Again Mrs Gosling began to reply, but Blanche was too quick for her. “Tell me what you mean by ‘all right’?” she asked, raising her voice to drown her mother’s “Well, I never did ’ear such——”
“Well, of course, mother’ll give you any mortal thing you want,” replied the young woman at the gate. “Dear old mater! She simply won’t think of what we’re going to do in the winter; and I mean, if you come in for to-night, say, and we let you have a few odd things, you won’t go and plant yourselves on us like that Mrs Isaacson and one or two others, because if you do, Aunt May and I will have to turn you out, you know.”
“What we ’ave we’ll pay for,” said Mrs Gosling with dignity.
The young woman smiled. “Oh, I dare say!” she said; “pay us with those pretty little yellow counters that aren’t the least good to anyone. You wait here half a jiff. I’ll find Aunt May.”
She ran up the path and entered the house. A moment later they heard her calling “Aunt May! Auntie—Aun-tee!” somewhere out at the back.
“Let’s ’ope ’er Aunt May’ll ’ave more common sense,” remarked Mrs Gosling.
Blanche turned on her almost fiercely. “For goodness sake, mother,” she said, “do try and get it out of your head, if you can, that we can buy things with money. Can’t you see that everything’s different? Can’t you see that money’s no good, that you can’t eat it, or wear it, or light a fire with it, like that other woman said? Can’t you understand, or won’t you?”
Mrs Gosling gaped in amazement. It was incredible that the mind of Blanche should also have been distorted by this terrible heresy. She turned in sympathy to Millie, who had taken her mother’s seat on the pole of the trolly, but Millie frowned and said:
“B.’s right. You can’t buy things with money; not here, anyway. What’d they do with money if they got it?”
Mrs Gosling looked at the trees, at the cows lying at the edge of the wood, at the sunlit fields beyond the house, but she saw nothing which suggested an immediate use for gold coin.