“Yes,” said Lilias, “it struck me as strangely unselfish. But Mrs Brabazon says Anselm has never cared to live since his brother’s death. Basil was the strong one, and Anselm leaned on him for everything, he has always been so delicate, ‘living with a doom over him ever since he was born,’ Mrs Brabazon called it.”
“Consumption, I suppose?” said Mr Greville. “But your mother does not look as if she came from a consumptive family.”
“No, it is not from the Brookes, but from their mothers side that they are consumptive,” said Lilias. “The deaths among the other Brookes have been in many cases from accidental causes.”
There fell a little pause; Lilias, eager for decision, was just about to break it with a repeated request for advice, when Mr Greville intercepted her intention.
“I’ll tell you what I’d do in your place, my dear,” he said, suddenly. “Write the whole to your sister Mary. She’s as sensible a girl as one often meets with, and, being on the spot, can judge as to the effect the news is likely to have on your father.”
“Yes,” said Lilias, “I think I shall. She is on the spot, as you say, and could tell it less startlingly than I could write it. Besides,” she added, with a slight touch of filial jealousy, “she can consult mamma.”
“Oh, yes, of course,” said Mrs Greville, in a conventionally proper tone.
“And, after all,” said Mr Greville, a little maliciously, ”‘Mamma’ is really the chief person concerned.”
He was shrewd enough to suspect that notwithstanding his wife’s honest pleasure in good fortune coming to her old friends, she would have preferred its not coming to them through their mother, the quiet, reserved woman whom she had somehow never been able quite to understand, who met her good-natured patronage with an unruffled dignity which always prevented hearty Mrs Greville from feeling quite at ease in her presence, though mentally considering her as rather a poor creature than otherwise.
It was late that night, or early, rather, the next morning, before Lilias went to bed. For, till her letter to Mary was written, she felt she could not rest. If only she could have written one other letter too!