“I shouldn’t think of selling it. Sometimes I think I’d like to live here alone for the rest of my life.”
“Nonsense. But it doesn’t take much to keep it up, aside from the taxes. The grounds went to ruin long ago, and the greater part of the house has been closed since taxes and prices began to go up and my income down. . . . Carteret Manor was a great domain in the seventeenth century, and even in your great-grandfather’s time, but we were always an extravagant and improvident race. There’s nothing left of the old manor now but forty acres. Most of that is in woodland, although there are two farms, rented to decent folk. The rest of my small fortune is in securities, and there is a house in Atlantic City. Mr. Donald will be over from Philadelphia again in a day or two and I’ll tell him to have a talk with you. If I thought I could live a year longer I’d transfer everything to you, but there is some sort of law——”
“That would be rather a reckless thing to do!” For a moment Gita’s brilliant black eyes softened as she leaned forward. “I might sell out and skip, having first run you into the poorhouse.”
“You may have bad manners and worse language, but I’ve lived too long to make any mistake about character——”
“And of course I’m a Carteret,” said Gita mischievously.
“Of course. But it’s not worth talking about. I’ll not live a month, much less a year. . . . There’s something else. I’ve wanted to speak of it ever since you came, but this is the first time I’ve had my way with that nurse and the opportunity for something like a real talk with you. Moreover—I suppose you’ll spit fire.”
“Fire away. Don’t mind me.”
“Well, it’s this. I don’t like the old name to die out. None of my sons married except your father and William, who died without issue. The other two died young, one out yonder in the Thoroughfare, when he was fourteen. Three of the girls died in childhood during a diphtheria epidemic—my own Gita among them! Violet and Rose withered away in this house, unmarried; they were plain, and I would not countenance such suitors as they attracted. In the few plain Carteret women the Carteret spirit seemed also to be lacking. Evelyn had her full measure. She cut a great swath in New York, where my sister gave her a season, and then married to suit herself. But she died childless—long since. Now, you and I are the only Carterets left and unless you do as I ask the old name will be forgotten—like many another old name only to be found in some history of New Jersey.”
“Well?” Gita’s crisp voice rose a key.
“I should die content if you would promise me to ask—yes, insist, that your husband take our name——”