Chapter XXII

_The Grapes of Wrath_

Thane Court, August third, eighteen-ninety-two. Now that a son is

born to me, Fielding Thaneford of King William county, Maryland, it

is fitting that I set down in order the form and measure of my

vengeance upon the traitor Yardley Hildebrand; also upon those who

may come after him until the end of time.

Back in 1854 I was a young man of nine-and-twenty. Yardley

Hildebrand was some twenty years my senior, yet we were close

friends owing to our common interest in scientific studies, he as a

chemist and I as a physicist, specializing in optics. Then Evelyn

Mansfield came and stood between us.

It was his wealth which turned the scale. Not that Evelyn was

mercenary, but financial disaster had overtaken the Mansfields, and

Yardley Hildebrand had promised to play the part of a ministering

angel in rehabilitating the family fortunes, the inexorable

condition being that Evelyn should favor his suit. And I was a

comparatively poor man.

They were married in 1855, she a slip of a girl of barely nineteen

years, and he a mature man of fifty. It is hardly necessary to say

that he kept none of his lavish promises. I cared nothing about

that, but when he began to mistreat his wife, to the extent of

using personal violence, my half-formed plans started to take

definite shape.

Evelyn died suddenly in the late summer of 1860, the same year that

Yardley Hildebrand succeeded his father in the ownership of the

"Hundred." As S. Saviour's was then undergoing repairs, the funeral

had to take place from the house. I stood by her coffin, set up in

state in the long ballroom; and, snatching a favorable opportunity,

I pushed back the loose sleeve of her gown, and saw with my own

eyes the blue and purple marks of his hands on her delicate flesh.

Whereupon, I made oath that both Yardley himself and his heirs

forever should pay in their own bodies for all that Evelyn had

suffered and endured. Perhaps I was a little mad then; it may be

that I am still of a disordered brain, and so not fully responsible

for the things which I have done in making up the tale of my

revenge. Whatever the legal aspects of the case, be sure of this: I

am neither sorry nor ashamed.

My opportunity quickly came. Yardley determined to go abroad; the

pretense was that he needed a change to divert his mind and blunt

the keen edge of his grief. But I managed to keep a straight face

when he mumbled out his excuses and explanations.

Yardley Hildebrand had it in mind to build an adequate library at

the "Hundred"; the villain had his cultivated tastes, and he wanted

something which should be unique of its kind. Since my regular

profession was that of an architect he naturally consulted me. I

sketched out my ideas, and they met with his approval; he offered

me the commission, and I accepted with alacrity. Then he sailed

away, leaving me to carry out the plans--those in my sketchbook and

some others that I had not taken the trouble to show him.

Modern physicists are just now beginning to talk about the

invisible heat and light rays composed of high frequency

vibrations. But long before Crooks gave the X-ray to the world I

had discovered and had succeeded in isolating what I choose to call

the Sigma ray. Some fine day it will be rediscovered, and the lucky

man will get a new lot of capital letters to tack onto his name;

and perhaps a ribbon for his buttonhole, and a pension from his

grateful government. I shall not care; the Sigma ray has repaid me

a thousandfold for the trouble I took to establish its existence;

as a lethal agent it stands without a peer, instantaneously

destructive to all forms of organic life.

Naturally, I do not propose to state the formula by means of which

I was enabled to construct a filter capable of segregating my

beloved Sigma ray _from ordinary sunlight_. Ah, that statement is

illuminating, is it not! Suffice it to say that my filter looks

like common glass. It may be moulded so as to resemble the familiar

bullseye lens; and, if desirable, it can be colored. Now do you

begin to appreciate the significance of the stained glass window on

the right of the great fireplace in the library of "Hildebrand

Hundred," the one depicting the Israelitish spies carrying their

clusters of purple grapes?

If you choose to make an interesting experiment, arrange for the

erection of a staging or an extension ladder outside the "Spy"

window, so as to bring your eye on a level with the third grape in

the upper row of the largest bunch. You will find that the line of

your view, through this particular bullseye, impinges upon the head

of any person who may chance to be sitting in the swivel-chair

before the big, teakwood desk. As the chair is immovably secured to

the floor by steel bolts passing through its mushroom base, it is

evident that the relationship of the chair and of that particular

bullseye will remain fixed; at any rate, one would have to go to

some trouble to disturb it.

But the mere haphazard introduction of the Sigma ray into the room

would not suit my purpose; my revenge would not be complete unless

I could see it in operation. And so it was necessary to arrange

some sort of clockwork mechanism to spring the trap. I confess to

being somewhat grandiose in my conceptions, and accordingly I

decided to press into my service no less an agency than the solar

system itself.

If you will go into the library of "Hildebrand Hundred" on any

month of the year outside of June you will see that the direct rays

of the sun never reach the upper part of the "Spy" window;

consequently, the Sigma ray is not brought into being. But, as the

summer solstice approaches, the sun continues to rise higher and

higher in the heavens until, in the three or four days around the

twenty-first of June, it has reached its ultimate altitude with

reference to the zenith. For the few minutes immediately before or

after high noon on any of the aforesaid days the sun is in such a

position that its beams will pass through the purple bullseye lens

that forms the third grape in the upper row of the largest

cluster. And in passing through it will become decomposed into the

Sigma ray, and will fall on the head of him who sits at the great

desk, exercising the authority of his lordship over "Hildebrand

Hundred."

This is all plain and straightforward, I think. It is unfortunately

true that any innocent person who chances to be occupying the seat

perilous at the fateful moment will have to bear the weight of the

vengeance intended for the guilty. But that risk is really remote,

since the great desk and chair are the natural appanage of the

Master of the "Hundred"; it will not be usual for anyone else to

trespass upon that prerogative. And what more natural procedure

than that the Master of the "Hundred," after a tour of his hay

fields on a hot June day, should go to the cool of his library and

finish up his office business at his desk?

True, there are other contingencies. The Master may come to the

room and yet choose to sit elsewhere. Or he may forestall the

hammer stroke of doom through the chance of rising from his chair

to select a book from a distant shelf; or, finding his match-safe

empty, he may go over to the chimney-breast on the hunt for a

vesta.

Or again, he may be away from home during the three or four days of

fate, or lying ill in an upstairs room. Finally, should the period

of danger be cloudy and overcast the sun may not shine at all, and

the whole business must go over for another year. But my patience

is very long; I have learned how to wait.

I need not go into the intricate calculations necessary to provide

for all the conditions of the problem. Fortunately for my purpose

the walls of the projected addition lay at a favorable angle for

the carrying out of my designs, and I had only to work out the

correct position for the windows and make the proper allowance for

the overhang of the roof cornice. The stained glass was made from

my own drawings, and I personally set the bullseye lens in its

appointed place. The work was finished in May, 1861, and I should

have liked to have made a test of my apparatus before Yardley's

return from abroad; if there had been any error in my calculations

and measurements it would be difficult, later on, to trump up an

excuse for making the necessary structural alteration. But, as it

turned out, I had made no mistakes.

However, Yardley forestalled my intentions by appearing at the

"Hundred" early in May. I bade him welcome, and showed him my

completed work. He was pleased and said so, frequently and warmly.

I could only smile in acknowledgment of his plaudits and fulsome

thanks.

June the twentieth of that same year I sat in my observation post

on Sugar Loaf. Through my high-powered telephoto lens I saw Yardley

come into the room and sit down at his desk. It was then ten

minutes of twelve o'clock. Five minutes later, what looked like a

streak of purple flame leaped through the semi-darkness of the

room, and Yardley Hildebrand toppled to the floor. The apparatus

had worked with meticulous exactness, and Evelyn Mansfield was

avenged--at least in part.

Since then I have watched two others of that black line of

Hildebrands go to their doom--Randall and Horace. Poor spirited

creatures, both of them, and hardly worthy to receive the accolade

of my splendid Sigma ray. Randall held his sovereignty for just a

year, but Horace had the devil's own luck. Cloudy days saved him,

together with one quite unforeseen contingency, an eclipse of the

sun on June 21, 1864. On June 20 and 21, 1865, there were heavy

rains, and I was furious. But the twenty-second was clear and fine,

and lo! he, too, was gathered to his fathers.

Finally, my dearly beloved brother-in-law, Richard, succeeded to

the family honors, and perils. That was in 1865 and for

seven-and-twenty years he has managed to evade the stroke through

the annoying accident that he prefers the summer climate of "Old

White." I intend to give him still further leeway now that my son

John, born July 16, 1892, to me and Richard's sister, Jocelyn, is

in the field. For Richard is a bachelor, and John Thaneford is the

natural heir to the estate. If Richard will listen to reason and

make due provision in his will, I am agreeable to allow him full

usufruct of the "Hundred" until my son arrives at his majority.

Otherwise he, in his turn, shall die like the dog he is, even as

the Hildebrands before him have died, alone and in silence, with

none to pity and none to save. The instrument of my vengeance is

very sure and very patient, and the passage of the years is as

nothing to me, sitting perdu in my secret seat on the cliff of

Sugar Loaf.

* * * * *

October 1, 1892. Richard is not inclined to listen to my proposal

to recognize John as his rightful heir; he even talks of leaving

the "Hundred" to his great-nephew on the distaff side, one Francis

Graeme.

Be it so; let him eat of the grapes of wrath, and let his teeth be

set on edge, even to the third and fourth generation of that

accursed race upon which my hate is poured out, now and for

evermore.

FIELDING THANEFORD.

June 20, 1918. Richard Hildebrand died to-day, and Francis Graeme

became Master of the "Hundred."

July 10, 1918. I have offered Francis Graeme his chance on the same

terms. He has accepted, and John Thaneford is to be nominated the

heir in his will of the residuary estate. But the Sigma ray stands

on guard until I am convinced that he intends to keep his plighted

word.

F. T.