Pulling up the sofa-cushion at her elbow, she produced another will, and asked the lawyer if he would be good enough to unseal and read it. It had been made, as the date proved, at Cheltenham, the day after she and Dr. Lewis were married; and it left every earthly thing he possessed to “his dear wife, Louisa Jane Lewis.”
Old Coney’s face was a picture. He stared alternately at the will in his hands, at the one just read by the lawyer. Anne stood meekly by his side; looking as if she did not understand matters.
“That can’t stand good!” spoke the farmer, in his honest indignation. “The money can’t go to you, ma’am”—turning his burly form about to face Mrs. Lewis, and treading on my toes as he did it. “The money is this young lady’s; part of it comes from her own mother: it can’t be yours. Thomas Lewis must have signed the will in his sleep.”
“Does a daughter inherit before a wife, dear sir?” cried Mrs. Lewis, in a voice soft as butter. “It is the most just will my revered husband could have made. I need the money: I cannot keep on the house without it. Anne does not need it: she has no house to keep.”
“Look here,” says old Coney, buttoning his coat and looking fiercely at the company. “It’s not my wish to be rude to-day, remembering what place we came straight here from; but if you don’t want to be put down as—as schemers, you will not lose an hour in making over the half of that income to Anne Lewis. It is what she proposed to do by you, madam, when she thought all was left to her,” he added, brushing past Mrs. Lewis. “Come along, Johnny.”
The time went on. Mrs. Lewis kept all the money. She gave notice to leave the house at Midsummer: but she had it on her hands until then, and told people she should die of its dulness. So far as could be known, she had little, if any, income, except that which she inherited from Dr. Lewis.
Anne’s days did not pass in clover. Treated as of no moment, she was made fully to understand that she was only tolerated in what was once her own home; and she had to make herself useful in it from morning till night, just like a servant. Remembering what had been, and what was, Anne felt heart-broken, submitting patiently and unresistingly to every trial; but a reaction set in, and her spirit grew rebellious.
“Is there any remedy, I wonder?” she asked herself one night in her little chamber, when preparing for bed, and the day had been a particularly trying day. She had ventured to ask for a few shillings for some purpose or other, and was told she could not have them: being Easter-Monday, Sally had had a holiday, and she had been kept at work like a slave in the girl’s place: Herbert Tanerton and his wife had come to invite her for a day or two to Timberdale, and a denial was returned to them without herself being consulted, or even allowed to see them. Yes, it had been a trying day. And in France Easter had always been kept as a fête.
“Is there not a remedy?” she debated, as she slowly undressed. “I have no home but this; but—could I not find one?”