The Case of William Smith

Chapter Eleven

William and Katharine sat by the fire and talked. Mr. Tattlecombe would have approved of their demeanour. William had a writing-block and pencil, and appeared to be entirely concentrated on doing sums. Although she was sharing the sofa, Katharine was not even touching him except with a fold of her dress and the look which dwelt sweetly and with a tinge of humour upon a serious and rugged profile. The single young man and the single young woman were, in fact, engaged upon computing a double income and deciding whether it justified them in getting married without waiting for the Wurzel toys to boom. For the purposes of this computation they had taken their joint salaries, and Katharine had confessed rather tentatively to a private income of two hundred pounds a year. To her relief, this was received with approval, William obviously considering with perfect simplicity that it would make it easier for them to get married, and was therefore a very good thing.

Since this had gone down so well, she followed it up with a casual, ‘I’ve put it rather low – it’s always been more than that really. But there was a hitch this year – some of the things didn’t pay. That was one of the reasons why I had to let my flat.’

He looked up frowning.

‘What do you pay for this one?’

‘Well, Carol didn’t really want to take anything. She didn’t want to let. She said there was always a chance the roof might fall in. They had a land mine about a quarter of a mile away, and there’s an idea that it rather shook the whole of this place up.’

The frown deepened.

‘I don’t like your living in a place where the roof might fall in.’

‘Darling, I think Carol was just trying to push the flat on to me without taking any rent for it.’

‘But she ought to be getting rent for it. I mean, it’s all right for you, but when we get married, it will be my business to pay the rent. How long is she going to be away?’

‘You never know with Carol. That’s partly why she didn’t want to let. She’s gone off to get material for the sort of book she writes – A Roamer in Rome, or, Tramps in Tanganyika, you know. She does it awfully well, with little pen and ink sketches. And sometimes she gets what she wants in six weeks, and sometimes she just stays on and on letting it all soak in.’

William put down two pounds a week for ‘rent of flat’. He remarked that it might be very inconvenient if they had to turn out at a moment’s notice.

Katharine said, ‘We might be able to get back into my own flat.’

The words were no sooner out of her mouth than she realized that she ought to have kept them in. William immediately wanted to know where it was, how many rooms it had, and what the rent would be. When she told him he said with decision that it would be a good deal too expensive, but they could be looking about for something else.

He finished their budget, looked at her very seriously, and said,

‘We can do it easily. How soon will you marry me?’

‘As soon as you like, William.’

‘If you really mean that, we could make it next Saturday. That would give us the weekend.’ He dropped his pencil and paper and took her hands. ‘Am I hurrying you? Is it too soon?’

The colour came up into her face and her eyes shone.

‘No, it isn’t too soon.’

He put his arms round her.

‘Oh, Katharine!’ And quite a long time after that, ‘I’ll tell Mr. Tattlecombe tomorrow.’