“There is so much to tell you, Stella.”
“Yes—yes—about his illness and all. Poor papa! I am sure I am just as sorry as if I knew all about it already. But Kate, dear, just one word. Am I cut off in the will? That is what I want to know.”
“No,” said Katherine, “you are not cut off in the will.”
“Hurrah!” cried Stella, clapping her hands. It was but for one second, and then she quieted down. “Oh, we have had such a time,” she cried, “and Charlie always insinuating, when he didn’t say it outright, that it was my fault, for, of course, we never, never believed, neither he nor I, that papa would have held out. And so he did come to at the end? Well, it is very hard, very hard to have been kept out of it so long but I am glad we are to have what belongs to us now. Oh—h!” cried Stella, drawing a long breath as she emerged on deck, leading the way, “here’s the old Thames again, bless it, and the fat banks; and we’re at home, and have come into our money. Hurrah!”
“What are you so pleased about, Lady Somers? The first sight of ugly old England and her grey skies,” said someone who met them. The encounter sobered Stella, who paused a moment with a glance from her own coloured dress to Katherine’s crape, and a sudden sense of the necessities of the position.
“They aren’t very much to be pleased about, are they?” she said. “Will you find Charlie for me, please. Tell him my sister has come to meet us, and that there’s news which he will like to hear.”
“Stella,” cried Katherine, “there may not be much sorrow in your heart, yet I don’t think you should describe your own father’s death as something your husband will like to hear.”
“It is not papa’s death, bless you,” cried Stella, lightly. “Oh, look, they are getting out the ropes. We shall soon be there now—it is the money, to be sure. You have never been hard up for money, Kate, or you would know what it was. Look, there’s Charlie on the bridge with little Job; we call him Job because he’s always been such a peepy-weepy little fellow, always crying and cross for nothing at all; they say it was because I was in such a temper and misery when he was coming, about having no money, and papa’s cruelty. Charlie! That silly man has never found him, though he might have known he was on the bridge. Cha—arlie!” Stella made a tube of her two hands and shouted, and Katherine saw a tall man on the bridge over their heads turn and look down. He did not move, however, for some minutes till Stella’s gestures seemed to have awakened his curiosity. He came down then, very slowly, leading with much care an extremely small child, so small that it was curious to see him on his legs at all, who clung to his hand, and whom he lifted down the steep ladder stairs.
“Well,” he said, “what’s the matter now?” when he came within speaking distance. Katherine had scarcely known her sister’s husband in the days of his courtship. She had not seen him more than three or four times, and his image had not remained in her mind. She saw now a tall man a little the worse for wear, with a drooping moustache, and lips which drooped, too, at the corners under the moustache, with a look which was slightly morose—the air of a discontented, perhaps disappointed, man. His clothes were slightly shabby, perhaps because they were old clothes worn for the voyage, his hair and moustache had that rusty dryness which comes to hair which does not grow grey, and which gives a shabby air, also as of old clothes, to those natural appendages. The only attractive point about him was the child, the very, very small child which seemed to walk between his feet—so close did it cling to him, and so very low down.
“Nothing’s the matter,” said Stella. “Here is Kate come to bid us welcome home.”