The Price Of A Room
The landlord’s notice lay beneath a paperweight shaped like a sleeping dog. Clara Wren had put it there because she could not afford to throw anything heavy through the window.
Six weeks. Then Mr Pike would require the room for his nephew, who sold hats. Apparently Bath possessed enough music and insufficient hats.
She set a copper plate against the leather pad and guided her graver through the tail of a quaver. The tool obeyed. At twenty-seven she knew how to persuade metal, printers, and customers who believed a sonata could be copied by yesterday. She had never learned to persuade a man who already held the rent.
The doorbell trembled. A tall gentleman entered carrying a parcel wrapped in faded green silk. Rain darkened his shoulders; one glove had been mended with a thread almost, but not quite, the right colour.
“Miss Wren? Mrs Bell said you could rescue this.”
“From what?”
“Years of damp and the attentions of a mouse with musical ambitions.”
He unwrapped a score. Clara caught the pages before they slid onto the wet counter. Her visitor withdrew his hand immediately, leaving her space to arrange them.
“They can be copied. Not cheaply.”
“I would prefer the truth to a pleasing estimate.”
She looked up then. Julian Ashcombe. She had seen him once outside the Assembly Rooms, standing alone while two gentlemen found sudden interest in the opposite pavement. Three years earlier a benefit concert under his direction had ended with musicians demanding unpaid fees. He had left Bath soon afterwards. Clara knew the version that travelled between shops: a younger son, a missing subscription purse, an inconvenient departure.
“My aunt’s,” he explained. “She left me her house and everything she had failed to throw away. Lady Marlow remembered hearing these pieces there. She may support a small series of concerts, if I can make the house fit to receive her.”
Clara counted the damaged leaves. “Forty pages. I can begin next week.”
His gaze touched the notice before she turned it face down. He said nothing about it. That courtesy made her more conscious of the paper than a question would have done.
She named her charge. He accepted without bargaining and placed a deposit beside the score, counting actual coins rather than offering the future gratitude of an important person.
At the door he paused. “Mrs Bell tells me you are seeking premises.”
“Mrs Bell has an extensive intelligence service.”
“There is a street room at my house. Good light. A separate entrance. I should be glad to show it to you.”
“And the rent?”
He took a breath. “That is less simple.”
She folded her hands, hiding the ink on one finger. He looked as uncomfortable as a man about to request the loan of a coat.
“Lady Marlow knew my aunt’s household. She distrusts schemes and she distrusts me. I need an orderly home, someone who understands music, and a reason for her to believe I intend to remain in Bath. I cannot afford to employ a hostess of the necessary standing. You need a place to work. I wondered whether we might consider marriage.”
Outside, cart wheels clattered over wet stone. Clara heard each separate turn.
“You have mistaken a workshop for a matrimonial office.”
“Quite possibly. You may dismiss me.”
He did not smile away the absurdity or step closer. That steadied her more than charm could have done.
“I shall see the room,” she said. “In daylight. With Mrs Bell.”
His relief appeared only in the release of his shoulders.
“Tomorrow at eleven.”
After he left, Clara moved the sleeping dog. The notice remained exactly what it had been. Beside it lay a paid deposit, a damaged score, and the first question in months that had more than one possible answer.
Terms In Daylight
Ashcombe House stood above Walcot, handsome at a distance and considerably less persuasive at close quarters. A shutter hung crooked. The entrance smelled of cold ashes and beeswax, as though someone had fought neglect recently and lost on points.
Mrs Finch, the housekeeper, admitted Clara and Mrs Bell. “Mind the third stair. It has opinions.”
“I have already met its owner,” Mrs Bell said. “I expect to survive.”
The street room won Clara before she wished to be won. Two tall windows faced the morning. A former cupboard would hold paper away from the outside wall. There was space for her bench and the small press she hired by arrangement from Mrs Bell. Beyond an inner door lay a narrow passage to the kitchen; customers could enter from the street without crossing the household.
She pictured the graver beside the light, then deliberately pictured Julian refusing her a key.
“Marriage does not make my earnings mine,” she said when they sat in the drawing room. “A promise over tea will not mend that.”
“No,” Julian answered. “It will not.”
Mrs Bell’s expression softened a fraction. A widow who kept her own music shop, she distrusted agreeable nonsense more than outright opposition.
Clara laid out what she had thought through overnight. Mrs Bell might take a long lease of the street room, paying a modest rent and letting Clara use it. New orders could go through the shop; Clara would receive an agreed allowance for her work. Her tools and savings needed advice as well, before any marriage, not after.
“It is an arrangement between people,” Clara said. “I know it is not freedom from every law or misfortune. But I will not put the key and the bread entirely in one hand.”
Julian listened without interruption. Then he said, “My solicitor must tell us what can actually be done. Yours should examine his work.”
“Mrs Bell knows someone,” Clara replied.
“Mrs Bell generally does,” said the widow.
They discussed expenses, Mrs Finch’s wages, and bedrooms. Julian would expect attendance at the patron’s evening and help with programmes. Clara would continue her trade. Neither promised affection. Both would have three weeks in which to withdraw while banns were read, and no announcement would describe a wedding date as certain before the arrangements were settled.
“And if Lady Marlow says no?” Clara asked.
“Then I find another income. You do not lose your room.”
That was the answer she had needed. It made him look unexpectedly tired.
Mrs Finch brought tea with four unequal cups. While the others examined a proposed rent, Clara opened the old score Julian had left on a side table. A stiff fold had damaged the spine. She eased out a narrow paper, expecting a mouse’s nest or an abandoned shopping list.
It was an invoice for platform repairs at the benefit concert three years before. Across it, in dark ink, someone had written: Paid in full, from subscription cash, received for Mr Vale by T. Pritchard.
Below stood Julian’s name, the date, and an amount large enough to explain much of a missing purse.
She held the paper by its clean edge. “Who is Mr Vale?”
The colour went from Julian’s face. “The treasurer.”
“And Mr Pritchard?”
“The carpenter.” He stared at the receipt. “I looked for that until I could no longer bear looking.”
Clara heard the clock gathering itself for eleven. This was evidence of a payment, not proof of every rumour’s falsity. But it was more than gossip, and someone had signed for the money.
“Then,” she said, “we had better ask the carpenter what he remembers.”
