“Well,” she said calmly, “is there anything wonderful in that. I suppose you will be guardian as the next after her. He will be—in your hands——”
“Where he will be as safe,” John cried coming up to her almost as if he would have seized and shaken her, “as if he were my own.”
“I never doubted it,” Letitia said.
What did she mean? her husband looking down upon her from where he stood could not accuse her of anything. The words had been simple enough. And she was now holding her foot to the fire, as if the only thing she cared for in the world was to get warm. She did not look at him. She yawned a little as if the conversation was getting tedious. “You see yourself,” she went on, “that there’s no use trying to unseat the boy because of his mother’s wild fancies. The thing you have to think of is how to do the best for him. And you’ll have to take this into consideration at once. I should say we’d better come here and let Greenpark. It will be best for the boy; and as I suppose you will have a great deal to do with the property it will be better for you. There is a long minority to look forward to, and of course there must be a good allowance for the child. It would be better for Mary that she should have the Dower-house. The boy can’t be any pleasure to her, feeling as she does, and it will be good for him to have children about him instead of being brought up like a little old man.”
“You seem to have got it all cut and dry,” said John, astonished.
“Yes. I’ve been thinking about it,” said Letitia. “You need not speak of it all, cut and dry as you call it, at once, but it’s best to have a plan in our heads. That’s what I advise. And as soon as the funeral is over the first thing to do is to get rid of Mary. I am very much frightened of mad people. I have always been so all my life.”
“Well, perhaps it might be the best way. But there is Blotting to consult. Blotting has as much to say as I have. He’s executor too. And so is she for that matter.”
“John,” said Mrs. Parke. “She is much better out of the house. And all those Hills. I can’t bear them. If she keeps on thinking it an interloper, only adopted by Frogmore, she might do some harm to the child. It’s not consistent with your duty to keep her here.”
She looked up as she said this and met his eyes. There was a half smile in hers, but Mrs. Parke’s eyes were not expressive—they were dull eyes, and when Letitia chose they became duller still with no meaning in them at all. Perhaps she had not any meaning. The tone which frightened her husband might have been an accidental change of her voice. He looked at her with all the penetration there was in his, but could make nothing of her. John had been very much frightened, he could not tell how; for, as a matter-of-fact, it was he who had entertained ideas prejudicial to little Mar and not Letitia. What dreadful thing had he imagined about his wife? “You are the guardian.” There could not be simpler words. Was it some suggestion from the devil that had made him hear in them something—that was too dreadful to be spoken? John Parke, who was honest enough, and could not have harmed anyone, though he would have fought tooth and nail for his rights, looked into his wife’s face, and saw nothing there that gave any solution to what he had imagined. But after the shock he had received it was not very easy for him to continue the conversation. He said, “I beg your pardon,” thrusting one of his hands into his pocket, as if to find the solution of the mystery there. Letitia did not ask why he begged her pardon. She begged him to call Felicie, that she might get a cup of tea.