‘These questions about the leases are the most difficult,’ said Anne, steadily. ‘I suppose the old tenants are not always the best.’
‘My dear, I hope in these bad times we may get tenants at all, old or new,’ said the old lawyer. And then he plunged into the distresses of the country, the complaints of the farmers, the troubles of the labourers, the still greater trials of the landlord. ‘Your cousin Heathcote has made I don’t know how much reduction. I am not at all sure that he is right. It is a dreadfully bad precedent for other landlords. And for himself he simply can’t afford it. But I cannot get him to hear reason. “What does it matter to me?” he says, “I have always enough to live on, and those that till the land have the best right to any advantage they can get out of it.” What can you say to a man that thinks like that? I tell him he is a fool for his pains; but it is I who am a fool for mine, for he takes no notice though I talk myself hoarse.’
‘Indeed, I think it is very unjustifiable conduct,’ said Mrs. Mountford. ‘He should think of those who are to come after him. A man has no right to act in that way as if he stood by himself. He ought to marry and settle down. I am sure I hope he will have heirs of his own, and not leave the succession to that horrid little Edward. To think of a creature like that in Mount would be more than I could bear.’
‘I doubt if Heathcote will ever marry; not unless he gets the one woman—— But we don’t all get that even when we are most lucky,’ said the old lawyer, briskly. ‘He is crotchety, crotchety, full of his own ideas: but a fine fellow all the same.’
‘Does he want to marry more than one woman?’ cried Rose, opening great eyes, ‘and you talk of it quite coolly, as if it was not anything very dreadful; but of course he can’t, he would be hanged or something. Edward is not so bad as mamma says. He is silly; but, then, they are mostly silly.’ She had begun to feel that she was a person of experience, and justified in letting loose her opinion. All this time it seemed to Mr. Loseby that Anne was going through her part like a woman on the stage. She was very quiet; but she seemed to insist with herself upon noticing everything, listening to all that was said, giving her assent or objection. In former times she had not been at all so particular, but let the others chatter with a gentle indifference to what they were saying. She seemed to attend to everything, the table, and the minutiae of the dinner, letting nothing escape her to-night.
‘I think Heathcote is right,’ she said; ‘Edward will not live to succeed him; and, if he does not marry, why should he save money, and pinch others now, on behalf of a future that may never come? What happens if there is no heir to an entail? Could not it all be eaten up, all consumed, re-absorbed into the country, as it were, by the one who is last?’
‘Nonsense, Anne. He has no right to be the last. No one has any right to be the last. To let an old family die down,’ cried Mrs. Mountford, ‘it is a disgrace. What would dear papa have said? When I remember what a life they all led me because I did not have a boy—as if it had been my fault! I am sure if all the hair off my head, or everything I cared for in my wardrobe, or anything in the world I had, could have made Rose a boy, I would have sacrificed it. I must say that if Heathcote does not marry I shall think I have been very badly used: though, indeed, his might all be girls too,’ she added, half hopefully, half distressed. ‘Anyhow, the trial ought to be made.’ Notwithstanding the danger to the estate, it would have been a little consolation to Mrs. Mountford if Heathcote on marrying had been found incapable, he also, of procuring anything more than girls from Fate.
‘When an heir of entail fails——’ Mr. Loseby began, not unwilling to expound a point on which he was an authority; but Rose broke in and interrupted him, never having had any wholesome fear of her seniors before her eyes. Rose wanted to know what was going to be done now they were here, if they were to stay all the autumn in the ‘Black Bull;’ if they were to take a house anywhere; and generally what they were to do. This gave Mr. Loseby occasion to produce his scheme. There was an old house upon the property which had not been entailed, which Mr. Mountford had bought with his first wife’s money, and which was now the inheritance of Rose. It had been suffered to fall out of repair, but it was still an inhabitable house. ‘You know it, Anne,’ the lawyer said; ‘it would be an amusement to you all to put it in order. A great deal could be done in a week or two. I am told there is no amusement like furnishing, and you might make a pretty place of it.’ The idea, however, was not taken up with very much enthusiasm.
‘In all probability,’ Mrs. Mountford said, ‘we shall go abroad again for the winter. The girls like it, and it is very pleasant, when one can, to escape from the cold.’
The discussion of this subject filled the rest of the evening. Mr. Loseby was very anxious on his side. He declared that it did not bind them to anything; that to have a house, a pied-à-terre, ‘even were it only to put on your cards,’ was always an advantage. After much argument it was decided at last that the house at Lilford, an old Dower-house, and bearing that picturesque name, should be looked at before any conclusion was come to; and with this Mr. Loseby took his leave. Anne had taken her full share in the discussion. She had shown all the energy that her rôle required. She had put in suggestions of practical weight with a leaning to the Dower-house, and had even expressed a little enthusiasm about that last popular plaything—a house to furnish—which nowadays has become the pleasantest of pastimes. ‘It shall be Morris-ey, but not too Morris-ey,’ she had said, with a smile, still in perfect fulfilment of her rôle. But to see Anne playing at being Anne had a wonderful effect upon her old friend. Her stepmother and sister, being with her perpetually, did not perhaps so readily suspect the fine histrionic effort that was going on by their side. It was a fine performance; but such a performance is apt to make the enlightened beholder’s heart ache. When he had taken his leave of the other ladies—early, as they were tired, or supposed it right to be tired, with their journey—Anne followed Mr. Loseby out of the room. She asked him to come into another close by. ‘I have something to say to you,’ she said, with a faint smile. Mr. Loseby, like the old Rector, was very fond of Anne. He had seen her grow up from her infancy. He had played with her when she was a child, and carried her sugar-plums in his coat pockets. And he had no children of his own to distract his attention from his favourite. It troubled him sadly to see signs of trouble about this young creature whom he loved.