Pamela looked down. "Poor old Daddy!" she said.
"Yes, it's for him I feel it more than for ourselves. It seems to be impossible for a country gentleman to live in his own house nowadays, unless he has an income apart from it. Daddy never had much that wasn't tied up, and what he did have is all gone now. I don't think we can get expenses down any farther here; it is just coming to be a great anxiety. It was I who said I thought we ought to go. He could hardly have brought himself to propose it before it became absolutely impossible, as it isn't quite, yet."
"Do you mean he is going to sell Hayslope, mummy?"
"No, darling, he couldn't do that; he only has a life interest. He'll try to let the house and the shooting. It's just that we can't afford to keep up a house of this size, for ourselves to live in. We should be quite well off in a smaller house, and with the rent for this coming in, if it can be let."
"Where should we go, mother?"
"That's the difficulty. Father wants to be here, to look after the property. If the Grange hadn't been enlarged to such an extent, we could have gone there; but there's no good thinking of that. It would cost as much to live there now as to live here. We have thought of Town Farm. It was a Manor house at one time, but it would take a lot of money to put it back now, and make it nice to live in. I'm afraid it's either that, or going quite away. But there's no need to hurry anything. We shan't go away just yet. Don't tell Judith, or the children yet."
"No, mother, of course not. Don't you think I could go out and do something? So many girls do now. I'm sure I could make my own living if I tried."
"There's no necessity, darling. And I think father would hate that more than anything. I know he would like you to stay at home until you marry."
Was this an invitation to her to unburden herself? Her mother had never mentioned marriage to her before. If it was, she did not take it up. "There are lots of things I can do at home," she said. "And Judith, too. You know we'll do all we can, mother dear."
"Oh, yes, darling. I think that if we can find a nice house somewhere in the country, much smaller than this, but big enough for us to be happy in, it will lift a good deal of the burden. Poor Daddy is getting more and more depressed about everything, though he is trying to keep it from us all the time. It's very hard that it should be like this now for men who have done what he has. It all comes from the horrible war; and yet there are some people who have done nothing but thrive on it."