“But I am serious. You see, with a limited income, one likes to meet things as they come.”
“Oh, well, if it will please you. But I haven’t quite finished with you yet.”
“I know. But you won’t forget?”
Poor devil! He was not in a position to forget anyone who owed him money.
The nurse went, having swallowed up six guineas. The doctor’s bill came in soon after Eve had moved downstairs to her sitting-room. It amounted to about three pounds, and Eve paid it by cheque. Another weekly bill from Mrs. Buss confronted her, running the doctor’s account to a close finish. Eve realised, after scribbling a few figures, that she was left with about four pounds to her credit.
She was astonished at her own apathy. This horror that would have sent a chill through her a month ago, now filled her with a kind of languid and cynical amusement. The inertia of her illness was still upon her, dulling the more sensitive edge of her consciousness.
A week after she had come downstairs she went out for her first walk. It was not altogether a wise proceeding, especially when its psychological effects showed themselves. She walked as far as Highbury Corner, felt the outermost ripples of the London mill-pond, and promptly awoke.
That night she had a relapse and was feverish, but it was no longer a restful, drowsy fever, but a burning and anxious torment. Life, the struggling, fitful, mean, contriving life was back in her blood, with all its dreads intensified and exaggerated. She felt the need of desperate endeavour, and was unable to stir in her own cause. It was like a dream in which some horror approaches, and one is unable to run away.
She was another week in bed, but she did not send for the doctor. And at the end of the week she met Mrs. Buss’s last bill. It left her with three shillings and fourpence in cash.
In seven days she would be in debt to her landlady, to the red-faced, grumbling woman whose insolent dissatisfaction was already showing itself.