A QUESTION OF FINANCE

"I wanted to ask your advice."

Colonel Eldridge stood in front of the empty fireplace, filling his pipe; Fred was in one of the shabby leather easy chairs, smoking a cigarette. The room was very quiet and retired, looking on to a corner of lawn surrounded by banked rhododendrons, under the shade of a great hornbeam.

Colonel Eldridge seemed to have some difficulty in coming to the point.

He put the lid carefully on his old lead tobacco box, and lit his pipe from a box of matches on the mantelpiece before he spoke again.

"You and Hugo were friends together as boys," he said.

"Oh, yes. And we wrote to one another once or twice after I went abroad.

I only just missed him once when we were on the Somme. I wish I'd seen him before he was killed."

"Well, I don't suppose you know that he gave us a lot of trouble, poor fellow. At least, you may have heard something. I needn't go into it all; it was mostly about money. He was very extravagant, and raced and gambled and all that. He was young; he'd have got over it in time, and settled down, I've no doubt. He did his job well enough; I've got a letter from his Colonel, which I was very glad to have."

He went on for a time, again apparently finding it difficult to come to the point. He did so suddenly, and it was not exactly the point that Fred had antic.i.p.ated, from his introduction.

"The fact is, I want to raise some money," he said, "four hundred pounds."

"Yes," said Fred, at random. "That ought to be easy enough."

"Well, it isn't so easy in these days." He sat down in the chair opposite to Fred's, and spoke with more freedom now. "I've paid a good deal on Hugo's account," he said. "Claims have kept coming in, and I thought we had come to the end of them. But I had another a few days ago. I've been puzzling my head how I was to meet it. I've got to meet it, in fact I've undertaken to do so early next week. I don't want to go to my lawyers."

He came to a stop again. Fred's thoughts were very busy. What was going to be asked of him? Why couldn't Colonel Eldridge go to his lawyers about a sum so small as this for a man of his property? He had no words at his command for the moment. His business instincts and habits were too strong for him not to feel slightly, though unwillingly, on the defensive.

But fortunately none were required of him just yet. "I don't know what to tell you first," Colonel Eldridge said. "Perhaps I'd better tell you everything, though I'll keep back names."

He took a letter out of his pocket, and opened it. Fred cast surrept.i.tious glances, but the letter was held so that he could not see it.

"This is from the mother of a brother officer of Hugo's, who was killed--some time after he was. She has found among his papers an I. O. U. of Hugo's for four hundred pounds; she encloses it. She writes quite nicely. She has kept it some time, not knowing quite what to do about it. She doesn't want the money; but she thinks it ought to be paid. She would give it to some charity in her son's name."

"An I. O. U.?" said Fred. "I suppose you've satisfied yourself--"

Colonel Eldridge cut him short. "Oh, I quite agree with her," he said.

"I don't know her, by the by, and I suppose Hugo didn't either, or she would have said something about him--not only in connection with this, I mean. There's no need to ask what the transaction was. Very likely, I'm afraid, it was a card debt, or something of that sort. Anyhow, the money was owing from him, and is owing from me now. Her way of dealing with it is the best. I've promised to send her a cheque next week."

It seemed to Fred foolish to have done so, but it was no good saying that. "There's nothing, I suppose, to come out to Hugo's detriment," he said. "If you pay it without question it ought to be understood that it isn't talked about."

"As far as she is concerned, I should think she'd want it talked about as little as I should. If they were gambling together it might just as well have been her son who had owed it. But you've put your finger on the trouble, as it happens. _I_ don't want it talked about, outside this room. The fact is that poor Hugo's delinquencies have brought about a state of feeling towards him that gives me great pain. He did some very foolish things--bad things, you may say, if you like--and they've been exaggerated into things that he never would have done. I quarrelled with one of my oldest friends about it. He took back what he said, and we've come together again, I'm glad to say. I've got Hugo's good name to consider. My brother William has known everything so far, and he has been very good about it. I've had to raise money to pay off what has been owing--it's a very large sum in all--and I couldn't have done it without his co-operation, now that he's in remainder to this property.

But I know quite well that he takes a worse view of Hugo than I think he's justified in taking. I can't--I simply can't go to him about this, though it's a mere flea-bite compared to what has had to be paid already."

He seemed to have forgotten for the moment that he had cut himself off from going to his brother about anything. And he had not told Fred that the date upon the claim he had to meet was that same black date as had seen the transaction over which Lord Crowborough had brought his disgraceful accusations against Hugo--accusations which he had been forced to withdraw. The hornet's nest must not be stirred again. "No, he mustn't know of this," he said. "And my lawyers mustn't know of it, for if they did, he would."

"You couldn't--?"

"My dear Fred, I've been so confoundedly hit by the war, and all this coming on the top of it, that I simply couldn't raise a hundred pounds at this moment, let alone four hundred, without some sort of property adjustment. And that would mean disclosing everything, which I won't do if I can possibly help it. But I've thought of this. I'm always getting money-lender's circulars. You know the sort of things, of course. I'm not such a fool as to suppose that I can borrow money in that way on anything like an ordinary rate of interest. But I'd pay very heavily to get this money at once, with no security but my word for repayment. Have you ever had any dealings with these people? I know young fellows do. I might quite well have done it myself, but as a matter of fact I never did. Hugo did, and they fleeced him unmercifully. I don't want to be fleeced; but I can do what they always seem to want, and that is pay by regular instalments. My income is pretty well fixed now for some time to come. It's a tight fit already, and this will make it tighter, but what I can do is to pay two hundred a year until I've cleared it off, with the interest."

Fred was ready with his answer. His brain worked quickly in questions of this kind, and he knew his man--or thought he did.

"Don't go to those sharks," he said. "It's perfectly easy. I can find you the money at once. The interest would have to be ten per cent, I think, but--"

"I don't want _you_ to lend me the money, you know."

Fred had thought that he did, and thought so still. But, of course, a man in his position would want the decencies observed. "I hadn't thought of that," he said. "But as a matter of fact it would suit me very well to do it. I've got rather more than that lying idle--gratuities, and so on--and I couldn't get ten per cent on it without taking some trouble, and even then it would be more risky than this. Really, it would be the easiest way, sir, and I should be glad of the opportunity."

"Oh, you could get more than ten per cent, lending money without security. I shouldn't offer security, you know. To do that, I should have to go to my lawyers."

"Your word is security enough for me, sir. I couldn't have a better wherever I went, and I've been meaning to go somewhere for the last month or more. I'm a business man. I don't like having money doing nothing. This would be a business deal for me, and at ten per cent a good one. I say nothing about obliging you. It would give me great pleasure to do it, but I should think it rather cheek to offer it on that account."

Under all the circ.u.mstances, known to Fred but unknown to Colonel Eldridge, it was considerable cheek as it was. One of the circ.u.mstances was that Fred hadn't got four hundred pounds lying idle, or even forty.

He wasn't that kind of man.

"It's kind of you to say that," said Colonel Eldridge. "Let me think it over for a moment."

He sat upright in his chair, which was not a deep one like Fred's, and looked into the empty grate, with no expression on his face that could be interpreted. Fred's opinion of him lowered itself somewhat. What was the good of keeping up this farce? Of course he would accept. He was lucky to have such a chance offered him. And Fred was lucky to be able to offer it, to Pamela's father.

Colonel Eldridge turned his quiet direct eyes upon him. "It's a very kind offer on your part," he said. "For which I'm grateful. But I don't see my way to accepting it."

Fred did not understand in the least, but knew somehow that it would be waste of time to press his offer.

"I'm sorry," he said. "But tell me how I can help you in any way."

Again he looked away, considering. "I'm afraid," he said, with a little wry smile at Fred, "that I hadn't thought it out very clearly. You knew my poor Hugo. There's no one I can talk to about him quite plainly."

Fred didn't understand the bearings of this either, but he recognized a call upon his sympathy, to which he made haste to respond. His feelings were cold towards the memory of Hugo; and he was stirred to no generous impulse towards the man who had given him a glimpse of his loneliness and come to him, of all people, to relieve it. But he had done well for himself, with Pamela, in taking her father's side, and was being given an opportunity of doing still better for himself with him.

He said some nice things about Hugo in his boyhood, and laid stress upon the sacrifice he had made, which had wiped out all his errors. Colonel Eldridge accepted it all, but perhaps it wasn't quite what he wanted, for lack of the feeling behind it, which, if it had been true, would have brought balm to him. "Well, I don't want to throw his name into discussion again," he said. "Perhaps I shall have to. I don't think I could go to one of these people and bargain with him. I should make a poor hand of it. And I wouldn't pay the preposterous terms that they seem to demand when you do go to them. It wouldn't be right. I'd had some idea that as you know about business, and all that, you might be able to suggest something. But I hadn't thought of your offering to find the money. I couldn't--"

"I won't press it," said Fred. "What I could do would be to find somebody who would advance it, on suitable terms. That wouldn't be difficult. You might have to pay a bit more than ten per cent, but I should try to get a loan for that, and I know I could get it for twelve."

He had absolved him from having angled for the offer he had made, and thought that it had been refused because it did not consort with Colonel Eldridge's dignity to accept a loan from him. He "knew about business, and all that." He recognized the att.i.tude of a man to whom all transactions outside those of which he had personal knowledge were a mystery known to the elect, of whom he was considered one. In face of that child-like ignorance it would be easy enough to arrange this affair.

"I should consider myself lucky in getting a loan at twelve per cent, or even more. Do you mean that you really could make it a purely business transaction--get me an introduction, or something of that sort? I appreciate your very kind offer, of course; but it couldn't be purely a business transaction between you and me. Supposing I were to die, before it was paid off--one has to think of that--the claim would come upon my estate, and--well, you see it wouldn't do."

Fred did see that, from Colonel Eldridge's point of view. It would be necessary, but not difficult, to hide his tracks. "All you would owe to me would be the recommendation," he said. "And I could put it through more quickly and easily than you could yourself. If you'll say the word I'll go up to-morrow and arrange it. I shall bring you down a paper to sign, and then you can deal straight with the man I shall introduce the business to. I shan't have anything more to do with it after that, and I needn't say I shall keep my mouth shut about it."

Colonel Eldridge showed his relief. "I didn't think you'd lift the weight off my mind as readily as that," he said, smiling at Fred. "I'm very deeply grateful to you. Poor Hugo! It's the last trouble we shall have from him, I hope. It's odd, you know, that it doesn't make me love the boy less. It's as if he'd come to me himself and asked me to get him out of a mess. I should have wanted to keep it to myself then. I don't mind telling you, as you've been so kind, that there was one trouble I had to deal with that looked bad against him, and this last claim might have turned out to have some connection with that. He had got in with a wild lot--I dare say most of them are killed now, poor boys! It's right to keep their faults to oneself, if it's possible. I'm glad I can settle this matter promptly, and get it out of the way--thanks to you. I'm very grateful to you, Fred."

He shook hands with him, and Fred left him, feeling rather ashamed of himself.

CHAPTER XXI

PERSh.o.r.e CASTLE