In Need of a Wife

It was time to bite the bullet on the question of rent. The case was hopeless but Sasha had to know. ‘Mrs Bennet, you’ve been wonderfully kind showing me around, and I’d love to live here, but I don’t know if I can afford it. If you’d give me some idea...’

The older woman smiled. ‘Well, that’s up to you, my dear. These rooms are simply being wasted with no one in them. What would you like to pay?’

It put Sasha on the spot. She wished a definite figure had been stated. Much easier to say no than to have to reveal the truth of her situation. Her mind went through a feverish calculation, stretching her means to the uppermost limit of what she might be able to reasonably pay each week without running into trouble.

‘I don’t have much work at the present moment, but I do have a bit of money put aside,’ she explained. ‘I can afford...’ It was so inadequate, it would barely cover the cost of a bedsitter in the poorest part of Sydney.

‘Go on,’ said Mrs Bennet helpfully, her eyes soft with sympathy.

It seemed insulting to offer so little. In a voice she hardly recognised as her own, Sasha spoke the fateful words. ‘A hundred dollars a week.’ She could feel the blood burning through her cheeks. She turned aside, not wanting to face the reply, feeling humiliated and defeated.

‘I’m afraid that won’t do, my dear. I’m afraid that won’t do at all.’

Mrs Bennet had seemed such a nice person, but making her propose a figure that exposed how destitute she was...it was belittling and demeaning. ‘I’m sorry to have wasted your time,’ Sasha said tonelessly, and headed for the door.

‘What you are offering is far, far, far too much.’

It made Sasha pause. Was she hallucinating? Was her hearing defective today? She could not conceal the surprise she felt, nor did she attempt to hide it or disguise it as she swung around in disbelief. ‘I must have misheard. I thought you said I offered too much money.’

Mrs Bennet looked puzzled. ‘Didn’t Mr Parnell tell you?’

Completely confused about what was going on, Sasha repeated what she had been told. ‘He said the rent was negotiable.’

‘So it is, my dear, but under the terms of the will of the late Seagrave Dunworthy there is a caveat on the property that prevents any room, or any number of rooms, from being let or rented beyond a certain price. The rental that may be charged up to that maximum figure is negotiable, but if the owner were to accept any figure above that price, then the owner would be liable to litigation which could effectively cause a disinheritance and loss of ownership.’

Sasha’s professional curiosity was piqued. In the course of her work she had read a lot of strange and eccentric wills, but none like this. ‘Are you sure of your facts? I’ve never heard of such a thing.’

‘That’s what I’ve been told, and I have no reason to disbelieve it,’ Mrs Bennet assured her.

Sasha hesitated fractionally, then plunged to the heart of the matter. ‘Then how much is the maximum figure that can be charged for a room or a set of rooms?’

‘Five guineas a week.’

Reading old documents had made Sasha familiar with this unit of currency. It predated the introduction of decimal currency in 1966, and its real vogue was in the nineteenth century, although it had still been used in auctioneering circles, and particularly the horse-racing industry, up to a couple of generations ago. She did the mental calculation of converting this old coinage into pounds and shillings, and then into dollars and cents.

‘That works out at ten dollars and fifty cents.’

‘That is correct.’ Without the slightest loss of aplomb, Mrs Bennet explained the position so that Sasha could appreciate it properly. ‘You can negotiate any figure you like for the rent, up to a maximum of ten dollars fifty.’

Sasha still couldn’t make herself believe it. ‘The will must be very old to have been written in such terms,’ she said, driven to question the validity of what she was being told.

‘I don’t have any information on that,’ Mrs Bennet replied, looking totally unconcerned by such a consideration.

‘Surely with the effect of inflation...’

‘I’ve been led to believe there is no mention of the effects of inflation in the will of the late and highly esteemed Seagrave Dunworthy.’

‘Oh!’

Sasha didn’t know where to go from there. Faced with the unbelievable that was apparently irrefutable, her mind went into numb stasis.

Mrs Bennet eventually jolted her out of it. ‘Really, my dear, you must make up your mind whether to take the rooms or not,’ she said in a kindly but matter-of-fact voice. ‘I do have other things to do.’

‘Yes. Well, of course I’ll take them. In the circumstances.’

However dubious the circumstances were, Sasha told herself she would be stupid to look a gift horse in the mouth. Particularly in her circumstances.

‘In that case, I must tell you now that the terms of the agreement are very specific,’ Mrs Bennet said wit