the way in which richard hand senior came to go to keturah smiley for money was this: the affairs of the blue port bivalve company, though generally prosperous, required, at certain seasons, ready money. and despite his $20,000, now considerably grown, richard hand could not always put his fingers on it. he had little use for banks. he paid doctor’s bills for babies at about eight per cent., equipped young married couples at as high as sixteen per cent.—for had they not the rest of their lives to pay it off in?—and buried people at an average rate of twelve per cent. this was good business.
he had got all blue port under his thumb except keturah smiley. it irked him to see walking along main street the tall, stiff figure of the only woman who had ever turned him down on a business proposition. he would go over, speculatively, the character, disposition, and probable fortune of his lost sister-in-law.
she owned a good deal of land. richard hand did not love land, but this was good land, in one large tract, reaching from the south country road to the bay. the larger part was high ground, partly wooded. through the centre of it flowed hawkins creek. summer[122] cottages, the creek being dredged as a boat basin, or, with a spur of track, a factory site?
when he saw keturah smiley he explained, with a good deal of tiresome detail, the affairs of the blue port bivalve company.
“i won’t put a cent in it,” keturah told him.
“i don’t ask you to. i don’t ask you to,” mr. hand explained, soothingly. “i know how women feel about such things. ’tirely right, too, ’tirely right. but it’s a good company and in good shape. only we need money in hand to lease more oyster beds to p’vide for expanding business. just $5,000 would set us right.”
“five thousand shucks! i wouldn’t trust you with five cents!”
“well, maybe you’d trust horace hollaby. i’ll pledge the leases with him as security.”
keturah thought it over. there could be no question of judge hollaby’s honesty. a $5,000 mortgage coming due in six months was certain to be paid. meantime, the bank would let her have the money. there would be no profit in it, of course, but curiously enough, for once she was not thinking of that. she was thinking of an interview many years ago, and of how she would love to hurt this man.
a desire to pay him off surprised and dominated her. she did not see in the least how it was to be done, but if it was to be done this entrance into business relations[123] with him was necessary and would constitute, in some way not now clear, the first step.
“you take the leases up to judge hollaby. i’ll go over them with him, and if they’re all right you go to him and get the money,” she directed.
and then she thought—hard.
