "You must not be
surprised," he said, "if she pins you in a corner and asks all about
you. Mrs. Billy is a privileged character, and the conventions do
not apply to her."

Montague had come to take the Alden magnificence as a matter of
course by this time, but he felt Lucy thrill with excitement at the
vision of the Doge's palace, with its black marble carvings and its
lackeys in scarlet and gold. Then came Mrs. Billy herself,
resplendent in dark purple brocade, with a few ropes of pearls flung
about her neck. She was almost tall enough to look over the top of
Lucy's head, and she stood away a little so as to look at her
comfortably.

"I tried to have Mrs. Winnie here for you," she said to Montague, as
she placed him at her right hand. "But she was not able to come, so
you will have to make out with me."

"Have you many more beauties like that down in Mississippi?" she
asked, when they were seated. "If so, I don't see why you came up
here."

"You like her, do you?" he asked.

"I like her looks," said Mrs. Billy. "Has she got any sense? It is
quite impossible to believe that she's a widow. She needs someone to
take care of her just the same."

"I will recommend her to your favour," said Montague. "I have been
telling her about you."

"What have you told her?" asked Mrs. Billy, serenely,--"that I win
too much money at bridge, and drink Scotch at dinner?" Then, seeing
Montague blush furiously, she laughed. "I know it is true. I have
caught you thinking it half a dozen times."

And she reached out for the decanter which the butler had just
placed in front of her, and proceeded to help herself to her opening
glass.

Montague told her all about Lucy; and, in the meantime, he watched
the latter, who sat near the centre of the table, talking with
Stanley Ryder. Montague had played bridge with this man once or
twice at Mrs. Winnie's, and he thought to himself that Lucy could
hardly have met a man who would embody in himself more of the
fascinations of the Metropolis. Ryder was president of the Gotham
Trust Company, an institution whose magnificent marble front was one
of the sights of Fifth Avenue. He was a man a trifle under fifty,
tall and distinguished-looking, with an iron-grey mustache, and the
manners of a diplomat. He was not only a banker, he was also a man
of culture; he had run away to sea in his youth, and he had
travelled in every country of the world. He was also a bit of an
author, in an amateur way, and if there was any book which he had
not dipped into, it was not a book of which one would be apt to hear
in Society. He could talk upon any subject, and a hostess who could
secure Stanley Ryder for one of her dinner-parties generally counted
upon a success. "He doesn't go out much, these busy days," said Mrs.
Billy. "But I told him about your friend."

Now and then the conversation at the table would become general, and
Montague noticed that it was always Ryder who led. His flashes of
wit shot back and forth across the table; and those who matched
themselves against him seldom failed to come off the worse. It was
an unscrupulous kind of wit, dazzling and dangerous. Ryder was the
type of man one met now and then in Society, who had adopted radical
ideas for the sake of being distinguished. It was a fine thing for a
man who had made a brilliant success in a certain social environment
to shatter in his conversation all the ideals and conventions of
that environment, and thus to reveal how little he really cared for
the success which he had won.

It was very entertaining at a dinner-party; but Montague thought to
himself with a smile how far was Stanley Ryder from the type of
person one imagined as the head of an enormous and flourishing bank.
When they had adjourned to the drawing-room, he capped the climax of
the incongruity by going to the piano and playing a movement from
some terrible Russian suite.

Afterwards Montague saw him stroll off to the conservatory with Lucy
Dupree. There were two people too many for bridge, and that was a
good excuse; but none the less Montague felt restless during the
hours that he sat at table and let Mrs. Billy win his money.

After the ordeal was over and the party had broken up, he found his
friend sitting by the side of the fountain in Mrs. Billy's
conservatory, gazing fixedly in front of her, while Ryder at her
side was talking.

"You met an interesting man," he said, when they had got settled in
the carriage.

"One of the most extraordinary men I ever met," said Lucy, quickly.
"I wish that you would tell me about him. Do you know him well?"

"I have heard him talk some, and I know him in a business way."

"Is he so very rich?" she asked.

"He has a few millions," said he. "And I suppose he is turning them
over very rapidly. People say that he is a daring speculator."

"A speculator!" exclaimed Lucy. "Why, I thought that he was the
president of a bank!"

"When you have been in New York awhile," said Montague, with a
smile, "you will realise that there is nothing incompatible in the
two."

Lucy was silent, a little staggered at the remark. "I am told,"
Montague added, with a smile, "that even Ryder's wife won't keep her
money in the Gotham Trust."

Montague had not anticipated the effect of this remark. Lucy gave a
sudden start. "His wife!" she exclaimed.

"Why, yes," said Montague. "Didn't you know that he was married?"

"No," said Lucy, in a low voice. "I did not."

There was a long silence. Finally she asked, "Why was not his wife
invited to the dinner?"

"They seldom go out together," said Montague.

"Have they separated?" she asked.

"There is a new and fashionable kind of separation," was the answer.
"They live in opposite sides of a large mansion, and meet on formal
occasions."

"What sort of a woman is she?" asked Lucy,

"I don't know anything about her," he replied.

There was a silence again. Finally Montague said, "There is no cause
to be sorry for him, you understand."

And Lucy touched his hand lightly with hers.

"That's all right, Allan," she said. "Don't worry. I am not apt to
make the same mistake twice."

It seemed to Montague that there was nothing to be said after that.






CHAPTER II





Lucy wanted to come down to Montague's office to talk business with
him; but he would not put her to that trouble, and called the next
morning at her apartment before he went down town. She showed him
all her papers; her father's will, with a list of his property, and
also the accounts of Mr. Holmes, and the rent-roll of her properties
in New Orleans. As Montague had anticipated, Lucy's affairs had not
been well managed, and he had many matters to look into and many
questions to ask. There were a number of mortgages on real estate
and buildings, and, on the other hand, some of Lucy's own properties
were mortgaged, a state of affairs which she was not able to
explain. There were stocks in several industrial companies, of which
Montague knew but little. Last and most important of all, there was
a block of five thousand shares in the Northern Mississippi
Railroad.

"You know all about that, at any rate," said Lucy. "Have you sold
your own holdings yet?"

"No," said Montague. "Father wished me to keep the agreement as long
as the others did."

"I am free to sell mine, am I not?" asked Lucy.

"I should certainly advise you to sell it," said Montague. "But I am
afraid it will not be easy to find a purchaser."

The Northern Mississippi was a railroad with which Montague had
grown up, so to speak; there was never a time in his recollection
when the two families had not talked about it. It ran from Atkin to
Opala, a distance of about fifty miles, connecting at the latter
point with one of the main lines of the State. It was an enterprise
which Judge Dupree had planned, as a means of opening up a section
of country in the future of which he had faith.

It had been undertaken at a time when distrust of Wall Street was
very keen in that neighbourhood; and Judge Dupree had raised a
couple of million dollars among his own friends and neighbours,
adding another half-million of his own, with a gentlemen's agreement
among all of them that the road would not ask favours of Northern
capitalists, and that its stock should never be listed on the
Exchanges. The first president had been an uncle of Lucy's, and the
present holder of the office was an old friend of the family's.

But the sectional pride which had raised the capital could not
furnish the traffic. The towns which Judge Dupree had imagined did
not materialise, and the little railroad did not keep pace with the
progress of the time. For the last decade or so its properties had
been depreciating and its earnings falling off, and it had been
several years since Montague had drawn any dividends upon the fifty
thousand dollars' worth of stock for which his father had paid par
value.

He was reminded, as he talked about all this with Lucy, of a project
which had been mooted some ten or twelve years ago, to extend the
line from Atkin so as to connect with the plant of the Mississippi
Steel Company, and give that concern a direct outlet toward the
west. The Mississippi Steel Company had one of the half dozen
largest plate and rail mills in the country, and the idea of
directing even a small portion of its enormous freight was one which
had incessantly tantalised the minds of the directors of the
Northern Mississippi.

They had gone so far as to conduct a survey, and to make a careful
estimate of the cost of the proposed extension. Montague knew about
this, because it had chanced that he, together with Lucy's brother,
who was now in California, had spent part of his vacation on a
hunting trip, during which they had camped near the surveying party.
The proposed line had to find its way through the Talula swamps, and
here was where the uncertainty of the project came in. There were a
dozen routes proposed, and Montague remembered how he had sat by the
campfire one evening, and got into conversation with one of the
younger men of the party, and listened to his grumbling about the
blundering of the survey. It was his opinion that the head-surveyor
was incompetent, that he was obstinately rejecting the best routes
in favour of others which were almost impossible.

Montague had taken this gossip to his father, but he did not know
whether his father had ever looked into the matter. He only knew
that when the project for the proposed extension had been brought up
at a stockholders' meeting, the cost of the work was found so great
that it was impossible to raise the money. A proposal to go to the
Mississippi Steel Company was voted down, because Mississippi Steel
was in the hands of Wall Street men; and neither Judge Dupree nor
General Montague had realised at that time the hopelessness of the
plight of the little railroad.

All these matters were brought up in the conversation between Lucy
and Montague. There was no reason, he assured her, why they should
still hold on to their stock; if, by the proposed extension, or by
any other plan, new capitalists could make a success of the company,
it would be well to make some combination with them. or, better yet,
to sell out entirely. Montague promised that he would take the
matter in hand and see what he could do.

His first thought, as he went down town, was of Jim Hegan. "Come and
see me sometime," Hegan had said, and Montague had never accepted
the invitation. The Northern Mississippi would, of course, be a mere
bagatelle to a man like Hegan, but who could tell what new plans he
might be able to fit it into? Montague knew by the rumours in the
street that the great financier had sold out all his holdings in two
or three of his most important ventures.

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