‘Right, so where’s your bag, Hetty? And what’s your budget?’
‘Bag? Like a reticule? I don’t have one. Or a budget, in fact.’
Stella winced. ‘Skint, eh?’ She laughed at Hetty’s confusion. ‘No money?’
Hetty bit her lip. ‘Gosh, no, no need to worry about that. Money’s different nowadays of course, but Aunt Aggie showed me how to see how much I have on my phone.’
Hetty handed over her phone, the screen showing a sum that would have deeply shocked anyone in 1817.
Stella nearly fell over. ‘Hetty.Hetty!What theactual hell? Whoareyou?’
It was a vast sum in 2023 too, then.
Stella wordlessly marched them both to a reassuringly staid-looking pub, collapsed into a chair and set about ordering a stiff drink on her phone.
Her heart seemed to be beating loudly. It was going to bea difficult one to explain. Hetty looked at Stella’s serious face and felt a rising sense of fear. How much could she safely divulge without returning to being Mad Hetty Bainbridge? For the first time in some weeks she recalled her bracelet, safely stowed in her jewellery box.
‘Please say something,’ pleaded Hetty.
Stella seemed to regain her power of speech. ‘I’m trying to make sense of everything. You’re in your twenties, but don’t know how to use a computer and you barely even know how to use a phone. You dress like an old lady. You talk like, I dunno, Jane Austen. I’ve been trying to take everything at face value, to go with the flow, but honestly … You have nearly ahundred grandin your goddamnedcurrent account.’
Stella took a deep breath and sat back in her chair. ‘Explain.’
Hetty burst into tears.
In the end Hetty couldn’t bring herself to lie to Stella, so a garbled version of the truth had come out between tears. Stella sat next to her, looking dazed, and full of questions.
‘You come from 1817. Okay. Right, okay. We can revisit that later, because we’re right in the middle of a Wetherspoons and people are … looking.’
A server appeared with two vodka and Cokes and, surprisingly thoughtfully, a box of tissues, illustrating Stella’s point.
‘What I’m getting from this is that you’re not exactly used to having a hundred grand in your current account either.’
‘I have more,’ Hetty sniffed into a tissue. ‘Aunt Aggie says this is for me to spend on “essentials”. The rest is invested with an accountant.’
‘With an accountant. Right.’
Stella rubbed her temples; Hetty watched on anxiously.
‘It’s just … I’ve never dated a rich chick before. My last girlfriend stole half my savings, in fact. That’s why I wanted to take it slow. I might seem easy going, but I find it hard to trust people. This is all a little crazy …’
‘For me, too,’ said Hetty. ‘If you like, I can give it away? Aunt Aggie said much of the interest payments goes to something called the Trussell Trust, which helps to feed people?’
‘Really? That’s pretty cool.’
‘Yes, and she said the family funded part of a university, too. And a hospital. The Kent Wing? To be honest, it was a lot of information to take in and I’m not sure I understood it.’
‘I just – oh wow. It’s not easy to get my head around.’
‘I thought … I thought it would be good?’
Hetty felt like the world was falling out from under her. Her face must have betrayed her, because Stella reached over and gave her a hug.
‘I need some time to think about everything. About what I believe,’ said Stella. ‘I’m just not used to it. To the idea of people having this much money. It’s … It’s a lot.’
Stella left her then with the rest of the tissues and a promise to text her later, but it had felt off, like something had changed between them. So now here Hetty was, lying on her bed, crying so hard her head ached, with Jemima smoothing the hair away from her wet eyes.
‘I don’t understand, Aunt Jemima. I know it’s a lot to take in. But, you know, in 1817, all anyone wanted was to be rich.’
