‘Yes, he told me—and I say nothing against that. It seems to be the way, now. Instead of bearing their grief at home, people flee from it as if it were a plague. Yes, Charley told me; but he could not tell me anything about the other question.’
‘Because there is nothing to tell. Dear Rector, don’t you know my father did leave me a great legacy, after all——’
‘What was that? What was that? Somethink that was not in the will. I thank God for it, Anne,’ cried Mr. Ashley. ‘It is the best news I have heard for many a day.’
‘Oh, don’t speak as if it were something new! Mr. Ashley, he left me the care of the property, and the charge of Rose. Can I do whatever I please with this on my hands?’
‘Is that all?’ the Rector said, in a tone of disappointment; ‘but this is exactly the work in which Douglas could help you. A man and a barrister, of course he knows all about it, much better than you can do. And do you mean to tell me that nothing has been settled, nothing, Anne?’ cried Mr. Ashley, with that vehemence to which mild men are subject. ‘Don’t talk to me of your mourning; I am not thinking of anything that is to happen to-day or to-morrow; but is it settled? That is what I want to know.’
‘There is nothing settled,’ she said—and they stood there for a minute facing each other, his countenance full of anxiety and distrust, hers very firm and pale, almost blank even with determined no meaning. She smiled. She would not let him think she was even disconcerted by his questions. And the Rector was baffled by this firmness. He turned away sighing, and wringing his hands. ‘God bless my soul!’ he said. For it was no use questioning Anne any further—that, at least, was very clear. But as he went away, he came across Heathcote Mountford who was walking about in the now abandoned hall like a handsome discontented ghost.
‘I am glad to see that you take a great interest in your cousins,’ the Rector said, with a conciliatory smile. He did not feel very friendly, to tell the truth, towards Heathcote Mountford, feeling that his existence was a kind of wrong to Anne and Rose; but yet he was the new lord of the manor, and this is a thing which the spiritual head of a parish is bound to remember, whatever his personal feelings may be. Even in this point of view, however, Heathcote was unsatisfactory—for a poor lord of the manor in the best of circumstances is a trial to a rector, especially one who has been used to a well-to-do squire with liberal ways.
‘My interest is not of much use,’ Heathcote said, ‘for you see, though I have protested, they are going away.’
Just then Mr. Loseby’s phaeton drew up at the door, and he himself got out, enveloped with greatcoats and mufflers from head to foot. He was continually coming and going, with an almost restless interest in everything that happened at Mount.
‘It is the very best thing they can do,’ he said. ‘Change of scene: it is the remedy for all trouble now-a-days. They have never seen anything, poor ladies; they have been buried in the country all their lives. And Anne, of course, will like to be in town. That anyone can see with half an eye.’