Part 38 (1/2)
”No,” she heard him say, briefly and definitely, ”that's impossible!”
”It isn't the money----” Annie began. But Leslie interrupted with a bitter little laugh.
”It may not be with you, Aunt Annie, but I a.s.sure you I wouldn't mind a few extra thousands,” she said.
”I think you get the Newport house, Leslie,” Chris said, in a tone whose dubiety only Norma could understand.
”The Newport house!” Leslie exclaimed. ”Why, but don't I own _this_, now? I thought----”
”I don't really know,” Chris answered. ”We'll open the will next week, and then we'll straighten everything out.”
”In the meanwhile,” Annie said, lazily, ”if she suggests going back to her own family, for Heaven's sake don't stop her! I like Norma--always have. But after all, there are times when _any_ outsider--no matter how agreeable she is----”
”I think she'll go immediately after the funeral,” Chris said, constrainedly and uncertainly.
Norma, suddenly roused both to a realization of the utter impropriety of her overhearing all this, and the danger of detection, slipped from the dressing-room by the hall door, and so escaped to her own room.
She shut the door behind her, walked irresolutely to the bed, stood there for a moment, with her hands pressed to her cheeks, walked blindly to the window, only to pause again, paced the room mechanically for a few minutes, and finally found herself seated on the broad, old-fas.h.i.+oned sill of the dressing-room window, staring down unseeing at the afternoon traffic in Madison Avenue.
Oh, how she hated them--cruel, selfish, self-satisfied sn.o.bs--sn.o.bs--sn.o.bs that they were! Leslie--Leslie ”making allowances for her!” Leslie making allowances for _her_! And Annie--hoping that for Heaven's sake n.o.body would prevent her from going home after the funeral! The remembered phrases burned and stung like acid upon her soul; she wanted to hurt Annie and Leslie as they had hurt her, she wanted to shame them and anger them.
Yes, and she could do it, too! She could do it! They little knew that within a few days' time utter consternation and upheaval, notoriety and shame, and the pity of their intimates, would disrupt the surface of their lives, that surface that they felt it so important to keep smooth!
”People will comment,” Norma quoted to herself, with a bitter smile--indeed people would comment, as they had never commented even upon the Melroses before! Leslie would be robbed not only of her inheritance but of her name and of her position. And Annie--even magnificent Aunt Annie must accept, with what surface veneer of cordiality she might affect, the only child of her only brother, the heir to the family estate.
”I believe I'm horribly tired,” Norma said to herself, looking out into the dimming winter day, ”or else I'm nervous, or something! I wish I could go over to Rose's and help her put the children to bed----! Or I wish Aunt Kate would telephone for me--I'm sick of this place! Or I wish Wolf would come walking around that corner--oh, if he would--if he would----!” Norma said, staring out with an intensity so great that it seemed to her for the moment that Wolf indeed might come. ”If only he'd come to take me to dinner, at some little Italian place with a backyard, and skysc.r.a.pers all about, so that we could talk!”
Regina, coming in a little later, saw that Mrs. Sheridan had been crying, and reproached her with the affectionate familiarity of an old servitor.
”You that were always so light-hearted, Miss, it don't seem right for you to grieve so!” said Regina, a little tearful herself. Norma smiled, and wiped her eyes.
”This is a nice beginning,” the girl told herself, as she bathed and dressed for the evening ordeal of calls, and messages, and solemn visits to the chamber of death, ”this is a nice beginning for a woman who knows that the man she loves is free to marry her, and who has just fallen heir to a great fortune!”
CHAPTER x.x.xIII
The evening moved through its dark and sombre hours unchanged; Joseph's a.s.sistants opened and opened and opened the door. More flowers--more flowers--and more. Notes, telephone messages, black-clad callers murmuring in the dimness of the lower hall, maids coming noiselessly and deferentially, the clergyman, the doctor, the choir-master, old Judge Lee tremulous and tedious, all her world circled about the lifeless form of the old mistress of the house. Certain persons went quietly upstairs, women in rich furs, and bare-headed, uncomfortable-looking men, entered the front room, and pa.s.sed through with serious faces and slowly shaking heads.
Chris spoke to Norma in the hall, just after she had said good-night to some rather important callers, a.s.suring them that Annie and Leslie were well, and had been kissed herself as their representative. He extended her a crushed doc.u.ment in which she was alarmed to recognize Wolf's letter.
”Oh--I think I dropped that in Aunt Annie's dressing-room!” Norma said, turning scarlet, and wondering what eyes had seen it.
”There was no envelope; a maid brought it to her, and Annie read it,”
Chris said. Norma's eyes were racing through it.
”There are no names!” she said, thankfully.
”It would have been a most unfortunate--a--a horrible thing, if there had been,” Chris commented. Something in his manner said as plainly as words that dropping the letter had been a breach of good manners, had been extremely careless, almost reprehensible. Norma felt herself unreasonably antagonized.
”Oh, I don't know! It's true,” she said, recklessly.