“Five hundred pounds,” he said. “Dear me, Crosbie; that’s a large sum of money.”
“Yes, it is—a very large sum. Half that is what I want at once; but I shall want the other half in a month.”
“I thought that you were always so much above the world in money matters. Gracious me;—nothing that I have heard for a long time has astonished me more. I don’t know why, but I always thought that you had your things so very snug.”
Crosbie was aware that he had made one very great step towards success. The idea had been presented to Mr. Butterwell’s mind, and had not been instantly rejected as a scandalously iniquitous idea, as an idea to which no reception could be given for a moment. Crosbie had not been treated as was the needy knife-grinder, and had ground to stand upon while he urged his request. “I have been so pressed since my marriage,” he said, “that it has been impossible for me to keep things straight.”
“But Lady Alexandrina—”
“Yes; of course; I know. I do not like to trouble you with my private affairs;—there is nothing, I think, so bad as washing one’s dirty linen in public;—but the truth is, that I am only now free from the rapacity of the De Courcys. You would hardly believe me if I told you what I’ve had to pay. What do you think of two hundred and forty-five pounds for bringing her body over here, and burying it at De Courcy?”
“I’d have left it where it was.”
“And so would I. You don’t suppose I ordered it to be done. Poor dear thing. If it could do her any good, God knows I would not begrudge it. We had a bad time of it when we were together, but I would have spared nothing for her, alive or dead, that was reasonable. But to make me pay for bringing the body over here, when I never had a shilling with her! By George, it was too bad. And that oaf John De Courcy—I had to pay his travelling bill too.”
“He didn’t come to be buried;—did he?”
“It’s too disgusting to talk of, Butterwell; it is indeed. And when I asked for her money that was settled upon me—it was only two thousand pounds—they made me go to law, and it seems there was no two thousand pounds to settle. If I like, I can have another lawsuit with the sisters, when the mother is dead. Oh, Butterwell, I have made such a fool of myself. I have come to such shipwreck! Oh, Butterwell, if you could but know it all.”
“Are you free from the De Courcys now?”
“I owe Gazebee, the man who married the other woman, over a thousand pounds. But I pay that off at two hundred a year, and he has a policy on my life.”
“What do you owe that for?”
“Don’t ask me. Not that I mind telling you;—furniture, and the lease of a house, and his bill for the marriage settlement—d⸺ him.”
“God bless me. They seem to have been very hard upon you.”
“A man doesn’t marry an earl’s daughter for nothing, Butterwell. And then to think what I lost! It can’t be helped now, you know. As a man makes his bed he must lie on it. I am sometimes so mad with myself when I think over it all—that I should like to blow my brains out.”
“You must not talk in that way, Crosbie. I hate to hear a man talk like that.”
“I don’t mean that I shall. I’m too much of a coward, I fancy.” A man who desires to soften another man’s heart, should always abuse himself. In softening a woman’s heart, he should abuse her. “But life has been so bitter with me for the last three years! I haven’t had an hour of comfort;—not an hour. I don’t know why I should trouble you with all this, Butterwell. Oh—about the money; yes; that’s just how I stand. I owed Gazebee something over a thousand pounds, which is arranged as I have told you. Then there were debts, due by my wife—at least some of them were, I suppose—and that horrid, ghastly funeral—and debts, I don’t doubt, due by the cursed old countess. At any rate, to get myself clear I raised something over four hundred pounds, and now I owe five which must be paid, part tomorrow, and the remainder this day month.”
“And you’ve no security?”
“Not a rag, not a shred, not a line, not an acre. There’s my salary, and after paying Gazebee what comes due to him, I can manage to let you have the money within twelve months—that is, if you can lend it me. I can just do that and live; and if you will assist me with the money, I will do so. That’s what I’ve brought myself to by my own folly.”
“Five hundred pounds is such a large sum of money.”
“Indeed it is.”
“And without any security!”
“I know, Butterwell, that I’ve no right to ask for it. I feel that. Of course I should pay you what interest you please.”
“Money’s about seven
