CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
When Ted entered the living-room at his sister Harriett's he felt as if something damp and heavy had been thrown around him. He got the feeling of being expected to contribute to the oppressiveness of the occasion. The way no one was sitting in a comfortable position seemed to suggest that constraint was deemed fitting. Cyrus was talking to Mr. McFarland with a certain self-conscious decorousness. Harriett's husband, the Rev. Edgar Tyler, sat before the library table in more of his pulpit manner than was usual with him in his household, as if—so it seemed to Ted—the relation of death to the matter in hand brought it particularly within his province. Ted had never liked him; especially he had hated his attitude about Ruth—his avowed sorrowfulness with which the heart had nothing to do. He resented the way his brother-in-law had made Harriett feel that she owed it to the community, to the church, not to countenance her sister. Harriett had grown into that manner of striving to do the right thing. She had it now—sitting a little apart from the others, as if not to intrude herself. Sitting there with those others his heart went out to Ruth; he was for her, he told himself warmly, and he'd take nothing off of Cy about her, either! He watched Cyrus and thought of how strange it was that a brother and sister should be as different as he and Ruth were. They had always been different; as far back as he could remember they were different about everything. Ruth was always keyed up about something—delighted, and Cy was always "putting a crimp" in things. As a little boy, when he told Ruth things he was pleased about they always grew more delightful for telling her; and somehow when you told Cyrus about a jolly thing it always flattened out a little in the telling.
A shrinking from the appearance of too great haste gave a personal color to the conversation. It was as old friend quite as much as family solicitor that the lawyer talked to them, although the occasion for getting together that night was that Cyrus might learn of an investment of his father's which demanded immediate attention.
Mr. McFarland spoke of that, and then of how little else remained. He hesitated, then ventured: "You know, I presume, that your father has not left you now what he would have had ten years ago?"
Ted saw Cyrus's lips tighten, his eyes lower. He glanced at Harriett, who looked resigned; though he was not thinking much of them, but of his father, who had met difficulties, borne disappointments. He was thinking of nights when his father came home tired; mornings when he went away in that hurried, harassed way. He could see him sitting in his chair brooding. The picture of him now made him appear more lonely than he had thought of him while living. And now his father was dead and they were sitting there talking over his affairs, looking into things that their father had borne alone, things he had done the best he could about. He wished he had tried harder to be company for him. In too many of those pictures which came now his father was alone.
He heard Cyrus speaking. "Yes," he was saying, "father was broken by our personal troubles." There was a pause. Ted did not raise his eyes to his brother. He did not want to look at him, not liking his voice as he said that. "It is just another way," Cyrus went on, "in which we all have to suffer for our family disgrace."
Ted felt himself flushing. Why need Cy have said that! Mr. McFarland had turned slightly away, as if not caring to hear it.
And then Cyrus asked about their father's will.
The attorney's reply was quiet. "He leaves no will."