Volume I Part 23 (1/2)

”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.