Part 9 (2/2)

”Take a seat, madam.” The lawyer had risen, and was advancing toward her. He was a small, sharp-eyed man, whose youthful agility had crystallized into a nervous pomposity. Suddenly he stopped short; he had pa.s.sed a broad slant of dusty sunlight which had lain between him and his visitor, and he could see her face plainly. His own elongated for a second, his under jaw lopped, and his brows contracted. Then he stepped forward. ”Why, Mrs. Maxwell!” said he; ”how do you do?”

”I'm pretty well, thank you,” replied Mrs. Field. She tried to bow, but her back would not bend.

”I am delighted to see you,” said the lawyer. ”I recognize you perfectly now. I should have before, if the sun had not been in my eyes. I never forget a face.”

He took her by the hand, and shook it up and down effusively. Then he pushed forward the leather easy-chair with gracious insinuation. Mrs.

Field sat down, bolt-upright, on the extreme verge of it.

The lawyer drew a chair to her side, seated himself, leaned forward until his face fronted hers, and talked. His manner was florid, almost bombastic. He had a fas.h.i.+on of working his face a good deal when he talked. He conversed quite rapidly and fluently, but was wont to interlard his conversation with what seemed majestically reflective pauses, during which he leaned back in his chair and tapped the arm slowly. In fact his flow of ideas failed him for a moment, his mind being so const.i.tuted that they came in rapid and temporary bursts, geyser fas.h.i.+on. He inquired when Mrs. Field arrived, was kindly circ.u.mstantial as to her health, touched decorously but not too mournfully upon the late Thomas Maxwell's illness and decease. He alluded to the letter which he had written her, mentioning as a singular coincidence that at the moment of her entrance he was engaged in writing another to her, to inquire if the former had been received.

He spoke in terms of congratulation of the property to which she had fallen heir, and intimated that further discussion concerning it, as a matter of business, had better be postponed until morning. Daniel Tuxbury was very methodical in his care for himself, and was loath to attend to any business after six o'clock.

Mrs. Field sat like a bolt of iron while the lawyer talked to her.

Unless a direct question demanded it, she never spoke herself. But he did not seem to notice it; he had enough garnered-in complacency to delight himself, as a bee with its own honey. He rarely realized it when another person did not talk.

After one of his pauses, he sprang up with alacrity. ”Mrs. Maxwell, will you be so kind as to excuse me for a moment?” said he, and went out of the office with a fussy hitch, as if he wore invisible petticoats. Mrs. Field heard his voice in the yard.

When he returned there was an old lady following in his wake. Mrs.

Field saw her before he did. She came with a whispering of silk, but his deaf ears did not perceive that. He did not notice her at all until he had entered the office, then he saw Mrs. Field looking past him at the door, and turned himself.

He went toward her with a little flourish of words, but the old lady ignored him entirely. She held up her chin with a kind of ancient pertness, and eyed Mrs. Field. She was a small, straight-backed woman, full of nervous vibrations. She stood apparently still, but her black silk whispered all the time, and loose ends of black ribbon trembled. The black silk had an air of old gentility about it, but it was very s.h.i.+ny; there were many bows, but the ribbons were limp, having been pressed and dyed. Her face, yellow and deeply wrinkled, but sharply vivacious, was overtopped by a bunch of purple flowers in a nest of rusty black lace and velvet.

So far Mrs. Field had maintained a certain strained composure, but now her long, stern face began flus.h.i.+ng beneath this old lady's gaze.

”I conclude you know this lady,” said the lawyer, with a blandly facetious air to the new-comer.

At that she stepped forward promptly, with a jerk as if to throw off her irresolution, and a certain consternation. ”Yes, I s'pose I do,”

said she, in a voice like a shrill high chirp. ”It's Mis' Maxwell, ain't it--Edward's wife? How do you do, Esther? I hadn't seen you for so long, I wasn't quite sure, but I see who you are now. How do you do?”

”I'm pretty well, thank you,” said Mrs. Field, with a struggle, putting her twisted hand into the other woman's, extended quiveringly in a rusty black glove.

”When did you come to town, Esther?”

”Jest now.”

”Let me see, where from? I can't seem to remember the name of the place where you've been livin'. I know it, too.”

”Green River.”

”Oh, yes, Green River. Well, I'm glad to see you, Esther. You ain't changed much, come to look at you; not so much as I have, I s'pose. I don't expect you'd know me, would you?”

”I--don't know as I would.” Mrs. Field recoiled from a lie even in the midst of falsehood.

The old lady's face contracted a little, but she could spring above her emotions. ”Well, I don't s'pose you would, either,” responded she, with fine alacrity. ”I've grown old and wrinkled and yellow, though I ain't gray,” with a swift glance at Mrs. Field's smooth curves of white hair. ”You turned gray pretty young, didn't you, Esther?”

”Yes, I did.”

The old lady's front hair hung in dark-brown spirals, a little bunch of them against either cheek, outside her bonnet. She set them dancing with a little dip of her head when she spoke again. ”I thought you did,” said she. ”Well, you're comin' over to my house, ain't you, Esther? You'll find a good many changes there. My daughter Flora and I are all that's left now, you know, I s'pose.”

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