Casanova's Chinese Restaurant - Anthony Powell [98]
‘Don’t be too sure.’
‘One can’t be sure,’ said Frederica, speaking this time more soberly. ‘But it sounded as if Erry were not going to do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘He didn’t leave Spain on very good terms with anyone.’
‘The money would pay off the overdraft on the estate account,’ said Isobel.
‘Exactly.’
‘And the woods would not have to be sold.’
‘In fact,’ said Robert, ‘this windfall might turn out to be most opportune.’
‘I don’t want to speak too soon,’ said Frederica, ‘especially where Erry is concerned. All the same, so far as I could see, there seemed hope of his showing some sense for once.’
‘But will his conscience allow him to show sense?’ said Robert.
I understood now why Quiggin had been so irritable when we had last met. He must already have known of St John Clarke’s legacy to Erridge. By that time Quiggin could scarcely have hoped himself for anything from St John Clarke, but that this golden apple should have fallen at Erridge’s feet was another matter. To feel complete unconcern towards the fact of an already rich friend unexpectedly inheriting so comparatively large a capital sum would require an indifference to money that Quiggin never claimed to possess. Apart from that was the patron-protégé relationship existing between Erridge and Quiggin, complicated by the memory of Mona’s elopement. Quiggin’s ill humour was not surprising in the circumstances. It was, indeed, pretty reasonable. If St John Clarke had been often provoked by Members and Quiggin during his life, the last laugh had to some extent fallen to St John Clarke after death. At the same time, it was not easy to see what motives had led St John Clarke to appoint Erridge his heir. He may have felt that Erridge was the most likely among the people he knew to use the money in some manner sympathetic to his own final fancies. On the other hand, he may have reverted on his death-bed to a simpler, more old-world snobbery of his early years, or to that deep-rooted, time honoured tradition that money should go to money. It was impossible to say. These, and many other theories, were laid open to speculation by this piece of news, absurd in its way; if anything to do with money can, in truth, be said to be absurd.
‘Did Chips mention when he and Priscilla are going to be married?’ asked Isobel.
The question reminded me that Moreland, at least in a negative manner, had taken another decisive step. I thought of his recent remark about the Ghost Railway. He loved these almost as much as he loved mechanical pianos. Once, at least, we had been on a Ghost Railway together at some fun fair or on a seaside pier; slowly climbing sheer gradients, sweeping with frenzied speed into inky depths, turning blind corners from which black, gibbering bogeys leapt to attack, rushing headlong towards iron-studded doors, threatened by imminent collision, fingered by spectral hands, moving at last with dreadful, ever increasing momentum towards a shape that lay across the line.