The man at the lamp shop would not return seventeen shillings and sixpence. He had sold me a new lamp; I had brought back one which had been used. I explained that it had been lit only a few times, then stopped because he had not asked for an account of the evenings.
“I could give you thirteen.”
“It’s almost new.”
“Yes.”
He waited. Behind him another lamp, identical to mine, stood on the shelf. I had put the shade straight before wrapping it and cleaned the little bright place where the label had been. It remained visible. The man touched it with a finger and said nothing more.
I accepted thirteen shillings.
He gave me a receipt and put the lamp behind the counter. I went out carrying the empty wrapping paper because I could not think where else to put it. For the length of the street I was angry about the four shillings and sixpence. Then I remembered how readily I had spent the whole sum when the money did not belong to me.
At home I put the thirteen shillings in an envelope, wrote Nell’s name on it and left it on her table. No note explaining what I had sacrificed. No request that she acknowledge it before she was ready.
I still listened for her door when she came home.
She took the money. In the morning there was a little receipt beside my plate, dated, signed and stating what remained. I put it in the book. The house had not ceased to contain us, which made the formal exchange more painful than if she had gone away.
On Wednesday I went to see Mrs Hesketh. The dates in her diary were mine now. I had no right to make her discover a difficulty at the door of a room she was about to address.
I told her there had been a loss of money which had to be repaid. She asked whether it affected her fee. I said I had put the balance aside from the subscriptions and would not touch it. She asked whether the room would be ready. I said yes.
“Then what would you like me to do?”
“Nothing differently.”
She looked at me. “Have you told me because I need to know, or because you would like someone to say it will come right?”
I sat without answering. From the room below came the muffled sound of the dentist receiving a patient.
“I’m not trying to be severe,” she said. “But if I am to be paid, and the audience has bought what we promised, I can give the talks. The rest belongs somewhere else.”
“To my daughter.”
She waited.
“The money was my daughter’s. I took it without asking.”
Joan Hesketh closed the notebook. Her expression changed, not dramatically, but enough for me to see that I had given her a real fact in place of an inconvenience.
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes.”
She did not offer an opinion of me which I could carry home as an acquittal. We went through the books for Thursday and the arrangements for the interval. She asked for a glass of water where it could not be knocked over. I wrote it down. When I stood to leave, she said she would be there at seven.
The rest of the day passed in little acts which did not mend the large one. I took down the old lamp, cleaned it and set it on the table. I asked Mr Leach whether I could borrow his for the interval. He offered it without comment and said he supposed he would have to go to bed earlier. I told him he need not give it to me before half-past seven. We were still capable of an ordinary arrangement.
Nell spent the evening with Arthur. I did not know whether at his parents’ or in the rooms they might now lose. Grace went out to a lesson; Mrs Keene had a headache; Miss Pym was working late. I ate alone in the kitchen. The house I had always called full seemed to have rooms I had not noticed.
I took my exercise book upstairs, meaning to prepare the introduction. The page I had marked with such pleasure lay open beside the bed. I could not settle to it. Instead I found myself reading the first line I had written after hearing Joan Hesketh speak, the question about fortunate choices.
I shut the book. There was no comfort to be got from turning my conduct into a subject for a lecture.
On Thursday morning Bessie came early to see what help I would need that night. I had asked her to come because I could not rely on Nell to supply the hours around her own work. She hung up her coat and looked towards the sitting room.
“Where’s the lamp?”
“I took it back.”
She nodded. “Then we’ll put the other one nearer the window. You don’t want the light behind the speaker.”
I showed her where I had set the money for her work. She counted it, put it away and sat opposite me.
“Is Nell ill?”
“No.”
“She’s scarcely been in the kitchen.”
“I took some money she gave me to keep. For the room.”
Bessie did not look away. I had been afraid of her knowing and still found the words coming, perhaps because I could no longer bear the respect she gave me for doing one simple thing properly with her wages.
“Does she know?”
“Yes.”
“Are you giving it back?”
“As quickly as I can.”
She looked at the hall, where the new chairs stood waiting to be carried in. “Then it will take some time.”
“Yes.”
For a moment I expected her to tell me that I had been kinder than Ada. She had never said so; I had merely enjoyed the thought. She stood, took off her gloves and asked where we should put the cups.
We worked for an hour. At noon she took off the apron and hung it beside mine.
At five Nell came in. She went upstairs, then returned carrying a small list. I was at the sitting-room table with the introduction in front of me.
“These are the things still needed for the wedding,” she said. “What we’ve already paid. What we haven’t.”
I took the list, afraid to touch the paper with the fingers which had counted her money.
“Are you going ahead?”
“We haven’t decided.”
“I don’t want you to wait because of me.”
She sat down. “It isn’t enough for you not to want it.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
I looked at the list. The dress was finished. The cake sat in the tin. The rooms and furniture were unpaid. Everything had looked almost complete because the largest sum had been put safely away, and now the small completed things stood round an absence.
“Would you like me to ask the landlady for more time?”
“No. I have spoken to her.”
I nodded. Nell folded the list and put it back into her bag. Before she rose, she looked at the page in front of me.
“You’re doing the introduction.”
“I promised.”
She read the first few words. “You can still do it, Mother.”
I looked up too quickly, hoping for a gentleness she had not offered.
“That isn’t what I mean,” she said. “I don’t want you to stand up there looking at me every time you speak, as if I could give you permission to enjoy it. I can’t do that tonight.”
The sentence was hard, and merciful in a way I would not understand until later. I had been preparing to make my unhappiness visible and hope she would come to relieve it. She had seen that, too.
“I won’t,” I said.
She went upstairs. I remained at the table until I could read the introduction without hearing it as a plea. Then I put the page beside the old lamp and went to open the door.