account. ‘I went to see Jonah Marriott.’
‘You went—to see Jonah Marriott?’ he asked in surprise. He took the folded receipt she held out, opened it out, read the very little that was written there, but which meant so much, and—his face darkened ominously. ‘What is this?’ he demanded, as though unable to believe that an amount of fifty-five thousand pounds had been paid into his account.
‘Your overdraft is cleared, Dad.’ She explained that which he seemed to have difficulty in taking in.
‘Cleared!’ he echoed, it passing him by completely just then that she knew about his financial problems, and his tone of voice such that, had she not known better, Lydie would have thought it was the calm before the storm.
‘I went to see Jonah Marriott, as I said. He gave me a cheque for the money he owed you. I paid it into your bank on my—’ She didn’t get to finish.
‘You did what?’ her father roared, and Lydie stared at him in astonishment. Her mild-mannered father never roared!
‘You n-needed the money,’ she mumbled anxiously—this wasn’t at all how she had imagined it. ‘Jonah Marriott owed you fifty thousand pounds—I went and asked him for it. He added five…’
‘You went and asked him for fifty thousand pounds?’ her father shouted. ‘Have you no pride?’
‘He owed it to you. He…’
‘He did not,’ her father cut her off furiously.
‘He—didn’t?’ Lydie gasped, looking over to her mother, who had told her that he did, but who was now more interested in looking at the curtains than in meeting her eyes.
‘He does not owe me anything!’ her father bellowed. ‘Not a penny!’ Lydie flinched as she turned her head to stare uncomprehendingly at the man who, prior to that moment, had never raised his voice to her in his life. ‘Oh, what have you done, Lydie?’ he asked, suddenly defeated, and she felt then that she would rather he shouted at her than that he should sound so utterly beaten. ‘Any money Jonah Marriott borrowed from me was paid back, with good interest, more than three years ago.’
CHAPTER TWO
‘HE PAID you back!’ Lydie gasped. And, reeling from what her father had just revealed, ‘But Mother said—’ Lydie broke off, her stricken gaze going from her mortified father to her mother.
This time her mother did meet her eyes, defiantly. But it was Wilmot Pearson who found his voice first, and, transferring his look to his wife, ‘What did you tell her?’ he demanded angrily.
‘Somebody had to do something!’ she returned hostilely, entirely unrepentant.
‘But you knew Jonah Marriott had repaid that loan—repaid it ahead of time. I told you. I clearly remember telling—’
‘Mother! You knew?’ Lydie chipped in, horrified. ‘You knew all the time that that money had been repaid—yet you let me go and ask Jonah for money!’ Oh, how she had asked him. No, Please will you lend us some money? but ‘This isn’t a social call’ she had told him shortly, and had gone from there to suggest he didn’t have any decency and that it was about time he paid that loan back—when all the time he already had. And she had thought he looked a bit surprised! No wonder! ‘Mother, how could you?’
Her mother did not care to be taken to task, and was at her arrogant worst when she retorted, ‘Far better to owe Jonah Marriott money than the bank. At least this way we get to keep the house.’
‘Don’t be so sure about that!’ Wilmot Pearson chipped in heavily—and uproar broke out between her parents for several minutes; he determined he would sell the house to pay Jonah Marriott and her mother said her father would be living elsewhere on his own if he did, and that Beamhurst was to be preserved to be passed down to Oliver. It was painful to Lydie to hear them, but when her mother, retorting that at least they wouldn’t be opening the doors to the bailiffs come Monday morning, seemed to be getting the better of the argument, her father turned and vented his frustration out on his daughter.
‘He—Jonah—he gave you a cheque, just like that, did he? You told him you wanted that “loan” I made him back—and he paid up without a murmur?’
‘He—um—said he had never forgotten how you helped him out that time. He was grateful to you, I think,’ Lydie answered, starting to wish that her mother had never phoned her last Tuesday.
‘So he gave you fifty-five thousand pounds out of gratitude and without a word that he had already settled that debt? How the devil do you suppose I’m going to pay him back?’ her father exploded, and in high temper, ‘Why ever didn’t you bring that cheque home to me first?’ he demanded. ‘Why in the world did you bank it without first consulting me?’
Lydie felt she would have brought the cheque to her father, had not Jonah Marriott put the idea of banking it first into her head. And suddenly she began to get the feeling that, one way and another, she had been well and truly manipulated here. First by her mother, very definitely by her mother, and secondly by Jonah Marriott himself.
‘Well?’ Her father interrupted her thoughts.
‘It seemed the best way to do it,’ she answered lamely. ‘If there had been any sort of a traffic snarl-up I could have been too late for the bank here. And I knew—’ thank you, Mother ‘—that the bank wanted their money by today.’
‘And they’ve got it—and it’s for certain they’ll hang on to it!’ he stated agitatedly. ‘There’s absolutely no chance they’ll let me have it back again.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I’d better go and see Jonah.’
‘I’ll go!’ Lydie said straight away, as she knew she must.
‘You,’ her father erupted, ‘have done enough! You can stay here with your mother and dream up your next scheme.’
That comment was extremely unfair, in Lydie’s opinion, but she understood his pride must be hurting like the very devil. ‘Please let me go?’ she pleaded. He hesitated for the merest moment, and Lydie rushed on quickly, ‘You’re not the only one with any pride,’ she added—and all at once her father seemed to fold.
He looked at her, his normally quite reserved daughter who, up until then, had caused him very little grief. ‘None of this has been very easy for you either, has it?’ he queried, more in the calm tone she was familiar with. And, relenting, if reluctantly, ‘We’ll go and see him together,’ he conceded.
That wasn’t what Lydie wanted either. ‘I’ll go and ring him,’ she offered.
‘Not go and see him?’
‘I’ll probably have to make an appointment first.’ In this instance of eating extra-large portions of humble pie, it seemed more diplomatic to try and get an appointment first rather than to go barging straight into his office.
‘We’ll make the call from my study,’ Wilmot Pearson declared, and, giving his wife a frosty look in passing, for which, since her home was for the moment secure, she cared not a jot, he and Lydie went from the drawing room and to his study.
She was glad that her father allowed her to make the call and did not insist on doing
