The news of my being cut off with a shilling exceedingly surprized and exasperated him. Unluckily I had not mentioned to him, nor even to my husband, the will which my father had been obliged to make. The assurances he gave me, of immediately making another in my favour, prevented me; as I thought it would only be a very severe proof of my mother's enmity to the family, which I could have wished to conceal from them; especially as I did not imagine it would have affected me afterwards. Mr Vere the elder was from home when my father died, and his business detained him for more than a month after his funeral was over. My husband, on this occasion, shewed the tender and disinterested love he bore me; he affected to make as light as possible of this unexpected disappointment, but at the same time expressed his uneasiness, lest his father should carry matters to an extremity with my mother, from whom we knew we were to expect nothing by mild methods.
It was now thought adviseable, that I should write to my mother, to condole with her on my father's death; again to intreat her forgiveness of my fault, and, as some mitigation of it, to acknowlege that it was not only with my father's privity, but even with his consent and approbation, that I had married.
I wrote this letter in a strain of the utmost humility, without mentioning a word of my fortune; _that_ I thought it would be time enough for me to do, if I could prevail on my mother to see me, and would at all events come better from my husband or his father, than from me. But I gained nothing by this, only some unkind reflections on my father's memory, and a message, that since he thought proper to marry his daughter in a manner so highly disagreeable to her mother, he should have taken care of providing for her; as he could not expect a parent, so disobliged as she had been, would take any notice of me.
My mother had been left sole executrix to my father's forced will; and she took care to put my sister, and the other legatees, into possession of what was bequeathed to them in a very short time after his decease. She found there was an unexpected deficiency in his personal fortune, insomuch that there was barely enough to pay his debts; and that her being left the residue, after the specified legacies were paid, amounted to nothing. On the contrary, had my father's just intentions taken place, in leaving me five thousand pounds, she would have come in for the other five; but the whole ten thousand now went to my sister.