Colonel Quaritch, V.C.: Chapter 9

Chapter 9

THE SHADOW OF RUIN

Mr. Quest walked to his vestry meeting with a smile upon his thin,
gentlemanly-looking face, and rage and bitterness in his heart.

"I caught her that time," he said to himself; "she can do a good deal
in the way of deceit, but she can't keep the blood out of her cheeks
when she hears that fellow's name. But she is a clever woman, Belle is
--how well she managed that little business of the luncheon, and how
well she fought her case when once she got me in a cleft stick about
Edith and that money of hers, and made good terms too. Ah! that's the
worst of it, she has the whip hand of me there; if I could ruin her
she could ruin me, and it's no use cutting off one's nose to spite
your face. Well! my fine lady," he went on with an ominous flash of
his grey eyes, "I shall be even with you yet. Give you enough rope and
you will hang yourself. You love this fellow, I know that, and it will
go hard if I can't make him break your heart for you. Bah! you don't
know the sort of stuff men are made of. If only I did not happen to be
in love with you myself I should not care. If----Ah! here I am at the
church."

The human animal is a very complicated machine, and can conduct the
working of an extraordinary number of different interests and sets of
ideas, almost, if not entirely, simultaneously. For instance, Mr.
Quest--seated at the right hand of the rector in the vestry room of
the beautiful old Boisingham Church, and engaged in an animated and
even warm discussion with the senior curate on the details of
fourteenth century Church work, in which he clearly took a lively
interest and understood far better than did the curate--would have
been exceedingly difficult to identify with the scheming, vindictive
creature whom we have just followed up the church path. But after all,
that is the way of human nature, although it may not be the way of
those who try to draw it and who love to paint the villain black as
the Evil One and the virtuous heroine so radiant that we begin to
fancy we can hear the whispering of her wings. Few people are
altogether good or altogether bad; indeed it is probable that the vast
majority are neither good nor bad--they have not the strength to be
the one or the other. Here and there, however, we do meet a spirit
with sufficient will and originality to press the scale down this way
or that, though even then the opposing force, be it good or evil, is
constantly striving to bring the balance equal. Even the most wicked
men have their redeeming points and righteous instincts, nor are their
thoughts continually fixed upon iniquity. Mr. Quest, for instance, one
of the evil geniuses of this history, was, where his plots and
passions were not immediately concerned, a man of eminently generous
and refined tendencies. Many were the good turns, contradictory as it
may seem, that he had done to his poorer neighbours; he had even been
known to forego his bills of costs, which is about the highest and
rarest exhibition of earthly virtue that can be expected from a
lawyer. He was moreover eminently a cultured man, a reader of the
classics, in translations if not in the originals, a man with a fine
taste in fiction and poetry, and a really sound and ripe
archaeological knowledge, especially where sacred buildings were
concerned. All his instincts, also, were towards respectability. His
most burning ambition was to secure a high position in the county in
which he lived, and to be classed among the resident gentry. He hated
his lawyer's work, and longed to accumulate sufficient means to be
able to give it the good-bye and to indulge himself in an existence of
luxurious and learned leisure. Such as he was he had made himself, for
he was the son of a poor and inferior country dentist, and had begun
life with a good education, it is true, which he chiefly owed to his
own exertions, but with nothing else. Had his nature been a temperate
nature with a balance of good to its credit to draw upon instead of a
balance of evil, he was a man who might have gone very far indeed, for
in addition to his natural ability he had a great power of work. But
unfortunately this was not the case; his instincts on the whole were
evil instincts, and his passions--whether of hate, or love, or greed,
when they seized him did so with extraordinary violence, rendering him
for the time being utterly callous to the rights or feelings of
others, provided that he attained his end. In short, had he been born
to a good position and a large fortune, it is quite possible,
providing always that his strong passions had not at some period of
his life led him irremediably astray, that he would have lived
virtuous and respected, and died in good odour, leaving behind him a
happy memory. But fate had placed him in antagonism with the world,
and yet had endowed him with a gnawing desire to be of the world, as
it appeared most desirable to him; and then, to complete his ruin
circumstances had thrown him into temptations from which inexperience
and the headlong strength of his passions gave him no opportunity to
escape.

It may at first appear strange that a man so calculating and whose
desires seemed to be fixed upon such a material end as the acquirement
by artifice or even fraud of the wealth which he coveted, should also
nourish in his heart so bitter a hatred and so keen a thirst for
revenge upon a woman as Mr. Quest undoubtedly did towards his
beautiful wife. It would have seemed more probable that he would have
left heroics alone and attempted to turn his wife's folly into a means
of wealth and self-advancement: and this would not doubt have been so
had Mrs. Quest's estimate of his motives in marrying her been an
entirely correct one. She had told Edward Cossey, it will be
remembered, that her husband had married her for her money--the ten
thousand pounds of which he stood so badly in need. Now this was the
truth to a certain extent, and a certain extent only. He had wanted
the ten thousand pounds, in fact at the moment money was necessary to
him. But, and this his wife had never known or realised, he had been,
and still was, also in love with her. Possibly the ten thousand pounds
would have proved a sufficient inducement to him without the love, but
the love was none the less there. Their relations, however, had never
been happy ones. She had detested him from the fist, and had not
spared to say so. No man with any refinement--and whatever he lacked
Mr. Quest had refinement--could bear to be thus continually repulsed
by a woman, and so it came to pass that their intercourse had always
been of the most strained nature. Then when she at last had obtained
the clue to the secret of his life, under threat of exposure she drove
her bargain, of which the terms were complete separation in all but
outward form, and virtual freedom of action for herself. This,
considering the position, she was perhaps justified in doing, but her
husband never forgave her for it. More than that, he determined, if by
any means it were possible, to turn the passion which, although she
did not know it, he was perfectly aware she bore towards his business
superior, Edward Cossey, to a refined instrument of vengeance against
her, with what success it will be one of the purposes of this history
to show.

Such, put as briefly as possible, were the outlines of the character
and aims of this remarkable and contradictory man.

Within an hour and a half of leaving his own house, "The Oaks," as it
was called, although the trees from which it had been so named had
long since vanished from the garden, Mr. Quest was bowling swiftly
along behind Edward Cossey's powerful bay horse towards the towering
gateway of Honham Castle. When he was within three hundred yards an
idea struck him; he pulled the horse up sharply, for he was alone in
the dogcart, and paused to admire the view.

"What a beautiful place!" he reflected to himself with enthusiasm,
"and how grandly those old towers stand out against the sky. The
Squire has restored them very well, too, there is no doubt about it; I
could not have done it better myself. I wonder if that place will ever
be mine. Things look black now, but they may come round, and I think I
am beginning to see my way."

And then he started the horse on again, reflecting on the unpleasant
nature of the business before him. Personally he both liked and
respected the old Squire, and he certainly pitied him, though he would
no more have dreamed of allowing his liking and pity to interfere with
the prosecution of his schemes, than an ardent sportsman would dream
of not shooting pheasants because he had happened to take a friendly
interest in their nurture. He had also a certain gentlemanlike
distaste to being the bearer of crushing bad news, for Mr. Quest
disliked scenes, possibly because he had such an intimate personal
acquaintance with them. Whilst he was still wondering how he might
best deal with the matter, he passed over the moat and through the
ancient gateway which he admired so fervently, and found himself in
front of the hall door. Here he pulled up, looking about for somebody
to take his horse, when suddenly the Squire himself emerged upon him
with a rush.

"Hullo, Quest, is that you?" he shouted, as though his visitor had
been fifty yards off instead of five. "I have been looking out for
you. Here, William! William!" (crescendo), "William!" (fortissimo),
"where on earth is the boy? I expect that idle fellow, George, has
been sending him on some of his errands instead of attending to them
himself. Whenever he is wanted to take a horse he is nowhere to be
found, and then it is 'Please, sir, Mr. George,' that's what he calls
him, 'Please, sir, Mr. George sent me up to the Moat Farm or somewhere
to see how many eggs the hens laid last week,' or something of the
sort. That's a very nice horse you have got there, by the way, very
nice indeed."

"It is not my horse, Mr. de la Molle," said the lawyer, with a faint
smile, "it is Mr. Edward Cossey's."

"Oh! it's Mr. Edward Cossey's, is it?" answered the old gentleman with
a sudden change of voice. "Ah, Mr. Edward Cossey's? Well, it's a very
good horse anyhow, and I suppose that Mr. Cossey can afford to buy
good horses."

Just then a faint cry of "Coming, sir, coming," was heard, and a long
hobble-de-hoy kind of youth, whose business it was to look after the
not extensive Castle stables, emerged in a great heat from round the
corner of the house.

"Now, where on earth have you been?" began the Squire, in a stentorian
tone.

"If you please, sir, Mr. George----"

"There, what did I tell you?" broke in the Squire. "Have I not told
you time after time that you are to mind your own business, and leave
'Mr. George' to mind his? Now take that horse round to the stables,
and see that it is properly fed.

"Come, Quest, come in. We have a quarter of an hour before luncheon,
and can get our business over," and he led the way through the passage
into the tapestried and panelled vestibule, where he took his stand
before the empty fireplace.

Mr. Quest followed him, stopping, ostensibly to admire a particularly
fine suit of armour which hung upon the wall, but really to gain
another moment for reflection.

"A beautiful suit of the early Stuart period, Mr. de la Molle," he
said; "I never saw a better."

"Yes, yes, that belonged to old Sir James, the one whom the Roundheads
shot."

"What! the Sir James who hid the treasure?"

"Yes. I was telling that story to our new neighbour, Colonel Quaritch,
last night--a very nice fellow, by the way; you should go and call
upon him."

"I wonder what he did with it," said Mr. Quest.

"Ah, so do I, and so will many another, I dare say. I wish that I
could find it, I'm sure. It's wanted badly enough now-a-days. But that
reminds me, Quest. You will have gathered my difficulty from my note
and what George told you. You see this man Janter--thanks to that
confounded fellow, Major Boston, and his action about those College
Lands--has thrown up the Moat Farm, and George tells me that there is
not another tenant to be had for love or money. In fact, you know what
it is, one can't get tenants now-a-days, they simply are not to be
had. Well, under these circumstances, there is, of course, only one
thing to be done that I know of, and that is to take the farm in hand
and farm it myself. It is quite impossible to let the place fall out
of cultivation--and that is what would happen otherwise, for if I were
to lay it down in grass it would cost a considerable sum, and be seven
or eight years before I got any return."

The Squire paused and Mr. Quest said nothing.

"Well," he went on, "that being so, the next thing to do is to obtain
the necessary cash to pay Janter his valuation and stock the place--
about four thousand would do it, or perhaps," he added, with an access
of generous confidence, "we had better say five. There are about fifty
acres of those low-lying meadows which want to be thoroughly bush
drained--bushes are quite as good as pipes for that stiff land, if
they put in the right sort of stuff, and it don't cost half so much--
but still it can't be done for nothing, and then there is a new wagon
shed wanted, and some odds and ends; yes, we had better say five
thousand."

Still Mr. Quest made no answer, so once more the Squire went on.

"Well, you see, under these circumstances--not being able to lay hands
upon the necessary capital from my private resources, of course I have
made up my mind to apply to Cossey and Son for the loan. Indeed,
considering how long and intimate has been the connection between
their house and the de la Molle family, I think it right and proper to
do so; indeed, I should consider it very wrong of me if I neglected to
give them the opportunity of the investment"--here a faint smile
flickered for an instant on Mr. Quest's face and then went out--"of
course they will, as a matter of business, require security, and very
properly so, but as this estate is unentailed, there will fortunately
be very little difficulty about that. You can draw up the necessary
deeds, and I think that under the circumstances the right thing to do
would be to charge the Moat Farm specifically with the amount. Things
are bad enough, no doubt, but I can hardly suppose it possible under
any conceivable circumstances that the farm would not be good for five
thousand pounds. However, they might perhaps prefer to have a general
clause as well, and if it is so, although I consider it quite
unnecessary, I shall raise no objection to that course."

Then at last Mr. Quest broke his somewhat ominous silence.

"I am very sorry to say, Mr. de la Molle," he said gently, "that I can
hold out no prospect of Cossey and Son being induced, under any
circumstances, to advance another pound upon the security of the
Honham Castle estates. Their opinion of the value of landed property
as security has received so severe a shock, that they are not at all
comfortable as to the safety of the amount already invested."

Mr. de la Molle started when he heard this most unexpected bit of
news, for which he was totally unprepared. He had always found it
possible to borrow money, and it had never occurred to him that a time
might perhaps come in this country, when the land, which he held in
almost superstitious veneration, would be so valueless a form of
property that lenders would refuse it as security.

"Why," he said, recovering himself, "the total encumbrances on the
property do not amount to more than twenty-five thousand pounds, and
when I succeeded to my father, forty years ago, it was valued at
fifty, and the Castle and premises have been thoroughly repaired since
then at a cost of five thousand, and most of the farm buildings too."

"Very possibly, de la Molle, but to be honest, I very much doubt if
Honham Castle and the lands round it would now fetch twenty-five
thousand pounds on a forced sale. Competition and Radical agitation
have brought estates down more than people realise, and land in
Australia and New Zealand is now worth almost as much per acre as
cultivated lands in England. Perhaps as a residential property and on
account of its historical interest it might fetch more, but I doubt
it. In short, Mr. de la Molle, so anxious are Cossey and Son in the
matter, that I regret to have to tell you that so far from being
willing to make a further advance, the firm have formally instructed
me to serve the usual six months' notice on you, calling in the money
already advanced on mortgage, together with the interest, which I must
remind you is nearly a year overdue, and this step I propose to take
to-morrow."

The old gentleman staggered for a moment, and caught at the
mantelpiece, for the blow was a heavy one, and as unexpected as it was
heavy. But he recovered himself in an instant, for it was one of the
peculiarities of his character that his spirits always seemed to rise
to the occasion in the face of urgent adversity--in short, he
possessed an extraordinary share of moral courage.

"Indeed," he said indignantly, "indeed, it is a pity that you did not
tell me that at once, Mr. Quest; it would have saved me from putting
myself in a false position by proposing a business arrangement which
is not acceptable. As regards the interest, I admit that it is as you
say, and I very much regret it. That stupid fellow George is always so
dreadfully behindhand with his accounts that I can never get anything
settled." (He did not state, and indeed did not know, that the reason
that the unfortunate George was behindhand was that there were no
accounts to make up, or rather that they were all on the wrong side of
the ledger). "I will have that matter seen to at once. Of course,
business people are quite right to consider their due, and I do not
blame Messrs. Cossey in the matter, not in the least. Still, I must
say that, considering the long and intimate relationship that has for
nearly two centuries existed between their house and my family, they
might--well--have shown a little more consideration."

"Yes," said Mr. Quest, "I daresay that the step strikes you as a harsh
one. To be perfectly frank with you, Mr. de la Molle, it struck me as
a very harsh one; but, of course, I am only a servant, and bound to
carry out my instructions. I sympathise with you very much--very much
indeed."

"Oh, don't do that," said the old gentleman. "Of course, other
arrangements must be made; and, much as it will pain me to terminate
my connection with Messrs. Cossey, they shall be made."

"But I think," went on the lawyer, without any notice of his
interruption, "that you misunderstand the matter a little. Cossey and
Son are only a trading corporation, whose object is to make money by
lending it, or otherwise--at all hazards to make money. The kind of
feeling that you allude to, and that might induce them, in
consideration of long intimacy and close connection in the past, to
forego the opportunity of so doing and even to run a risk of loss, is
a thing which belongs to former generations. But the present is a
strictly commercial age, and we are the most commercial of the trading
nations. Cossey and Son move with the times, that is all, and they
would rather sell up a dozen families who had dealt with them for two
centuries than lose five hundred pounds, provided, of course, that
they could do so without scandal and loss of public respect, which,
where a banking house is concerned, also means a loss of custom. I am
a great lover of the past myself, and believe that our ancestors' ways
of doing business were, on the whole, better and more charitable than
ours, but I have to make my living and take the world as I find it,
Mr. de la Molle."

"Quite so, Quest; quite so," answered the Squire quietly. "I had no
idea that you looked at these matters in such a light. Certainly the
world has changed a good deal since I was a young man, and I do not
think it has changed much for the better. But you will want your
luncheon; it is hungry work talking about foreclosures." Mr. Quest had
not used this unpleasant word, but the Squire had seen his drift.
"Come into the next room," and he led the way to the drawing-room,
where Ida was sitting reading the /Times/.

"Ida," he said, with an affectation of heartiness which did not,
however, deceive his daughter, who knew how to read every change of
her dear father's face, "here is Mr. Quest. Take him in to luncheon,
my love. I will come presently. I want to finish a note."

Then he returned to the vestibule and sat down in his favourite old
oak chair.

"Ruined," he said to himself. "I can never get the money as things
are, and there will be a foreclosure. Well, I am an old man and I hope
that I shall not live to see it. But there is Ida. Poor Ida! I cannot
bear to think of it, and the old place too, after all these
generations--after all these generations!"

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