‘How would you know? You ran away.’
‘Then let me tell you something you certainly don’t know,’ said Hugo, almost shouting. ‘This paragon of virtue that you’re planning to spend the rest of your life with has swindled me out of a piece of land I owned in Broad Street.’
‘Let me tell you something you do know,’ said Holcombe. ‘Maisie paid off every penny of your loan, with interest, and all you left her with was less than ten pounds to her name.’
‘That land’s now worth four hundred pounds,’ said Hugo, immediately regretting his words, ‘and it belongs to me.’
‘If it belonged to you,’ said Holcombe, ‘you wouldn’t be trying to buy the site for twice that amount.’
Hugo was livid that he had allowed himself to reveal the extent of his interest in the site, but he wasn’t finished. ‘So when you have sex with Maisie Clifton, do you have to pay for it, schoolmaster, because I certainly didn’t.’
Holcombe raised a fist.
‘Go on, hit me,’ goaded Hugo. ‘Unlike Stan Tancock, I’d sue you for every penny you’re worth.’
Holcombe lowered his fist and marched off, annoyed with himself for having allowed Barrington to rile him.
Hugo smiled. He felt he had delivered the knockout blow.
He turned round to see the lads on the other side of the road sniggering. But then they’d never seen a lilac and green Lagonda before.
35
WHEN THE FIRST cheque bounced, Hugo simply ignored it and waited a few days before he presented it a second time. When it came back again, stamped ‘Refer to Drawer’, he began to accept the inevitable.
For the next few weeks, Hugo found several different ways of getting around the immediate cash problem.
He first raided the office safe and removed the ￡100 that his father always kept for a rainy day. This was a thunderstorm, and the old man had certainly never had to resort to the cash reserve to pay his secretary’s wages. Once that had run out, he reluctantly let go of the Lagonda. However, the dealer politely pointed out that lilac and green weren’t this year’s colours, and as Sir Hugo required cash, he could only offer him half the original purchase price, because the bodywork would have to be stripped and repainted.
Hugo survived for another month.
With no other available assets to dispose of, he began to steal from his mother. First, any loose change left lying about the house, followed by coins in purses and then notes in bags.
It wasn’t long before he bagged a small silver pheasant that had graced the centre of the dining-room table for years, followed by its parents, all of which flew to the nearest pawn shop.
Hugo then moved on to his mother’s jewellery. He started with items she wouldn’t notice. A hat pin and a Victorian brooch were quickly followed by an amber necklace she rarely wore, and a diamond tiara which had been in the family for over a century and was only worn at weddings or ceremonial occasions. He didn’t anticipate there being many of those in the near future.
He finally turned to his father’s art collection, first taking off the wall a portrait of his grandfather by a young John Singer Sargent, but not before the housekeeper and the cook had handed in their notice, having received no wages for over three months. Jenkins conveniently died a month later.
His grandfather’s Constable (The Mill at Dunning Lock) was followed by his great-grandfather’s Turner (Swans on the Avon), both of which had been in the family for over a century.
Hugo was able to convince himself that it wasn’t theft. After all, his father’s will had stated and all that therein is.
This irregular source of funds ensured that the company survived and only showed a small loss for the first quarter of the year, that is, if you didn’t count the resignation of three more directors and several other senior members of staff who hadn’t received their pay cheques on the last day of the month. When asked, Hugo blamed the temporary setbacks on the war. One elderly director’s parting words were, ‘Your father never found it necessary to use that as an excuse.’
Soon, even the removable assets began to dwindle.
Hugo knew that if he were to put Barrington Hall and its 72 acres of parkland on the market, it would announce to the world that a company that had declared a profit for over a hundred years was insolvent.
His mother continued to accept Hugo’s assurances that the problem was only temporary, and that given time everything would sort itself out. After a time, he started to believe his own propaganda. When the cheques started to bounce again, Mr Prendergast reminded him that there was an offer of ￡3,500 on the table for his properties in Broad Street, which, Prendergast pointed out, would still show him a profit of ￡600.
‘What about the thirty thousand I was promised?’ Hugo shouted down the phone.
‘That offer is also still on the table, Sir Hugo, but it remains subject to your purchasing Mrs Clifton’s freehold.’
‘Offer her a thousand,’ he barked.