Carnac's Folly, Volume 2. by Gilbert Parker
page 29 of 32 (90%)
page 29 of 32 (90%)
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"Good luck to you, Tarboe!" he said. "You'll make a success, and that's
what he wanted more than anything else. Good luck to you!" he said again and turned away. . . . When John Grier's will was published in the Press consternation filled the minds of all. Tarboe had been in the business for under two years, yet here he was left all the property with uncontracted power. Mrs. John Grier was to be paid during her life a yearly stipend of twenty thousand dollars from the business; she also received a grant of seventy thousand dollars. Beyond that, there were a few gifts to hospitals and for the protection of horses, while to the clergyman of the parish went one thousand dollars. It certainly could not be called a popular will, and, complimentary as the newspapers were to the energy and success of John Grier, few of them called him public-spirited, or a generous-hearted citizen. In his death he paid the price of his egotism. The most surprised person, however, was Junia Shale. To her it was shameful that Carnac should be eliminated from all share in the abundant fortune John Grier had built up. It seemed fantastic that the fortune and the business--and the business was the fortune--should be left to Tarboe. Had she known the contents of the will before John Grier was buried, she would not have gone to the funeral. Egotistic she had known Grier to be, and she imagined the will to be a sudden result of anger. He was dead and buried. The places that knew him knew him no more. All in an hour, as it were, the man Tarboe--that dominant, resourceful figure--had come into wealth and power. After Junia read the substance of the will, she went springing up the mountain-side, as it were to work off her excitement by fatigue. At the |
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