§ 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....”