Ebook The End of the House of Alard

A few days before Christmas in the year 1918, most of the Alards were gathered together in the drawing-room at Conster, to welcome Peter the heir. He had been demobilised a month after the Armistice and was now expected home, to take on himself the work of the estate in the place of his brother Hugh. The Alards employed an agent, and there were also bailiffs on one or two of the farms, but the heir's presence was badly needed in these difficult days. Sir John held the authority, and the keenness of his interest was in no wise diminished by his age; but he was an old man, nearly seventy-five, and honourably af?icted with the gout. He could only seldom ride on his grey horse from farm to farm, snarling at the bailiff or the stockman, winking at the chicken girl — even to drive out in his heavy Wolsey car gave him chills. So most days he sat at home, and the work was done by him indeed, but as it were by current conducted through the wires of obedient sons and servants. This afternoon he sat by the fire in the last patch of sun light, which his wife hankered to have shut off from the dam asked armchair.