 namely, to try and secure
Diplow as a future residence for Lady Mallinger and her daughters, and keep this
pretty bit of the family inheritance for his own offspring in spite of that
disappointment. Such knowledge as he had of his nephew's disposition and affairs
encouraged the belief that Grandcourt might consent to a transaction by which he
would get a good sum of ready money, as an equivalent for his prospective
interest in the domain of Diplow and the moderate amount of land attached to it.
If, after all, the unhoped-for son should be born, the money would have been
thrown away, and Grandcourt would have been paid for giving up interests that
had turned out good for nothing; but Sir Hugo set down this risk as nil, and of
late years he had husbanded his fortune so well by the working of mines and the
sale of leases that he was prepared for an outlay.
    Here was an object that made him careful to avoid any quarrel with
Grandcourt. Some years before, when he was making improvements at the Abbey, and
needed Grandcourt's concurrence in his felling an obstructive mass of timber on
the demesne, he had congratulated himself on finding that there was no active
spite against him in his nephew's peculiar mind; and nothing had since occurred
to make them hate each other more than was compatible with perfect politeness,
or with any accommodation that could be strictly mutual.
    Grandcourt, on his side, thought his uncle a superfluity and a bore, and
felt that the list of things in general would be improved whenever Sir Hugo came
to be expunged. But he had been made aware through Lush, always a useful medium,
of the baronet's inclinations concerning Diplow, and he was gratified to have
the alternative of the money in his mind: even if he had not thought it in the
least likely that he would choose to accept it, his sense of power would have
been flattered by his being able to refuse what Sir Hugo desired. The hinted
transaction had told for something among the motives which had made him ask for
a year's tenancy of Diplow, which it had rather annoyed Sir Hugo to grant,
because the excellent hunting in the neighbourhood might decide Grandcourt not
to part with his chance of future possession; - a man who has two places, in one
of which the hunting is less good, naturally desiring a third where it is
better. Also, Lush had thrown out to Sir Hugo the probability that Grandcourt
would woo and win Miss Arrowpoint, and in that case ready money might be less of
a temptation to him. Hence, on
