Nell asked for her money before breakfast.
She had put on her grey dress and the small hat without flowers which she wore to the shop. The furniture bill lay on the table beside the sugar bowl, folded to show the date. I had seen it there the night before and left it where it was.
“Shall we count it now?” she asked. “I want to take it before I go to Mr Abel’s.”
“The room deposit too?”
“Yes. It’s all on the bill.”
I looked towards the kitchen door. Mrs Keene was still upstairs; Mr Leach had left early; Miss Pym had gone to work. Grace was having breakfast in her room because she meant to finish something before a lesson. I had been given a privacy I had not earned.
“Nell, I have used some of it.”
She did not move. Her hand lay beside the bill with one finger on the corner.
“Used it for what?”
“The room. The talks. I was going to replace it before today.”
She drew her hand back.
I had expected anger at once. The stillness frightened me more. She looked towards the sitting room, where the new wall could be seen through the partly open door. Then she looked back at me.
“How much?”
“Ten pounds ten.”
“Of twelve pounds ten.”
“Yes.”
“You have two pounds left.”
“Yes.”
“Bring it.”
I got up. On the stairs I passed Grace coming down with her drawing board. She said good morning. I answered, though I could not later remember the sound I made. Upstairs the box stood where I had put it, concealed from strangers and available to me. I took out the envelope. Nell’s handwriting remained undisturbed across the front.
I brought it down and laid it beside the bill.
She opened it, tipped out the two pounds and counted them. She did not need to. I watched her do it because there was nothing I could offer in place of the accuracy.
“You said you weren’t asking me to pay.”
“I meant to pay it back.”
“You said it while you were paying with my money.”
“I hadn’t bought the chairs then.”
She looked at me. “What had you bought?”
I told her about the two guineas. The silence afterwards was complete enough for me to hear a spoon move in the kitchen where Mrs Clegg had come in by the back door. I had forgotten it was one of her mornings.
“You’d already done it.”
“Yes.”
“And you let me think I was being difficult.”
I sat down. The chair beneath me was one we had owned for years. I fixed my attention on the worn place at the edge of the table, as if I might find a reply in something familiar.
“I was ashamed,” I said.
“Not enough to stop.”
“No.”
She pushed the coins back into the envelope and folded the flap. Her hands were steady. She put it in her bag, then drew out her little account book.
“Show me where it went.”
I fetched the house book and receipts. She laid them in order, not because she intended to forgive me if they proved sensible but because she wanted to know what had happened to what was hers. I pointed to each amount: the two guineas, the four pounds ten for chairs, the painter, the lamp, the printing. She checked the total.
At the words Temporary advance she stopped.
“An advance from whom?”
“I hadn’t written—”
“I can see that.”
She turned the page back and looked at the lines before it. There were names beside little sums for other people’s work, paid on time. Nora Clegg. Bessie Ward. Grace Benton.
“I could have said no,” she said.
“I know.”
“Do you? Because I don’t think you wanted to let me.”
I wanted to say I would have listened. I remembered the way I had answered about the chairs, the tone I used when she asked what we could afford. I could not find a version of myself in those mornings who would have made a refusal easy.
Mrs Clegg appeared at the kitchen door, saw us and withdrew. Nell waited until the door had shut.
“I have to tell Arthur.”
“I can speak to him.”
“No.”
She said it at once, and with a force which ended the offer before I could improve it.
“No. You won’t tell this for me.”
I put my hands in my lap. She took the bill, the envelope and her book. At the door she stopped, not looking back.
“I was glad you wanted something, Mother. I wasn’t trying to take it from you.”
Then she went out. I heard the front door shut, not slammed, and the small sound was worse than anything I had imagined in the nights when I told myself she would never know.
I sat at the table until Mrs Clegg came in and put a cup beside me. She did not ask what had happened. I told her I would be in the sitting room if she needed me, then went there and stood among the chairs.
The new lamp had a little bright mark where the shop had removed its label. I rubbed it with my sleeve. It did not come off.
At noon I went to Mrs Norridge’s shop. I had meant to go on Saturday and ask about another supper, then decided it would be better not to appear anxious. Now anxiety was the least of what I would appear.
She saw my face and took me into the back room.
“What is it?”
I told her. Not all of it at once. At first I said there was a difficulty with the expenses, and she waited. Then I said I had borrowed money from Nell. She asked whether Nell had agreed. I shook my head.
“Then borrowed isn’t the word.”
“I know.”
“Does she know?”
“Yes. This morning.”
Mrs Norridge sat down opposite me. In the shop a customer was asking about a length of black cloth. I heard the assistant bring one down, the roll settling on the counter with a soft thump.
“I can pay it back,” I said. “I only need time.”
“How?”
“The evenings. The single places. If we fill the room—”
“Show me.”
I had brought the figures. They looked weaker on her desk. She separated the money already paid for the series from the money I hoped to receive, then put the speaker’s remaining fee beside both. She did not need to make a speech. What remained would not repay Nell. Much of it was already wanted to deliver what I had sold.
“I thought there would be more.”
“I expect there may be. But you spent it before there was.”
I stared at the books on the shelf behind her. She had arranged invoices there, paid and unpaid, and nothing about their order seemed contemptible to me now.
“I came to ask if you wanted another supper.”
“I don’t.”
She said it gently, but the answer had no room for me to mistake it.
“I could make it very reasonable.”
“You mustn’t make it less than it costs because you need cash today.”
I closed the book. I was angry with her for being clear, and ashamed to be angry, and too tired to keep either feeling from my face. She let me sit without asking me to be gracious about it.
At last she said she would come on Thursday as arranged. She had paid for a place and wished to hear the talk. She would not tell the women what had happened. If I needed advice about selling something, she knew people who would give an honest price, but she could not say it would be the price I hoped for.
I thanked her and went home.
Nell and Arthur were in the sitting room when I arrived. He stood as I entered, then remained beside her chair. His face looked older than it had over the curtain rings.
“I am sorry,” I said.
“Yes,” he replied.
I did not know whether he meant he had heard me or agreed that I should be. Nell sat with her gloves in her lap.
“The landlady will hold the rooms for another week,” she said. “I spoke to her. The man with the furniture won’t deliver until he is paid.”
“I can find something. Sell something.”
“How quickly?” Arthur asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
He sat down again. The three of us were surrounded by furniture I had bought to make other women comfortable. Nell looked at none of it.
“We aren’t deciding about the wedding today,” she said. “I can’t think about it sensibly while I have to think about telling everyone why.”
“You needn’t tell them why.”
She lifted her head. I saw, before she spoke, what I had asked of her.
“If I need to, I will.”
“Yes.”
Arthur put a hand on the back of her chair. “We can make our own arrangements. But you must tell her the truth about when the money can be returned. Not what you hope.”
“I will.”
“In writing,” Nell said.
I nodded. There had been a time when I would have heard the words as an insult. Now they were a way she could speak to me without having to trust the shape of my voice.
They went out together. I did not ask where. After the door shut I took the house book to the kitchen, opened it at Temporary advance and wrote Nell Bellamy beside the amount. The ink took a moment to dry. I left the book open until it had, instead of shutting it on another mark.