§ 5
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 worries en 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, before she 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 contemplated selling, 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’n fifty-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 sell that.”
“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.