The Explorer — Text and Context

There was a portrait by Reynolds, and another by Hoppner, and there was a beautiful picture of the Grand Canal by Guardi, and there was a portrait by Goya of a General Allerton who had fought in the Peninsular War. Dick gave them a glance, and his blood tingled with admiration. He leaned against the fireplace.

'Your father asked me to come down and see you, Lucy. He was too worried to come himself.'

Lucy looked at him with grave eyes, but made no reply.

'He's had some very bad luck lately. Your father is a man who prides himself on his business ability, but he has no more knowledge of such matters than a child. He's an imaginative man, and when some scheme appeals to his feeling for romance, he loses all sense of proportion.'

Dick paused again. It was impossible to soften the blow, and he could only put it bluntly.

'He's been gambling on the Stock Exchange, and he's been badly let down. He was bulling a number of South American railways, and there's been a panic in the market. He's lost enormously. I don't know if any settlement can be made with his creditors, but if not he must go bankrupt. In any case, I'm afraid Hamlyn's Purlieu must be sold.'

Lucy walked to the window and looked out. But she could see nothing. Her eyes were blurred with tears. She breathed quickly, trying to control herself.

'I've been expecting it for a long time,' she said at last. 'I've refused to face it, and I put the thought away from me, but I knew really that it must come to that.'

'I'm very sorry,' said Dick helplessly.

She turned on him fiercely, and the colour rose to her cheeks. But she restrained herself and left unsaid the bitter words that had come to her tongue. She made a pitiful gesture of despair. He felt how poor were his words of consolation, and how inadequate to her great grief, and he was silent.

'And what about George?' she asked.

George was then eighteen, and on the point of leaving Winchester. It had been arranged that he should go to Oxford at the beginning of the next term.

'Lady Kelsey has offered to pay his expenses at the 'Varsity,' answered Dick, 'and she wants you to go and stay with her for the present.'

'Do you mean to say we're penniless?' asked Lucy, desperately.

'I think you cannot depend on your father for much regular assistance.'

Lucy was silent again.

Lady Kelsey was the elder sister of Mrs. Allerton, and some time after that lady's marriage had accepted a worthy merchant whose father had been in partnership with hers; and he, after a prosperous career crowned by surrendering his seat in Parliament to a defeated cabinet-minister--a patriotic act for which he was rewarded with a knighthood--had died, leaving her well off and childless. She had but one other nephew, Robert Boulger, her brother's only son, but he was rich with all the inherited wealth of the firm of Boulger & Kelsey; and her affections were placed chiefly upon the children of the man whom she had loved devotedly and who had married her sister.

'I was hoping you would come up to town with me now,' said Dick. 'Lady Kelsey is expecting you, and I cannot bear to think of you by yourself here.'

'I shall stay till the last moment.'

Dick hesitated again. He had wished to keep back the full brutality of the blow, but sooner or later it must be given.

'The place is already sold. Your father accepted an offer from Jarrett--you remember him, he has been down here; he is your father's broker and chief creditor--and everything else is to go to Christy's at once.'

'Then there is no more to be said.'

She gave Dick her hand.

'You won't mind if I don't come to the station with you?'

'Won't you come up to London?' he asked again.

'I want to be alone. Forgive me if I make you go so abruptly.'

'My dear girl, it's very good of you to make sure that I don't miss my train,' he smiled drily.

'Good-bye and thank you.'

While Lucy wandered by the seashore, occupied with painful memories, her old friend Dick, too lazy to walk with her, sat in the drawing-room of Court Leys, talking to his hostess.