AFTERWARDS
§ 1
UNFORTUNATELY her illness, whilst not serious in itself, left her
with neuritis in her right arm. Until she should be rid of this, any
restarting of concert work was out of the question. To play even a hymn
tune with her right hand fatigued her, and all scale and arpeggio work
was physically impossible. When she was quite recovered from all save
the neuritis, she spent most of her time either reading or practising
the left-hand parts of various concert pieces. This latter exercise,
whilst not very entertaining to her in the musical sense, consoled her
with the thought that her time was not being entirely wasted, and that
when her right hand should come into use again her playing would be all
the better for this intensive development of her left. Every day she
visited a masseuse in the West-end and received an electric treatment
for her arm which Dr. McPherson recommended.
Money began to be somewhat of a difficulty with her. Thinking always
that her future was rosy with prospects and that her salary would be
sure to keep constantly increasing, she had never troubled to save
much, and had, indeed, been living slightly above her income ever
since she came to “Elm Cottage.” She paid twenty-five shillings a
week rent, seven and sixpence a week to Florrie, besides a weekly
half-crown to a visiting gardener and a charwoman. She had heaps of
incidental expenses--periodic tuning of the piano--her season ticket
to town--heavy bills for music, dresses and furniture (which she
was constantly buying)--her quarterly payment to the press-cutting
agency--books, magazines, expensive laundrying, a fastidious taste
in food and restaurants, all added to make her expenditure a few
shillings--sometimes a few pounds--per month in excess of her income.
During her illness, her income had been nil and her expenses enormous.
The nurse wanted two guineas a week, Dr. McPherson’s bills were
notoriously high, and in the case of a person like Catherine he would
probably charge more than usual. Five shillings a visit was his fee,
and for a fortnight he had come twice a day, and for the last three
weeks once. The West-end masseuse was even more exorbitant: her fees
were half a guinea for each electric treatment lasting about half an
hour. Household expenses were becoming terrific. The nurse seemed to
think that Catherine was a person of infinite financial resources: she
ordered from the grocer, the butcher, the poulterer and the fruiterer
whatever she had a fancy to, in or out of season, regardless of
expense. She and Catherine took their meals together, and Catherine’s
appetite was never more than half that of the nurse. So the weeks
passed and the bills of the tradesmen went piling up and Catherine’s
cheque account at the bank came tumbling down.
One morning the bill from Parker’s, provision merchant, High Street,
Bockley, arrived by post. Catherine had expected a heavy sum to pay,
but the account presented to her was absolutely staggering. It was
for nineteen pounds five and fourpence. As Catherine looked at it she
went quite white with panic. She dared not examine carefully every
item--she was afraid to see her own extravagance written down. But
as her eye swept curiously down the bill it caught sight of such
things as: Port wane, half dozen, forty-two shillings; pair of cooked
chickens, eight and six; two pounds of black grapes (out of season),
fifteen shillings.... The bill took away all Catherine’s appetite for
breakfast. From the writing-bureau she took out her bank pass-book:
it showed that she had fifty-three pounds four and nine on her cheque
account, and nothing on her deposit side. The situation became ominous.
Out of that fifty-three pounds would have to be paid the grocer’s
bill of nineteen pounds odd, the bills not yet forthcoming of the
fruiterer, fishmonger, poulterer, butcher, confectioner, and dairyman
(cream had been a heavy item in her diet). Plus this, small bills from
the bookseller, newsagent, tobacconist and laundryman. Plus this,
whatever Dr. McPherson had in store for her. Plus this, Madame Varegny,
masseuse--_her_ bill of costs. In March, too, would come the bill
from the press-cutting agency, the piano-tuner, and the renewal of her
season ticket.... All out of fifty-three pounds! Was it possible? ...
And, of course, rent and wages to Florrie.... Things were evidently
fast approaching a financial crisis.
One thing was absolutely clear: she must economize drastically and
immediately. And one of the first steps in that direction was to get
rid of the nurse and the doctor. Except for the neuritis in her arm she
was really quite well now, and both nurse and doctor were completely
unnecessary. But it required a tremendous effort to tell them their
services were no longer required. Her illness seemed to have sapped her
will power. The truth was (though she would never have admitted it) she
was afraid of both the doctor and the nurse. Only her greater fear of
the avalanche of the bills that was threatening her gave her a sort of
nervous determination.
When Dr. McPherson came in his car at ten o’clock that morning her
heart was beating wildly. She wondered even then if her courage would
be equal to the task.
“Good morning,” he announced genially, walking briskly into the
breakfast-room, “and how are we this morning? Getting along famously,
eh?”
“About the same,” she replied dully.
“Like the massage?”
“Fairly. I can’t feel it doing me any good, though.”
“Oh, you haven’t been having it long enough yet. We’ll soon set you up
again, you wait.... After all, you’re young. You’ve the best part of
life before you. An old lady of seventy I visited yesterday said if she
were only----”
“Doctor!” Her voice was trying to be firm.
“Yes?”
“I want you to stop visiting me.” (The thing was done!)
“But--my dear young lady--why ever----?”
“Because I am getting very short of money, and I shall have to
economize. I really can’t afford to keep having you visiting me every
day.”
“Well--of course--h’m--if you wish--I suppose. But you aren’t well yet.
I shall, at any rate, with your permission call occasionally not as a
doctor, but as a visitor. I am very deeply interested in your recovery.”
“It is very kind of you.... And one other thing: I want you to tell the
nurse to go also. I really don’t need her any longer. Perhaps, since
you brought her here, you wouldn’t mind----”
“Certainly, if you desire it. I’ll tell her when she comes to the
surgery for the medicine this afternoon.”
“Thank you ever so much.”
“You’ll continue with massage treatment?”
“Yes--for the present, at any rate.”
“Good ... you’ll begin to feel the effects of it in a day or two....
The weather is enough to keep anybody with neuritis. Simply rain, rain,
rain from morning till night. Shocking for colds and influenza. I have
over thirty cases of influenza. Twenty of them are round about High
Wood. It must be the Forest, I think, everything so damp and sodden....”
§ 2
The nurse went the following morning. Before going by one of the early
trains from Upton Rising she cooked herself a sumptuous breakfast
of ham and eggs, fish and coffee. She was going to her home in
Newcastle, and she took with her for refreshments on the journey
several hardboiled eggs, a bottle of invalid’s wine, and two packages
of chicken sandwiches. Coming up to Catherine’s bedroom just before
departure she shook hands very stiffly and wished her a swift recovery.
But her attitude was contemptuous.
After she had gone, Catherine called Florrie up to her and delivered a
sort of informal speech.
“You know, Florrie, that lately, while I’ve been ill, expenses have
been very high. And of course I haven’t had any money coming in at all.
Well, I haven’t got enough money to keep us spending at the rate I have
been, so I’ve had to cut down expenses drastically. The nurse has gone
for good and the doctor isn’t going to call so often.... You must be
careful not to waste anything. Don’t order from the grocer’s anything
that isn’t necessary. You’d better let me see the order before you give
it.... No fruits out of season ... we needn’t have meat every day, you
know ... and tell the gardener he needn’t come again until further
notice. There’s not much gardening to be done this time of the year....”
§ 3
A few days later came more bills.
Brigson’s, dairyman, High Road, Bockley, £4 0s. 3d.
Mattocks’, poulterer, The Causeway, Upton Rising, £8 9s. 0d.
Ratcliffe and Jones, confectioners. High Street, Bockley, £3 12s. 5d.
Thomas and Son, fruiterers, The Ridgeway, Upton Rising, £7 4s. 3d.
Hackworth, newsagents, High Wood, £2 0s. 8d.
Dr. McPherson, St. Luke’s Grove, Bockley, for services ... £15 12s.0d.
Total, £40 18s. 6d.!
Plus Parker’s bill, £60 3s. 10d.!
And she had £53 4s. 9d. to pay it with!
And there were yet a few more bills to come in!
And expenditure was still continuing, and no sign of being able to
start earning again!
Madame Varegny was costing money at the rate of three guineas a week.
There was not even fifty-three pounds four and nine in the bank,
for Catherine had drawn out ten pounds for pocket money and half of
that had gone on small expenses. She was faced with a problem. There
was bound to be a big deficit on her balance-sheet.... When the
first shock of the situation passed away she became quite cool and
calculating.
She wrote cheques in payment of Parker’s, Mattocks’, Ratcliffe and
Jones’, Thomas and Sons’, and Brigson’s bills. For they were shops at
which she was forced to continue dealing, and which would have refused
her credit if she had not settled promptly.
McPherson, she decided, could wait awhile....
On the bill of Hackworth, newsagents, she noticed items for books which
she had never ordered. She enquired at the shop one day and was shown
the detailed list. It included some, score paper-backed volumes by
Charles Garvice.
“But I never ordered these!” Catherine protested.
Mr. Hackworth shrugged his shoulders.
“You’ve ’ad ’em, anyway, miss. The nurse uster come in of a morning and
say: Mr. Hackworth, I want the _Moosical Times_ for this month----”
“Yes, I know about that: I _did_ order that----”
“Well, an’ then the nurse’d say afterwards: I want them books on this
list, an’ she giv’ me a bit o’ piper with ’em written down on.... Put
’em all down on the sime acahnt? I uster arst, an’ she uster sy: Yes,
you’d better....”
Catherine was more angry over this than over anything else.
At home in the kitchen she discovered Florrie reading one of these
paper-backed novels.
“Where did this come from?” she enquired sternly.
“Out of the bottom cupboard,” replied Florrie, conscious of innocence;
“there’s piles of ’em there. The nurse left ’em.”
Sure enough the bottom cupboard was littered with them. Their titles
ran the entire gamut both of chromatic biliousness and female
nomenclature. Catherine stirred them with her foot as if they had been
carrion.
“Look here, Florrie,” she said authoritatively. “Get. rid of all this
trash.... There’s a stall in Duke Street on a Friday night where they
buy this sort of thing second-hand. Take them down there next Friday
and sell them.”
Florrie nodded submissively.
“Yes, mum, I will ... only ... I’ve read ’em neely all, only there’s
jest a few I ain’t read yet; p’raps if I sowld the others I might keep
’em by till I’d finished reading of ’em ... wouldn’t take me long, mum!”
Catherine half smiled.
“I can’t think why you like reading them at all.”
Florrie looked critically at the volume in her hand.
“Well, mum, they ain’t _bad_.”
“And do you really enjoy them?”
“Not all of ’em, mum ... but some of ’em: well, mum, they ain’t at all
_bad_....”
§ 4
Fourteen of the paper-backed novels on the following Friday night
fetched one and six at the stall in Duke Street. Florrie’s tram fare
both ways, fourpence. Net receipts, one and twopence....
An unexpected bill came in, £1 10s. 0d. for coal.
When Catherine went to the bank to draw five pounds (by means of a
cheque made payable to herself) the clerk said: “By the way, miss,
your cheque account is getting low.... Excuse me mentioning it, but
we prefer you not to let it get too low.... Say fifty pounds ... of
course, for a while ... but as soon as you can conveniently ... you’ll
excuse me mentioning it....”
Catherine replied: “Of course, I hadn’t thought about that. I’ll put
some more in shortly. Thanks for letting me know.”
But it sent her into a fever of anxiety.
How was she to get any money to put in?
One afternoon she was strolling about the garden when, approaching the
kitchen window, she heard voices. It was Florrie talking to Minnie
Walker, the barmaid at the High Wood Hotel. Catherine did not like
Minnie Walker coming to see Florrie so often, particularly when they
drank beer in the kitchen together. She listened to see whether Minnie
had come to deliver any particular message or merely to have a drink
and a chat and to waste Florrie’s time. If the latter, Catherine meant
to interfere and tell Minnie to go.
The conversation she overheard was as follows:
MINNIE. I s’pouse the food ain’t so good now the nurse ’as
gone. She wasn’t arf a beauty, eh?
FLORRIE. She knew ’ow ter set a tible, anyway. Chicken every
night, I uster git. She had the breast, an’ uster leave me the legs.
But the old girl don’t do that now. Can’t afford to. Fact is, the
nurse run up some pretty big bills for ’er. She can’t py ’em all, I
don’t think.
MINNIE. Then she is owing a good deal, eh?
FLORRIE. I dessay. Corsts ’er ten and six a time fer this
messidge treatment wot she ’as evry dy. I know that ’cos the nurse
said so.
MINNIE. Yer wanter look out she pys you prompt. ’Case she
goes bankrupt.
FLORRIE. You bet I tike care o’ myself. Wait till she don’t
giv me my money of a Friday and I’ll tell her strite.
Catherine turned away burning with rage.
That night when Florrie came up to lay the tea, Catherine said: “By the
way, Florrie, I give you a week’s notice from to-night.”
“Why, mum?”
“Because I don’t wish to have anybody in the house who discusses my
private business with outsiders.”
“But, mum, I never----”
“Don’t argue. I overheard your conversation. I don’t want any
explanations.”
“Well, mum, they do say that listeners never ’ear no good of
themselves, so If you will go key-’olin’ round----”
“Please leave the room. I don’t wish to talk to you.”
“Very well, mum. It it suits you, it suits me, ’m sure. It won’t be no
’ard job for me ter git another plice----”
“I have told you to go.”
“I’m goin’. By the way, there’s two letters wot come at dinner-time.”
“Bring them up, then.”
“Yes, mum.”
A moment later she returned carrying on a tray two unsealed envelopes
with half-penny stamps. From the half-malignant, half-triumphant look
in her eyes, Catherine was almost sure she had examined their contents.
After Florrie had gone, Catherine opened them.
More bills!
Peach and Lathergrew, butchers, High Road, Bockley, £6 16s. 2d.
Batty, fish merchant, The Causeway, Upton Rising, £5 5s. 10d.
The crisis was coming nearer!
§ 5
The persistent piling up of disaster upon disaster inflicted on her a
kind of spiritual numbness, which made her for the most part insensible
to panic. The first bill (the one from the grocer’s) had had a much
more disturbing effect on her than any subsequent one or even than the
cumulative effect of all of them when she thought about her worries
_en masse_.
There came a time when by constant pondering the idea of being
hopelessly in debt struck her as a very inadequate reason for
unhappiness. But at odd moments, as blow after blow fell, and as she
slipped insensibly into a new stratum of society, there would come
moments of supreme depression, when there seemed nothing in the world
to continue to live for, and when the whole of her past life and future
prospects seemed nothing but heaped-up agony. Her dreams mocked her
with the romance of her subconsciousness. She would dream that she was
the greatest pianist in the world, that the mightiest men and women of
a hundred realms had gathered in one huge building to taste the magic
of her fingers, that they cheered and applauded whilst she played
things of appalling technical difficulty until she had perforce to
stop because her instrument could no longer be heard above the frenzy
of their shouting; that in the end she finished her repertoire of
difficult concert pieces, and in response to repeated demands for an
encore started to play a simple minuet of Beethoven, and that at the
simple beauty of the opening chords the great assembly hushed its voice
and remained tense and in perfect silence whilst she played. And,
moreover, that her quick eye had noticed in a far and humble corner of
the building Ray Verreker, straining to catch the music of the woman
whose fingers he had guided to fame. He was in rags and tatters, and
it was plain that fortune had played despicably with him. But, amidst
the thunderous applause that shook the building when her fingers had
come to rest, her eye caught his and she beckoned to him to approach.
He came, and she held out both her magic hands to raise him to the
platform. “This is my master,” she cried, in a voice that lifted the
furthest echoes, “this is my teacher, the one whose creature I am,
breath of my body, fire of my spirit! The honour you heap upon me I
share with him!”
Beautifully unreal were those dreams of hers. Always was she the
heroine and Verreker the hero. Always were their present positions
reversed, she, famous and wealthy and adored, and he, alone, uncared
for, helpless and in poverty, unknown and loving her passionately.
Always her action was the opposite of what his was in reality: she was
his kind angel, stooping to his fallen fortunes, and lifting them and
him by her own bounty....
Beautiful, unreal dreams! During the day she had no time for these
wandering fictions: work and worry kept her mind constantly in the
realm of stern reality; but at night-time, when her determination held
no longer sway, she sketched her future according to her heart’s desire
and filled it in with touches of passionate romance. To wake from these
scenes of her own imagining into the drab reality of her morning’s work
was fraught with horror unutterable....
Worst, perhaps, of all, her arm did not improve. It seemed as if the
three guineas’ worth per week of electric massage treatment were having
simply no effect at all, save to bring nearer the day of financial
cataclysm. And even if her neuritis were now to leave her, the long
period during which she had had no practice would have left unfortunate
results. Even granted complete and immediate recovery, it would be
fully a month, spent in laborious and intensive practising, before
she dare play again in public. Then, too, it would be necessary for
her to play brilliantly to retrieve the reputation tarnished by her
performance at the New Year’s concert. Moreover, she had no organizer
now, and she did not know quite what the work entailed by that position
was. And she felt nervous of playing again, lest she might further
damage her reputation.
But as long as she could not use her right arm these difficulties were
still hidden in the future.
Bills began to pour in by every post. Possibly Minnie Walker had used
her unrivalled position for disseminating gossip to spread rumours of
Catherine’s financial difficulties. At any rate, from the saloon-bar
of the High Wood Hotel the tale blew Bockleywards with marvellous
rapidity, and caused every tradesman with whom Catherine had an account
to send in his bill for immediate payment. There were bills from shops
that Catherine had forgotten all about. Photographers, picture-framers,
dyers and cleaners, leather-goods fanciers, all contributed their quota
to the gathering avalanche of ruin. When every conceivable bill had
arrived and had been added to the rest, the deficit on the whole was
over a hundred and twenty pounds. This included a bill of over thirty
pounds from a West-end dressmaker’s. Catherine had got past the point
when this appalling situation could have power to frighten her. She
just gathered all the unpaid bills into one small drawer of her bureau,
rigidly economized in all housekeeping expenses, and looked around the
house for things she did not want and could sell for a good figure.
There was the large cheval glass in her bedroom. It was curious that
she should think first of this. It was one of a large quantity of
toilet furniture that she had bought when she first came to “Elm
Cottage.” It was a beautiful thing, exquisitely bevelled and lacquered,
and framed in carved ebony, She had liked it because she could stand in
front of it in evening dress and criticise the whole poise and pose of
herself. She had been accustomed to let down her hair in front of it at
night and admire the red lustre reflected in the glass. Hours she must
have spent posing in front of it. And yet now, when she contemplated
selling, this was the first thing she thought of.... Curious! ... The
fact was, she was getting old. Or so she felt and thought. Her hair
was becoming dull and opaque; there were hard lines about her eyes
and forehead. Never beautiful, she was now losing even that strange
magnetic attractiveness which before had sufficed for beauty. So the
cheval glass which reminded her of it could go....
She called at Trussall’s, the second-hand dealers in the Bockley High
Road, and told them about it. They offered to send up a man to inspect
it and make an offer. Catherine, too, thought this would be the best
plan. When she arrived back at “Elm Cottage” she diligently polished
the ebony frame and rubbed the mirror till it seemed the loveliest
thing in the room. She even rearranged the other furniture so that the
cheval glass should occupy the position of honour.
The man came--a gaunt little snap-voiced man in a trilby hat. Did he
fail to notice how the lawn was growing lank and weedy, the flower-beds
covered with long grass, the trellis work on the pergola rotting and
fallen?
He tapped the mirror in a business-like fashion with his nail and
examined cursorily the carving.
“H’m,” he said meditatively. “We’ll offer you five pounds for it.”
Catherine flushed with shame.
“Why,” she cried shrilly, “I paid forty guineas for it, and it was
priced at more than that!”
He coughed deprecatingly.
“I’m afraid we couldn’t go beyond five, ma’am.” If he had not been
slightly impressed by the vehemence of her protest he would have added:
“Take it or leave it!”
“Come downstairs,” she commanded, “I want you to value a few things for
me.”
The fact was that she was prepared to be ironically entertained by the
niggardly sums he offered. She brought him to the piano.
“Here,” she said, “a Steinway baby grand, splendid tone, good as new,
fine rosewood frame; what’ll you offer for that?”
He thumped the chord of A major.
“Sixty,” he replied.
“Sixty what?”
“Pounds ... might go to guineas.”
“Look here, do you know I paid a hundred and twenty guineas less than
twelve months ago for it?”
“All I know, ma’am, is it ain’t worth more than sixty to me.”
“But it’s practically new!”
“That don’t alter the fact that it’s really second-hand. There’s no
market for this sort of thing. Second-hand uprights, maybe, but not
these things. Besides, it ain’t a partic’lar good tone.”
“I tell you it’s a lovely tone. Wants tuning a bit, that’s all. D’you
think you know more about pianos than I do?”
“Can’t say, ma’am, whether I do or I don’t.”
“Do you ever go to London concerts?”
“No time for it, ma’am.”
“Have you ever heard of Catherine Weston?”
“The name ain’t familiar to me. What about ’er?”
Catherine paused as if to recover from a blow, and continued more
calmly: “She said this piano had a lovely tone. She played at the
Albert Hall.”
The man ground his heel into the carpet.
“Well, ma’am,” he replied, “if Miss Catherine Weston thinks this piano
is worth more than sixty pounds you’d better ask her to buy it off of
you. All I’m saying is this, it ain’t worth no more to me than what I
offered. Sixty pounds, I said: I dunno even if I’d go to sixty guineas.
Take it or leave it for sixty pounds. That’s my rule in this business.
Make an offer and never go back on it, an’ never go no further on
it. That’s what I calls fair business. If you think that you can get
more’n sixty anywhere else you can try. I ain’t arskin’ you to let
me ’ave it. Reely, I dunno that I want it. I might ’ave it takin’ up
ware’ouse room for months on end.... But of course if you was to come
back to me after trying other places I couldn’t offer you no more’n
fifty-five--guineas, maybe. Wouldn’t be fair to myself, in a kind of
manner.... Sixty--look ’ere. I’ll be generous and say guineas--sixty
guineas if you’ll sell it now--cash down, mind! If not----”
She laughed.
“I’ve really no intention of selling at all,” she broke in, half
hysterically, “I only wanted a valuation.”
“Oh! I see,” he replied, taken aback. “Then wot about the glarss
upstairs, eh? Five pounds is wot I said.”
“Make it guineas,” she said firmly.
“Pounds, ma’am.”
“Five guineas,” she cried shrilly, “or I shan’t sell it.” The bargain
demon had seized hold of her.
“It ain’t worth more’n pounds to me.”
“Then I’ll keep it.... Good afternoon.”
She turned to the door. He shuffled and sat down on the piano-stool.
“Well, ma’am, I’ll say guineas, then, as a favour to you. Only you’re
drivin’ a hard bargain with me.... Do you agree to guineas?”
“Yes ... I’ll take five guineas for it ... cash down.”
“The man’ll pay you when he comes to fetch it, ma’am.”
“I thought you said cash down.”
“Well, and ain’t that cash down enough for you? Wot do you expect? ...
I’ll send the man down in a couple of hours.”
“All right, then ... good afternoon.”
At the door he said:
“By the way, ma’am, I’ll keep that offer of sixty guineas for the piano
open for a few days ... so that if ...”
She replied hastily: “Oh, I’m not going to sell _that_.”
“Very well, ma’am ... only I’ll give sixty for it if you should want to
get rid of it.”
Then she came back to the piano and looked at it, and did not know
whether to laugh or to cry.
§ 6
That evening the man came to fetch the cheval glass. He gave her
five sovereigns and two half-crowns. Though she knew that the glass
was worth double and treble what she was receiving for it, she was
immensely pleased by that five shillings which she had extracted solely
by her own bargaining.... The rent-man called that night and nearly
all the five guineas vanished in the month’s rent.... And by the late
evening post came a demand note from Jackson’s, the photographers,
printed on legal-looking blue paper, and informing her that if the
bill of seven pounds ten and six were not paid within three days,
legal proceedings would be instituted.... And it was Jackson’s in
the old days where she had always met with such unfailing courtesy
and consideration, Jackson’s where her photograph as an Eisteddfod
prize-winner had been taken and exhibited in the front window free of
charge....
She called at Trussall’s the next morning.
“About that piano,” she began.
The man was immediately all attention.
“You wish to sell it, ma’am? ... Well, my offer’s still open.”
“Yes, but I want a smaller piano as part exchange. I can’t do without
a piano of some sort.... I want an upright, not such a good one as the
other, of course.”
“Come into the showrooms,” he said, beckoning her to follow.
They wandered up and down long lanes of upright pianos.
“This,” he said, striking the chord of A major (always the chord of A
major) on one of them--“Beautiful little instrument ... rich tone ...
upright grand ... good German make--Strohmenger, Dresden ... worth
forty pounds if it’s worth a penny, sell it to you for thirty-five
guineas....”
“Can’t afford that,” she said. “Show me something for about twenty.”
“There’s this one,” he said, rather contemptuously. “Good English
make ... eighteen guineas ... cheapest we have in the shop. But, of
course, you wouldn’t want one like that.”
She struck a few chords.
“I’ll take that ... and you can send it up and take the other away as
soon as you like.”
“Very good, ma’am.”
When she returned she had a sudden fit of sentimentality as she looked
at the Steinway grand. It was a beautiful instrument, black and
glossy and wonderfully sleek, like a well-groomed horse. Its raised
sound-board reflected her face like a mirror. She sat down on the stool
in front of it and tried to play. But her right hand was woefully
disorganized. She started a simple minuet of Beethoven, one that she
had played as an encore to a Cambridge audience, but the pain in her
right hand and arm was so great that she did not go further than the
first few bars. Then she tried trick playing with her left hand alone,
and when that became uninteresting there was nothing for her to do but
to cry. So she cried....
When the furniture van had arrived and a couple of men had carried the
beautiful piano into a dark cavity of straw and sackcloth, leaving
behind them in exchange a mocking little upstart in streaky imitation
fumed oak, not even the presence in her bureau drawer of sixty pounds
in notes and gold could compensate her adequately. The new piano looked
so cheap and tawdry amongst the surrounding furniture, and the space
where the old one had been was drearily vacant and ever remindful of
her loss.
The same day she wrote cheques to half a dozen tradesmen, and as she
went out to post them, put fifty pounds into her cheque account at the
bank. She felt that slowly, at any rate, she was winning in her contest
with fortune.
§ 7
Unfortunately the avalanche of bills had not yet quite spent itself,
and Madame Varegny suggested an interim payment of her account,
amounting to thirty-two treatments at half a guinea each: total sixteen
pounds sixteen.
And then one night as Catherine was lying awake in bed, the whole
fabric of the future seemed revealed to her. After all, her first steps
were inevitable: she would have to leave “Elm Cottage,” take a smaller
house or go into lodgings, and sell what furniture she had no room
for. It would be better to do that now than to wait until the expensive
upkeep of “Elm Cottage” had squandered half her assets. She was so
accustomed now to her gradual descent in the social scale that even
this prospect, daring and drastic as it was, did not perturb her much.
The next day she went round the house, noting the things that she could
not possibly take with her if she went into a smaller house or into
lodgings. Lodgings she had in mind, because her arm prevented her from
doing any but a minimum of housework, and if in lodgings she could pay
for any services she required.
She did not go to Trussall’s this time to arrange for a valuation of
what she desired to sell. For some days before she had been walking
along the High Road past Trussall’s window, and had had the experience
of seeing her own ebony-framed cheval glass occupying a position of
honour in the midst of a miscellany of bedroom bric-à-brac. On a card
hung on to the carving at the top was the inscription:
Antique model. Splendid Bargain, £19 19s. 6d.