“Was there any offer made you, Edward? Did she say how much they thought?—wouldn’t that be one of the first things to think of? We might be troubling ourselves all for nothing, if they were intending to take advantage, Walter says. But, then, how should Walter know? They would never take him into their confidence. Was any sum mentioned? for that would show whether they meant to take advantage. I never heard they were that sort of people. Your cousin Alicia has the name of being proud, but as for taking advantage—”
“Can’t you see,” he cried, with irritation, “that you are driving me distracted, going over and over one set of words? Walter’s a fool. Do you suppose the Pentons are cheats? To make such an offer at all was taking an—If we had been as well off as they are they never would have ventured. That’s all about it. I never supposed they would try to outwit me in a bargain.” After this little blaze of energy he sunk into his more usual depression. “If it hadn’t been for you and the children of course I shouldn’t have listened, not for a moment.”
“Why should you do it for us, father? We don’t cost so much. We could go away and be governesses, rather than be such a burden!”
Mrs. Penton put down the hand upon which she had drawn the stocking to give Anne a warning touch, while her father took no notice except with a passing glance.
“A man can do himself no justice when he’s weighted down on every side. It has always been my luck. I wonder, for my part, now that they have had the assurance to propose it at all, why they didn’t propose it years and years ago.”
“What a thing it would have been!” said Mrs. Penton; “many an anxiety it would have saved us, Edward. Why, it would make you a rich man! We have always looked forward so to Penton, and nobody ever supposed Sir Walter would live till eighty-five; but I have never thought of it as such a paradise. For, in the first place, it would want a great deal of money to keep it up.”
“Yes, it would take money to keep it up.”
“Everybody says it is kept up beautifully. You never could reconcile yourself to neglecting anything, and hearing people say how different it was in Sir Walter’s time. Then the house is such a grand house, and it would come to us empty or nearly empty. Oh, I’ve thought it all over so often. Gentlemen don’t go into these matters as a woman does. Of course, your cousin Alicia would take away all the beautiful furniture that suits the house. Her father would leave it to her, for that’s not entailed, you know. We should go into it empty, or with only a few old sticks: what should we do with the things we’ve got in Penton?” She looked round with an affectionate contempt at the well-worn chairs, the table in the middle, the old dingy curtains with no color left in them. “The first thing we should have to do would be to furnish from top to bottom, and where should we find the money to do that?”
Mr. Penton did not say anything. He made a little impatient wave of his hand, but he did not contradict or even attempt to stop her soft, slow, gentle voice as she went on.
“And then the gardeners! they are a kind of army in themselves. To pay them all their wages every week, the men that are in the houses, and the men that are outside, and the people at the lodges, and the carpenters, and the men that roll the lawns; where should we find the money? If we could have the rents and go on living here, of course I don’t say anything against it, we should be rich. But to live at Penton we should just be as poor as we are now—as poor but much grander—obliged to give parties and keep horses—and dress—If I ever had ventured to tell you my opinion, Edward, I should have told you, instead of looking forward to Penton it has been my terror night and day. I always thought,” she continued, after a pause, “that I should try and persuade you to let it, until, at least, we had a little money to the good.”