“You—and I’m not going to wait two years for you—but we’ll go on pretending a little longer.”
“But I am in grim earnest, my Vivien.”
“So am I,” she replied, with a smile.
After this he realised the impracticability of his scheme. Minna was not one of those sweet future housewives for whom a man works and waits.
There was too much “contagion of the blood” in the matter. Yet he swore to himself that there should be no irregular union between them, and that he would not marry her until he had freed himself from her father’s clutches. But how to raise the money was beyond his power of scheming. At this stage of embarrassment came the announcement that a son and heir had been born to his uncle. As far as the value of security went, the bond in Israel Hart’s possession was so much waste-paper.
A post or two brought a comforting letter from his sisters, two maiden ladies many years his senior, who lived a gentle life in a little Hertfordshire townlet. They sympathised with him over this final theft of his inheritance (the good ladies considered it nothing less), but assured him that his Uncle Geoffrey would leave him something when he died. He had hinted as much, some months before, when “apologising to them for his senile folly.” It was the very least he could do under the circumstances. Whilst reading this letter Hugh was suddenly startled by an inspired flash. His difficulties melted. He rose from his breakfast and walked about the room, settling the details of the scheme. He would borrow the £5,000 from his sisters on the security of the reversion, such as it was worth, pay off Hart forthwith, reduce the rate of interest he was paying—a natural thing, for his sisters would not accept usurer’s interest—devote as much of his yearly income as he could spare to a reserve fund, in the event of the legacy not covering the debt, and marry Minna forthwith. In the event of his own death, he would leave Minna directions to pay his sisters, so that only in this contingency would Israel be virtually repaid out of his own pocket. In any case, his sisters would not be losers. The brilliancy of the prospect blinded him to at least one fallacy and two unsound premises.
The following afternoon he was at Selwood. His sisters Alicia and Dora, warned by telegram of his coming, met him at the station and walked with him, one on either side, through the town. The broad, quiet street, its breadth oddly exaggerated by the lowness of the straggling rows of old-fashioned houses, terminated at a common, on the further side of which stood the church. Amidst a clump of trees near the rectory glowed the red brick of the house where the two sisters lived. It was a peaceful and gentle spot, and it seemed to harmonise with their faces, which bore no marks of greater stress and strain than those occasioned by their disappointment in a housemaid, and their mild, vague regrets for the fuller, wedded life that had not come to them.
Hugh looked around, drew in great draughts of the sweet air, and then glanced affectionately at his sisters. They walked beside him proudly, holding their heads high. They had gentle but enlarged ideas of the importance of their family, and Hugh, in their eyes, was the incarnation of its distinction. The town was not honoured by such a man every day in the week. They felt the admiring and respectful eyes of Selwood upon them.
“We were just going to write to you when your telegram came,” said Dora.
“We had better wait until we get indoors,” said Alicia, reprovingly. As she was five years older than Dora (who herself was ten years older than Hugh), she considered her sister’s experience of the world somewhat immature. Hugh laughed, being familiar with Alicia’s habits. They were, doubtless, about to ask his advice concerning the finances of the village goose-club, or some such solemn matter which could not be discussed save with closed doors.