She had promised
Edward to leave the spending of his own income in his own
hands. And she had fully meant to do that. I daresay she would
have done it too; though, no doubt, she would have spied upon his
banking account in secret. She was not a Roman Catholic for
nothing. But she took so serious a view of Edward's unfaithfulness
to the memory of poor little Maisie that she could not trust him
any more at all .
So when she got back to Branshaw she started, after less than a
month, to worry him about the minutest items of his expenditure.
She allowed him to draw his own cheques, but there was hardly a
cheque that she did not scrutinize--except for a private account of
about five hundred a year which, tacitly, she allowed him to keep
for expenditure on his mistress or mistresses. He had to have his
jaunts to Paris; he had to send expensive cables in cipher to
Florence about twice a week. But she worried him about his
expenditure on wines, on fruit trees, on harness, on gates, on the
account at his blacksmith's for work done to a new patent Army
stirrup that he was trying to invent. She could not see why he
should bother to invent a new Army stirrup, and she was really
enraged when, after the invention was mature, he made a present
to the War Office of the designs and the patent rights.
Pages:
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272