When the furniture van had arrived and a couple of men had carried the beautiful piano into a dark cavity of straw and sackcloth, leaving behind them in exchange a mocking little upstart in streaky imitation fumed oak, not even the presence in her bureau drawer of sixty pounds in notes and gold could compensate her adequately. The new piano looked so cheap and tawdry amongst the surrounding furniture, and the space where the old one had been was drearily vacant and ever remindful of her loss. The same day she wrote cheques to half a dozen tradesmen, and as she went out to post them, put fifty pounds into her cheque account at the bank. She felt that slowly, at any rate, she was winning in her contest with fortune. § 7 Unfortunately the avalanche of bills had not yet quite spent itself, and Madame Varegny suggested an interim payment of her account, amounting to thirty-two treatments at half a guinea each: total sixteen pounds sixteen. And then one night as Catherine was lying awake in bed, the whole fabric of the future seemed revealed to her. After all, her first steps were inevitable: she would have to leave “Elm Cottage,” take a smaller house or go into lodgings, and sell what furniture she had no room for. It would be better to do that now than to wait until the expensive upkeep of “Elm Cottage” had squandered half her assets. She was so accustomed now to her gradual descent in the social scale that even this prospect, daring and drastic as it was, did not perturb her much. The next day she went round the house, noting the things that she could not possibly take with her if she went into a smaller house or into lodgings. Lodgings she had in mind, because her arm prevented her from doing any but a minimum of housework, and if in lodgings she could pay for any services she required. She did not go to Trussall’s this time to arrange for a valuation of what she desired to sell. For some days before she had been walking along the High Road past Trussall’s window, and had had the experience of seeing her own ebony-framed cheval glass occupying a position of honour in the midst of a miscellany of bedroom bric-à-brac. On a card hung on to the carving at the top was the inscription: Antique model. Splendid Bargain, £19 19s. 6d. CHAPTER XX STILL FALLING § 1