Why not?
The more she thought about going there, the more the idea appealed to her.
According to another book on India which she found on her shelf, there were many swamis, many gurus, or teachers and interpreters of the mysteries of life or God, who had founded for themselves ashramas or retreats in the mountains or forests to which the troubled seekers after the meaning of the marvels or mysteries of life might turn in their hours of grief or failure or dismay, to learn of spiritual resources within themselves, which, if studied and followed, might readily dispel their own ills.
Might not such a teacher of these great truths lead her into a realm of light or spiritual peace sufficiently illuminating to dispel the dark hours of loneliness and shadow which might permanently engulf her?
She would go to India!
As she arranged it in her mind, she would sail to Bombay from London after closing Pryor’s Cove, taking her mother with her if she wished to go.
The next morning she called Dr. James to get his opinion regarding her decision, and when she told him of her plan to study there, much to her surprise, he said he thought it a very good plan indeed.
For he himself had long been intrigued by no less an ambition, only he was not as free as Berenice to avail himself of the opportunity.
It would be the kind of retreat and change she most needed, he said.
In fact, he had a few patients, with physical and mental condition greatly deranged by social and personal difficulties, whom he had sent to a certain Hindu swami in New York, and they had later returned to him completely restored to health.
For, as he had noted, there was something about the limited thought of the self that was lost in the larger thought of the not self that brought about forgetfulness of self in the nervous person, and so health.
And so encouraged was Berenice by his approval of her decision that she made immediate arrangements for the care of her Park Avenue home in her absence, and left New York for London.
Chapter 74
To the world in general, the main subject of interest in connection with the death of Frank Algernon Cowperwood was his fortune: its size, who would inherit it, how much they would each receive.
Before the will had been admitted to probate, gossip and rumor had it that Aileen was being cut off with a minimum, that Cowperwood’s two children received the bulk of the estate, also that various London favorites had already received huge gifts.
In less than a week after the death of her husband, Aileen had dismissed his lawyer, and in his place made one Charles Day her sole legal representative.
The will, admitted for probate in the Cook County Superior Court five weeks after the death of Cowperwood, contained gifts ranging in size from $2,000 left to each of his servants to $50,000 left to Albert Jamieson, and $100,000 to the Frank A. Cowperwood Observatory, an institution presented to the University of Chicago ten years previously.
Included among the ten persons or organizations listed were his two children, and the amount of money involved in these specific gifts totalled approximately half of a million dollars.
Aileen was provided for from the income of the balance of the estate.
At her death, his art gallery and collection of paintings and sculpture, valued at $3,000,000, were to be given to the City of New York for the education and enjoyment of the public.
Cowperwood had heretofore placed in the hands of trustees $750,000 for these galleries.
In addition to this, he willed that a plot of land be purchased in the borough of the Bronx, and a hospital, the buildings to cost not more than $800,000, be erected thereon.
The balance of his estate—part of the income from which would provide maintenance of the hospital—was to be placed in the hands of his appointed executors, among whom were Aileen, Dr. James, and Albert Jamieson.
The hospital was to be named the Frank A. Cowperwood Hospital, and patients were to be admitted regardless of race, color, or creed.
If they lacked financial means with which to pay for treatment, they were to receive it free of charge.
Aileen, once Cowperwood was gone, being extremely sentimental about his last wishes and desires, focussed her first attention on the hospital.
In fact, she gave out interviews to the newspapers elaborating her plans, which included a convalescent home which was to be free of any institutional air.
She concluded one of these interviews by saying:
“All my energies will be directed toward the accomplishment of my husband’s plan, and I shall make the hospital my lifework.”
Cowperwood had failed to take into consideration, however, the workings of the American courts throughout the nation: the administration of justice or the lack of it; the length of time American lawyers were capable of delaying a settlement in any of these courts.
For instance, the decision of the United States Supreme Court, killing off Cowperwood’s Combination Traction Company of Chicago, was the first blow to the estate.
Four and a half million dollars of his, invested in his Union Traction Company bonds, had been guaranteed by the Combination Traction Company.
Now they were faced with years of wrangling in court to decide not only their value but their ownership.
It was too much for Aileen. She promptly retired as executrix and turned the problem over to Jamieson.
And in consequence, almost two years passed with little or nothing accomplished.
In fact, all of this was during the panic of 1907, by reason of which Jamieson, without knowledge of the court, Aileen, or her attorney, turned the bonds in question over to a reorganizing committee.
“If they were sold out, they would be valueless as they are,” Jamieson explained.
“The reorganization committee hopes to work out a plan to save the Combination Traction Company.”
Whereupon the reorganization committee deposited the bonds with the Middle Trust Company, the organization interested in combining all of the Chicago railways into one big company.
“What did Jamieson get out of it?” was the query.
And while the estate had now been in the course of probation for two years in Chicago, no move had been made to settle affairs in New York.
The Reciprocal Life Insurance Company, holding a mortgage of $225,000 on the addition to the Fifth Avenue Mansion, along with $17,000 of unpaid interest on this mortgage, started proceedings to collect.
And their lawyers, without the knowledge of Aileen or her lawyers, worked out a plan with Jamieson and Frank Cowperwood, Jr., whereby an auction was held and this gallery, along with the pictures in it, was sold.
The proceeds of this sale barely covered the claims of the insurance company and the City of New York for unpaid water bills and taxes amounting to around $30,000.
To add to all this, Aileen and her lawyers appealed to the Probate Court in Chicago to have Jamieson removed as executor.
In sum, as Aileen informed Judge Severing:
“It has been all talk and no money ever since my husband’s death.
Mr. Jamieson talked pleasantly about money and was a good one at making promises, but I was never able to get much real money out of him.
When I demanded it directly, he would say there wasn’t any.
I have lost faith in him and have come to mistrust him.”