‘Sit down, Shadwell. The business is this. As you know, I am one of Mrs Probus’s executors. The other is Miss Grainger, but she is in Italy, so for the present I shall do all that needs to be done. This morning I looked over Mrs Probus’s will, which is in our office. I found that she has left you an annuity. “To Bertha Shadwell, if still in my service at the time of my death, an annuity of fifty-two pounds per annum”—in other words, for the rest of your life you will have an income of a pound a week.’86

‘Thank you, sir.’

Preparing himself for what he had to say, he had taken into account what he might have to say next, and how best to reply to shock, to wounded feelings, to resentment, to fear of the future. To this, he could find no answer. Yet he lifted his gaze—it had been resting on Shadwell’s long, flat, neatly shod feet—and looked at her searchingly. Perhaps there had been irony in that reply. A woman who could lay out a corpse with such majestic insight must be an artist, and as such, capable of irony, scorching irony. Gladly would he have been scorched. A sprinkle of unmerited suffering would have been positively welcome to him. But the hope was vain. Realizing that he had come on purpose to tell her of the annuity, she was thanking him for his trouble.

‘Have you any plans, Shadwell?’

‘No, sir, I have no plans yet.’

‘Then I hope you will be able to stay on here for the next week or so, at any rate until Miss Grainger has come back and seen to the disposal of Mrs Probus’s clothes, and so forth. The executors will pay your wages and your expenses. What are your wages, by the way?’

‘A pound a week, sir.’

His last sneaking defence, that Shadwell must have salted away some useful savings, went down. He got up from Mrs Probus’s table, where he had enjoyed so many tête-à-tête dallyings from clear soup to port, and said, gobbling his words a little, ‘Well, well, now of course you will be on board wages. They are always rather higher. You will be paid ten pounds a week.’87

‘It’s too much, Mr Laidlaw. I wouldn’t take it.’

Feeling as though he were a fishmonger who had asked Shadwell to pay ten shillings for a lemon sole, he climbed down.

‘Seven pounds then. A pound a day. You’ll need it. Now, Shadwell, don’t argue with me. I won’t hear another word from you.’

He heard his imperfect imitation of the imperious familiarity with which Shadwell’s mistress had been wont to utter such words. Possibly Shadwell heard it too. Her face flickeringly escaped from its respectful composure, and she replied, obliquely quitting the contest, ‘May I make you a cup of tea, sir?’

‘No, thank you, no, thank you! I must get back to the office. By the way, the valuers for probate will probably come to-morrow. I will let you know when to expect them.’