“No;—certainly.”
“It is astonishing to me how afraid you are of your father. He hasn’t any land, has he?”
“Land!”
“Real estate. You know what I mean. He couldn’t well have landed property without your knowing it.” She shook her head. “It might make an immense difference to us, you know.”
“Why so?”
“If he were to die without a will, any land—houses and that kind of property—would go to Everett. I never knew a man who told his children so little. I want to make you understand these things. You and I will be badly off if he doesn’t do something for us.”
“You don’t think he is really ill?”
“No;—not ill. Men above seventy are apt to die, you know.”
“Oh, Ferdinand—what a way to talk of it!”
“Well, my love, the thing is so seriously matter-of-fact, that it is better to look at it in a matter-of-fact way. I don’t want your father to die.”
“I hope not. I hope not.”
“But I should be very glad to learn what he means to do while he lives. I want to get you into sympathy with me in this matter;—but it is so difficult.”
“Indeed I sympathise with you.”
“The truth is he has taken an aversion to Everett.”
“God forbid!”
“I am doing all I can to prevent it. But if he does throw Everett over we ought to have the advantage of it. There is no harm in saying as much as that. Think what it would be if he should take it into his head to leave his money to hospitals. My G⸺; fancy what my condition would be if I were to hear of such a will as that! If he destroyed an old will, partly because he didn’t like our marriage, and partly in anger against Everett, and then died without making another, the property would be divided—unless he had bought land. You see how many dangers there are. Oh dear! I can look forward and see myself mad—or else see myself so proudly triumphant!” All this horrified her, but he did not see her horror. He knew that she disliked it, but thought that she disliked the trouble, and that she dreaded her father. “Now I do think that you could help me a little,” he continued.
“What can I do?”
“Get round him when he’s a little down in the mouth. That is the way in which old men are conquered.” How utterly ignorant he was of the very nature of her mind and disposition! To be told by her husband that she was to “get round” her father! “You should see him every day. He would be delighted if you would go to him at his chambers. Or you could take care to be in the Square when he comes home. I don’t know whether we had not better leave this and go and live near him. Would you mind that?”
“I would do anything you would suggest as to living anywhere.”
“But you won’t do anything I suggest as to your father.”
“As to being with him, if I thought he wished it—though I had to walk my feet off, I would go to him.”
“There’s no need of hurting your feet. There’s the brougham.”
“I do so wish, Ferdinand, you would discontinue the brougham. I don’t at all want it. I don’t at all dislike cabs. And I was only joking about walking. I walk very well.”
“Certainly not. You fail altogether to understand my ideas about things. If things were going bad with us, I would infinitely prefer getting a pair of horses for you to putting down the one you have.” She certainly did not understand his ideas. “Whatever we do we must hold our heads up. I think he is coming round to cotton to me. He is very close, but I can see that he likes my going to him. Of course, as he grows older from day to day, he’ll constantly want someone to lean on more than heretofore.”
“I would go and stay with him if he wanted me.”
“I have thought of that too. Now that would be a saving—without any fall. And if we were both there we could hardly fail to know what he was doing. You could offer that, couldn’t you? You could say as much as that?”
“I could ask him if he wished it.”
“Just so. Say that it occurs to you that he is lonely by himself, and that we will both go to the Square at a moment’s notice if he thinks it will make him comfortable. I feel sure that that will be the best step to take. I have already had an offer for these rooms, and could get rid of the things we have bought to advantage.”
This, too, was terrible to her, and at the same time altogether unintelligible. She had been invited to buy little treasures to make their home comfortable, and had already learned to take that delight in her belongings which is one of the greatest pleasures of a young married woman’s life. A girl in her old home, before she is given up to a husband, has many sources of interest, and probably from day to day sees many people. And the man just married goes out to his work, and occupies his time, and has his thickly-peopled world around him. But the bride, when the bridal honours of the honeymoon are over, when the sweet care of the first cradle has not yet come to her, is apt to be lonely and to be driven to the contemplation of the pretty things with which her husband and her friends have surrounded her. It had certainly been so with this young bride, whose husband left her in the morning and only returned for their late dinner. And now she was told that her household gods had had a price put upon them and that they were to be sold. She had intended to suggest that she would pay her father a visit, and her husband immediately proposed that they should quarter themselves
