It's jaw-droppingly stupid; I am, for obvious reasons, enchanted that the heir is a corporate lawyer from Manchester (I keep going, "So you're a Lever? No, a Fielden? Oh, I know, a Heelis!) but I sincerely hope that as a quid-pro-quo for getting the house and the dosh he helps Cora out with her slam-dunk action for negligence against her father's attorney.
It could all have been avoided, too, if they'd made them married for 28 years not 24 and begun their marriage with an ill-advised dash to Gretna. In which case, Cora's fortune would (pre Married Women's Property Act) have fallen into the Earl's hands and nothing her father or all his attorneys could do would have stopped it (this is a minor variant on the plot of The Woman in White)
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It could all have been avoided, too, if they'd made them married for 28 years not 24 and begun their marriage with an ill-advised dash to Gretna. In which case, Cora's fortune would (pre Married Women's Property Act) have fallen into the Earl's hands and nothing her father or all his attorneys could do would have stopped it (this is a minor variant on the plot of The Woman in White)