I tell you, Mr. Smith (Henry's father) is not behaving like a proper Victorian man. I mean, usually if a good, proper, British Victorian man of good standing's wife were to strongly disagree with what he considers aceptable to do in HIS family, certainly it should be her the one receiving a good stern talking-to, plus a reminder of to whom do belong those nice houses, and who has and doesn't have the final word on who can or can't enter them. Tsk, tsk. There goes the Empire...
(Yes, hilariously, after a hundred chapters of Smith suffering love troubles because of XIX century machistic discrimination of the woman, he finds himself in a situation that realistically should have solved itself due to judicious aplication of the exact same! Such is life...)