“It is Mr Rainy. He has come to speak about—business. But he will not keep you long to-night.”
Mr Rainy had never come much into contact with Allison Bain. She was to him “just a woman, like the lave.” He had no wife, and no near kin among women, and it is possible that he knew less of the sex than he thought he did. He did not pretend to know much about Allison, but he knew that several people, whose sense and judgment he respected, thought well of her. She was tall and strong, and had a face at which it was a pleasure to look, and, judging from all that he had heard about her, she might be freer than most, from the little vanities and weaknesses usual to her kind. She was a reasonable woman, he had heard, and that he should have anything to do to-night, except to explain how matters stood, and to suggest the time and the manner of certain necessary arrangements, he had not imagined.
He came prepared to be well received, and he did not for a moment doubt that he should make good his claim to be heard and heeded in all that concerned the affairs which Brownrig had left in his hands. So he greeted Allison with gravity suited to the occasion, yet with a cheerfulness which seemed to imply that he had pleasant news to tell. Allison received him with a quietness which, he told himself, it cost her something to maintain. But he thought none the less of her for that.
“No woman could stand in her shoes this night, and not be moved, and that greatly. And not one in ten could keep a grip of herself as she is doing—no, nor one in fifty,” said he to himself. Aloud he said: “I ought, perhaps, to have given you longer time to consider when you could receive me. But the doctor informed me that you had been at the infirmary to-day, and as he was at liberty he suggested that you would doubtless be willing to see us to-night. There are certain matters that must be attended to at once.”
“For the present I come home early,” said Allison. “The evening is the only time I have to myself.”
“Yes. For the present, as you say. Ahem! You are aware, perhaps, that for years I was employed by—by Mr Brownrig in the transaction of so much of his business as was in my line. And you know that during his last illness I was often with him, and was consulted by him. In short, the arrangement of his affairs was left to me.”
This was but the introduction to much more. Allison listened in silence, and when he came to a pause she said quietly:
“And what can I have to do with all this?”
Mr Rainy looked a little startled.
“You are not, I should suppose, altogether unaware of the manner in which—I mean of the provisions of your husband’s will?”