“Even so, it’s three-and-four, and you can’t do breakfast and supper and full board on Saturday and Sunday under seven shillings. It’s tight enough to manage on that. Altogether it often mounts up to twelve.”
“Seventeen and twelve.” Claire pondered deeply before she arrived at a solution. “Twenty-nine. Call it thirty, to make it even, and I am to begin at a hundred and ten. Over two pounds a week. I ought to do it comfortably, and have quite a lot over.”
Miss Rhodes laughed darkly.
“What about extras?” she demanded. “What about laundry, and fires, and stationery and stamps? What about boot-mending, and Tubes on wet days, and soap and candles, and dentist and medicines, and subs, at school, and collections in church, and travelling expenses on Saturdays and Sundays, when you invariably want to go to the very other side of the city? London is not like a provincial town. You can’t stir out of the house under fourpence or sixpence at the very least. What about illness, and amusement, and holidays? What about—”
Claire thrust her fingers in her ears with an air of desperation.
“Stop! Stop! For pity’s sake don’t swamp me any more. I feel in the bankruptcy court already, and I had imagined that I was rich! A hundred and ten pounds seemed quite a big salary. Everybody was surprised at my getting so much, and I suppose you have even more?”
“A hundred and fifty. Yes! You must remember that we don’t belong to the ordinary rut of worker—we are experts. Our education has been a long costly business. No untrained worker could take our place; we are entitled to expert’s pay. Oh, yes, they are quite good salaries if you happen to have a home behind you, and people who are ready to help over rough times, instead of needing to be helped themselves. The pity of it is that most High School-mistresses come from families who are not rich. The parents have made a big effort to pay for the girls’ education, and when they are fairly launched, they expect to be helped in return. Some girls have been educated by relations, or have practically paid for themselves by scholarships. Three out of four of us have people who are more in need of help than able to give it. I give my own mother thirty pounds a year, so we are practically on the same salary. Have you a home where you can spend your holiday? Holidays run away terribly with your money. They come to nearly four months in the year.”
For the first time those prolonged holidays appeared to Claire as a privilege which had its reverse side. Friends in Brussels might possibly house her for two or three weeks; she could not expect, she would not wish them to do more; and at the end there would still remain over three months! It was a new and disagreeable experience to look forward to holidays with dread! For a whole two minutes she looked thoroughly depressed, then her invincible optimism came to the top, and she cried triumphantly—
“I’ll take a holiday engagement!”
The English mistress shook her head.