Major Carey seemed almost to be saying to himself, “I wish I were.” His restlessness increased.
“There are three mortgages on Aspley Place,” he began, drawing a green box from his old-fashioned desk. “The first one was made to the Richmond Trust Co. and is on the big one hundred and eighty-acre piece now in corn. This is for $4,500. On the two sixty-acre pieces to the north, the meadow and the tobacco ground, there is a mortgage of $3,000 for money advanced by Captain Barber. Just before your father died I loaned him $3,750 on the one hundred and sixty-acre home piece and the forty acres of low land on the east next the creek.”
Morey’s lips were tightly set. Each new item came like a stab; but he had his pencil out.
“That’s $11,250,” he commented.
“These notes all draw seven per cent,” explained the planter, rising and laying off his coat, for the morning was warm and he was perspiring. “That is $787.50 a year interest. Your mother has not been in a position to meet these payments. I have advanced this amount annually for three years.”
“I must certainly thank you for that—”
“And took her notes, which, of course, are morally protected by the mortgage I hold on the home, and—”
“That’s $2,262.50 more,” added Morey with a start.
“Then,” added Major Carey, “your mother’s account at the bank is overdrawn $580, four hundred of it for your Richmond bills.”
The boy set down the items, added them, saw that they corresponded to the other’s total and turned, without speaking, to gaze out of the window into the street below.