The haunted house
when he had a little difficulty in meeting the full interest, though it
was in the hands of a family lawyer who was as much a part of his life
as anything else, and had jogged along comfortably enough with him. But
he did at one moment in the year 1905, rather suddenly, need £1,000.
It had not occurred to him how easily his younger brother, William
Maple, a London solicitor in good practice whom he saw fairly often,
could meet the case, or how willing he would be to do it. It was
William Maple himself who suggested the thing (how he could have heard
of the embarrassment Henry was at a loss to guess, and, indeed, did not
waste much time in guessing). It was after a quiet dinner which the two
brothers had had together, when William was spending a week-end at
Rackham, that the proposal was made, and the elder brother accepted it
with real gratitude.
A second thousand followed, and a third. William came oftener—a
frequent guest. He had married a handsome, rather pushing wife of
a birth like his own, the daughter of the Dean of Lamborough, the
grand-daughter of a large coal-owner of the Midlands; a woman who liked
to know the world and whose increasing acquaintance with sundry rich
people and other sundry talked-of people in London increased, very much
to her husband’s content, and not a little to his advantage.
Henry Maple had no great liking for his sister-in-law. Her worldliness
jarred on him and she knew nothing of the things he loved. But he never
thought of her unjustly. He invited her frequently enough, and they
were fairly good friends.
William Maple was what Henry would no doubt have been if Fate had
compelled him (as it never did) to earn his living. But in the twenty
odd years since their common boyhood the difference in habit of mind
and activity had become pronounced. William was precise and methodical;
not unjust, but long grown incapable of anything unbusinesslike or
slack. A bargain was a bargain, and a contract a contract; and the
results of it, if they were turned out to the other man’s loss, were
the other man’s look-out. He could no more separate his family from the
rest of the world in this general view than he could have separated
one set of figures from another in the jottings of his notebooks. These
he kept carefully from year to year; no one saw them but himself, and
they did all the work that the most elaborate keeping of accounts can
do in a large business.
It was natural enough in Henry’s eyes that his brother should be easy
in the matter of interest and allow it to be added to the main debt. It
was natural in William’s that this attitude on his own part, which was
not ungenerous, should yet be precisely regulated and never allowed to
breed confusion.
The losses on all English agricultural work continued; the new habits
continued with them; the slightly increased expenditure; the vague idea
permeating Henry Maple’s mind that the old state of affairs was the
natural and permanent one and would in due course return.
He knew roughly—after a few more years had passed—that his total
indebtedness to his brother had now come to £7,000; he knew that
the interest had fallen into arrears—to how much the total of the
new interest on those arrears might amount he had but a very rough
conception, and he did not dwell upon it.
When it had been suggested by William that the mortgages on the
farms might be taken over, so as to make one simple body of all the
obligations, he was more than willing—it kept things in the family.
The fixed figure in his mind of £7,000 thus became £10,000; and the
arrears of interest crept on. There was one or two further loans, and
one fine day in 1913 William thought it only right to have a clear
statement, and go into everything in detail with his brother. It was
thus upon a Sunday in August, a year before the quite unimaginable war,
that the critical moment came.
William had turned over in his own mind during the previous week what
he would say and do. He had everything fixed, tabulated and arranged.
William Maple had prospered; he had bought one of the dignified old
freehold houses on the river in Cheyne Walk, spending on it rather
more than he would have done, perhaps, had not his wife urged him. The
house was becoming something of a centre in London for people who wrote
and painted and were talked of, for the more important people who had
gone into politics, and even for a few of the very much more important
people whose point was their new wealth. Mrs. William Maple had decided
that the time had come for a proper house in the country as well; but
her husband, for all his success, hesitated at the expense. It was Mrs.
William Maple who suggested that the opportunity lay ready to hand in
Rackham.
“Henry will never marry again,” she had said. “The longer he keeps that
place the more it will go to pieces. I don’t believe that boy, John,
will come to any good with it. He’s a nice bright child and I am as
fond of him as you are; but I see what the end of it will be.”
And William, after a rather long pause, had agreed that she was
right—at any rate as far as his brother’s incapacity for management was
concerned, and the probability of a break-down if things continued as
they were.
There was no need to do anything harsh or unpleasant, Mrs. William had
said. After all, what with the capital sums advanced and the really
absurd arrears of interest, and the interest on those arrears—let her
husband remember that he very often had to find that himself, when he
was making new investments, and depending upon the bank—the total must
be getting close on £18,000.
“Not quite that,” William Maple had answered.
“Well!” Mrs. William had taken him up with a rather sharp sigh, “close
on it, anyhow! And we can’t afford it—you know we can’t. Besides which,
as I say, it would be a blessing all round; and there’s no need to do
anything harsh or unpleasant. You can suggest some arrangement. Henry
might travel for a bit, on whatever more you could let him have, and we
might pay him rent for a while and then see what could be done when we
had room to turn round.”
“Yes,” her husband had answered, “Yes.... Something of that sort could
be done.... Certainly.”
Something of that sort had occurred to him also, Had it not? Vaguely?
All but £18,000 was due: allow Henry another £2,000 odd. After all, as
land now was, £20,000 was a very fair amount to allow for Rackham: if
anything too much. There was an enormous amount wanted doing to the
place—he was already beginning to think of it almost as his own. As for
his wife, she was there in spirit already; ordering the place about,
renewing it from cellar to roof, and a squire’s wife, as she should be.
Moreover, she was the good angel of poor Henry, and of his unfortunate
little son. She was saving them from a terrible future.
William had sat up late that night in his study, getting all the papers
in order, setting down the main figures in an exceedingly clear and
plain fashion. The next day, he had invited himself to Rackham, and the
day after he had driven from the station in the old brougham behind the
old horse with the old coachman, up the dilapidated drive, to the door
which had not been painted since the triumphant conquest of the Boer
Republics, and the nasty slump in Chartereds.
So there William Maple was, on that Sunday evening of August, 1913,
sitting over brother Henry’s wine and making himself ready for an
explanation.
“Is that the same port?” he said.
“Yes,” Henry answered, taking up his glass and looking through it at a
candle.
“I thought it had gone off. Father laid it down the day you got into
the Eight,” said William.
Henry nodded.
“There is no reason why it should have gone off, though it wasn’t a
particularly good year. Anyhow, it’s all right still.”
The curtains were not drawn, the big ugly windows of the dining-room
were open to the warm August night. The mahogany reflected the glass
ware and the silver. Henry’s eye rested, unseeing, upon the crest the
fortunate smith and cattle dealer had arranged for, more than a century
ago. It was a scene unchanged; just what it had been for the last
thirty years and more, as far back as the two men could remember, save
for the slightly dingier tint of the walls and the irregular, patchy
fading of the red damask of the curtains. Other little details William
now oddly noticed, though Henry could not have told him they were
there: one of the bell handles had gone from the side of the fire-place
leaving an iron stump, and poor old helmeted Minerva upon a bracket
(Italian she had been, and brought over after the French wars) had lost
the tip of her nose.
The silence could not go on for ever, and William braced himself to
speak. It was no great effort for him, after all. He had had to do such
things twenty times before, though never in such surroundings nor with
the difficulty—slight to him, but still present—of imperilling the
associations of childhood.
“Henry,” he said rather too suddenly, “I want to talk to you about
your own affairs.”
“Yes,” said Henry gently. “Yes ... what?”
He had no particular dread of what was coming; he thought it might be
another loan, and that would not be unwelcome. There had been another
little trouble. The water-mill absolutely must be seen to, and he was
afraid it would cost a good deal. George Barrett, the miller, had
spoken of it twice.
“Henry,” continued William, “I think the time really has come when we
must take stock.”
It was not quite what Henry had expected. He looked up rather startled
and a little bewildered. But he felt the justice of it. After all,
they had not “taken stock” at all at any time. William took from his
mouth the end of the cigar he had been smoking and ground it slowly on
his plate. He felt in his pocket for papers, but thought better of it.
Looking down at the cloth, so as to avoid his brother’s eye, he said:
“The total amount, Henry, counting the arrears of interest, you know,
is £17,324 odd.” He paused a minute—“£17,324 ... odd.” Then he pulled
out a half sheet of paper which he had hesitated at just before, pushed
his plate aside, spread the figures out before him, and repeated, “Yes,
£17,324 14s. and 3d.”
What had floated in Henry’s mind for so long was a fixed figure in
large print—£10,000. And after it—in a sort of blur—something or other
that might be a few thousand more. £17,324 pulled him up. It was a
good deal more than he had bargained for. Then he remembered sundry
odd sums which, after all, he ought to have added to that £10,000.
There had been the cleaning out of what they called “the Lake” but
the villagers “the Pond”; and yet—now he remembered it—there had been
the big subscription which he had thought only right for the building
of the new bit on to the church. That was years ago and somehow or
other he had not connected it with the main debt. And then, of course,
arrears did mount up. After all, 5 per cent. on £10,000 was £500 a
year, was it not? And there is interest on that interest when it is
not paid. Yes, it was right enough, no doubt. Such was the course of
Henry’s rambling mind, before which now stood a new figure, large,
dominant, £17,324.
“Yes,” he said gently, looking up a little timidly, “yes, William, I am
sure you’re right. I’ll look up my figures.” He had not an idea where
they were, nor whether he had them all. “£17,324. I’m sure you are
right.”
William began scribbling at the paper meaninglessly with the point of a
little gold pencil he carried on his watch-chain.
“You know, Henry, to tell you the honest truth,” he said, “I could not
go beyond £20,000. I will be quite plain with you. We have never had
any secrets from each other. I am not badly off. I don’t say I am. But