‘Why, what of him?’ she asked in an undertone, leaving a needle unthreaded.
‘The old man’s just dead.’
Agitation seized the listener, agitation of a kind most unusual in her. Her hands trembled, her eyes grew wide.
‘You haven’t heard anything of him lately?’ pursued Richard.
‘Heard? Not I. No more did your father ever since two years afore we was married. I’d always thought he was dead long ago. What of him, Dick?’
‘From what I’m told I thought you’d perhaps been keeping things to yourself. ‘Twouldn’t have been unlike you, mother. He knew all about us, so the lawyer tells me.’
‘The lawyer?’
‘Well, I’d better out with it. He’s died without a will. His real property—that means his houses and land—belongs to me; his personal property—that’s his money—‘ll have to be divided between me, and Alice, and ‘Arry. You’re out of the sharing, mother.’
He said it jokingly, but Mrs. Mutimer did not join in his laugh. Her palms were closely pressed together; still trembling, she gazed straight before her, with a far-off look.
‘His houses—his land?’ she murmured, as if she had not quite heard. ‘What did he want with more than one house?’