“The advance royalty—that’s the money the publishers give me in advance—on my last book was two hundred pounds,” she said calmly.
She had never gone away to work, never had to pay for her food or for a roof over her head, never tried her strength or the strength of her resources in the struggle for livelihood amongst unsupported women.
Two hundred pounds for her year’s work was a large sum, with no calls upon it.
Willoughby repeated after her: “Two hundred pounds! I say! You don’t expect me to believe you get that just for writing a story?”
“Yes.” She was uncertain of the reason for his disbelief, and even whether he really did disbelieve her.
“But was it a serious book, or just a novel?” He really sounded perplexed.
“Oh, ‘just a novel’!” she said bitterly.
“Good Lord! How many do you write in a year?”
“That last one took me over a year. My first one I worked at, on and off, for five years.”
“I suppose it doesn’t matter to you, taking your time, but it would be quite worth scribbling them off one after the other, if you can get money like that without working for it, so to speak,” said Hal Willoughby.