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.