Adelaide burst out laughing. “Fixed,” she repeated, “of course, not. But I am sure to be married some time or other. Don’t you think it is great fun to think about what you will choose for yourself and your bridesmaids to wear? I have decided half-a-dozen times at least.”
Roma confessed that the subject was one that had not hitherto much occupied her thoughts.
“You have a brother too, have you not?” she inquired, by way of making conversation.
“Oh, yes, Roger,” replied Adelaide. “He comes next to me. He is sixteen, but, poor boy, he is so dreadfully delicate. When he was a little child they never thought he could live, and even now we often think he won’t grow up. It is very unfortunate, isn’t it, when one thinks of Wylingham and all mamma’s property, though of course it would come to me—the money I mean. Wylingham would go to a distant cousin; so stupid of my grandfather to leave it so, wasn’t it?”
Her remarks were made with the utmost naïveté, in perfect unconsciousness apparently that they could sound heartless.
“And Halswood?” said Roma, repressing the disagreeable sensation left by the girl’s words.
“Oh, Halswood doesn’t seem to matter so much,” she replied. “Papa will have it all his life any way, and there are Chancellors after him. Your—what is he to you?—your cousin?—Captain Chancellor I mean, comes next after Roger.”
“Does he?” exclaimed Roma in astonishment. Then she grew very silent; for a few minutes she did not distinguish the sense of Adelaide’s prattle, her mind was busy with other matters. For one thing, the Chancellors’ policy was now plain to her. Would they succeed? To herself personally she felt that Beauchamp’s possible heirship could never make any difference; rich or poor, he could never be more to her than he was. But as for Gertrude—yes, her views would probably undergo a complete change were such a state of things to come to pass.
“She would like me, I daresay, as well or better than any one else for his wife if he were rich, or certain to be so,” thought Roma. “But, after all, I strongly suspect the chances are that Beauchamp will marry to please himself and no one else, and perhaps find in the end that he has not even done that.”