None of the ordinary comforts of life
existed in the Tower, except indeed a vast warming apparatus which kept
it like an oven in winter; the only personal expenditure, beyond bare
necessaries, that Melrose allowed himself. Yet it was commonly believed
that he was enormously rich, and that he still spent enormously on his
collections. Undershaw had attended a London stockbroker staying in one
of the Keswick hotels, who had told him, for instance, that Melrose was
well known to the "House" as one of the largest holders of Argentine
stock in the world, and as having made also immense sums out of Canadian
land and railways. "The sharpest old fox going," said the Londoner,
himself, according to Undershaw, no feeble specimen of the money-making
tribe. "_His_ death duties will be worth raking in!"
Occasional gossip of this, or a more damaging kind, enlivened
convalescence. Undershaw and the nurses had no motives for reticence.
Melrose treated them uncivilly throughout; and Undershaw knew very well
that he should never be forgiven the forcing of the house. And as he, the
nurses, and the Dixons were firmly convinced that for every farthing of
the accommodation supplied him Faversham would ultimately have to pay
handsomely, there seemed to be no particular call for gratitude, or for
a forbearance based upon it.
Meanwhile Faversham himself did not find the character and intentions of
his host so easy to understand. Although very weak, and with certain
serious symptoms still persisting to worry the minds of doctor and nurse,
he was now regularly dressed of an afternoon, and would sit in a large
armchair--which had had to be hired from Keswick--by one of the windows
looking out on the courtyard.
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