Your father Charlie became a gay young man about town, and very much the
fashion. He was like you in person, only his forehead was lower, and his
eye not so steady. Mr. Darrell studied the law in chambers. When Robert
Haughton died, what with his debts, what with his father's, and what with
Charlie's post-obits and I O U's, there seemed small chance indeed of
saving the estate to the Haughtons. But then Mr. Darrell looked close
into matters, and with such skill did he settle them that he removed the
fear of foreclosure; and what with increasing the rental here and there,
and replacing old mortgages by new at less interest, he contrived to
extract from the property an income of nine hundred pounds a year to
Charlie (three times the income Darrell had inherited himself), where
before it had seemed that the debts were more than the assets.
Foreseeing how much the land would rise in value, he then earnestly
implored Charlie (who unluckily had the estate in fee-simple, as Mr.
Darrell has this, to sell if he pleased) to live on his income, and in a
few years a part of the property might be sold for building purposes, on
terms that would save all the rest, with the old house in which Darrells
and Haughtons both had once reared generations. Charlie promised, I
know, and I've no doubt, my dear young sir, quite sincerely; but all men
are not granite! He took to gambling, incurred debts of honour, sold the
farms one by one, resorted to usurers, and one night, after playing six
hours at piquet, nothing was left for him but to sell all that remained
to Mr. Cox the distiller, unknown to Mr. Darrell, who was then married
himself, working hard, and living quite out of news of the fashionable
world. Then Charlie Haughton sold out of the Guards, spent what he got
for his commission, went into the Line; and finally, in a country town,
in which I don't think he was quartered, but having gone there on some
sporting speculation, was unwillingly detained, married--"