“Yes, suh,” said Nimbus, chuckling again. “Same way as ’tis ’bout anything else. Some people come call on you; stay li’l’ while; git up to go, they walk right out. Some people, they set an’ set an’ set; then when they git up to go, they don’t go; they keep on talk, talk, talk. You grammaw she aw-ways do like that. She goin’ take her time before she walk out the big door.”
“I hope so,” Harlan said, as Nimbus unfastened the old-fashioned brass door-chain for him. “I hope so, indeed.”
“Yes, suh; she take her own time,” the coloured man insisted;—then, opening the door, he stood aside and inclined himself in a bow that obviously gave him a satisfaction more than worth the effort. “I expeck she do you well, Mist’ Hollun.”
“What?” Harlan asked, pausing to unfurl the umbrella he had left just outside. “What did you say, Nimbus?”
“I mean: What she goin’ do with all that propaty?” Nimbus explained. “Door she goin’ out of when she git ready, it’s a mighty big door, but ’tain’t big enough to tote all that propaty with her—no, suh! I expeck you goin’ git mighty big slice all that propaty, Mist’ Hollun. Goo’ ni’, suh.”
Harlan laughed, bade him good-night, and strode forward into the gusty water that drove through the darkness. Outside the gate, as he turned toward home, he laughed again, amused by the old negro’s view of things, but not amused by the things themselves. Harlan knew that he had never won his grandmother’s affection; her thought had always been of his brother and was still of Dan now, as she lay upon the bed from which she would never rise. Whatever the terms of her new will might be, and whatever their actual consequences, she had made it clear that they were at least designed for Dan’s ultimate benefit.
Harlan had little expectation of any immediate benefit to himself, notwithstanding the lively hints of Nimbus; nor were his hopes greater than his expectations. He had no wish to supplant his brother.
HE HAD no wish to supplant his brother in Mrs. Savage’s will or in anything;—last of all did he wish to supplant him in the heart of Martha Shelby. Mrs. Savage had been far from understanding her grandson’s deep pride, and, as he strode homeward in the slashing rain, her acrid warnings that he must not hope for anything from Martha repeated themselves over and over in his mind, as such things will, and upon each repetition stung the more.