‘I should not take that as a reason for thinking it impossible. But Percy knows her far too well. No, it is only one of my aunt’s fancies. She has set her hopes on Theodora now; but it is of no use to talk of it. I don’t want to dwell on it. It is too pitiable to be angry about. What are you reading?’
Violet was as glad to talk to him of her book as he was to lose the thought of his vexatious conversation, which had been even more annoying that he had chosen to tell her.
Mrs. Nesbit had taken occasion to speak of the reversion of an estate, which she said she wished to go to augment the property of the title; and now she should have no hesitation in bequeathing it to him, provided she could see him, on his side, make such a connection as would be for the consequence of the family.
John tried silence, but she drove him so hard that he was obliged to reply that, since she had begun on the subject, he had only to say that he should never marry; and, with thanks for her views, the disposal of her property would make no difference to him.
She interrupted him by reproaches on a man of his age talking romantic nonsense, and telling him that, for the sake of the family, it was his duty to marry.
‘With such health as mine,’ replied John, quietly, ‘I have long made up my mind that, even if I could enter on a fresh attachment, it would not be right. I am not likely to live many years, and I wish to form no new ties. You will oblige me, ma’am, by not bringing forward this subject again.’
‘Ay, I know what you are intending. You think it will come to Arthur and his wife; but I tell you what, Mr. Martindale, no attorney’s daughter shall ever touch a sixpence of mine.’
‘That is as you please, ma’am. It was not to speak of these matters that I came here; and if you have told me all you wish with regard to the property, I will leave the papers for your signature.’
She was above all provoked by his complete indifference to the wealth, her chief consideration throughout her life, and could not cease from reproaching him with absurd disregard to his own interest, at which he very nearly smiled. Then she revived old accusations, made in the earlier days of her persecution about his engagement, that he was careless of the consequence and reputation of the family, and had all his life been trying to lower it in the eyes of the world; otherwise why had he set himself to patronize that wife of Arthur’s, or why bring Percy Fotheringham here, just to put his sister in the way of marrying beneath her? And when he had answered that, though he saw no probability of such an event, opinions might differ as to what was beneath Theodora, she took the last means that occurred to her for tormenting him, by predicting that Arthur’s sickly little child would never live to grow up—he need not fix any hopes on him.
He escaped at last, leaving her much irritated, as Theodora presently found her. She began to complain bitterly of the ingratitude of her great-nephews, after all her labours for the family! John treating her whole fortune as if it was not worth even thanks, when she had been ready to settle the whole on him at once, as she would have done, since (and she looked sharply at Theodora) he was now free from that Fotheringham engagement; for none of that family should ever have a share in her property.