“But, Edward, why should you do that—to please Sir Walter—to please—your cousin? Well, I should always like to keep on good terms with my relations, and do what I could for them; but to give up what we have been looking forward to so long—and the only thing we have to look forward to! I am sure,” said Mrs. Penton, tears getting into her voice, “I should be the last person to say anything against relations, or make dispeace, but when you think that it is the only provision we have for the children—the only—and when you remember that there’s Walter—” She stopped, unable to go on any further, bewildered, not knowing what to think.
“Father does not mean that. It is not that, whatever it may mean.”
“Of course I do not mean that. You take up all sorts of absurd ideas and then you think I have said it. Sir Walter and Alicia are my relations, it is true, but they don’t set up a claim on that score, neither am I such a fool. Try and understand me reasonably, Annie. Property is different from everything else; you don’t give up your rights to please anybody. Here’s how it is. When the heir is willing to step in and break the entail, of course he has compensation for it. Sir Walter is a very old man, the property in all human probability will soon be in my hands, therefore my compensation would be at a heavy rate. They are rich enough,” said Mr. Penton, in a sort of smile, “they could afford that.”
“They would give father the money,” said Anne, in a way she had before found effectual in clearing her mother’s ideas; “and he would let them have the land.”
“Edward, is that what it means?”
“Yes, strictly speaking: if you put feelings and pride and everything to one side, and the thought of one’s family, and of all we’ve looked forward to for years.”
“You can’t put them to one side,” cried young Walter, sharply, in the keen, harsh, staccato tones of bitterness and fear. “You can’t! No money would make up for them, nothing could be put in their place. Father, you feel that as well as I?”
“I feel that as well as you! To whom are you speaking? What are you in the matter?—a boy that may never—that might never—whereas I’ve thought of it all my life; it has been hanging within reach of my hand, so to speak, for years. I’ve built everything on it. And a bit of a boy asks me if I feel that—like him! Like him! What is he that he should set himself as a model to me?”
“Oh, father!” cried Ally, with her hand upon his arm.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Penton in her quiet voice, quenching this little eddy of passion far more effectually than if she had taken any notice of it, “that makes a great difference. They would give you the money, and you would let them keep the land? There is justice in that, Edward. I do not say it is a thing to be snapped at at once, although we do want the money so much. But still it is quite just, a thing to be calmly considered. I wish you would tell us now exactly what your cousin wants, and what she would give instead of it. It is like selling a property. I am sure I for one should not mind selling this property if we could get a good price for it: and as we have no associations with Penton and have never lived there, nor—”