“Ah, yes!” continued the lawyer, softly. “You were too young to remember what your father was like, yet in outward appearance you resemble him, and doubtless you have the same fine and gentlemanly disregard for money. It runs in the blood.”
As Ned did not reply, Mr Jabez went on—
“Some, as I have said, might have tried by marriage or strict economy to better their condition. But Mr Romer did neither. He married the lady of his choice, who had nothing; then, after marriage, he kept up the old style at Romer Court.
“After a few years his income had dwindled down to nine hundred, and then he tried, by speculating, to regain what he had lost. His speculations were not lucky ones. The friends he trusted failed him at the finish, so that when he died, twelve months after your mother, he was responsible for more than the small income left him, and had only mortgaged property to leave behind, a large number of personal debts, and nothing else to leave.”
“Then where did the money come from to keep me all these years at school, Mr Raymond?” Asked Ned, quickly.
The lawyer flushed a brickly flush as he answered—“Well, I am coming to that subject, my dear young friend. When I undertook your father’s affairs, I went to work energetically and justly, yet without sentiment—lawyers do not work often in that vein. I mastered the debts of honour and the extent of the mortgages, and managed to scrape sufficient to pay for your education.”
“Then there is nothing left for me?” Asked Ned, blankly.
“Softly, softly, my dear boy. In ten or twelve years from now I hope, D.V., to have a good balance for you at the bank, and an income of five or six hundred pounds for you. I have almost settled all the personal debts, and am now working to reduce the mortgages.”
“Yes. But how about the present? Can I not realise any money?”
“I have made some arrangements with my own bank, and can let you have a lump sum of say five hundred pounds on your note of hand, only if I do this it will mean drawing your income until you are of age.”