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 anticipated, 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
surreptitious 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 circumstances, known to Fred but unknown to Colonel
Eldridge, it was considerable cheek as it was. One of the circumstances
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 attitude 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.