“Probably he had made another will before, and didn’t like to tell his own lawyer that he was making a new one. I’ve heard it said that old men are queer about that. They don’t want any one to know that they’ve changed their minds. When they do, they’re capable of going to any shyster to get the papers drawn up. That’s probably what uncle Robert did.”
“It’s a very just will in principle,” said Ralston. “I don’t know what it will turn out in practice. I wonder what the estate is really worth.”
“Over eighty millions, anyhow. I know that, because Mr. Beman said he had reason to be sure of it some time ago.”
“That gives us two twenty and you forty amongst you three. You didn’t expect all that, Ham.”
“Expect it! I didn’t expect anything. The old gentleman never said a word to me about it. Of course you were in a different position, your mother being next of kin with old Alexander. But if Alexander Junior broke the will—he can’t though, I’m certain—I shouldn’t get anything. Of course—I think any will’s just that gives me a lot of money. And if Alexander fights, I’ll fight, too.”
“He will, if he has an inch of ground to stand on. By the bye, if all goes smoothly, I suppose you’ll retire from business, and I shall stop clerking, and Crowdie will give up painting.”
“I don’t know,” answered Bright. “As for me, I think I shall stick to the bank. There’ll be more interest in the thing when I’ve got a lot of money in it. Crowdie? Oh—he’ll go on painting as long as he can see. He likes it—and it isn’t hard work.”
They talked a little longer in the same strain, and then Ralston left his friend and went up town by the Elevated, pondering deeply on the situation. One thing seemed clear enough. However matters turned out, whether Alexander Junior fought the will or not, Ralston and Katharine would be free to declare their marriage as soon as they pleased. That consideration outweighed all others with him at the present moment, for he was tired of waiting. It was four months since he had been married, and in that time he had seldom had an opportunity of talking freely with his wife. The perpetual strain of secrecy was wearing upon his nervous nature. He would at any time have preferred to fight any one or anything, rather than have anything to conceal, and concealment had been forced upon him as a daily necessity.
He said to himself with truth that he might as well have struck Alexander for one reason as for another; that he might just as well have faced him about the marriage as about the calumny upon his own character which Alexander had uttered. But circumstances had been against his doing so. At no moment yet, until the present, had he felt himself quite free to take Katharine from her home and to bring her to his mother’s. Alexander’s own violence had made it possible. And he had intended, or he and his mother had agreed, to take the step at once, when suddenly Robert Lauderdale’s death had arrested everything. There were fifty reasons for not declaring the marriage now, or for several weeks to come—chief of all, perhaps, the mere question of good taste. To declare a marriage on the very morrow of a death in the family would surprise people; the world would find it easy to believe that the young couple had acted contrary to Robert Lauderdale’s wishes, and had waited for his death, in fear of losing any part of the inheritance by offending him. Such haste would not be decent.
But there would be no need to wait long, John thought, and in the meantime Katharine could surely not go back to Clinton Place.