Greeting the Glassons in his new character caused him greater dread than reunion with a pregnant Ismay. He had not then got, nor would he ever get, Dr. Upper fully out of his system, and deep within himself he thought that he had done a dirty thing, and would doubtless be appropriately punished. But when he arrived at the nearest railway station to St. Columb’s Hall the Glasson parents greeted him with more warmth than they had ever shown before, and his most difficult task was to kiss Ismay on the station platform with the proper sort of affection—as accepted wooer rather than as too successful seducer. Nobody said anything about what was in all their minds until after tea, when Roderick Glasson suggested with terrible casualness that he and Francis might take a walk.
All that was said on that walk was said a score of times afterward, the intention becoming clearer every time. It was too bad that things had been a little premature, but Francis must realize that we were living in 1935, and not in the dark ages of Queen Victoria, and with clever management all would be well. The marriage would take place in a little over a fortnight’s time; the banns had already been called once in the parish church. It would be a quiet affair—not more than sixty or seventy people. Then Ismay and Francis would go somewhere on an extended wedding trip, and when they returned in a year or so with a child, who was to be the wiser? Whose business was it, after all, but the family’s?
Francis was aware that this was a path that had already been travelled in the family history, but Roderick Glasson could not have known why it struck so coldly into his heart. It was from Victoria Cameron that he had heard of his parents’ return from such a wedding trip with the Looner. God! Would this child be another such goblin as that? Did he carry that dark inheritance? Reason was against it, but a strain of the mythical in Francis’s thinking put reason firmly in its place. Was the Looner a punishment for something? He dared not contemplate what it might be, for he was sure his parents had never put themselves in such a pickle as he and Ismay had done. Everything about them made it unthinkable. In any case he was unquestionably his father’s truly begotten son; the family face was the clearest evidence. The Looner must have been bad luck of some sort. But what sort?
It was incoherent; it was superstitious; it was irrational, this mass of torturing speculation, but it was unquestionably real. And what did the telegram mean that reached him from Canada?
NEWS TODAY FROM RODERICK WE SEND LOVE AND CONGRATULATIONS CANNOT ATTEND WEDDING WORD TO WISE BE VERY CAREFUL ABOUT ALL MONEY ARRANGEMENTS
Money arrangements? He had already had some hint of that. The Glassons, Roderick explained during another walk, were feeling the pinch, as did all landowners. Rents had not kept up with expenditures; taxes were punitive; without heavy investment in equipment agriculture could not survive. New money spent on the estate was imperative if large sales of portions of land that had been part of the Glasson patrimony for generations were to be avoided. Not that sales would bridge the gap for long. Roderick had looked into the future fearlessly, and he saw only one hope for St. Columb Hall and its estates, and that hope was—new money. It was a case of substantial refinancing now or—well, eventual ruin.
Had Francis ever given any thought to agriculture? No, Francis had not. He didn’t think he wanted to be a landowner and farmer.
Roderick laughed, almost musically. No question of that. The estate must go to Roderick, his only son. Not that it was tied down by law, but that was how it had always been. However, young Roderick had set his heart on a career in Whitehall, and certainly he seemed to have a talent that way. Now if—just suppose—Francis and Ismay lived at a very decent dower house on the property, and Roderick and Prudence lived at the Hall until at last they were forced by the inevitable to leave it (manly acceptance of age and death here, almost like the “business” of a none too accomplished actor), it would be possible to totally re-finance the estate, and a family property—Francis was already a cousin and would soon be doubly family—would be revitalized in the best possible way. Francis wouldn’t have to worry about the farm; Roderick knew farming like the palm of his hand, and they had an excellent agent who, with real money strength behind him, would put things in apple-pie order before you knew it. In time, young Roderick would return, and anyway he would always have St. Columb’s behind him. Francis could do whatever he pleased. Paint, if he liked. Mess about with Cornish history and legend, if it suited him. He would be, Roderick thought the phrase was, a sleeping partner. It was not said how the sleeping partner was to benefit, except in terms of moral satisfaction.
Slowly, it sank in. This was why the Glassons were so philosophical about Ismay’s false step, over which they might otherwise be raising the roof. The price of Ismay was—one million Canadian dollars, with accrued interest, because Francis had not been drawing heavily on his income. Of course, they knew all about it; the Cornishes of Cheewidden would have gossiped and probably exaggerated. One million Canadian dollars was rather more than two hundred thousand pounds, which to people like the Glassons was wealth illimitable.
That was where the price began. The larger part would be his thraldom to life in a dower house, under the shadow of St. Columb’s and the shadow of Chegwidden, free to paint and dream about myth if he were fool enough to want to do that. He was to be the money-bags, that was plain. More kids, undoubtedly. But such a fate could be avoided; the Glassons could not trap him there. No; after thinking about it painfully and honestly, Francis recognized that it was the money that really meant most, and he was brought to the shameful conclusion that he wanted Ismay, but he didn’t like her price.
Still, as Grandfather McRory always said, nobody has your money so long as it’s still in your own pocket. Roderick Glasson seemed to think that money would be made over to him in lumps. Francis made it clear that the uttermost he could manage, so far ahead as he could see, was four thousand pounds paid quarterly for the first year. This was not true, for not only had he his grandfather’s handsome bequest, but he also received enough from the trust that included his aunts and his mother to make up a good income in itself. But as Francis sat in his bedroom and did reckonings, he was astonished to find how fond of money he was, and how reluctant to let any of it out of his grasp. When he stated his terms to his uncle, Roderick’s face fell, but as he had no way of knowing what Francis really possessed, he had to make the best of it. After all, Francis pointed out, he would have to support Ismay and probably Aunt Prudence somewhere on the Continent for the greater part of a year, and that would be another call on his income. Capital, he explained, was not a thing one ever diminished. Roderick nodded sagely at this, knowing very well that he had himself diminished his capital almost to invisibility, and that this was what had brought him to his present position. But he was optimistic; after the first year things might look very different.
Ismay and Aunt Prudence on the Continent, said Roderick, as it sank in. But where would Francis be? At Oxford, said Francis. He was determined not to sacrifice his degree and he had another year to go. But what did he need with a degree? It would be useless if he were living the life of a country gentleman. Roderick had no degree; he had come out of the Navy to assume the splendours and miseries of St. Columb’s when he inherited it, and had never felt the want of a university training. It was at this point that Ismay joined in the genteel wrangling; she too wanted to complete her studies and receive some sort of university stamp. Francis had thought about that, too. She certainly could not return to Oxford; the colleges did not encourage married undergraduates—indeed objected to them, and understandably so. But she could go to the continent, and pursue her modern-language studies very effectively at Lausanne, and live near by at Montreux; continental universities did not give as much individual concern to their students as did Oxford. Such a stay abroad would dissemble the early arrival of the child, which was also a consideration. He would pay—within reason.