§ 5
At the inquest on Mr. Weston the usual verdict was brought in: “Suicide during temporary insanity.”
Catherine found herself in possession of a houseful of cheap furniture and a sum of twenty odd pounds in the Post Office Savings Bank. She retained a small quantity of clothing and a few kitchen utensils; the rest of the stuff at 24, Kitchener Road was sold by auction. It fetched fifty-five pounds when all expenses had been deducted. She had a horror of hoarding vast quantities of lumber in the form of keepsakes and mementoes, so she destroyed everything that had no intrinsic value except the diaries Those she transported to Gifford Road and kept.
After everything had been settled she found herself the richer by a sum of sixty-eight pounds odd. She kept the eight odd and put the sixty in a bank. It struck her as rather ironical that she should benefit by her father’s death. Yet somebody had to have the money, so it might as well be she. With the eight pounds she bought herself some pretty dresses. For the first time in her life she could afford to put the question, “Will it look nice?” before “Will it wear well?” She experienced the keen joy of dressing from the artistic rather than from the strictly utilitarian point of view. She did not believe in “mourning”: her first dresses were reddish brown to match her hair, and white to throw her hair into vivid contrast. Always it was her hair that had to be considered....
When you saw her dressed up you would certainly not call her pretty, but you might confess to a sort of attractiveness....