Chapter 17: The Toast

"I have run hotels for thirty years," my father said.

"I know a bad debt when it sits down at my table."

Honoria's face did not move.

"Giles, sit down. You're upset."

"I am upset," he said. "I have been upset for eleven days, and I have been a coward for nine of them."

Twenty-one faces turned to him, and the aunts put their glasses down.

He took a folded paper from his breast pocket.

It was the one Honoria's solicitor had sent that afternoon, and I saw the line at the bottom where my name was meant to go.

"This," he said, "is a statement that my daughter remembers nothing of the hospital.

"I am told that if she signs it, and marries your son tomorrow, my hotels are safe."

"It is a perfectly kind offer," Honoria said.

"It is a gag."

He tore it in half, and then in half again, and let the pieces fall onto the white cloth.

A murmur ran round the table.

"I heard my daughter's recording in that hospital room.

"I stood there and heard every word your son said, and I chose the loan.

"It is the worst thing I have done in my life, and I will not do it twice."

"Giles."

"I will not give my daughter away tomorrow," he said. "Not to him, and not to you."

"Then you will lose everything," Honoria said, quietly.

"The bank calls the loan on Monday morning.

"You will be sleeping in a doorway by Tuesday."

"Then it will be a doorway of my own choosing."

My father looked down the table at me, and his eyes were wet, and he smiled.