‘I do not feel in the least disposed to jump at it. If there had been a boy, it might have been different.’ Mrs. Mountford always felt that in this there was an inferred censure upon herself--how unjust a censure it is unnecessary to say: of course she would have had a boy if she could--of that there could be no question.
‘A boy is not everything,’ she said. ‘It would be just the same thing if Anne’s husband took the name.’
‘Don’t speak to me of Anne’s husband,’ he cried, almost with passion. ‘I forbid you to say a word to me of Anne’s affairs.’
‘St. John! what can you mean? It would be barbarous of me, it would be unchristian,’ cried the much-exercised mother, trying hard to do her duty, ‘not to speak of Anne’s affairs. Probably the man you object to will never be her husband; probably----’
‘That is enough, Letitia. I want to hear nothing more upon the subject. Talk of anything else you like, but I will have nothing said about Anne.’
‘Then you are doing wrong,’ she cried, with a little real indignation. After this her tone changed in a moment: something like bitterness stole into it. ‘It shows how much more you are thinking of Anne than of anyone else. You are rejecting Mount because you don’t choose that she should be the heir. You forget you have got another child.’
‘Forget I have got another child! It is the first subject of my thoughts.’
‘Ah, yes, perhaps so far as the money is concerned. Of course if Anne does not have it, there is nobody but Rose who could have any right to it. But you don’t think your youngest daughter good enough to have anything to do with Mount. I see very well how it is, though you don’t choose to explain.’
‘If that is how you prefer to look at it,’ he said; but at this moment a budget of papers arrived from Hunston by a special messenger, and Mrs. Mountford withdrew perforce. She was in a very irritable condition, as all the house knew, ready to find fault with everything. Perhaps it was rather an advantage to her to have a grievance, and to be able to reproach her husband with preferring in his heart the elder to the younger, even when he was preferring the younger to the elder in this new will. ‘There will never be any question of _my_ child’s husband taking the name, that is very clear,’ she said to herself, with much vehemence, nursing her wrath to keep it warm, and thus escaping from the question of injustice to Anne. And again it occurred to her, but with more force than before, that to announce to her husband that Rose was going to marry Heathcote Mountford would be a delightful triumph. She would thus be Mrs. Mountford of Mount in spite of him, and the victory would be sweet. But even this did not seem to progress as it appeared to do at first. Heathcote, too, seemed to be becoming interested in Anne: as if that could advantage him! when it was clear that Anne was ready to lose everything, and was risking everything, every day, for that other! Altogether Mrs. Mountford’s position was not a comfortable one. To know so much and yet to know so little was very hard to bear.