SQUIRE GOODALL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 145, 1 April 1948, Page 7

SQUIRE GOODALL

Serial Story

By W. RILEY §

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CHAPTER XXVII

WITAT BILL THOUGHT

“Oh, yes, mother,” he pleaded. “Pat quite agreed, didn’t you, Pat? that I am well and strong again—perfectly fit—and that it is my duty to get back to my work. I must get back; we are terribly short-handed and the work will be suffering.” • He spoke quickly, excitedly,* and his hands played nervously with the edge of the map. Squire Goodall watched him and thought how frail and anaemic he looked; how utterly unfit for the difficult task that awaited him. He glanced at Pat, whose face was glowing with a like enthusiasm, though it occasionally clouded as she noted her mother’s troubled brow. “Poor beggars!” he commented to himself.

“We might sail ’in a month’s time, or in six weeks at the most,” he continued. “Pat says she could be ready, if you were willing.” “We must hear what the medical authorities and the missionary officials say,” the rector replied. “If they raise no objection mother and I will have none.”

He looked across the room at his wife whose lip trembled but who answered bravely.

“They would like to be married as soon as possible, Lionel.” “That can easily be arranged,” he replied and again Squire Goodall murmured “poor beggars.” He rose soon after, and declining the offer of company walked slowly home. Again his thoughts were troubled, but they were not occupied now with his own worries, for he had laid them aside to consider those of his friends.

“Poor beggars, all of ’em!” he went on murmuring. “That young parson lias a mind for his job but the machine can’t do the work. It’ll break down inside twelve months and fall to pieces. Dalroy sees it and knows the girl will be a widow before she’s become used to being a wife. And the mother sees it, and yet tries to keep a stiff upper lip. And there’s nothing to be done that I can see but let ’em go their own way.” With eyes bent on the ground he walked along, considering the matter.

“I could give them money,” he reflected; “but what would they do with it? Chuck it away to somebody else —build a church with it—start an or-phanage-support two or three native parsons. They’d be no better for it. What is money to such as them? The be-all and end-all of life to that young ghost of a parson is service. The fellow’s a spendlthrift, and you can’tf help spendthrifts. That poor lass’ll help him to spend himself. A fine lass, too; I’m fond of Pat, poor beggar!” * * * * * Bill Goodall looked up in surprise when the door of his private office was opened without ceremony to admit his father, and a smile of welcome spread over his features as he rose to help him to remove his overcoat. It was the first visit Squire Goodall had paid to the mill since his illness, and he had entered quietly, hoping" to escape observation. “Why didn’t you ring up to say you were coming?” Bill asked when his father was seated. “Have you motored over?”'

“No,” was the reply, “Ive come by rail. Nobody knows I’ve come. I walked to the station' and it rather winged me. I’m not as clever as J thought I was.” He looked grey and tired and shrunken, a much older man than he had been a year ago—ten years older —and Bill felt uneasy. He was fond of his father, and he was emotional enough to feel a heart pang at tthe thought that he might not be going to live much longer. His father and he had never been particularly “pally,” as Millie would have put it, but on the other hand they had always been good friends, with a large amount of veneration in the young man’s attitude that compensated, perhaps, for the lack of a warmer sensation. That warmer sensation was there, but it had been suppressed. He was conscious of it now, when the shadow of approaching calamity lay on the pathetic figure of the man who had always seemed so invulnerable, so permanent. I-lis honest face betrayed his feeling which his father was quick to detect; “You’ve no neel to read the funeral service over me,” he said with acid humour. “I’m tired and I’m worried, but there’s a lot of kick in me yet, my lad. Tell somebody to bring us coffee and biscuits—l had breakfast at six-thirty to-day. And leave word that we’ve not to be disturbed.” His tone somewhat reassured his son; and indeed half an hour later Squire Goodall had regained much of his energy and a little colour. Business topics had excluded all other subjects of interest from the conversatio, so that Bill was persuaded that the visit were merely one of invests gation such as was only to be expected at intervals. His enquiries regarding the family had been answered and dismissed with a curt indifference that had led him to believe that there was not much wrong at The Towers. He was quickly to be undeceived.

“l made my will a little while before my mishap, Bill,” Squire Goodall said suddenly, “and I’m thinking of making a new one. Before I do that I want to be sure of my ground, and I want to know exactly where you stand. You’re not ambitious, Bill?” “Don’t know that I am, particularly,” the other replied. “When a fellow has a big business and a big income, and is likely to come into a lot of brass one day there isn”t much to be ambitious for that I can see.” “I don’t suppose you can,” said Squire Goodall rather tartly. The next moment .however, he smiled. “If your father hadn’t had more ambition than you have there would have been neither a big business nor a big income nor any expectations of a lot of brass at some future day,’ he continued. “That’s so,” Bill admitted cheerfully. “I might have been sorting wool instead of selling it, and drawing fifty bob a week if I was lucky, and Avhitewashing the tops and the cellar at home in my spare time. I’ve had the luck to be an ambitious man’s son, i that’s all.” For a moment or two his father did not speak. Then he remarked refieci lively—- “ And you would have bpen every bit as contented as you are now—every bit as happy.” “1 don’t know about that,” Bill replied. “I shouldn’t like to swop places with any of the sorters. But in my

case it isn’t true to say that much wants more. I’m satisfied with what I’ve got, and so is Ethel.” “Do you want The Towers estate when I’m gone?” his father asked. “Don’t answer impulsively, and don’t take it for granted that you can have it for the asking, because I’m not at all sure you can. But if you would like it I shall give the matter very careful' consideration.” His eyes never left his son’s face, but he saw nothing there beyond an expression of amusement and enquiry. “What should I do with The Towers?” Bill replied without hesitation. “I’d nearly as soon go to penal servitude as live there, and Ethel, I may tell you, wouldn’t have it at any price. Broadbeck is good enough for us. I don’t mind a picnic in the country now and again, but I should soon be fed up if there was nothing else but country picnics.” The smile broadened on his face and he drew his chair a little nearer to his father’s and in a lower voice said—

“What’s the use of beating about the bush? You mean Lina- to have The Towers? Very well; I’m willing; let her have the bally lot.” , “I don’t intend to let Lina have The Towers or the Towers estate,” Squire Goodall replied quietly. “If you don’t want it Millie will get it.” “Millie!” Bill rose and stood with his back to the fire, looking clown with undisguised astonishment into his father’s upturned face. This was a contingency he had never dreamed of and he could scarcely believe that the statement was to be taken seriously, though it was impossible to conclude that he was being “kidded.” His father had never indulged in “kidding.” “You’ve winded me this time,” he continued. “What’s behind all this?” “Sit down and I’Jl tell you,” Squire Goodall replied; and Bill obeyed, murmuring as he did so—

“By jove, Eina’ll let hell loose if you give The Towers to Millie!” •

“Then she’ll be able to let it loose in my lifetime,” his father replied, “for, of course, I shall tell her. Millie is going to marry Jim Morton.”

“Millie is going to marry Jim Morton?” Bill repeated as if dazed. “But l thought that chap was going to marry the parson’s daughter? What on earth is happening yonder? I’m blowed if .my head isn’t in a whirl.” “The parson’s daughter! and Jim Morton have each transferred their affections,” Squire Goodall explained caustically, “so the course of true love is running quite smoothly. There’s no engagement, by the way, between Millie and Jim, but there will be after a while unless I fail to read the signs correctly. I’ve said nothing to Millie, nor has Jim, and Millie has said nothing to me. But it’ll work out that way, you’ll see. Of course Jim and I have discussed the subject, and at present he’s on probation.” “I like the way you get a move on up yonder,” said Bill who was still under the influence of the shock of his surprise. ’“How does Lina take it?”

“Lina doesn’t know, and doesn’t appear to suspect. I’ve closed Jim’s mouth for a time to make sure that he knows his own mind and also to give the public time to forget. In a few weeks Pat Dalroy will be married and out of the country, and there ■will be no sensation when the news of the new engagement circulates. When she does tumble to it—well, Lina won’t take it.” “But I thought the other fellow,, Sir Stephen—it is Stephen, isn’t it?— was sweet on Lina? Why don’t they make it up, and then you could let Lina have The Towers? There’d be a sight more sense in that. Anyone with half an eye can see that Lina wants it; and her screw would fit the hole better than Millie’s. Doesn't the fellow get any forrader?” “I’m going to tell you about that,’’ his father answered. “It’s for that purpose I’m here. It’s that that’s worrying me.

1 want Lina to have The Towers and the whole estate, but Millie’s going to get them all the same. It’s a longish story you’ve to listen to.” He unfolded it succinctly, collectedly, and Bill was throughly interested, but by no means converted to his father’s point of view. “I should jolly well let her go her own way,” he said when his father stopped and appeared to expect him to speak. “She knows he’s a rotter. She’s going into it with her eyes open, and when all ie said and done it’s her own funeral. There’s a good deal in what the lass says, and'if I were you I’d let her be happy in her own way and not make myself miserable by refusing her. Why, hang it all, dad, most people will think she’s done extra well and if only he’s obliging enough to make his exit early and leave the stage to her, you’ll think so, too. It’s the way the lass is built, and you can’t alter her. Let her have her man and The Towers as well; that’s my advice.” “I didn’t ask you for your advice,” his father replied. “It isn’t often I do, if you come to think about it. I’ve a mind of my own, and I know my mind. We’ll spend no time arguing the matter because it would be time wasted. Lina won’t marry that man with my consent, and if she marries him without it she’ll be comparatively a poor woman. We’ll leave it there.”

“You’re punishing yourself,” said Bill who was sorry to see the grey look return to his father’s cheeks, and who knew that the note of fiunness cloaked feelings of a very different kind. “You think the world of that lass and you’re putting a knife into your own heart by standing in her way. I know you don’t want my advice, but there’s a saying that a fool may give a wise man counsel, and you want to be sure you’re not mistaking obstinacy for principle. You know you are obstinate, and it goes against the grain to be defied by your own daughter. But you can’t blow hot and cold at the same time. You can’t pat her on the back when she’s getting her own way with other people and stand her in the corner when she’s trying' to get it with you. You’ve thought a lot about it —think again.” “Thank you, Bill,” said Squire Goodall quietly. “What you have said won’t influence my decision but I’m glad to have heard it. I didn’t think badly of you before, but I think better now. Millie and you are giving me more satisfaction than I’d any right to expect. We’ll set Lina on one side, and turn to another matter. I’ve spoke about Millie and Avhat she is to get and I’ve spoken about Lina and what she may lose —you may have been tvondering where you came in.” (To Be Continued).

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