He had always been a grave quiet man, with stern features and reserved habits; a man with a story in his life which had perhaps made the fulfilment of his age different from the promise of his youth; a man of strong purposes and deep feelings; a man to like few, but to like those few much; a man who would have thought himself no better than a thief, if he had left impoverished acres and a diminished rent-roll to the next heir, albeit that heir was neither son nor nephew, nor aught but a distant relative who held a high position in India.
It was to this relative he had sent out John Riley, and the young man might pecuniarily have done well for himself in his new appointment, had he not commenced sending home all he could spare in order to enable his family to live more comfortably.
He would have done them a greater kindness had he kept his money. To persons who have always been short, the command of a little money is a great snare as well as to those who have never had much experience in spending; so at least it proved with Mrs. Riley.
She had been compelled to do without so many things during the previous part of her life, that now when a few of them were within her reach she tried to compass all; and the result proved that not only was the Indian allowance spent, but the interest on the mortgage fell into arrear.
“When the girls are married, we can soon retrench,” Mrs. Riley observed, but the girls failed to marry. If they had not done so when they lived quietly and dressed plainly, and engaged themselves in those various works of a domestic kind which recommend young ladies to men of a prudent and economical turn of mind, they were certainly likely to remain unwedded when, arrayed in gorgeous attire they were met at parties and balls in Dublin, where it was their new custom to winter.
They never lacked partners, and they never were destitute of attendant swains, who found Woodbrook a pleasant sort of house at which to stay for a week or two in the summer and autumn; but although the hopes of Mrs. Riley were often excited, they always ended in disappointment. Visitors they had in abundance, but suitors none; till at length Lucy captivated a curate, whose addition to the finances of the family proved seventy pounds a year from his rector, twenty-five pounds a year from private sources, and a baronet uncle.
“Who will be certain to present him with a good living,” said Mrs. Riley; though on what foundation she erected this pleasing superstructure was an inscrutable mystery to all her friends.
Things were in this state when Lord Ardmorne through his solicitors ascertained, first, that if Mr. Brady did not actually hold the mortgage he was intimately and pecuniarily associated with those who did, and that it was in his power to pull the strings which prompted the movements of the ostensible actors; second, that the interest was running back; third, that the mortgage-deed contained some unusual and stringent covenants; fourth, that the Woodbrook estates were not returning the amount of money they had once done; and fifth, that owing to failing health, the pressure of anxiety, and the more exciting life he had in the interests of his daughters been leading, the General was becoming daily less and less competent to act as his own agent and to manage his own affairs.
Altogether the family prospects were in as deplorable a state as family prospects could be, when Lord Ardmorne’s solicitor went to confer with General Riley’s legal adviser and General Riley himself.
It was from the latter gentleman that information of the interest having fallen behind was elicited.