Everything in Its Place

Constance Ward came to Bell Street herself, which was the most alarming thing she had done. She wore grey, and she carried an umbrella furled so tightly that it might have been about to confess. She sat in the client’s chair and did not look at the lining paper, which Jonah had taken the trouble to turn to the wall.

“I’ll be brief,” she said, and was not. “The Chamber has been unfair to you, Dr Voss. We offered a retainer, and it was ungenerous. We should like to double it. We should like to continue it quarterly. I understand that the freehold of this building is a matter of some interest to a number of our members, and I should hate to think of your arrangements being disturbed.” She folded her hands. “A fall is a gift to everyone, Dr Voss. A widow, a strike, a town. I should so like us to leave it a gift.”

A cheque lay on the blotter between the tea mugs. Jonah looked at it as one looks at a snake in a hat.

“It’s very sensible,” you said, and heard how much you meant it, which was the dangerous part. A career is a sort of consent. You had known that for years; you had never before been offered it at that rate.

“I thought you would be sensible,” said Ward, and for a moment, with genuine regret, she was almost a person.

Outside, the gulls had stopped quarrelling. In Saltmarsh even the birds waited to see what you would do.