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Ralstons

<h2>CHAPTER XXII.</h2> Katharine found herself in a very difficult position. During the next few days she realized clearly that she could not continue to stay with the Brights indefinitely, both on account of their attitude in the matter of the will, and because Hamilton Bright was in love with her. She felt that the friendships to which she had been accustomed all her life were slipping away under the pressure of circumstances, and that some of her friends were becoming her enemies. Reflections she had never known before now rose in her mind, and in a few days she had reached that state of exaggerated cynicism and unbelief which overtakes the very young when those with whom they closely associate change their minds upon very important points. In the meantime, Katharine went every day to see her mother in Clinton Place while her father was down town. The bond between mother and daughter, which had been so violently strained during the previous winter, and again within the past few weeks, was growing stronger again. The events which were breaking up Katharine’s intimacy with Hester Crowdie and the Brights had the effect of drawing her and her mother together. So far as Hester Crowdie was concerned, Katharine’s friendship for her had existed upon a false basis, as has been seen. The elder woman’s ardent and sensitive nature reflected itself in her minor actions and relations, lending them an appearance of depth which she herself was far from feeling. Katharine was indeed sympathetic to her, and there had been much confidence between the two, which had not been wholly misplaced on either side. But Hester did not wish the young girl to see too much of Crowdie. How far she understood him it is impossible to say, but that she loved him desperately and was jealous of every glance he bestowed on any passing figure that pleased him, there could be no doubt. Her vanity was not proof against that jealousy, and she feared comparison. That Crowdie should have broken his promise about singing, and should have sung to please Katharine, had hurt her even more deeply than she herself realized. On the other hand, Mrs. Lauderdale’s confession to her daughter on the morning after Robert Lauderdale’s death had produced a profound impression upon the young girl. Being quite unable to realize a state of mind in which her mother could really be envious of her, Katharine readily believed that Mrs. Lauderdale had greatly exaggerated in her own judgment the fault of which she had been guilty, and that much of what had seemed to be her unkindness and heartlessness toward Katharine had really been the result of her unjust self-accusation, leading her to avoid the person whom she believed that she had injured. All that was a little vague, but that did not matter. The two had always been allies in family questions, and had been devotedly attached to one another until this year. And after the first violent scene with Alexander Junior, the mother had taken the daughter’s side again, had released her from imprisonment in her own room, and had approved of her taking shelter with uncle Robert. The confession she had made on that morning had been in reality a complete reconciliation. Katharine did not understand how much her absence from home during twenty-four hours had to do with the subsidence of her mother’s unnatural envy. The result was that at the present juncture Katharine desired earnestly to return to her home, and would have done so in spite of Ralston’s objections, had she been assured of finding any condition approaching even to an armed peace. But of this she had little hope. She learned that her father was morose and silent, and that he never referred to her. His attention was naturally preoccupied by the uncommon interests at stake in the approaching conflict, and he grew daily more taciturn. His old father watched events with that apparent indifference of old age, which often conceals a curiosity not without cunning in finding means of satisfying itself. Mrs. Lauderdale also told Katharine that Charlotte and her husband were coming up from Washington for a few days, in order that Slayback and Alexander might talk matters over. Contrary to the latter’s expectations, Slayback did not seem inclined to agree with the Lauderdales about the attempt to break the will, though his wife and his children would ultimately profit largely by the result, if it proved successful. Katharine returned one afternoon from Clinton Place, after discussing these matters with her mother, and found Hamilton Bright in the library in Park Avenue. She always avoided as much as possible being alone with him, and when she caught sight of his flaxen head bending over the writing-table, she was about to withdraw quietly and go to her own room. But he looked up quickly and spoke to her. “Don’t run away, cousin Katharine,” he said. “And you always do run. You know it’s not safe, with your arm in a sling.” “But I wasn’t running,” answered the young girl. “Of course I’ll stay if you want me. I thought you were busy.” “Oh, no—I was only writing a note. I’ve finished—and—and I should be awfully glad if you’d stay a little while.” Katharine glanced at his face and saw that he was embarrassed. She wondered what was in his mind as she sat down. He had risen from his seat and seemed to hesitate about taking another. When a man hesitates to sit down in order to talk to a woman, only two suppositions are possible. Either he does not wish to be caught and obliged to stay with her, or he has something important to say, and thinks that he can talk better on his legs than seated, which is true for nine men out of ten. Bright at last decided in favour of standing by the fireplace, resting one elbow upon the shelf and thrusting one hand into his pocket. Katharine could hear the soft jingle of his little bunch of keys. She expected that he meant to say something about the difficulty of their relative positions in regard to the will, which must lead to her putting an end to her visit immediately. So long as the subject had not been mentioned the position had been tenable, but if it were once discussed, she felt that she should be obliged to go away at once. She could not well accept the hospitality of her father’s bitterest opponents, though they were her friends and relations, if once the position were clearly defined. “What is it?” she asked, after a short pause, by way of helping him, for by this time she was sure that he had something to say to her. “Oh—nothing—” He hesitated. “That is—I only wanted to talk to you a little—that is, if you don’t mind.” “Oh, I don’t mind at all!” answered Katharine, with a smile in which she tried to turn her amusement into encouragement. Except at great moments, almost all women are wickedly amused when a man is embarrassed in attacking a difficult subject. The more kind-hearted ones, like Katharine, will often help a man. The cynical ones get all the diversion they can out of the situation and give a graphic account of it to the first intimate friend who turns up afterwards. Katharine really thought he meant to speak of the will, and the position struck her as absurd. She was in the position of having forced herself upon the hospitality of her father’s enemies. She wondered how Bright would put the matter, and, woman-like, at the same moment she catalogued her belongings as they lay about her room upstairs and calculated roughly that it might take her as much as an hour to pack all her things if she decided to go that evening. Still Bright said nothing. “It seems to be rather a serious matter,” she said, assuming that he had not asked her to stay in order to talk about the weather. “Well—it is pretty serious for me,” he answered. “It amounts to this. I don’t know whether you’ve ever noticed anything, so I’m not sure just how to begin. I’d like to make a straight statement if you wouldn’t mind—that is—if I were sure of not offending you.” “I don’t exactly see how you can offend me,” answered Katharine, gravely. “If it’s about the will, I suppose we think alike, only I’d hoped that we might not bring it up and talk about it just yet. But if you’re going to do that, I’d rather you’d let me speak first. I think I should anticipate what you were going to say. I’d rather—and it would be less trouble for you.” “Well,” replied Bright, doubtfully. “I don’t know that I meant to talk about that exactly. But there’s a certain connection. If you’ve anything on your mind to say about it, why, go ahead, cousin Katharine—go ahead. I daresay you’ll put it much better than I shall.” “I’m not so sure of that. But it may seem to come better from me. I’ll say it, at all events, and if you don’t think as I do, tell me so. Of course I know how strange it must have seemed to you and aunt Maggie that I should have come here, out of a clear sky, the other day, without so much as giving you half an hour’s warning. No amount of charity and hospitality can make that look natural to you,—to either of you,—and I daresay you’ve wondered about it. And then, to stay on in this way, after my father has behaved in the way he has—it’s not exactly delicate, you know—” “Nonsense!” exclaimed Bright, emphatically. “You’re mistaken if you think that’s my view of the case.” “I don’t think I’m mistaken, cousin Ham. I daresay you may like to have me, but that doesn’t explain my coming, does it? But I’m in an awfully hard position just now, and the other day—do you know? I was driving to the Crowdies’, and then I changed my mind and came here instead.” “I’m glad you did. So’s my mother. As for not thinking it natural, when your father’s tearing about like wild and rooting up everything like a mad rhinoceros—oh, I say! I beg your pardon—” Katharine did not smile, for there was good blood in her veins, of the kind that does not play false at such moments. But the temptation to laugh was strong, and she looked fixedly at her left hand. “No,” she said. “Please don’t speak of my father like that. I suppose you both think you’re right in this horrible question of money. I myself don’t know what I think. He’s wrong in one way, of course. Whether there’s a flaw in the will or not, it represents poor uncle Robert’s last wish about his fortune. If he changed his mind, that’s none of our business—” “How do you mean?” said Bright, quickly, and forgetting his embarrassment. “Did you say he changed his mind?” “I didn’t mean to say that, positively,” answered Katharine, who had forgotten herself for a moment. “As the will was made almost at the last moment, perhaps there had been—others, before it. People often make several wills, don’t they? That’s all I meant. My own feeling would be to carry out his wishes. But I suppose men feel differently—and it’s an enormous fortune, of course. The main point is that you and your mother are legally my father’s enemies—well, call it opponents—and I’ve no business to be eating your bread while it lasts. That’s what it comes to, in plain language.” “I wish you wouldn’t talk in that way, cousin Katharine,” said Bright, in a low voice. “I don’t think it’s exactly kind.” “It’s true, at all events,” answered Katharine. “As for being kind—it’s not a case of kindness on my part. It’s gratitude I feel, because you and aunt Maggie have been so awfully kind to me, just when I was in trouble.” “Oh—if you’re going to look at it in that way!” Bright paused, but Katharine said nothing. “Well, I don’t see where the kindness lies,” he continued. “Of course, if you choose to put it so—but it’s a long way on the other side. It’s a pretty considerable kindness of you to come and stop in my house. If that’s what you’ve got to say about the will business, cousin Katharine, I hope you won’t say any more, because I don’t like it. I appreciate—I suppose that’s the word—I appreciate your motives in trying to twist things inside out and to make martyrs of us because we’ve accepted your company without saying, ‘Look here, cousin Katharine, this is our bread, and you’re eating it, and we don’t exactly mind, but we’d rather you’d go and eat your own.’ I suppose that’s what you make out that we’re thinking all the time. I don’t know whether you call that being kind to me, exactly, but I know pretty well what it feels like. It feels as if you’d slapped my face.” “Ham! Cousin Ham!” cried Katharine. “You know how I meant it—please, please don’t think—” “No; I know I’m an idiot. I suppose it’s just as well you should know it, too. It may make things more comfortable. But I’ll tell you. Don’t talk that way, please, because we don’t feel that way, and we’re not going to. I’d rather have you know that this is just as much your home as Clinton Place is than—well, than lots of things. And since we’re saying everything right out, like this, and we’re either going to be friends—or not—I’d like to ask you one question, if you don’t mind. You may be offended, but you’ll know I didn’t mean to be offensive, because I’ve said so. May I?” He spoke roughly, relapsing under excitement and emotion to habits of speech which had been formed and strengthened in his early years in the West. Katharine had occasionally heard him talk in that way with men, losing all at once the refinements of accent and speech which had been familiar in childhood and again in maturity, but which ten years of California and Nevada had lined, so to say, with something rougher and stronger that occasionally broke through the shell. Katharine was by no means sure of what he meant to say, and would very much have preferred that he should not ask his question just then, whatever it might prove to be. But she saw well enough that in his present mood it would not be easy to control him. “Yes,” she said. “Ask me anything you like, if you think I can answer. I will if I can.” “Well—are you going to marry Jack Ralston or not, cousin Katharine? It would make a difference to me if you’d tell me.” Katharine was taken unawares, both by the question and its form. Not to answer it was very difficult, under the circumstances. She had risked trouble in letting him speak, and it would not be true either to say that she was going to marry Ralston or that she was not, since she was married already. But she had never contemplated the possibility of telling Bright the secret, and she did not wish to do so now. She was very truthful and also very reticent—qualities which she inherited, and which were therefore the foundation of her impulses and not acquired virtues from which there was at least a chance of escape under very trying circumstances. She hesitated a moment, and then made up her mind. “I’d rather not answer the question just now,” she said, but she felt the blush slowly rising to her cheeks. Bright glanced at her with a look almost expressing fear. Then he turned his eyes away, and grew red. He jingled his little bunch of keys in his pocket, in his emotion. Once or twice he opened his lips and drew breath, but checked himself and kept silence. Seeing that he said nothing, Katharine rose to her feet, hoping to put an end to the situation. He pretended not to see her, at first. She felt that she should not go away in silence, for she did not wish to seem unkind, so she stood still for a moment, keeping herself in countenance by adjusting the little cape she wore over her injured arm. Still he said nothing, and at last she made a step as though she were going away, purposely trying to put on a kindly and natural expression. “Where are you going?” he asked, almost roughly. “I was going to my room,” she answered, quietly. “I haven’t even taken off my hat, yet, you see. I’m just as I came in.” She lengthened the short explanation unnecessarily in order to seem kind, and then regretted it. She made another step. “Don’t go just yet!” he exclaimed. His throat was dry, and the words came with difficulty. Katharine knew that there was nothing to be done now but to face the situation. She stopped just as she was about to take another step, and came back to him as he stood by the fireplace. “Please don’t say anything more,” she said. “I hadn’t any idea what question you were going to ask. Please don’t—” “Just hear me, please,” he answered, paying no attention to what she said. “It isn’t going to take long. You know what I meant. Well—I’ve thought for some time that things had cooled off between you and Jack, and that you’d settled down to be friends. So I thought I’d ask you. Of course, if you said right out that you were going to marry him or you weren’t—well, that would rather simplify things. But of course, if you can’t, or won’t, I’ve just got to be satisfied, that’s all. You’ve got a doubt, anyhow. And Jack’s my friend. He had the first right, and he has it until you say ‘no’ and send him off. I don’t want you to think that I’m not acting squarely by him.” For a moment Katharine hesitated. She was much tempted to tell him of her marriage, seeing how he spoke, but again her natural impulse kept her silent on that point. “There’ll never be any chance for any one else, Ham,” she said gently. “Put it out of your mind—and I’m grateful, indeed I am!” “Never?” he asked, looking at her—and a nervous smile that meant nothing came into his face. She shook her head in answer. “There’ll never be any chance for any one else,” she repeated gravely. He looked at her a moment longer, his face growing rather pale. Once more he jingled his keys in his pocket, as he turned his head away. “Well—I’m sorry,” he said. “Excuse me if I spoke—you see I didn’t know.” There was a tone with the commonplace words that took them straight to Katharine’s heart. She saw how the strong, simple, uneloquent man was suffering, and she knew that she should never have come to the house. “I’m more sorry—and more ashamed—than you can guess,” she said, and with bent head she left him standing by the fireplace, and went to her room. He did not move for a long time after she had gone, but stood still, his face changing, though little, from time to time, with his thoughts. He jingled his keys meditatively in his pocket every now and then. At last he sighed and uttered one monosyllable, solemnly and without undue emphasis. “Damn.” Then he shook his big shoulders, and got his hat and went for a solitary stroll, eastwards in the direction of the river. But Katharine had not such powerful monosyllables at her command, and she suddenly felt very much ashamed of herself, as she shut the door of her room and looked about, with a vague idea that she ought to go away at once. It was not as though she had not been warned of what might happen, nor as though she had been forced into the situation against her will. She had deliberately chosen to come to the Brights’ rather than to go anywhere else, and had obliged John Ralston to let her do so when she had been with him in the carriage. If she ever told him what had just happened he would have in his power one of those weapons which, in a small way, humanity keenly dreads, to wit, the power to say “I told you so.” It is not easy to explain the sense of utter humiliation which most of us feel—though we jest about it—when the warning of another proves to have been well founded. Katharine saw, however, that her wandering existence could continue no longer, and that if she left the Brights’ she must go home. She could not continue to transfer herself from the home of one relation to that of another, with her box and her valise, for an indefinite period. In the first place, she was inconveniencing people, and secondly, they would ultimately begin to wonder what had happened in Clinton Place to make it impossible for her to stay in her father’s house. On the other hand, she was not prepared to go there at a moment’s notice. She could hardly expect a very hearty welcome from her father, considering how they had parted on that afternoon at Robert Lauderdale’s house more than a week earlier. She hesitated as to whether she should not pretend to be ill and stay in her room until the next morning, when she could go back quietly to Clinton Place. But she knew that Mrs. Bright would come and sit with her and would very soon find out that there was nothing the matter. She might have saved herself the trouble of thinking of that, for Bright himself did not wish to meet her, and went out and dined at his club as the surest way of avoiding her. It was as well, at all events, that she did not attempt to go to the Crowdies’, for her appearance there just then would not have pleased Hester, and would have considerably disturbed Crowdie’s own peace of mind. She was immensely relieved to find herself alone at dinner with Mrs. Bright, who made Hamilton’s excuses, and she looked forward to spending a quiet evening and going to bed early, unless Ralston came. This, however, was not probable, for he had come on the previous evening, and he hesitated to come every day on account of the Brights. He came, however, not long after dinner. Katharine did not understand his expression. He smiled like a man in possession of an amusing secret which he was anxious to communicate as soon as an opportunity offered. At last Mrs. Bright left the room. “Look here,” said Ralston. “I’ve got this thing—I wish you’d look at it and tell me what you think.” He produced a letter and handed it to her, with a short laugh. She saw that it was in her father’s handwriting. “Read it,” said John. “It will make you open your eyes. He has a most—peculiar character. It’s coming to the surface rapidly.” Katharine held out the envelope to him. “You must take it out,” she said. “I’ve only got one hand, and that’s my left.” “Poor dear!” he exclaimed. “I suppose you’ll have at least ten days more of this.” He had opened the letter while speaking and handed it to her. “Why don’t you read it to me yourself?” she asked. “Because—I’d rather you should read it. It’s a very extraordinary production. He’s not diplomatic—your father. It’s lucky he’s not an ambassador or one of those creatures. He wouldn’t cover his country with glory in making treaties.” Katharine was already running her eye over the page, and her face expressed her surprise. She even turned the sheet over and looked at the signature to persuade herself that her father had really written what she was reading, for it was hard to believe. As she proceeded, her brows bent, and her lip curled scornfully. Then all at once she laughed with genuine, though bitter, amusement—the laugh that comes from the head, not from the heart. Then she grew grave again and read on to the end. When she had finished, her hand with the letter in it fell upon her knee and she looked into Ralston’s face with parted lips, as though helpless to express her astonishment. In any jury of honour the communication would have been accepted as a formal apology for everything her father had done, and for anything he might have done inadvertently. Ralston was wrong in saying that Alexander Junior had no talent for diplomacy. Consciously or unconsciously, he had succeeded in writing a letter in which he took back every insulting word he had spoken of Ralston, either to his face or behind his back, without exactly saying that he meant to do so. He took the position of considering it a matter of the highest importance to sift the truth out of what he called the labyrinth of evil speaking, lying, and slandering, by which he was assailed on every side. The confusion of similes at this point was almost grand in its chaotic incoherence, and it was here that Katharine had laughed, as well she might. The honour of the family, said Alexander, was at stake, and he had accordingly performed the operation of sifting the attacking and mendacious labyrinth. The result of his labour of love for Ralston’s reputation, in the interests of the family honour, was much simpler than his alleged mode of getting at it. For he did not hesitate to say that he had ascertained, beyond the possibility of doubt that the stories concerning John’s intemperance were lies—and the word was written with conscientious calligraphy. There was to be no mistake there. Alexander thought it due to Ralston, as indeed it was, to make the statement at once, as the ultimate expression of a carefully formed opinion. With regards to any other differences which there might have been between them, he thought that amicable settlements were always more Christian, and generally more satisfactory in the end. He should never forget that he had parted from his dear uncle in wrath. Here Katharine’s lip curled as she remembered what the nature of that parting had been. He was sure that the wish of the dear departed would have been that all parties should seek peace and ensue it. “To ensue” was a verb which Katharine had never understood, and she had always suspected that it was a mistake in the printing, but the quotation sounded well, and brought up the rear with a clang of armour of righteousness, so to say. The phrase appeared to be thrown out as a suggestion—as a very broad hint, in fact, seeing that it came from him who had received the blow, and not from him who had dealt it. There was much more to the same effect. It was a very long letter, covering two sheets of the Trust Company’s foolscap—very fine bond paper with a heading in excellent good taste. But the most remarkable point of all had been reserved for the last paragraph. Therein Alexander Lauderdale said that he did not abandon all hope, even after what had occurred, of cementing a union between the two surviving branches of the Lauderdales, upon the worldly advantages of which his delicacy would not allow him to dwell, but in which he thought it possible and even probable, that all family differences might be forgotten on earth. Whether he expected that they should afterwards be revived in heaven, or in a place more appropriate, he did not add. But he signed himself sincerely John Ralston’s cousin, Alexander Lauderdale Junior, and it was quite clear that he wished all he had said to be believed. “Now isn’t that the most remarkable production of human genius that you’ve ever seen?” asked John, as Katharine dropped her hand. She slowly nodded her head, her lips still parted in wonder, and her eyes looked far away. “It came over to the bank by a messenger of the Trust Company,” said John. “So I wrote an answer on the bank paper—” “What did you say?” asked Katharine, with sudden anxiety, dreading lest he had given way to some new outburst of temper. “What should I say? I said it was all right. That I was glad he had found that I wasn’t quite so bad as he’d thought. And I added at the end—because he’d put it there—that if there was any thing that I hankered for and believed I was fitted for, it was to be used up as cement for the family union—‘apply while fresh’—that sort of thing. Only of course I put it nicely. Oh—you needn’t be afraid! I wasn’t going to do anything idiotic. Besides, I see what he’s driving at. It’s as plain as day.” “What? I can’t understand it, myself—it all seems so strange and unexpected, and unlike him.” “It’s as clear as day, dear. He knows he must come round some day, and he’s doing it now, so that we may be all patched up and peaceful before the hearing about the will—that’s it. You know if all the next of kin appear together against the distant relations, it influences the court’s opinion, when the court has a choice of opinions, as it very likely will have in this case.” “Then you think the will is likely to be broken?” “I don’t know. They’re saying to-day that one of the witnesses is mentioned in the will—in the list of servants who get annuities, and that if the witnessing’s wrong, the will can’t be probated, as they call it. I don’t understand those things.” “And the Brights will get nothing.” “Nothing.” “Poor Ham!” “Yes—well—he’s got enough to live on without forty millions more.” “It would have been a consolation to him—oh Jack! You were right—don’t say, ‘I told you so’—please! This afternoon he wanted to—well he did ask me—he thought it was off between you and me.” “I told you—no, darling, I won’t say it,” answered Ralston. “Give me a kiss, and I won’t say it.” He did not say it. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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