Old Tarquin Ludlow, in his visit to his Ludlow cousins out of his cousin Edwin's branch, spent a great deal of his time talking to his great-grand-niece that Edwin's youngest son had adopted along with his own grandchildren: ten-year-old Glendella Ludlow.
“Robert,” he said to Edwin's youngest and last surviving child, Capt. R.E. Ludlow Sr., “it is a good thing you have adopted little Miss Glendella here, because otherwise, Agatha and I would surely be packing her up and taking her home with us.”
Little Miss Glendella beamed at this, but then indicated all her little Ludlow cousins.
“I gotta stay because I'm part of them now too,” she said, and all seven of them cheered.
“Well,” old Uncle Tarquin said, “my mansion is big! You are all invited to come visit, anytime you like – you too, Robert and Thalia!”
Wild cheering commenced, but Agatha Ludlow saw the tears pooling in her husband's eyes afterward.
“I know we are too old, and I know that is why Vanderbilt and Susanna did not bother us,” he said to her, “but it is a sin and a shame that Glendella has had so much suffering in her ten years. But I know why Astor did that to her now. He saw in her the woman he hates the most: his own mother, Angela.”
“What?” Agatha said. “I always thought that Angela was a wonderful mother.”
“She was, and a wonderful wife, and her husband and three of her four sons lived in constant fear that the world would realize that all that was seen as greatness and industry in them was coming from the mind of Angela Carnegie Ludlow.”
“I didn't know she was a Carnegie,” Agatha said. “That explains a lot.”
“Angela was beloved of her great-uncle Andrew; he taught her many things about life and business and generosity,” Tarquin said. “By the time she was born, Andrew Carnegie was the great philanthropist, and that is how she imprinted on him. She was a wonderful woman and everything she touched was blessed, and if you lived anywhere near her, no one believed you taking credit for it. Astor's father, my brother Pompey, was humored, of course, in polite society, but everybody knew he was nothing before and later without Angela. But at least he had sense enough to just do as she said. Astor, Morgan, and Gould grew up and always resented him for that and hated her, but Vanderbilt, the baby of that bunch, adored them both and took heed. That is why he was able to keep the winery going so long. He learned from his mother how to use goodwill for so much.
“Glendella has Angela's clear mind and aptitude in the bud – so Astor was taking the occasion to under develop her – and failing, though, because little Glendella is far ahead of her grade level in most subjects. She told me her tutors loved her and gave her lots of extra to keep her mind occupied – so she is right with her Eleanor and Andrew, her cousins of the same age in Robert's family here, in reading on a high school level. She understands science and history equally well, and is lagging a little by comparison in math – but not for a ten-year-old.”
“So, basically, Astor and Big Glendella were trying to starve Angela out through crippling Glendella by neglect – and failing even that!” Agatha said with a laugh.
“Also, Vanderbilt and Susanna did a lot on those weekends too – but see, this is where my family always fails. Even Vanderbilt could not escape having to keep up appearances for the family honor, and he honestly does not know all the trouble he and Glendella have been in. He doesn't know his brothers hated their mother, and therefore, how much Astor hates both him and Glendella. He doesn't know why Morgan and Gould flamed out so early, trying to be somebody they would never be while hating the only person who could have taught them how to be the best they could.”
“Being tied to your mother's apron strings, backwards,” Agatha said, “and strangling yourself in the process – that's what Morgan and Gould and finally Astor did too.”
“No, Astor is in a different process,” Tarquin said, his faded dark eyes for a moment flashing up to the intensity of decades before. “God does not spare you when you mess with the children. Big Glendella is in a different process. Glendale and Sylvia, Glendella's no-good abandoning parents, are in a different process. I would have much more to say about all of that, but little Miss Glendella can't process that kind of family civil war. She does not need me to avenge her. It will be done by One wiser than I am.”
“What I am going to do is make sure Vanderbilt, Susanna, Robert, and Thalia, and all those tutors, and that Sunday School teacher – Mosette Smith, I think it is – I'm going to make sure they all have opportunity to keep doing the good they are doing. I'm going to do that so that the family is not on Uppity Foolery Watch again as some 85-year-old Ludlow cousin takes a switch and just tans the hide of his 68-year-old nephew.”
Agatha laughed.
“We do not need to be provide the county with more must-see-TV, eh?”
“Listen, the only streams I am interested in is figuring who else was asleep on the job for the last 20 years and let Robert buy up the majority of the family's water rights, and how I can get him to throw 30 percent of his holdings into our deal to buy the Ludlow Historical Soda Company so I can get the kids of these stupid Ludlows to understand what they have as a heritage and gift them some of that back!”
“Or, gift it to our brood,” Agatha said.
“It's probably going to end up like that, but, the younger cousins need a chance first,” Tarquin said. “We have enough.”