“Aunt Harriet says it must have been the duck he ate for dinner,” said Stella, still on the verge of a giggle.
Mrs Matthews gave a faint, pained sigh. “No one knows dear Harriet's good points better than I do,” she remarked, “but one can't help being a little sad that her first thoughts in face of a thing like this should be still of mundane things. Do you know, darling, that when Rose told me what had happened I could only think of those beautiful words: “God's ways are—" ”
“Yes, I know,” interrupted Stella hastily. “But the point is what ought we to do? Aunt Harriet's having a sort of hysterical fit. Shall I call Guy?”
“Poor Guy!” said his mother. “One would give one's all to keep tragedy away from the young. Somehow—”
“Well, if it comes to that I'm three years younger than Guy,” Stella pointed out. “Not that I think he'll be much use, but—”
Mrs Matthews laid a hand on hers and pressed it. “Dearest, not that flippant tone, please! Try to remember that the Shadow of Death is over this house. And Guy is far, far more highly-strung than you are, dear.”
“Oh mother, do stop!” implored Stella. “Honestly, I don't want to have hysterics, but I shall in a minute. What ought we to do first?”
Mrs Matthews removed her hand. “My practical little daughter! Where should we poor Marys of this world be, I wonder, without our Marthas? And yet one does somehow yearn for just a little time to be quiet, to face our loss, before we plunge into the sordid side of what ought not to be sordid at all, but very, very beautiful.”
Stella gave a gasp, and went off into a fit of strangled laughter. In the middle of this her brother walked into the room, looking tousled and a little dazed still with sleep. “I s—say!” he stammered. “Uncle's dead! Did you know? Beecher's locked the room, and gone to ring up Fielding. He says there's absolutely no doubt.”
“Hush, dear!” said Mrs Matthews. “Stella, try to control yourself! A doctor should of course be sent for, but one shrinks, somehow, from the thought of Dr Fielding, whom your uncle disliked, coming at such a moment. Perhaps I am over-sensitive, and I suppose there is no help for it, but—”