‘I would if I were you. It would harm yourself and do good to nobody. I certainly would if I were you,’ said the lawyer, getting up and accompanying him to the door.
‘I must exercise my own judgment on that point, Mr. Loseby.’
‘Certainly, certainly, certainly, Mr. Heathcote Mountford! You will all exercise your judgment, you will all do what seems good in your own eyes. I know what the Mountfords are from generation to generation. If it had not been that St. John Mountford had the luck to take a fancy to a rich woman for his first wife, what would the place have been by this time? But that is a chance that doesn’t happen once in a century. And now, when here is another—the finest chance! with openings for such a settlement! But never mind; never mind; of course you will all take your own way.’
‘I hope you have brought him to reason, Loseby,’ said Mr. Mountford, from the back of his cob, as they emerged again into the street.
‘All arrangements about property which are against nature are against reason,’ said the little lawyer, sententiously. ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen. When you go in for these fancy arrangements, it is some sort of a poetical personage you want, and not a lawyer. I wish you a pleasant ride.’
‘He is a character,’ said Mr. Mountford, with a short laugh, as they rode away. But that laugh was the only sound of the lighter sort that broke the gravity of their silent companionship, as their horses’ hoofs clattered over the stones of the little town, and came out upon the long silence of the country road now falling rapidly into twilight. ‘We are a little late,’ Mr. Mountford said, half-an-hour after. As for Heathcote, he did not feel, any more than his kinsman, in a humour for talk. What he had heard, though he had protested against hearing it, dwelt in his mind, and the somewhat morose gravity of the other infected him in spite of himself. What had St. John Mountford, who was in reality a commonplace, good enough sort of man, been doing to warrant so gloomy an aspect? Had he been turning the fortunes of the family upside down and spoiling the life of the daughter he loved best? or was it a mere exhibition of sulkiness consequent upon the quarrel with the lawyer and the opposition he had encountered? Heathcote had known nothing about these Mountfords a week ago, and now how closely he felt himself knitted up in their affairs, whether he continued to be formally connected with them or not! As he rode along in silence by his kinsman’s side, he could not help thinking of the catastrophe which might be coming; that ‘fine creature’ Anne—the little old bald shining lawyer had grown eloquent when he spoke of her. And though she seemed a little severe to Heathcote, he could not but acknowledge to himself that she had always interested him. Rose? oh, Rose was a pretty little thing, a child, a nobody; it did not matter very much what happened to her; but if it should happen that Anne’s life was being changed, the brightness taken out of it, and all those advantages which seem so natural and becoming transferred from her to the profit of Rose? Heathcote felt that this would be a wrong to move heaven and earth; but it was not a subject in which he, a stranger, had any right to interfere. As he looked at the dark muffled figure of her father by his side against the faint crimson which still lingered in the west, he could scarcely help chafing at the thought that, though he was their nearest relation, he was still a stranger, and must not, dared not say a word. And what kind of fellow, he said to himself, in natural indignation, could it be who was wilfully leading Anne into the wilderness, accepting her sacrifice of that which was the very foundation of her life? Perhaps had he himself been the man who loved Anne he would have seen things in a different light; but from his present point of view his mind was full of angry wrath and contempt for the unknown who could let a girl inexperienced in the world give up so much for him. He was a nobody, they said. He must be a poor sort of creature, Heathcote, on these very insufficient grounds, decided in his heart.
It was a beautiful clear October night, with frost in the air, the stars shining every minute more and more brightly, the crimson disappearing, even the last golden afterglow fading into palest yellow in the west, and all the great vault of sky darkening to perfect night. The horses’ hoofs beat upon the long, safe, well-kept road, bordered by long monotonous walls and clouds of trees, from which darkness had stolen their colour—a perfectly safe, tranquil country road, with a peaceful house at the end, already lighting all its windows, preparing its table for the wayfarers. Yet there was something of the gloom of a tragedy in the dark figure wrapped in silence, pondering one could not tell what plans of mischief, and wrathful gloomy intentions, which rode by Heathcote’s side, without a word, along all those miles of darkling way.
CHAPTER XVI.
GOOD ADVICE.
The dinner to which the family sat down after this ride somewhat alarmed the stranger-relative who so suddenly found himself mixed up in their affairs. He thought it must necessarily be a constrained and uncomfortable meal. But this did not turn out to be the case. Anne knew nothing at all about what her father had been doing, and from Rose’s light nature the half comprehended scene at luncheon, when her mother had wept and her father’s face had been like a thundercloud, had already faded away. These two unconscious members of the party kept the tide of affairs in flow. They talked as usual—Anne even more than usual, as one who is unaware of the critical point at which, to the knowledge of all around, he or she is standing, so often does. She gave even a little more information than was called for about her visit to the Woodheads, being in her own mind half ashamed of her cowardice in staying away after the scene of the morning. On the whole she was glad, she persuaded herself, of the scene of the morning. It had placed her position beyond doubt. There had seemed no occasion to make any statement to her father as to the correspondence which he had not forbidden or indeed referred to. He had bidden her give up her lover, and she had refused: but he had said nothing about the lover’s letters, though these followed as a matter of course. And now it was well that he should know the exact position of affairs. She had been greatly agitated at the moment, but soon composed herself. And in her desire to show that she was satisfied, not grieved by what had happened, Anne was more than usually cheerful and communicative in her talk.
‘Fanny is very happy about her brother who is coming home from India. He is to be here only six weeks; but he does not grudge the long journey: and they are all so happy.’