"Very well, then," she said--"very well. Then it will be bankruptcy--and I hope you and Letty will like the scandal!"
"So he threatens bankruptcy?"
"Do you think I should have come down here except for something like that?" she cried. "Look at his letters!"
And she took a tumbled roll out of the bag on her arm and gave it to him.
George threw himself into a chair, and tried to get some idea of the correspondence; while Lady Tressady kept up a stream of plaintive chatter he could only endeavour not to hear.
As far as he could judge on a first inspection, the papers concerned a long series of risky transactions,--financial gambling of the most p.r.o.nounced sort,--whereof the few gains had been long since buried deep in scandalous losses. The outrageous folly of some of the ventures and the magnitude of the sums involved made him curse inwardly. It was the first escapade of the kind he could remember in his mother"s history, and, given her character, he could only regard it as adding a new and real danger to his life and Letty"s.
Then another consideration struck him.
"How on earth did you come to know so much about the ins and outs of Stock Exchange business," he asked her suddenly, with surprise, in the midst of his reading. "You never confided in me. I never supposed you took an interest in such things."
In truth, he would have supposed her mentally incapable of the kind of gambling finance these papers bore witness of. She had never been known to do a sum or present an account correctly in her life; and he had often, in his own mind, accepted her density in these directions as a certain excuse for her debts. Yet this correspondence showed here and there a degree of financial legerdemain of which any City swindler might have been proud--so far, at least, as he could judge from his hasty survey.
Lady Tressady drew herself up sharply in answer to his remark, though not without a flutter of the eyelids which caught his attention.
"Of course, my dear George, I always knew you thought your mother a fool. As a matter of fact, all my friends tell me that I have a _very_ clear head."
George could not restrain, himself from laughing aloud.
"In face of this?" he said, holding up the final batch of letters, which contained Mr. Shapetsky"s last formidable account; various imperious missives from a "sharp-practice" solicitor, whose name happened to be disreputably known to George Tressady; together with repeated and most explicit a.s.surances on the part both of agent and lawyer, that if arrangements were not made at once by Lady Tressady for meeting at least half Mr. Shapetsky"s bill--which had now been running some eighteen months--and securing the other half, legal steps would be taken immediately.
Lady Tressady at first met her son"s sarcasm in angry silence, then broke into shrill denunciation of Shapetsky"s "villanies." How could decent people, people in society, protect themselves against such creatures!
George walked to the window, and stood looking out into the April garden.
Presently he turned, and interrupted his mother.
"I notice, mother, that these transactions have been going on for nearly two years. Do you remember, when I gave you that large sum at Christmas, you said it would "all but" clear you; and when I gave you another large sum last month, you professed to be entirely cleared? Yet all the time you were receiving these letters, and you owed this fellow almost as much as you do now. Do you think it was worth while to mislead me in that way?"
He stood leaning against the window, his fingers drumming on the sill.
The contrast between the youth of the figure and the absence of youth in face and voice was curious. Perhaps Lady Tressady felt vaguely that he looked like a boy and spoke like a master, for her pride rose.
"You have no right to speak to me like that, George! I did everything for the best. I always do everything for the best. It is my misfortune to be so--so confiding, so hopeful. I must always believe in someone--that"s what makes my friends so _extremely_ fond of me. You and your poor darling father were never the least like me--" And she went off into a tearful comparison between her own character and the characters of her husband and son--in which of course it was not she that suffered.
George did not heed her. He was once more staring out of window, thinking hard. So far as he could see, the money, or the greater part of it, would have to be found. The man, of course, was a scoundrel, but of the sort that keeps within the law; and Lady Tressady"s monstrous folly had given him an easy prey. When he thought of the many sacrifices he had made for his mother, of her ample allowance, her incorrigible vanity and greed--and then of the natural desires of his young wife--his heart burned within him.
"Well, I can only tell you," he said at last, turning round upon her, "that I see no way out. How is that man"s claim to be met? I don"t know.
Even if I _could_ meet it--which I see no chance of doing--by crippling myself for some time, how should I be at liberty to do it? My wife and her needs have now the first claim upon me."
"Very well," said Lady Tressady, proudly, raising her handkerchief, however, to hide her trembling lips.
"Let me remind you," he continued, ceremoniously, "that the whole of this place is in bad condition, except the few rooms we have just done up, and that money _must_ be spent upon it--it is only fair to Letty that it should be spent. Let me remind you also, that you are a good deal responsible for this state of things."
Lady Tressady moved uneasily. George was now speaking in his usual half-nonchalant tone, and he had provided himself with another cigarette.
But his eye held her.
"You will remember that you promised me while I was abroad to live here and look after the house. I arranged money affairs with you, and other affairs, upon that basis. But it appears that during the four years I was away you were here altogether, at different times, about three months.
Yet you made me believe you were here; if I remember right, you dated your letters from here. And of course, in four years, an old house that is totally neglected goes to the bad."
"Who has been telling you such falsehoods?" cried Lady Tressady. "I was here a great deal more than that--a great deal more!"
But the scarlet colour, do what she would, was dyeing her still delicate skin, and her eyes alternately obstinate and shuffling, tried to take themselves out of the range of George"s.
As for George, as he stood there coolly smoking, he was struck--or, rather, the critical mind in him was struck--by a sudden perception of the meanness of aspect which sordid cares of the kind his mother was now plunged in can give to the human face. He felt the rise of a familiar disgust. How many scenes of ugly battle over money matters could he not remember in his boyhood between his father and mother! And later--in India--what things he had known women do for money or dress! He thought scornfully of a certain intriguing lady of his acquaintance at Madras--who had borrowed money of him--to whom he had given ball-dresses; and of another, whose selfish extravagance had ruined one of the best of men. Did all women tend to be of this make, however poetic might be their outward seeming?
Aloud, he said quietly, in answer to his mother"s protest:
"I think you will find that is about accurate. I mention it merely to show you how it is that I find myself now plunged in so many expenses.
And, now, doesn"t it strike you as a _little_ hard that I should be called upon to strip and cripple myself still further--_not_ to give my wife the comforts and conveniences I long to give her, but to pay such debts as those?"
Involuntarily he struck his hand on the papers lying in the chair where he had been sitting.
Lady Tressady, too, rose from her seat.
"George, if you are going to be _violent_ towards your mother, I had better go," she said, with an attempt at dignity. "I suppose Letty has been gossiping with her servants about me. Oh! I knew what to expect!"
cried Lady Tressady, gathering up fan and handkerchief from the sofa behind her with a hand that shook. "I always said from the beginning that she would set you against me! She has never treated me as--as a daughter--never! And that is my weakness--I must be cared for--I must be treated with--with tenderness."
"I wouldn"t give way, mother, if I were you," said George, quite unmoved by the show of tears. "I think, if you will reflect upon it, that it is Letty and I who have the most cause to give way. If you will allow me, I will go and have a talk with her. I believe she is sitting in the garden."
His mother turned sullenly away from him, and he left the room.
As he pa.s.sed through the long oak-panelled hall that led to the garden, he was seized with an odd sense of pity for himself. This odious scene behind him, and now this wrestle with Letty that must be gone through--were these the joys of the honeymoon?
Letty was not in the garden. But as he pa.s.sed into the wood on the farther side of the hill he saw her sitting under a tree halfway down the slope, with some embroidery in her hand. The April sun was shining into the wood. A larch beyond Letty was already green, and the twigs of the oak beneath which she sat made a reddish glow in the bright air. Patches of primroses and anemones starred the ground about her, and trails of periwinkle touched her dress. She was stooping, and her little hand went rapidly--impatiently--to and fro.
The contrast between this fresh youth amid the spring and that unlovely, reluctant age he had just left behind him in the smoking-room struck him sharply. His brow cleared.
As she heard his step she looked round eagerly. "Well?" she said, pushing aside her work.
He threw himself down beside her.
"Darling, I have had my talk. It is pretty bad--worse than we had even imagined!"
Then he told her his mother"s story. She could hardly contain herself, as she listened, as he mentioned the total figure of the debts. It was evidently with difficulty that she prevented herself from interrupting him at every word. And when he had barely finished she broke out:
"And what did you say?"
George hesitated.
"I told her, of course, that it was monstrous and absurd to expect that we could pay such a sum."
Letty"s breath came fast. His voice and manner did not satisfy her at all.
"Monstrous? I should think it was! Do you know how she has run up this debt?"