Colonel Quaritch, V.C.: A Tale of Country Life. H. Rider Haggard
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man, Mr. Quest, continually hovering about here like a bird of ill-omen, and I cannot bear it; and I tell you what it is, father, if you don’t tell me the whole truth at once I shall cry,” and she looked as though she meant it.
Now the old Squire was no more impervious to a woman’s tears than any other man, and of all Ida’s moods, and they were many, he most greatly feared that rare one which took the form of tears. Besides, he loved his only daughter more dearly than anything in the world except one thing, Honham Castle, and could not bear to give her pain.
“Very well,” he said, “of course if you wish to know about these things you have a right to. I have desired to spare you trouble, that is all; but as you are so very imperious, the best thing that I can do is to let you have your own way. Still, as it is rather late, if you have no objection I think that I had better put if off till to-morrow.”
“No, no, father. By to-morrow you will have changed your mind. Let us have it now. I want to know how much we really owe, and what we have got to live on.”
The old gentleman hummed and hawed a little, and after various indications of impatience at last began:
“Well, as you know, our family has for some generations depended upon the land. Your dear mother brought a small fortune with her, five or six thousand pounds, but that, with the sanction of her trustees, was expended upon improvements to the farms and in paying off a small mortgage. Well, for many years the land brought in about two thousand a year, but somehow we always found it difficult to keep within that income. For instance, it was necessary to repair the gateway, and you have no idea of the expense in which those repairs landed me. Then your poor brother James cost a lot of money, and always would have the shooting kept up in such an extravagant way. Then he went into the army, and heaven only knows what he spent there. Your brother was very extravagant, my dear, and well, perhaps I was foolish; I never could say him no. And that was not all of it, for when the poor boy died he left fifteen hundred pounds of debt behind him, and I had to find the money, if it was only for the honour of the family. Of course you know that we cut the entail when he came of age. Well, and then these dreadful times have come upon the top of it all, and upon my word, at the present moment I don’t know which way to turn,” and he paused and drummed his fingers uneasily upon a book.
“Yes, father, but you have not told me yet what it is that we owe.”
“Well, it is difficult to answer that all in a minute. Perhaps twenty-five thousand on mortgage, and a few floating debts.”
“And what is the place worth?”
“It used to be worth between fifty and sixty thousand pounds. It is impossible to say what it would fetch now. Land is practically a drug in the market. But things will come round, my dear. It is only a question of holding on.
“Then if you borrow a fresh sum in order to take up this farm, you will owe about thirty thousand pounds, and if you give five per cent., as I suppose you do, you will have to pay fifteen hundred a year in interest. Now, father, you said that in the good times the land brought in two thousand a year, so, of course, it can’t bring in so much now. Therefore, by the time that you have paid the interest, there will be nothing, or less than nothing, left for us to live on.”
Her father winced at this cruel and convincing logic.
“No, no,” he said, “it is not so bad as that. You jump to conclusions, but really, if you do not mind, I am very tired, and should like to go to bed.”
“Father, what is the use of trying to shirk the thing just because it is disagreeable?” she asked earnestly. “Do you suppose that it is more pleasant to me to talk about it than it is for you? I know that you are not to blame about it. I know that dear James was very thoughtless and extravagant, and that the times are crushing. But to go on like this is only to go to ruin. It would be better for us to live in a cottage on a couple of hundred a year than to try to keep our heads above water here, which we cannot do. Sooner or later these people, Quest, or whoever they are, will want their money back, and then, if they cannot have it, they will sell the place over our heads. I believe that man Quest wants to get it himself—that is what I believe—and set up as a country gentleman. Father, I know it is a dreadful thing to say, but we ought to leave Honham.”
“Leave Honham!” said the old gentleman, jumping up in his agitation; “what nonsense you talk, Ida. How can I leave Honham? It would kill me at my age. How can I do it? And, besides, who is to look after the farms and all the business? No, no, we must hang on and trust to Providence. Things may come round, something may happen, one can never tell in this world.”
“If we do not leave Honham, then Honham will leave us,” answered his daughter, with conviction. “I do not believe in chances. Chances always go the wrong way—against those who are looking for them. We shall be absolutely ruined, that is all.”
“Well, perhaps you are right, perhaps you are right, my dear,” said the old Squire wearily. “I only hope that my time may come first. I have lived here all my life, seventy years and more, and I know that I could not live anywhere else. But God’s will be done. And now, my dear, go to bed.”
She leant down and kissed him, and as she did so saw that his eyes were filled with tears. Not trusting herself to speak, for she felt for him too deeply to do so, she turned away and went, leaving the old man sitting there with his grey head bowed upon his breast.
CHAPTER VI. — LAWYER QUEST
The day following that of the conversation just described was one of those glorious autumn mornings which sometimes come as a faint compensation for the utter vileness and bitter disappointment of the season that in this country we dignify by the name of summer. Notwithstanding his vigils and melancholy of the night before, the Squire was up early, and Ida, who between one thing and another had not had the best of nights, heard his loud cheery voice shouting about the place for “George.”
Looking out of her bedroom window, she soon perceived that functionary himself, a long, lean, powerful-looking man with a melancholy face and a twinkle in his little grey eyes, hanging about the front steps. Presently her father emerged in a brilliant but ancient dressing gown, his white locks waving on the breeze.
“Here, George, where are you, George?”
“Here I be, sir.”
“Ah, yes; then why didn’t you say so? I have been shouting myself hoarse for you.”
“Yis, Squire,” replied the imperturbable George, “I hev been a-standing here for the last ten minutes, and I heard you.”
“You heard me, then why the dickens didn’t you answer?”
“Because I didn’t think as you wanted me, sir. I saw that you hadn’t finished your letter.”
“Well, then, you ought to. You know very well that my chest is weak, and yet I have to go hallooing all over the place after you. Now look here, have you got that fat pony of yours in the yard?”
“Yis, Squire, the pony is here, and if so be as it is fat it bean’t for the want of movement.”
“Very well, then, take this letter,” and he handed him an epistle sealed with a tremendous seal, “take this letter to Mr. Quest at Boisingham, and wait for an answer. And look here, mind you are about the place at eleven o’clock, for I expect Mr. Quest to see me about the Moat Farm.”
“Yis, Squire.”
“I suppose that you have heard nothing more from Janter, have you?”
“No, Squire, nawthing. He means to git the place at his own price or chuck it.”
“And what is his price?”
“Five shillings an acre. You