A Civil Contract Read Online Free PDF

and the mantelpieces swept bare of their ornaments. Almost the only economy the late Viscount had practised had been the closing of his town residence during the winter months. When he had not been invited to stay at Carlton House, he preferred to put up, in the most expensive comfort, at the Clarendon.
    Adam put up at an hotel too, but not at the Clarendon. When he was escorted all over his house by the retainer who acted as caretaker he knew that he could dispose of this one of his possessions without a pang. It was associated in his mind with weeks of suffering; he decided that the sooner he was rid of it the better he would be pleased.
    The stables at Newmarket were already up for sale, with the hunting-lodge at Melton Mowbray, and the late Viscount’s sixteen hunters. Wimmering did not think that any harm would come from selling the racing-stable, but he strongly deprecated putting the hunters up for sale. ‘It will create a bad impression, my lord,’ he said. ‘I cannot like it!’ Adam did not like it either, but he was adamant. They were being brought up to Tattersall’s this week: Lynton’s breakdowns. It was not a pleasant thought, and they wouldn’t sell, at the end of the hunting-season, for anything approaching the sums his father had paid for them; but he would be spared the heavy cost of their upkeep. Wimmering was still talking of the need to allay anxiety, but his further researches into the affairs of his late patron had revealed nothing that could encourage Adam to think that he had anything to gain by a postponement of the inevitable; and his reiterated entreaty that the former state of the Deverils should be maintained served only to exasperate an employer whose nerves were already stretched to the limit of their endurance. An engrained courtesy compelled Adam to listen to Wimmering with patience; but no argument which his man of business had as yet advanced caused him to swerve from the line of conduct dictated by his own judgement. He never knew how baffling his courtesy was to Wimmering, or with what relief that harassed man would have greeted an explosion of wrath.
    Following his judgement, he had himself interviewed his banker, at Charing Cross. Wimmering begged him to leave such matters in his own, more experienced hands, but Adam said he thought he ought to see Drummond himself. ‘My family has always banked with Drummond’s,’ he said. ‘They have always dealt fairly by us, too. I think I should prefer to talk to Drummond myself.’
    Mr Wimmering might pull down the corners of his mouth, but it was certain that he could never have achieved the accommodation which old Mr Drummond granted to Adam.
    Drummond’s was an old-established firm, and amongst its distinguished clients it numbered no less a personage than His Majesty King George; but the name of Deveril figured in its earliest accounts, and it had been with a heavy heart that Mr Charles Drummond had awaited the arrival of the new Lord Lynton. He feared that demands were going to be made which it would be impossible for him to grant. He was not entirely unacquainted with Adam, but he had had no opportunity to form an opinion of his character. He remembered him only as an unassuming young officer, quite unlike his magnificent father; and although that was admittedly a point in his favour it in no way prepared Mr Drummond for a client who not only took him frankly into his confidence, but who said, with a smile that was as charming as it was rueful: ‘In these circumstances, sir, it must seem outrageous of me to ask you to let me continue drawing on an account which is already grossly over drawn, but I hope I can satisfy you of my ability to pay off the debt. I have worked out, as well as I’m able – but the exact worth of some of my assets must be conjectural – a sort of balance between my debts and my expectations, which, naturally, you will wish to study.’
    He had then laid papers before Mr Drummond, who had peered at them