Page 32 of The Armor of Light

Amos was still mystified. He knew Hornbeam, of course; everyone did. He had come to the wake, and Amos had seen him talking to his friend Humphrey Frogmore a minute ago. Hornbeam had come to Kingsbridge fifteen years ago. He had bought the cloth business belonging to Canon Midwinter’s father-in-law, Alderman Drinkwater, and had turned it into the biggest enterprise in town. Obadiah had respected him as a hard-nosed businessman without much liking him. ‘Why would my father have borrowed money from him? From anybody?’

‘I don’t know.’

Amos looked around for a tall, frowning figure in sober but costly clothing, a curly light-brown wig his only concession to vanity.

Jane said: ‘He was here, but I’m pretty sure he left.’

‘I’ll go after him.’

‘Amos, wait.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he’s not a kind man. When you talk to him about this you should be armed with all the information.’

Amos forced himself to stand still and think. ‘You’re absolutely right,’ he said after a moment. ‘Thank you.’

‘Wait until your guests have left. Help your mother put the house straight. Find out the truth about your finances. And then go to see Hornbeam.’

‘That’s exactly what I’ll do,’ said Amos.

Jane left with her father, but some of the guests lingered, keeping Amos from what he urgently needed to do. A downstairs group seemed determined to stay until the barrel was empty. Amos’s mother and Ellen began to clear away around them, taking away the used crockery and the remaining food. Finally Amos politely asked the last stragglers to go home.

Then he went to the office.

In the two days since his father died he had been too busy with funeral arrangements to look at the books. Now he wished he had made time.

The office was as familiar to him as every other part of the house, but he now realized he did not know where to find everything. There were invoices and receipts in drawers and in boxes on the floor. A notebook had names and addresses, in Kingsbridge and elsewhere, with no indication of whether the people were customers, suppliers, or something else. A sideboard bore a dozen or so heavy ledgers, some upright and some lying flat, none titled. Any time he had asked his father a question about money he had been told that he did not need to bother about that until he was twenty-one.

He started with the ledgers, picking one at random. It was not difficult to understand. It showed money received and money paid out day by day, and totalled at the end of every month. Most months, receipts exceeded spending, so a profit was made. Occasionally there would be a loss. Turning to the first page, he saw that it was dated seven years ago.

He found the most recent ledger. Checking the monthly totals, he saw that receipts were usually less than costs. He frowned. How was this possible? He went back over the last two years and saw that losses had been increasing gradually. But there were several large receipts mysteriously labelled: ‘From H. account.’ They were round figures – ten pounds, fifteen pounds, twenty – but each roughlybalanced the deficit of the previous few months. And there were regular small amounts marked: ‘Int. 5%’.

A picture was forming, and it was very worrying indeed.

On a hunch he turned to the back page of the most recent book and found a short column headed: ‘H. Account.’ It began eighteen months ago. Each entry corresponded to an entry in the monthly figures. Most of the numbers on the back page were negative.

Amos was appalled.

Father had been losing money for two years. He had borrowed to make up his losses. Two positive entries on the back page showed that he had paid some of the money back, but had soon been forced to borrow again.

‘Int.’ meant interest, and ‘H.’ had to be Hornbeam. Jane had been right.

The balance at the foot of the back page was one hundred and four pounds, thirteen shillings and eight pence.

Amos was devastated. He had thought he was inheriting a viable business, but he had been landed with a massive debt. A hundred pounds was the purchase price of a fine house in Kingsbridge.

He had to pay it back. To Amos, it was wicked and shameful to owe money and not pay. He could hardly live with himself if he became that kind of person.

If he could turn the losses into a modest profit of a pound a month it would still take him almost nine years to pay off the debt – and that would be without buying food for himself and his mother.

This explained his father’s meanness and secrecy in recent years. Obadiah had been keeping his losses hidden – perhaps in the hope of turning the business around, although he seemed to have done little to that purpose. Or maybe the illness that had shown itself in shortness of breath had also affected his mind.

Amos would find out more from Hornbeam. But he could not just ask Hornbeam questions. He needed to reassure Hornbeam thatthe debt would be paid just as fast as possible. He had to impress Hornbeam with his determination.

And it was not just Hornbeam he had to worry about. Other Kingsbridge businessmen would be watching him. Having known his father, and having seen Amos prove himself a competent assistant, they would look kindly on him, at least at first. But if he began by going bankrupt their friendship would melt away. It was important that everyone should know how hard Amos was working to pay his father’s debts.

Would Hornbeam be understanding, despite his stern demeanour? He had tried to help Obadiah cope with business difficulties, which was a good sign – although he had charged interest, of course. And he had known Amos since childhood, which ought to count for something.