“It’s a mistake to take things too hard,” said the elder woman. “And it’s a great mistake to underrate time. A great many curious things can happen to one in five years.”
Katharine was not in search of unbelief, nor of encouragement in not believing that human nature could really feel. Her faith in it had been terribly undermined during the past winter, and she had just been with two persons, Hester Crowdie and Paul Griggs, whose behaviour had at least tended to restore it. She did not wish the recuperative effort of her charity towards mankind to be checked. So she did not argue the point, but walked on in silence.
She had not recovered, and could not recover for many days, from the impression produced upon her by the ghastly scene in the studio. Her young vitality abhorred death, and its contrary and hostile principle, and when she thought of what she had seen, she felt the same sickening, shrinking horror which had led her to hold back her skirt from any possible contact with the carpet on which Crowdie’s body had been lying. She might have been willing to admit that her mother, who had seen nothing, but had sat downstairs talking with the comfortable, fat and refined aunt Maggie, was not called upon to feel what she herself felt after going through such a strange experience. But since her mother felt nothing, her mother could not understand; and if she could not understand, it was better to walk on in silence and to make her hasten her indolent, graceful steps.
In reality, Mrs. Lauderdale was much more preoccupied about the possibilities of the second will turning out to be favourable to her husband or the contrary, and her preoccupation was not at all sordid, though it was by no means unselfish. She was anxious about him, in her unobtrusive, calm way. He talked of money in his sleep, as she had told Katharine, and he was growing nervous. She had even noticed once or twice of late that his hand shook a little as he held the morning paper after breakfast, during the ten minutes which he devoted to its perusal. That was a bad sign, she thought, for a man who had been famous for his good nerve, and who had been known all his life as an unerring shot. She did not like to think what consequences a great disappointment might have upon his temper, which had shown itself so frequently of late, after nearly a quarter of a century of comparative quiescence. Nor was it pleasant to contemplate the new means of economy which he would certainly introduce into his household if by any evil chance he got no share of the Lauderdale fortune. But that, she told herself, was impossible, as indeed it seemed to be.
It was of no use to be in a hurry, she told Katharine, as they had at least an hour to get rid of before the time at which Mr. Allen was to be expected. The Ralstons and Hamilton Bright would only come a few minutes earlier. Every one would understand how unpleasant it might be to be shut up together in such suspense for half an hour before the truth could be known—each hoping to get the other’s money, as Mrs. Lauderdale observed with a little laugh that had hardly any cruelty in it. But, of course, nobody would be late on such an occasion. There was no fear of that. And she laughed again, and stepped gracefully aside on the pavement to let a boy with a big bundle go by.
She had not been deceived in her calculations, for there was still plenty of time to spare when they reached the house in Clinton Place. Katharine disappeared to her room, glad to be alone at last. There was a hushed expectation in the air of the house, which reminded her of the place she had just left, but she herself felt not the smallest interest in the will. So far as she was concerned, she was perfectly well satisfied with the course taken by the law, independently of any will at all.
The Ralstons and Hamilton Bright came almost at the same moment, though not together, and Katharine had no chance of exchanging a word with John out of hearing of the rest. They all met in the library. The old philanthropist was there, and every one was secretly surprised to discover what a very fine-looking old man he was in a perfectly new frock coat with a great deal of silk in front. But his heavy, shapeless shoes betrayed his lingering attachment to the little Italian shoemaker in South Fifth Avenue, whose conscientiously durable works promised to outlast old Alexander’s need for them.
Alexander Junior stood before the empty fireplace, coldly nervous. He could not have sat still for five minutes just then. When he spoke of Crowdie’s death to Hamilton Bright, and immediately afterwards of the weather, his steel-trap mouth opened and closed mechanically, emitting metallic sounds—it could not be called speaking—and his glittering grey eyes went restlessly from the window to the door and back again, without even resting on Bright’s face.
Bright himself was grave, manly, quiet, as he generally was. He was eminently the man who could be reckoned with and counted upon. He would make no attempt to conceal his disappointment if he were disappointed, nor his satisfaction if he were pleased, but the expression of either would be simple, quiet and manly, with few words, if any.
Mrs. Ralston watched the two as they stood side by side. From her position on the sofa she could see Alexander Junior’s hands twitching nervously behind him. But she was talking with Mrs. Lauderdale at the same time. She made no pretence of being very sorry to hear of Crowdie’s sudden death. She rarely saw him and she had never liked him. To her, he was merely the husband of a very distant cousin—of a descendant of her great-grandfather through a female branch. It was too much to expect that she should be profoundly affected by what had happened. But her dark, clearly cut features were grave, and there was a certain expectancy in her look, which showed that she was not really indifferent to the nature of the events momentarily expected. She admitted frankly to herself that it would make an enormous difference in her future happiness to be very rich instead of being almost poor, and she had told her son so as they came to the house.