Читать книгу The Glad Summer - John Jeffery Farnol - Страница 7

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Mr. Biggs, senior, flounced and cleared his throat again, twiddled his thumbs, shook his head portentously and finally spoke.

“Sir Nicholas, your letter has deeply perturbed and greatly shocked me, need I say——”

“Oh no; I expected it would, and I’m here to shock you more, just a little.”

“Merciful heavens!” exclaimed Mr. Biggs. “What more?”

“I desire to make over a small cottage known as Mills Cot, together with three or four acres, to its present tenant, Mrs. Rebecca Mills, this property to be hers to have and to hold in perpetuity. I rather like that phrase, so pray use it.”

“A gift, Sir Nicholas?”

“Absolutely! Let the deed be drawn up or executed at once; I’ll sign it before I go.” Mr. Biggs rose from his chair, gulped, glowered and—sat down again.

“As regards my remission and lowering of all rents, you will deal with this at once; also I desire you will have this information printed on sheets in bold, clear lettering, easy to read, and a copy dispatched to each of my tenants, and this I repeat—at once.”

Mr. Biggs seemed to find some difficulty with his breathing, also in choosing words adequate to the occasion; at last with gesture almost threatening, he spoke:

“Young man ... sir, you will now listen to me and to reason——”

“Are these synonymous?” laughed Nicholas, whereat sire frowned and gulped again while son smiled and nodded gently. Sire therefore continued the more heatedly:

“Sir Nicholas, having been so recently a merchant seaman, you are therefore profoundly ignorant, especially of land values. I must now inform you that all property, more especially in the counties of Kent and Sussex, have lately much increased in value and will continue so to do.”

“Mr. Biggs, I rejoice to hear it!”

“Consequently, sir, all rents have been and will be raised accordingly!”

“Mr. Biggs, I am grieved to hear it and refuse to allow it! Instead, as I have informed you very plainly, all my rents are coming down.”

“Sir Nicholas, this must not be, since it is bad for you and worse for the county generally.”

“But good for my tenants in particular. So, as I say, you will have these notices printed in good, bold type——”

“Sir, I beg you will listen to me!”

“No, Mr. Biggs; instead you shall listen to me! So pray lend me your ears, both of ’em! Before inheriting these vast estates, so very unexpectedly, from my unlovely uncle, Sir Jonas, I was earning, as first officer aboard the Indiaman Etruria, just sufficient for my comfort, and my quarters measured roughly twelve feet by ten! Today, as you told me at our last interview, my income is somewhere about twenty-five thousand pounds a year with land stretching from the Downs to the sea. Added to this, I own a town mansion and in the country a great barn of a house too big for comfort and impossible ever to make a home——”

“Sir,” cried Mr. Biggs indignantly, “Sir Nicholas, I protest! Grayladies is one of the grandly noble mansions of Old England! A famous and historic monument, once a splendid abbey, or some such, until Bluff King Hal bestowed it upon your ancestor, Sir Richard Harbourne, for valour in the field. Ah, a grand and noble structure is Grayladies.”

“Which,” said Nicholas, “makes me wonder what became of the Gray Ladies, poor dears!”

“Sir, history does not record! But returning to the subject of our discussion: by your rash and reckless, ill-considered act you would reduce your present income by half——”

“Leaving myself over twelve thousand a year, which I consider fairly adequate to the needs of any ignorant merchant seaman, especially such very simple person as myself.”

“But, Sir Nicholas, you are no longer a seaman, and I prove you anything but simple. Today, sir, you are a baronet of long and noble ancestry; today you are a power in the country, and your responsibilities therefore correspondingly many and great.”

“Especially as regards my tenantry!”

“But most especially to yourself, sir. You now have a great, a lofty social position which must be lived up to! Your noble mansion in London with its retinue of servants, besides the magnificence of Grayladies, will be extremely costly to maintain.”

“How many servants have I?”

“In your town house they number ten, sir; at Grayladies, within doors, male and female, they number thirty-five.”

“Lord!” sighed Nicholas. “And all to look after me?”

“Besides these, sir, you employ fifteen gardeners, five gamekeepers, and nine grooms, and, of course, your bailiff, Mr. Wolf, and his two assistants.”

“Making seventy-seven in all. Damme, I’ve worked an Indiaman with fewer hands!”

“So you perceive, Sir Nicholas, these will and must be a first charge on your income.”

“Not so, Mr. Biggs—a dis-charge. You will rid me of all these unwanted servants at once and close both useless houses.”

“Cl-close them?” stammered Mr. Biggs, aghast.

“Immediately!”

“But ... good ... great ... heavens!” gasped Mr. Biggs. “The houses will go to rack and ruin! The magnificent park and gardens at Grayladies will become a wilderness!”

“Well, keep a brace of gardeners and put caretakers in the houses, or, better still, sell them.”

“Sell them?” repeated Mr. Biggs in voice faint with horror.

“Whichever course you deem best,” said Nicholas. “These are my orders! And pray don’t forget those notices must be in boldest, clearest type. So, gentlemen, for the present, goodbye. Harbourne calls me, for, between you and me and the deed-boxes yonder, I’m after a farm-labourer’s job, which, by hook or crook, I mean to secure.” Then, taking hat and gloves, Nicholas bowed to speechless sire, shook hands with smiling son and strode blithely away.

“A—a farm labourer!” gasped Biggs, senior, so soon as he could speak. “He’s mad, as I suspected! A stark, raving lunatic and should be shut up! Arthur, in heaven’s name what—what are you smiling at?”

“A farm labourer, sir!”