CHAPTER XIXAFTERWARDS
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 fewshillings—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 thefruiterer, 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—herbill 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....”
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....”
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 andcalculating.
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 theMoosical Timesfor this month——”
“Yes, I know about that: Ididorder 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’tbad.”
“And do you really enjoy them?”
“Not all of ’em, mum ... but some of ’em: well, mum, they ain’t at allbad....”
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 meantto 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.
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 lookin 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!
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 worriesen 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, beforeshe 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 contemplatedselling, 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’nfifty-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 sellthat.”
“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.
That evening the man came to fetch the cheval glass. He gave her five sovereigns and two half-crowns. Though she knew that the glasswas 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.
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 roomfor. 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.
Antique model. Splendid Bargain, £19 19s. 6d.