Chapter XVII. The Evidence Of The Money
‘O ho! here’s royal booty, on my souclass="underline"
A draught of ducats!’
— Fragment
Wednesday 24 June
FAITHFUL to her self-imposed duty, Harriet next morning sought out Mrs Weldon. It was not altogether easy to get rid of Henry, whose filial affection seemed positively to tie him to his mother’s apron-strings. A happy thought made Harriet suggest that she and Mrs Weldon might go and see what the Resplendent could do for them in the way of a Turkish bath. This was checkmate for Henry. He took himself off, murmuring that he would go and have a haircut.
In the mood of relaxation and confidence that follows on being parboiled, it was easy enough to pump Mrs Weldon. A little diplomacy was needed, so as not to betray the ulterior object of the inquiry, but no detective could have had a more unsuspecting victim. The matter proved to be very much as Harriet had supposed.
Mrs Weldon was the only daughter of a wealthy brewer, who had left her a very considerable fortune in her own right. Her parents having died when she was a child, she had been brought up by a strict Noncomformist aunt in the little town of St Ives in Huntingdonshire. She had been courted by a certain George Weldon, a prosperous farmer owning a considerable property at Leamhurst in the Isle of Ely, and had married him at eighteen, chiefly in order to get away from the aunt. That rigid lady had not altogether opposed the marriage, which was reasonably suitable, though not brilliant; but she had shown sufficient business ability to insist that her niece’s money should be tied up in such a manner that Weldon could not touch the capital. Weldon, to do him justice, had made no objection to this. He seemed to have been, a perfectly honest, sober and industrious man, farming his land thriftily and well and having, so far as Harriet could make out, no drawbacks beyond a certain lack of imagination in matrimonial matters.
Henry was the only child of the marriage, and had been brought up from the beginning with the idea that he was to follow in his father’s footsteps, and here again, Weldon senior took a very proper view of the matter. He would not have the boy brought up in idleness, or to ideas beyond his proper’ station in life. He was a farmer’s son, and a farmer he should be, though, Mrs Weldon herself had often pleaded that the boy should be brought up to one of the professions. But old Weldon was adamant, and indeed Mrs Weldon was obliged to admit that he had very likely been right after all. Henry showed no special aptitude for, anything but the open-air life of the farm; the trouble was that he. did not apply himself even to that as well, as he should have done, and was inclined to run after girls and race-meetings, leaving his work to be done by his father and the farmhands. Already, before the elder Weldon’s death, there had been a good deal of antagonism between Henry and his mother, and this became intensified later on.
The farmer had died when Henry was twenty-five. He had left the farm and all his own savings to his son, knowing that his wife was well provided for. Under Henry’s management the farm had begun to go down. Times had grown harder for farmers. More and more personal supervision was needed to make farming pay, Henry gave it less and less. There were experiments in horse-breeding, which had not turned out well, owing to lack of judgement in buying and handling the stock. Mrs Weldon had by this time left the farm, which — she had always disliked, and was living a nomad life in spas and watering-places. Henry had several times come to her for loans, and had received them but Mrs Weldon had steadily refused to make over any of her capital to him, although she might have done so, her trustees being now dead and the trust wound up. She had, after all, learnt something from the Noncomformist aunt. Finally, when she found out that Henry had got himself into rather disgraceful trouble with an innkeeper’s wife in a neighbouring village, she quarrelled with Henry, loudly and finally. Since then, she had heard little from him. She understood, however, that the intrigue with the innkeeper’s wife had come to an end, and in February of the current year she had told him about her forthcoming marriage to Alexis. Henry had come down to Wilvercombe, stayed for the weekend, met Alexis and expressed his disapproval of the whole business. This did not mend matters, and relations had been strained until the death of Alexis had urged the lonely woman to seek comfort in the ties of blood. Henry, had come, expressed contrition for his former waywardness, received forgiveness and shown that he was, after all, her loving son.
Harriet mentioned Mrs Lefranc’s theory that Alexis had committed suicide owing to the failure of unknown and important ‘speculations’. Mrs Weldon scouted the theory.
‘What could it matter to him, my dear? Paul knew perfectly well that when we were married I should settle my money on him with the exception, of course, of a little provision for Henry., Of course, in the ordinary way, Henry would get everything, and I am afraid he was a little upset when he heard that I was going to get married, but, you know, it was not right that he should feel like that. His father left him very well off and always; impressed upon him that he ought not to look for anything from me. After all, I was still quite a young woman when my husband died, and George — he was a very fair-minded man, I will say that for him — always said that I should be quite within my rights in spending my own father’s money as I liked and marrying again if I chose. And I have lent Henry a great deal of money, which he has never repaid. I told Henry, when I got engaged to Alexis, that I should make him a free gift of everything that I had lent him, and make a will, giving him the life-interest in £30,000, the capital of which was to go to Henry’s children, if he had any. If he hadn’t any, then the money was to come back to Paul, if Paul outlived Henry, because, of course, Paul was the younger man’
‘Were you going to settle all the rest on Mr Alexis?’
‘Why not, my dear? It was not as though I could have had any more children. But Paul didn’t like that idea he used to say, so charmingly and absurdly, that if I did that what would happen to me if he ran away and left me? No, what I was going to do was this. I was going to settle £30,000 on Paul when we were married. It would have been his, absolutely, of course — I shouldn’t like my husband to have to come and ask me for permission if he wanted to alter the investments or anything. Then, at my death, Henry would have had the income from the other £30,000 and his debts washed out, and Paul would have had all, the rest, which would have been about £100,000 altogether, including his own 30,000. Because, you see, Paul might have married again and had a family, and then he would need the money. I don’t see that there was anything unfair about that, do you?’
Harriet felt that a great deal might’ be said about an arrangement which cut off the only son with the life-interest on £30,000, with reversion to a young step-father, and left full control of over three times that sum to the step-father; and which also placed the hypothetical family of the son in a vastly inferior position to the equally hypothetical children of the step-father by a hypothetical new wife. Still, Mrs Weldon’s money was her own, and Alexis had at least stood between her and the major folly of stripping herself of every farthing in his favour. One expression had caught her attention, and she returned to it.
‘I think you showed considerable judgement,’ she said — not specifying whether the judgement was good or bad — it would be much better for your son, if he is inclined to squander his money, only to have the life interest in his share. Then he would always have something to fall back upon. I suppose that arrangement still holds ‘good under your present will.’