‘Ben, let me speak to you,’ she said. ‘I did not mean it,--far from that, heaven knows! I wish my tongue had been cut out first. I know it would go against you to admit such a thing if any one else said it; but, Ben, your father could not have been in his right senses. He never could have done it, if he had known.’
‘It is a question I can’t discuss with you, Aunt Lydia,’ said Ben, standing at the open door and barring her entrance. ‘I think you are mistaken. I don’t think it could be anything you said.’
‘Ben, I know it!’ said Mrs. Westbury. ‘I could not be mistaken. Let me come in, and I will tell you. It was done on Friday, and that unfortunate conversation was on Thursday night. He was very snappish to poor Laurie when we went back to the lawn;--but, oh, if I could have known what was to follow it! Ben, I must come in and speak to you; I have a great deal to say. You know, there is our Dick----’
‘Yes,’ said Ben. He had to let her in, though he did it with an ill grace. He placed his easy-chair for her, and stood leaning against the table, to hear what she had to say. He would not countenance or encourage her to remain by sitting down, but stood with his candle in his hand, a most unwilling host.
‘You are angry with me,’ said Aunt Lydia, ‘and you have reason. But what I want to say is about Dick. If your father had made this move at the right time, it is you who should have gone to Calcutta, Ben. You have the best right. My boy only went, as it were, to fill your place; and he ought to give it up to you now. Of course it was to my brother he owed the appointment. I don’t say Dick should come home; but he has made some money and some friends; and, I think he might do something for himself still, in another way, instead of taking your place.’
‘It is nonsense to call it my place,’ said Ben.
‘I don’t think it is nonsense; for my part, I think of justice,’ said Mrs. Westbury. ‘It would have been yours had you been sent off six or seven years ago, as you ought to have been. Yes, I say as you ought to have been, Ben, like all the Rentons. None of us were ever fine gentlemen. The men always worked before they took their ease, and the women always managed and saved in our house; but you should not be turned out now, when you were not brought up to it. Ben, my brother was very cross to me that Thursday night. It was not him, poor fellow, it was illness that was working on him. He was not in his right mind; and the will ought to be broken.’