“But why?”
“Because he from whom I had it is dead, and the executors have called it in. It was Mr Wells.”
She recognized the name as that of a gentleman with whom they had been slightly acquainted; he had died suddenly, in the prime of life.
“Has any of it been paid off?”
“None. I could have repaid a portion every half-year as it came round, but Mr. Wells would not let me. ‘You had a great deal better use it in improving the school and getting things comfortable about you; I am in no hurry,’ was his invariable rejoinder. Lockett thought he meant eventually to make me a present of the money, being a wealthy man without near relatives. Of course I never looked for anything of the sort; but I was as easy as to the debt as though I had not contracted it.”
“Will the executors not let you have the use of the money still?”
“You should see their curt note, ordering its immediate repayment! Lockett seems more vexed at the turn affairs have taken than even I am. He was here to-day.”
Mrs. Blair sat in silent reflection, wishing she had known of this. Many an odd shilling that she had thought justified in spending, she would willingly have recalled now. Not that they could have amounted to much in the aggregate. Presently she looked at her husband.
“Pyefinch, it seems to me that there’s only one thing to do. You must borrow the sum from some one else, which of course will make us only as much in debt as we are now; and we must pay it off by instalments as quickly as we possibly can.”
“It is what Lockett and I have decided on already as the only course. Why, Mary, this worry has been on our minds for a fortnight past,” he added, turning quickly. “But now that it has come to borrowing again, and not from a friend, I felt that I ought to tell you. Besides, there’s another thing.”