“You know I have been disappointed in my remittances. It is really too hot for talking.”
“I know that you say you have. But we cannot go on without some money. The expenses of this house are heavy: how are they to be kept up if our guests don’t pay us? Indeed you must let me have part of your account, if not all.”
“My dear sweet creature, the house is not yours,” returned Mrs. Podd, in her most honeyed accents.
“I manage it,” said Miss Dinah, “and am responsible for getting in the accounts. You know that our custom is to be paid weekly.”
“Exactly, dear Miss Dinah. But I am sure that my cousin, Emma Lake, would not wish to inconvenience me. I am indebted to her; not to you; and I will pay her as soon as I can. My good creature, how can you sit stewing over that plain sewing this sultry afternoon?”
“I am obliged to,” responded Miss Dinah. “We have not money to spend on new linen: trouble enough, it is, I can assure you, to keep the old decent.”
“I should get somebody to help me. That young woman, Miss Lewis, might do it: she seems to have been used to all kinds of work.”
“I wish you would shut that door: you have left it open,” retorted Miss Dinah: “I don’t like sitting in a draught, though it is hot. And I must beg of you to understand, Mrs. Podd, that we really cannot continue to keep you and your daughters here unless you can manage to give us a little money.”
By the shutting of the door and the silence that ensued, it was apparent that Mrs. Podd had departed, leaving Miss Dinah to her table-cloths. But now, this had surprised me. For, to hear Mrs. Captain Podd and her daughters talk, and to see the way in which they dressed, one could not have supposed they were ever at a fault for ready-cash.
At the end of ten days I went home. Dr. Lewis no longer wanted me: he had Mrs. Podd. And I think it must have been about ten days after that, that we heard the doctor and Anne were returning. The paint smelt still, but not so badly as before.