Asthma

Asthma is one of the illnesses attributed to Peter Featherstone in a conversation about his expected inheritance. The brief reference gives the condition no individual clinical description; instead, Mrs. Vincy uses it to support her belief that Featherstone is nearing death and that his relatives may soon benefit from his estate.

Mention and Context

After a meal, Mrs. Vincy tells Rosamond that she should have visited her uncle more often, since he was proud of her and had wanted her to live with him. She speculates that he might have done something for Rosamond as well as for Fred, and expects that he will also provide for Mary Garth. Rosamond replies that Mary prefers staying at Stone Court to working as a governess, while she herself would not want an inheritance that required enduring Featherstone’s cough and unpleasant relations.

Illness and Inheritance

Mrs. Vincy names asthma together with an inward complaint as grounds for thinking that Featherstone cannot live long. Although she says she would not hasten his end, she immediately frames his illness in terms of what may follow his death: she hopes, in religious language, that there is something better for him in the next life, then argues that inheritance should favor her sister’s children. Her reasoning rests partly on the claim that Featherstone’s first wife brought him no money, unlike Mrs. Vincy’s sister.

Significance in the Conversation

Asthma appears not as a developed medical condition but as a fact filtered through family hopes and claims of fairness. Mrs. Vincy’s concern for Featherstone is interwoven with calculation about who has the stronger claim to his property; Rosamond, by contrast, emphasizes the personal discomfort of visiting him. Fred briefly challenges his mother’s disparaging judgment of Mary, but the conversation ends with Mrs. Vincy turning to the practical business of shopping. The illness thus enters the novel’s social world as both bodily vulnerability and a spur to speculation about wealth and kinship.