[Dark Saint Alaick]

"Quite right. You could not have worthier people. Worked hard and I would like them to end their days in a nice little place like one of these."
He spoke heartily. He had a big voice and possessed a thick crop of curly, reddish-brown hair over a strongly featured face. His age was about thirty-five. "I can recommend them in every way," he added.
"I am glad of that, Mr. Jones," Roger said. "The trouble is we have nothing available for them. I was wondering if you would move out and let them come here?"
"That is not quite reasonable, is it?"
"Very reasonable, I think. You, as a Member of Parliament, are not the sort of person these places were meant for."
"Maybe, maybe not. Here I am and here I stay." Ewen grinned as one who knew his rights. "If it is a question of rents you will find me open to a fair settlement."
"As you should know," Roger replied, "it is nothing of that sort. My father intended these to be homes for the veterans of the services, or of industry generally. You got this by a sort of trick. You knew the Maxwells, a worthy old couple. When Maxwell had to go to hospital you suggested to his wife that you should come as a lodger. What you paid would help her. Lodgers, by the way, are not allowed or each house might take them, perhaps several of them, and the nature of the place would be changed. When Maxwell died you stayed on with Mrs. Maxwell as your housekeeper. When she died some months later you still stayed on. Mason, my father's agent, unfortunately accepted rent from you--"
"And so created a tenancy," the M.P. smiled. "I know the law on these things. If you wanted to live here yourself--"
"I do not. I have told you who it is for. Should you not be ashamed that a man of your position and of your means, son and heir to Lord Bethesda, should occupy a home meant for the aged and infirm and so keep your old gardener out of it?"