“She’s waiting for you on the landing outside the studio,” added Mrs. Bright. “I needn’t go up with you, need I? I’ve just been up all those stairs.”
“Of course not,” Katharine answered.
As she went something oddly like fear got hold of her, and her heart fluttered unexpectedly. She was conscious that she was pale as she ascended to the top of the house. Probably, she thought, it was the idea of seeing the dead man’s face that affected her unpleasantly. She nerved herself to make an effort and went on, wondering that it should be so strangely hard to go.
As she began to go up the last flight of stairs she was conscious that Hester was standing at the top, waiting for her. She wished that she had not offered to come. Then she looked up and met the deep eyes, and saw the ghastly face turned towards her. Hester was excessively pale, and even her lips were colourless. Her slight figure looked taller than usual in the straight loose gown of black, and her hands, clasped together upon the banister, had the emaciated, nervous look of some hands in pictures by the early painters. Exhaustion, in some people, shows itself in the hands before it appears in the face.
Katharine reached the top of the flight and stood still, looking at her, wishing to speak but not finding words just then. They had parted almost, if not quite, as enemies, on the previous day. Katharine went a step nearer. Her face showed well enough the deep sympathy she felt, but Hester did not exactly look at her face, but only into her eyes, with a fixed stare that made the young girl feel uneasy. That stare alone would have justified Mrs. Bright in saying that her daughter was behaving strangely. The transparent hands unclasped one another, but they fell straight to her sides. As Katharine extended her own, Hester drew back, the stare became more fixed, the eyes opened more, till they were very wide, the finely pencilled brows were raised haughtily, and the shadowy figure seemed to grow taller. Then she spoke, slowly and distinctly, in a voice that did not tremble.
“I wanted to see you. Come with me.”
She turned and opened the door of the studio, leading the way. Katharine was startled by what she saw. The great room had been darkened as much as possible by drawing all the thick shades, which had been made to keep out the sun in summer, and a great number of candles were burning with a dim, yellow light. The air was thick with the smoke of burning perfumes, which rose in tall, straight, grey plumes, from two censers placed upon the hearth before the huge chimney-piece. In the absolutely still atmosphere the smoke rose to the height of a man before it broke and opened, hanging then like draped grey curtains in the heavy air. The strange, cool smell of burning myrrh predominated, but in spite of it the drowsy, overpowering odour of frankincense reached Katharine’s nostrils. She stood still and stared through the smoke.
In the middle of the room Crowdie lay dead, clothed in a long garment of stuff that was soft and dark. The couch was covered with a silken carpet which hung down to the floor. The pale light of death softened and beautified the repulsive features, in their solemn calm, to a degree which Katharine would not have believed possible, had she been capable of thought just then. But she was taken by surprise; she was a little frightened, and she was dazed by the glare of the many candles, and dizzy with the sudden breathing of the perfume-laden air. She stood still at a little distance from the couch and looked at the dead face, stretching her head forward with a sort of timid curiosity, holding her body back with the instinctive dread of death which the young feel in spite of themselves.
Hester did not stand beside her. With slow steps, as though she were moving with a solemn procession to the rhythm of a funeral march, sweeping her long black gown noiselessly behind her, she passed to the other side, and came up to the couch and stood over her husband’s body, facing Katharine. In the shadowy smoke of the incense, with the flaring light of the wax candles upon her, she was like a supernatural being. She might have been the freed soul of the dead man, come back to look once more at Katharine’s face.
“Come nearer to me,” she said, in deadly calm, without a tremor.