wishes in connection with his estate. Immediately she thought of the hospital, the founding of which she knew had been one of his sincerest desires.
“What about the hospital he intended to have built in the Bronx?” she earnestly inquired.
“Oh, that,” replied Dr. James. “That never materialized. Too many legal vultures descended on the estate right after Frank’s death. They came from everywhere, with their claims and counterclaims, foreclosure papers, and even legal disputes over the choice of executors. Four and a half million dollars’ worth of bonds were declared worthless. Bills for interest on mortgages, legal expenses of all kinds, always mounting against the estate, until finally it dwindled to a tenth of what it had been originally.”
“And the art gallery?” queried Berenice anxiously.
“All dissipated—auctioned off. The mansion itself sold for taxes and other claims against it. Aileen was compelled to move to an apartment. Then she got pneumonia and died. Unquestionably, grief over all of this trouble contributed to her death.”
“Oh, how terrible!” exclaimed Berenice. “How sad it would make him feel if he knew! He worked so hard to build it up.”
“Yes, he did,” commented James, “but they never gave him credit for good intentions. Why, even after Aileen’s death, there were articles in the newspapers describing Cowperwood as a social and almost criminal failure, because, as they said, his millions ‘had faded like a dream.’ In fact, one article was headed ‘What Availeth It?’ and painted Frank as a complete failure. Yes, there were many unkind articles, and all based on the fact that after he was gone, his fortune, through the legal connivance of many people, had shrunk to almost nothing.”
“Oh, Dr. James, isn’t it dreadful to think that the fine things he contemplated doing should have come to nothing?”
“Yes, nothing is left but a tomb, and memories.”
Berenice went on to tell him of her philosophical findings: the inward change she felt had come over her. The things that she once had felt were so important had lost their glamor, her anxiety over her own social position in connection with Cowperwood, for instance. More important to her, she said, was the tragic situation of the Indian people as a whole, some of which she recited to him: the poverty, starvation, malnutrition, illiteracy, and ignorance, much of which had grown out of religious and social delusions connected with superstitions; in sum, the absolute non-understanding of the world’s social, technical, and scientific advance. James listened intently, remarking, in places, “Dreadful!” “Amazing!” until she had finished, after which he observed:
“Actually, Berenice, all that you say of India is true. But it is also true, I fear, that America and England are not without their social defects. In fact, right here in this country, there are certainly many social evils and miseries. If you would care to come with me some day on a little tour of New York, I could show you large districts filled with people just about as miserable as your Hindu beggars, and neglected children, whose chance for physical and mental survival is practically non-existent. They are born in poverty, and, in most cases, end in it, and their intermediate years are nothing that could be called living in the sense that we think of it. And then there are the poor sections in our manufacturing and mill towns, where the living conditions are as deplorable as those to be found in any part of the world.”
At this point Berenice expressed the wish that he take her to see some of the sections of New York which would substantiate his statements, for she had seen or heard little of such conditions throughout her life. Dr. James was not surprised to hear her say that, for he knew that her social path from her youth onward had been a sheltered one.
After visiting with him a little longer, Berenice left for her hotel. But on her way home she could not drive from her mind the account by James of the dissipation of Cowperwood’s wealth. She was filled with sorrow as she inwardly reviewed the wreckage of all of his plans. How completely they had failed! At the same time, she was thinking of his love for her, his mental and emotional dependency on her, and her affection for him. It was through her influence, as she recalled, that he had decided to go to London and work on his plan for the underground system. And now, here she was, planning on the morrow to visit his tomb again, the last material vestige of all the values that had seemed so vividly real and wonderful to her at the time, but which now, in comparison with all she had experienced in India, were no longer important to her.
The following day was almost a duplicate of the day on which Cowperwood had been buried. For the sky was again gray and overcast, and, as she approached the tomb, it was as though a lone finger of stone pointed upward to the leaden noonday sky. As she walked down the pebbled path, her arms rilled with flowers, she noted the name: AILEEN BUTLER COWPERWOOD, under the name, FRANK ALGERNON COWPERWOOD, and she was grateful that Aileen was now at last alongside of the man for whom she had suffered so intensely and lost. She, Berenice, had seemingly won, but only for a time, for she also had suffered and lost in the end.
As she stood gazing thoughtfully at Cowperwood’s last resting place, she felt she could hear again the sonorous tones of the minister as he had spoken at the burial service:
“As soon as Thou scatterest them, they are even as asleep and fade suddenly like the grass. In the morning, it is green, and groweth up; but in the evening it is cut down, dried up and withered.”
But now she could not think of death as she had thought of it before going to India. There death was considered but a phase of life, and the destruction of one material form but a prelude to the building up of another. “We are never born and we never die,” they said.
And as she walked about arranging the flowers in a bronze urn on the steps of the tomb, she thought that Cowperwood must know, if he had not when he was here in the flesh, that his worship and constant search for beauty in every form, and especially in the form of a woman, was nothing more than a search for the Divine design behind all forms—the face of Brahman shining through. She wished that he might have shared these thoughts with her when they were together, and recalled the words:
And what was it that the Guru had said of charity? “Be thankful for the opportunity to give to others. Be grateful that by helping a poor man, you are able to help yourself. For, is not the universe yourself? If a man come to your door, go and meet yourself.”
But, as she now searched her conscience, what place had charity ever had in her life? What had she ever done to help others? What had she ever done to justify her right to live? True, Cowperwood had not only conceived the idea of founding a hospital for the poor, but he had done everything humanly possible to bring it into existence, even though his plans had failed. But she—had she ever had a desire to help the poor? Not that she could recall her entire life, as she realized—with the exception of the past few years—had been spent in the pursuit of pleasure and self-advancement. But now she knew that one must live for something outside of one’s self, something that would tend to answer the needs of the many as opposed to the vanities and comforts of the few, of which she herself was one. What could she do to help?
And suddenly at that point in her meditations, the thought of Cowperwood’s hospital crossed her mind. Why couldn’t she, herself, found a hospital? After all, he had left her a large fortune, a fine home filled with valuable art objects on which she could easily realize a considerable sum of money, which, added to what she already had, might enable her at least to start the project. And perhaps she could induce others to help. Dr. James would surely be one of these.
What a wonderful thought this was!
APPENDIX
