“It will, unless we set our teeth against it pretty hard. I’m going to tight. Now, look here, it all depends on what money or credit can be produced now. In a few months it will be too late. I’m going to make my aunt attend to what I have to say; and, if I can, get her to trust me. For she’ll have to trust me with all she has, and make me the master, or down we shall go. And what you’ve got to do, is to tell her honestly, from the bottom of your soul, that you trust me, and know I’ve got her own grit in me. So now, I give you my solemn word of honour that I’ll never touch a drop of strong drink till ‘Palmer Brothers’ is itself again, and Waynflete safe; and, if I fail, may I become part of the curse myself. So here goes!”
He took up the brandy-bottle, and threw it out of the window, down into the shallow, dark-dyed stream below. They heard it crack against the stony bottom.
“Now then,” said Guy, “will you back me up?”
“Lord, Mr Guy! That was unnecessary behaviour,” said the bewildered Cooper; “and very strong language to use. But I’ll go along with you. You’ve brought me to look the Lord’s will in the face—which isn’t easy at seventy-eight—for there’s not a matter of four years between me and the missus. But I’ll serve you faithful, Mr Guy; and if the Almighty means us to fail—”
“But He don’t,” said Guy. “It’s quite another sort of person that means it. Now sit down, and we’ll talk business.”
As Guy marshalled his figures and his facts, asked penetrating questions, and prepared the statement to which Mrs Waynflete must at all costs be made to hearken, Cooper, who had a hard enough head of his own, silently gave in and yielded his whole allegiance. Only when the interview was over, he said, pleadingly—
“You’ll be gentle, Mr Guy? For it don’t come easy to old folks to turn their minds upside down. It is easy for a young lad like you to act.”
“Think so?” said Guy, with a queer, sad look. “Well, I’ll do what I can.”
He was much more tired than was good for him, as he came in to the study, in the rapidly increasing darkness of the autumn afternoon. Cuthbert was not there, and all his sense of courage and energy failed him; for, the more resolutely a nervous strain is encountered, the less power of resistance is left. He grew drowsy in the dusk, then roused up suddenly to the agony of panic-fear, to the intolerable sense of his enemy within him. He might cover eyes and ears, but it entered by no such avenues—anything to drown—to bury it. There was whisky in the cupboard. He staggered to his feet, and the next moment Cuthbert’s hand was on his shoulder.
“Steady, my boy, steady. What is it? Lie down again. I am here; you’ll be better in a minute.”