LITMIR.BIZ

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to rescue him until he had been compelled to.

      Will hung his head. ‘That’s not the end of the problem. The money-lender died recently and his son had no interest in running the business. He sold my loan to Bernard Montague, who is a different cup of tea altogether. He has recently been combing Sussex for a suitable mansion—he wants to become a country squire, of all things. He’s one of those financiers who did well out of the War and have filled Parliament, I’m told.

      ‘I had a letter from him while you were away. He has immediately upped the interest to an impossible sum—the debt had been running for far too long, he said and he wants to end it. He thought a visit to me might prove profitable to us both. He came to see me without warning while you were in London and…’

      He faltered and stopped.

      Jack’s expression was grimmer than ever. ‘Go on, I can give a guess as to what is coming.’

      ‘Can you? I couldn’t. I told him that his demand was impossible. He just grinned at me and said that that was the point. If I couldn’t pay the next instalment he would foreclose and ruin me by keeping the deeds and claim Compton Place in lieu of payment. On the other hand I could sell it to him for a moderate sum and he wouldn’t trouble me about the debt any more. He said that he preferred the latter option since he didn’t want to make enemies of the people among whom he intended to live. Either way we lose everything.’

      ‘So that’s why you’ve been encouraging me to marry an heiress,’ Jack said, beginning to stride restlessly about the terrace. ‘How long has he given you to make up your mind?’

      ‘He suggested a month for me to think it over. I asked for three. He said that he didn’t want to be unreasonable and therefore he agreed to three months. Of course, if we could clear the debt before then—’ Will stopped, sighed, and handed his brother all the documents which were the witness of his folly.

      ‘And pigs might fly!’ The words flew out of Jack’s mouth when he had finished reading them. He looked across at his brother. Will was slumped in his chair, a picture of dejection as ruin stared him in the face—stared them both in the face, for that matter.

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me of this before I left the Army?’ Jack could not stop himself from asking. ‘Were you afraid that I might refuse to retire and run the estate if saving that and the house was never a true option?’

      ‘I didn’t think that the original money-lender would die, so that consideration never came up. After Baines died, Judson ran all errands for me. I fobbed him off with some apparently reasonable explanation.’

      He should have remembered that Will had always been an incurable optimist. More than that, since he had suffered the injuries that had incapacitated him so severely his grasp on reality, which had never been strong, had become even less so.

      Jack turned away from his brother and looked out across the ruined parkland. If Montague acquired the Compton estates, by whatever means, it would not remain ruined, nor would the house—but at what a price for the Compton family which had built it and had lived there for so long?

      Will, worried that Jack remained silent, said, ‘I know that I’ve been an absolute rotter, but at the time I couldn’t think of anything better to do. You were with Allenby in Palestine so I couldn’t ask you for your advice.’

      He added, somewhat pathetically to Jack’s back, ‘You know that I was never a strong character like you, Jack, even before this wretched business laid me low.’

      Well, that was true enough, and now he could see where Will’s obsession with wealthy heiresses came from. By all accounts Lacey Chancellor was so rich that the money required to save Compton Place would be a mere fleabite, not capable of harming the Golconda she possessed.

      Temptation roared through Jack. Why not? Why should he not sink his principles and ask Lacey to marry him, just for the money—and save them all? He knew that the pull between them was strong, but he was repelled by the thought of changing the something precious which was beginning to flower between them into a mere commercial transaction. She might not know that the urgency of his pursuit of her was because of the time limit Montague had set, but he would.

      The devil of it was that now he was beginning to feel unable to pursue her at all since it would mean that he would be branded fortune hunter even if there were no truth in the accusation. In the face of this, he glumly felt that it would be wrong to write to her as he had promised.

      He turned round to face his brother. ‘I won’t fortune hunt. If I ask a girl to marry me it will be because I love her and for no other reason. In the meantime, I will try to think of some way out of this impasse.’

      Will lifted his head. ‘I cannot ask you to forgive me, but I hope that you will feel able to do so.’

      What did you say to a man who had lost everything by his own folly? Even the possibility of ever being a man again in the true sense had gone from Will. Judgement was impossible. He might both regret and deplore what his brother had done, but it was done and would have to be lived with.

      He opened his mouth to say something but, perhaps fortunately, he was interrupted. The glass door to the terrace opened and young Robbie came through it. He had been spending the afternoon being tutored by the Vicar of Old Compton before he went to University.

      ‘There you both are,’ he exclaimed. ‘Judson said that you were out on the terrace. He asked if you would like a cup of tea carried through. I said that I preferred lemonade. Tea is for old ladies.’

      ‘Well, that puts us in our places,’ said Jack, a remark which helped to break the tension which the afternoon’s revelations had created.

      ‘Not that I think that you are old ladies,’ said Robbie magnanimously.

      ‘Old gentlemen, then,’ said Jack, ‘or old something, anyway.’

      ‘I’d prefer a stronger drink than tea,’ said Will. ‘A pint of ale, if Judson would be so good.’

      Since Judson was Will’s former batman who looked after him and acted as a man of all work as well, this somewhat deferential request might have sounded unnecessary, but Judson played the tyrant with his master to some effect.

      So it proved. Shortly after Robbie had delivered Will’s message, Judson arrived with a glass of lemonade for Robbie, tea for Jack, no ale for Will, and a disapproving look.

      ‘Ale is bad for you in this weather,’ he announced, shortly, slapping two cups of tea down on the round iron table he had pushed in front of Will. ‘I see that Mr Jack’s got more sense than you. As usual.’

      Will’s head hung even lower on hearing this blunt judgement. Judson, unaware of his recent conversation with Jack, could not know how tactless, or how truthful, he was being.

      ‘Cook’s gone to bed sick,’ Judson announced, grimly cheerful. ‘Makes dinner a little problematic seeing as how Lottie has the megrims, too.’

      Jack looked up. ‘Not to worry. We can eat the cold stuff left over from lunch with a salad and the remains of the treacle tart for dessert. I suppose we have enough in the pantry for breakfast. If Cook is still ill tomorrow, we can ask Mrs Jarvis to come and help us out until she recovers.’

      Mrs Jarvis was their previous cook who had retired some years before after marrying the village cobbler.

      ‘I don’t like salad,’ said Robbie dismally.

      ‘You’ll like what you’re given,’ Judson told him. ‘Can’t have you pampered.’

      Jack choked over his tea. A less pampered life than Robbie was having he couldn’t imagine.

      ‘It’s a good thing Mrs Vicar gave me some sandwiches and jam tarts for tea, else I should starve on the short commons we have here.’ Robbie was determined not to be placated.

      His uncle winced at the knowledge that the Vicar’s wife was feeding Robbie because she knew of the hardships of life at Compton Place. It was a far

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