Katharine and Hester had seen but little of one another during the
battle of the will, and a certain awkwardness and reticence had appeared
between them, which Katharine attributed altogether to the question of
the fortune. As has been seen, however, it had another source on
Hester’s side, and one much more likely to produce results that might
hurt one or the other or both of them. As for Katharine, it was
characteristic of her that she attempted to return to the former
cordiality of their relations as soon as the matter of the inheritance
had been settled.
She found Hester cold and unsympathetic, but she excused her on the
ground of the family dispute, and of the very great disappointment the
Crowdies must have suffered from the decision of the court. The
conversation turned upon indifferent matters and languished, as they sat
together in the pretty little room at the front of the house. It was
late in the afternoon, and the smell of the spring came in through the
open windows.
“It’s getting very dull in New York,” said Hester, after a long pause.
“I think we shall go out of town soon, this year.”
She suppressed a yawn with her diaphanous hand, as she leaned back in
her corner of the sofa, staring vacantly at an etching which hung on the
opposite wall, and wishing that Katharine would go. Then she rang the
bell, having thought of tea as a possible antidote to dulness.
“I suppose we shall go away, too,” said Katharine, wondering what the
summer was to be like.
The servant came, and got his orders, and went out, and Hester almost
yawned again.
“I don’t know what’s the matter with me,” she said, half apologetically.
“I’m so sleepy.”
“You’ll be all right after you’ve had some tea,” answered Katharine,
trying to think of something pleasant to say, and finding nothing.
“I hope so,” observed the elder woman. “This is awful. I’m conscious of
being dreadfully dull.”
“It’s probably the reaction,” suggested Katharine.
There was another long pause. The sound of a carriage passing along the
street came in through the windows, but scarcely seemed to break the
silence. Presently the servant returned--a highly respectable, elderly
butler with very white hair, answering to the name of Fletcher. He set
down the tea and departed noiselessly and with dignity. He had formerly
been butler at the Ralstons’ for a number of years, but Mrs. Ralston
had reduced her establishment after her husband’s death.
“What reaction did you mean?” asked Hester, idly, as she made the tea.
“Oh--I meant the natural reaction after the tremendous excitement we’ve
all been living in for so long.”
“Oh!” ejaculated her companion, rather coldly. “I see,” she continued
after a pause, during which she had made a busy little clatter with the
tea things, “you mean because we hoped to get the money and
didn’t--therefore, I’m sleepy. That doesn’t sound very sensible.”
“Well--not as you put it,” answered Katharine, with a short laugh of
embarrassment.
She had determined to attack the subject boldly, so as to break the ice
once and for always. Hester’s aggressive answer put her out.
“How would you put it?” enquired the latter, leaning back again and
waiting for the tea to draw. “Explain! I’m awfully dull to-day.”
“Don’t you think it’s natural?” asked Katharine. “It’s of no use to deny
that we’ve all been tremendously excited during the last fortnight, and
now the excitement has stopped. One’s nerves run down--that sort of
thing, you know--and then one’s tired and feels depressed.”
“The depression’s natural--in our case,” answered Hester, lifting the
cover and looking into the teapot in a futile way, as though she would
see whether the tea were strong enough.
“Yes,” said Katharine, thoughtfully. “Do you know, dear? It seems to me
as though you were thinking that it was my fault, in a way.”
“What? That I’m depressed? Don’t be silly! Do you like it strong? I’ve
forgotten. It’s about right now, I should think.”
“A little water, please--no cream--one lump of sugar--thanks. No,” she
continued, a little impatiently, “you know perfectly well what I mean,
if you’ll only understand. I suppose that’s rather Irish--” she laughed
again.
“It’s Greek to me!” replied Hester, smartly, as she poured out her own
cup of tea. “You’re trying to say something--why don’t you say it?”
It began to be clear to Katharine that there were more difficulties in
the way of what she was attempting to do, than she had dreamt of. She
had expected that Hester would be quite ready to meet her half way,
instead of intrenching herself behind an absurd and pretended
misunderstanding, as she was doing. The best way seemed to be to enter
into an explanation at once. She sipped her tea thoughtfully and then
began again.
“I’ll tell you exactly what I mean,” she said; “so that you’ll see it as
I do. I’m afraid that this question of money has come between you and
me. And if it has, I’m very sorry, because I’m very fond of you,
Hester.”
“Well--I’m fond of you,” answered Hester, in a matter-of-fact tone. “I
don’t see why the money should make any difference.”
“I hope it doesn’t. Only--I’m afraid it does, in spite of what you say.
I don’t feel as though we could ever be again exactly what we’ve always
been until now. But it’s not fair, Hester. It’s not just. You know very
well that if I could have done anything to make the will good, I would
have done it. I couldn’t. What could I do? It’s simply a misfortune that
we were on opposite sides of the fight--or our people were. I’m not
exactly what you’d call gushing, I suppose--indeed, I know I’m not. But
it hurts me to think that we’re to be like strangers, because three men
couldn’t agree about a signature. It’s unnatural. It’s not right. I came
here to-day, meaning to say so--and I’m glad I’ve had the courage to say
it without waiting any longer. But if we’re only to know each other--in
a general way like distant cousins--why, it’s better to acknowledge it
at once. It shan’t come from me--that’s all. But I’d rather be prepared
for it, you know.”
“So far as I’m concerned, I don’t want to fight,” said Hester, coolly.
“I don’t see any reason why we should. Of course we don’t throw
ourselves into each other’s arms and cry with delight every time we
meet, like schoolgirls. We’ve outgrown that. But as for my quarrelling
with you because your father’s inherited a fortune when I ought to have
had a part of it--it’s too ridiculous. You would have had a share, too,
under the will. Then you ought to quarrel with your own father, much
more than with me. Isn’t that common sense?”
“Yes--I suppose it is. But you don’t say it exactly as though--”
Katharine stopped short. She was afraid of seeming impulsive, as many
people of self-contained natures are. She knew that she was not herself
very expansive, as a rule, in her expressions of affection. But Hester
was, and the change from her former manner to her present coldness was
startling. One may miss in others what one would not have in oneself,
and one may resent another’s refusal to give it. The regret of missing
anything is not measured by its value, but by the strength of the habit
its presence has created. Men liberated after years of captivity have
missed their chains. The Irish woman in the typical story complained
that her husband no longer beat her. She missed it.
“I’ll say it in any way you like,” answered Hester, hardly. “It seems to
me that we’re just as good friends as ever. I see no difference.”
“I do,” answered Katharine. “And there’s always going to be a
difference, now,” she added, regretfully.
She was conscious that in some unaccountable way the positions had been
reversed with regard to her character and her friend’s. It should
naturally have been the more passionate, expansive, sensitive woman who
should be almost begging that the old friendship might not be forgotten,
and Katharine herself, the colder of the two, the one by far less easily
carried away by passing emotions, should have been giving the assurance
that nothing was changed. It was incomprehensible to her, as well it
might be, since there was a cause for Hester’s behaviour which lay very
far from the question of money, though the coldness which the latter had
caused was helping to make matters worse.
“I suppose we’re outgrowing each other,” suggested Hester, who was more
or less anxious to account for the change, since Katharine was laying
such great stress upon it. “You know that’s the way of the world,” she
added, tritely. “People are ever so fond of each other for a long time,
and then all at once they find out that they’re not what they were, you
know, and that they don’t really care.”
“Oh--do you look at it in that way?” Katharine’s voice and manner
changed, for she was hurt. “But don’t you think this outgrowing, as you
call it, has been rather sudden? It’s only about three weeks since we
were talking quite differently. It can’t be more, I’m sure.”
“Isn’t it?” asked Hester, indifferently. “Really, it seems ever so long
since we sat here and told each other things.”
There is a beautiful vagueness about the language of a woman when she
wishes to have something forgotten.
“It seems long to me, too,--in another way,” answered Katharine. “It’s
far off--like a good many things that happened then.”
Hester made no answer to this remark, but leaned back against her
cushion and meditatively nibbled the edge of a ginger-snap.
“Of course,” said Katharine, “if you want it all to end here, I’m not
going to cry and behave like the schoolgirl you talked about--”
“No,” interrupted Hester, munching her biscuit audibly; “it isn’t worth
it.”
“Once upon a time we should both have thought it was,” answered the
young girl. “But when a thing like friendship’s gone--it’s gone, that’s
all, and there’s nothing more to be said about it.”
“I wish you wouldn’t be so silly, my dear!” exclaimed Hester, who,
having swallowed the remains of the ginger-snap, suddenly realized that
she might at least bury her intimacy with a protest to the effect that
it was not dead. “You really go on as though we were lovers, and I had
betrayed you. In the first place it doesn’t follow, because we’re grown
up and not exactly what we used to be, that there’s no friendship
between us. We can go on just the same as ever, even if we talk
differently and gush less, and we can see just as much of each other as
we always did. You’ve got some idea or other into your head about my
being cold, because I’m sleepy and dull to-day. Probably the next time
we meet it will be just the opposite, and you’ll think me too gushing.”
So long as Hester had made no serious pretence of anything more than she
felt, confining herself more or less to generalities and vaguely saying
that she desired no break, Katharine had remained calm, but something in
the last speech seemed to ring outrageously false, and the blood slowly
rose to her throat and ebbed again without reaching her cheeks.
“Don’t pretend!” she exclaimed. “We’ve got to get at the truth to-day,
if we’re ever to get at it at all.”
Hester raised her beautiful eyebrows, as delicately and finely marked as
though they had been drawn with pen and ink.
“My dear child!” she answered, with real or affected surprise. “Don’t
fly into little pink rages like that.”
“I’m not in a rage,” protested Katharine. “And if I were, I shouldn’t be
pink--I never am. But I don’t want you to pretend things you don’t feel.
We’ve never pretended much with each other, and I don’t want to begin
now. It’s over and done for. Let’s make up our minds to it and be
sensible. I don’t see that there’s anything else to be done. But don’t
let’s pretend things. I hate that.”
“Not half so much as I do, my dear,” said Hester, airily, as though to
close the discussion. “I don’t see the slightest good in talking about
it any more. You’ve got it into your head that I’ve changed. If you
believe it, you know it, for Mr. Griggs says that--”
“Do leave Mr. Griggs alone!” cried Katharine, irritably. “It isn’t a
mere idea, either. You said we’d outgrown each other. I’m not conscious
of having grown a head taller in the last three weeks. But so far as
talking about it goes, you’re quite right. Only--” her voice changed
again and took a gentler tone--“let’s part friends, Hester, for the sake
of all that has been.”
“Why, of course!” exclaimed Hester, with insincere frankness. “That is,
if you insist upon parting, as you call it. But I declare! we might just
as well be a pair of lovers quarrelling, you know. It’s just about as
sensible, on the whole.”
“I suppose things mean more to me than they do to you,” answered
Katharine, with sudden coldness. “Friendship--like everything
else--like--”
She was going to say ‘like love,’ but checked herself. In that at least
she felt that she must have been mistaken. Whatever else she might think
of Hester, she knew that she was almost insanely in love with her
husband. At the very moment when the words were on her lips the thought
flashed through her mind, that with Hester it might be the
half-desperate, all-absorbing passion which was draining her of all
capacity for any other attachment. Katharine thought of herself and of
her love for Ralston, and felt more real sympathy for her friend just
then than she had felt for many a day.
As she ceased speaking she heard the hall door opened and shut again,
just outside the sitting-room, and a moment later she heard Crowdie’s
soft voice, low and sweet, humming to himself as he began to ascend the
stairs. As she turned to Hester, as though to continue speaking, she saw
how the pale face had changed in a moment. Every faculty was strained to
catch the faint echo of the melody, the deep eyes gleamed, there was
colour in the transparent cheeks, the dewy lips were just parted. There
was nothing unreal nor affected in that.