“The first thing I’m going to do,” said Peter Blagden, “is to run down to Southampton and buy a boat well found. I won’t wait. I’ve had enough. Then I’m going off cruising. Will you come with me?”
“Yes, if you like,” said Buffy.
“We’ll pick up a house somewhere. I favor the Sicilian Coast. We were there reading, you remember, in our fourth year with Turtle of Kings’. And I’ll consider where to bank those cursed bonds abroad.”
“You must divide them,” said Buffy.
“I don’t know. Yes, I suppose so. I’ll wait. There’ll have to be some one to collect. I’m going to work out the easiest way of doing it. I want it automatic. I want peace.”
“But you’ll come back here,” said Buffy, “won’t you?”
“Yes,” said Peter Blagden, with a terrible regret in his eyes. “I couldn’t live without that. Yes, I shall come without warning and go without warning. You see what money does to a man, Buffy,” he went on bitterly. “I used to wonder why they all seemed to carry on like secretive, suspicious madmen. But I know now, I shall have to organize peace. You’ll help me, won’t you?”
“Certainly,” said Buffy. “I’ve nothing else to do.”
Buffy Thompson had done nothing all his life, and was therefore a very happy man.
“I shall have to do something with that money, Buffy. I shall tie up something for that miserable young idiot, my cousin Albert’s son. Thank God, he’s a minor; but it’s his right to come into the place when I’m dead; and after all, he has the name. But it shall only be enough to keep it up properly and give him a decent income. A few thousands too much, and they’d be pulling the old walls about, and playing the goat with the village. Good God! Buffy, they might put up new lodges, like the horrors at Ballingham, the other side of Patcham, since the whisky man bought it: the things we called ‘Little Versailles,’” and he shuddered. “I shall endow you, Buffy.”