She turned and watched it go. It was heading up toward the Walker Ranch. She started walking faster. Then she stopped. She started running.
She was not a woman who ran. She was a woman who managed things carefully and thought before she acted and never let panic make her decisions. But she was running now, her boots on the hard road, her coat flying because that wagon was going to Thomas's house and Thomas was at the ministers and the children were home and Emily was 14 years old and had already carried too much. She came up the road to find the wagon stopped in the yard. Two men were on the porch.
Emily was in the doorway. Clare came through the gate and walked straight up the porch steps and put herself beside Emily without stopping and looked at the two men. One was in his 50s, well-dressed with the ease of a man who occupies important rooms. The other was younger, carried papers. "Richard Whitmore," the older man said pleasantly, as though this were a social call.
Clare looked at him. This was the first time she had seen him. She had built a picture of him from everything she'd learned, and the picture had been accurate in every detail. He was exactly the kind of man he had been in her mind, polished, pleasant, with cold eyes that processed people as variables. Mr. Walker isn't home, Clare said.
That's all right, Whitmore said. I've come to serve notice. He nodded to the younger man who stepped forward and extended a folded document. Miss Bennett, is it? Yes.
Per the terms of Mr. Walker's mortgage, Whitmore Banking Company is invoking the inspection clause. An official assessment of the property's viability will be conducted one week from today. Emily's hand found Clare's arm. Clare did not take the document. On what basis, she said, on the basis of ongoing concerns about the borrower's ability to service the debt, Whitmore said.
Pleasantly, always pleasantly. Mr. Walker is current on every payment, Clare said. The inspection clause does not require a missed payment, Whitmore said. As I'm sure you know, Miss Bennett. She looked at him.
She looked at him for a long moment, and she understood with complete clarity what was happening. This was the direct move. This was Whitmore deciding the careful approach had taken too long and making his play. The inspection would find whatever he decided it would find. His inspector.
His report, his determination of viability. Emily, Clare said quietly without looking away from Whitmore. Go inside. Miss Clare. Inside, Clare said.
Emily went. Clare looked at Whitmore. I'll take the notice, she said. She took it. Whitmore looked at her with the particular look of a man assessing an obstacle.