Grace Benton took Mr Harcourt’s room on the last Thursday in April. She came without her brother, carrying a box of paints and a small case which made me think of all the things she had not been able to bring.
“The rest will come on Saturday,” she said. “He has agreed to lend me a cart.”
She said agreed as if the cart had been the final item in a negotiation which had lasted years.
I took her upstairs. She went first to the window. Outside, the horse chestnut at the end of the street had begun to put out leaves. It was a poor specimen, cramped between the pavement and a wall, but it could be seen from the front room and not from any of the other rooms I had to let.
“I can draw at this window,” she said.
“As long as nothing is spilt.”
She turned. I had seen her smile over Ruth’s portrait, heard her voice fill my sitting room, and this was the first thing I found to say when she became a lodger.
“The watercolours clean off,” she said. “I put paper underneath.”
“Good.”
She set the box on the table. On its lid were marks of three different colours, rubbed together over years until they made one I could not name.
“I’d like to pay now.”
We had agreed nineteen shillings and sixpence a week, including breakfast and supper. She taught drawing at several houses and ate luncheon where she could. It was less than Mr Harcourt had paid. I had heard myself offering the reduction while she was looking at the light, and could not afterwards pretend I had done it because she asked.
She gave me the money, then asked if she might have a key.
“You won’t often be late?”
“Sometimes. I shall try not to disturb anyone.”
I gave her the spare. She closed her hand round it, looked back at the window and forgot for a moment that I was still there.
In the kitchen Nell put the coins beside the book.
“Did you agree a smaller price because the room was empty?”
“I agreed it because she couldn’t afford more.”
“Did she say that?”
I began taking things out of the market basket. “I know what lessons cost.”
“Not hers.”
There were radishes wrapped in newspaper, two onions and a piece of fish which needed cooking before it could be discussed further. I put it on the plate and carried the basket into the scullery. By the time I came back Nell had written the new amount in the book without another question.
That was worse than if she had gone on.
Grace settled without making a scene of it. On Saturday her brother brought the cart and carried up the trunks himself. He was a large, anxious man who inspected the banister while I made tea. I had expected someone I could dislike easily. Instead he thanked me for taking care of his sister, and looked hurt when she said she would take care of herself.
“I only meant—”
“I know, Harry.”
She put her hand briefly against his sleeve. They had the same long fingers. He looked down at hers, then picked up the empty case he had brought for the packing cloths.
After he left she stood on the stairs listening to the sound of the cart. I carried the teapot past her without asking whether she wanted him to come back.
On the Monday she brought me a drawing of the house. It was not a flattering view. The steps leaned a little and the windows on the upper floors seemed to be waiting for something. Yet the doorway was open and a shape inside it might have been a person or a patch of light.
“For the room,” she said. “If you want it.”
“It’s very fine.”
“No. It’s rather quick.”
She did not mean me to contradict her. I could hear it in the matter-of-fact way she said it. She had made a thing, liked it enough to offer it, and would make another when she had time. I took it upstairs and propped it against the clock.
Ada came that afternoon with a woman named Mrs Norridge. She owned a draper’s shop, wore a black dress which fitted so well I could tell without touching it what sort of material it was, and had the bright, assessing look of someone who could see a hem out of line from across a room.
“We want somewhere for a little supper,” she said. “Twelve, perhaps fourteen. Nothing elaborate.”
I thought of Mr Abel’s papers.
Ada looked round the sitting room. “We can use the dining room, surely. Eleanor has managed more than that at Christmas.”
“Not at one table.”
“Two, then.”
Mrs Norridge took a little notebook out of her bag. “The object is to raise money, so we mustn’t spend it all before we begin. There will be a few words afterwards. No one expects a dinner.”
“What do they expect?” I asked.
She gave me a list. Cold meat, salad, a pudding, coffee. It was an ordinary enough supper if one did not multiply it by fourteen and then remember the five people who lived in the house besides me. I asked what evening they had in mind.
“Friday week,” Ada said. “Nell can help you.”
“Nell has work.”
“In the afternoon. Surely not all evening.”
Mrs Norridge was looking at me. I could have made the entire proposal uncomfortable by explaining my daughter’s independence. Instead I took a pencil and wrote down the people we would need: somebody in the kitchen, somebody at the table, somebody at the door.
“And you?” she asked.
“One of those.”
“Which?”
I had not expected her to see it. She pulled the notebook nearer to her and put a line through the word simple.
“Tell me the cost,” she said. “As you would tell any customer.”
Ada sat back. I could not tell whether she was displeased or relieved. I named a sum which included Mrs Clegg’s time, Bessie’s if she chose it, and the food. Mrs Norridge considered it, asked whether we might have one pudding instead of two, and agreed.
“I shall send a deposit.”
“Thank you.”
“And have something yourself. Before everyone comes. I once entertained twenty people at my shop and discovered at ten o’clock that I had eaten nothing since breakfast except a piece of almond paste.”
She looked at Ada. “We’ll go to the printer now. Your sister will send the particulars.”
My sister rose. She was unusually quiet as I helped her with her coat.
“You needn’t have contradicted me about Nell.”
“She wasn’t here to answer.”
“I know. I spoke without thinking.”
She looked towards the kitchen door. I waited for her to add something, but she only drew on her gloves and went out to join Mrs Norridge.
The supper was the first event I put in the book in my own hand. I had Nora Clegg’s agreement before I bought the food, and Bessie’s before I sent the final price. She was willing, provided Ada did not expect her in Hampstead until midday on Saturday. It would be a late night and she meant to be paid for it.
“I shall tell Mrs Fenwick,” she said.
I had almost offered to do it myself. Instead I asked whether she preferred a particular supper. She named something I could make without fuss, and we agreed that she and I would eat together before the guests arrived.
Nell found us over our plates on the night itself. Her cheeks were bright from the walk, and she had a little packet under her arm.
“He’s paid me.”
“Mr Abel?”
She put six shillings on the corner of the table. They were not her first wages; he had paid at the end of the trial. But this week the money had come without her having to remind him what they had agreed. It had become the ordinary end of her work, and the ordinariness delighted her.
“What did you buy?” Bessie asked, looking at the packet.
“Two handkerchiefs. One for me. One for Mother.”
She opened the paper. Mine had a narrow blue border, hers a little row of white flowers. I had expected to thank her, then put it in the drawer for a suitable occasion. Instead I unfolded it and touched it to the corner of my mouth.
“There,” I said. “It’s used.”
She laughed. Bessie held it up to the light and inspected the stitching as if it were something that could be valued as well as loved.
The supper went well until the pudding caught at the bottom. It was the sort of disaster which would once have made me feel exposed in my own kitchen. Nora Clegg took the spoon from my hand, tasted the part we had not scraped out, and said no one needed to know how little of it there had been.
We served it with stewed fruit. I heard Mrs Norridge praise it. Bessie came back into the kitchen and put a small dish on the table for me, so I would not have to enjoy the praise on someone else’s account.
Afterwards there were speeches. I could hear pieces of them while we cleared, the rise of a voice, a short laugh, Ada introducing the next woman. I had paid for help, and the help was working; no one had asked me to carry another plate. I washed my hands, took off my apron and went to the sitting-room door.
Ada saw me at once. “Here is my sister, who has made all this possible.”
People turned. I stood with the door handle still beneath my palm.
“Come and sit,” Mrs Norridge said.
There was a chair beside her. I crossed the room and took it. The next speaker began, and for several minutes I heard very little of what she said. My place was warm, the blue-edged handkerchief lay in my lap, and fourteen people had moved to let me through.