‘Mr. Loseby,’ said Mrs. Mountford, ‘I did not approve any more than you did. It was not any doing of mine. I protested against it; but my husband—my husband had his reasons.’
‘There are no reasons that could justify this,’ said the tremulous old Rector; ‘it is a shame and a sin; it ought not to be. When a man’s will is all wrong, the survivors should agree to set it right. It should not be left like that; it will bring a curse upon all who have anything to do with it,’ said the old man, who was so timid and so easily abashed. ‘I am not a lawyer. I don’t know what the law will permit; but the Gospel does not permit such injustice as this.’
Mr. Loseby had pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and listened with an astonishment which was tinctured first with awe, then with amusement. The old Rector, feeblest of men and preachers! The lawyer gazed at him as at a curiosity of nature. It was a fine thing in its way. But to attack a will of his, John Loseby’s! He smiled at the folly, though he sympathised with the courage. After all, the old fellow had more in him than anybody thought.
Mrs. Mountford was roused too beyond her wont. ‘My husband had his reasons,’ she said, her pale face growing red; ‘he never did anything without thought. I would not change what he had settled, not for all the world, not for a kingdom. I interfere to set a will aside! and his will! I don’t think you know what you are saying. No one could have such a right.’
‘Then it will bring a curse and no blessing,’ said the Rector, getting up tremulously. ‘I have nothing to do here; I said so at the first. Anne, my dear excellent child, this is a terrible blow for you. I wish I could take you out of it all. I wish—I wish that God had given me such a blessing as you for my daughter, my dear.’
Anne rose up and gave him her hand. All the usual decorums of such a meeting were made an end of by the extraordinary character of the revelation which had been made to them.
‘Thank you, dear Mr. Ashley; but never think of me,’ Anne said. ‘I knew it would be so. And papa, poor papa, had a right to do what he pleased. We spoke of it together often; he never thought it would come to this. How was he to think what was to happen? and so soon—so soon. I feel sure,’ she said, her eyes filling with tears, ‘it was for this, and not for pain, that he groaned after he fell.’
‘He had need to groan,’ said the Rector, shaking his head—‘he had need to groan! I hope it may not be laid to his charge.’ Mr. Ashley was too much moved to recollect the ordinary politenesses; he pushed his chair away, back to the wall, not knowing what he was doing. ‘Come, Charley!’ he said, ‘come, Charley! I told you we had nothing to do here. We cannot mend it, and why should we be in the midst of it? It is more than I can bear. Come, Charley—unless you can be of use.’
But Mrs. Mountford felt it very hard that she should thus be disapproved of by her clergyman. It compromised her in every way. She began to cry, settling down once more into the midst of her crape. ‘I don’t know why you should turn against me,’ she said, ‘Mr. Ashley. I had nothing to do with it. I told him it would make me wretched if he punished Anne; but you cannot ask me to disapprove of my husband, and go against my husband, and he only to-day—only to-day——’
Here she was choked by genuine tears. Rose had kept close by her mother’s side all the time. She cried occasionally, but she gave her attention closely to all that was going on, and the indignation of the bystanders at her own preferment puzzled her somewhat narrow understanding. Why should not she be as good an heiress as Anne? Why should there be such a commotion about her substitution for her sister? She could not make out what they meant. ‘I will always stand by you, mamma,’ she said, tremulously. ‘Come upstairs. I do not suppose we need stay any longer, Mr. Loseby? There is nothing for us to do.’