Isobel waved her off. “Oh, the thought that you would still be in a factory; what a waste, what an absolute waste!”
“People do have to work in factories, Isobel,” Gerhard said as he drew in smoke. “That is how things are made. I should only be so fortunate—if the business takes off, then we too shall have a factory.” Gerhard had opened a greeting-card business with Isobel’s sister’s husband in the past year. Sales were brisk, the cheerful, preprinted cards far more popular than Rose would have ever guessed, but a factory?
And yet, look at him, resplendent in his Savile Row suit with his gold cigarette case. “My brother, the industrialist,” she had described him to Harriet with more than a little vinegary bite. But certain facts were unassailable: Gerhard had achieved. What she had deemed as his foolish outsized optimism had fueled his success, transformed his daily existence. Yes, he had gotten his start by marrying Isobel, but he had also prospered. He never again would have to fret whether he could spend the money to purchase a book; he never would worry about a rent increase. Oh, how she yearned, in that particular moment, to be more like him. What would it be like, to feel as if success, not the past, lurked around the corner? Sometimes Rose imagined talking to Gerhard, really talking to him, alone, and he would reveal himself: The dreams I have, he would say. You have no idea.
“Well, yes, people do work in factories,” Isobel was saying. “But your sister doesn’t. You don’t.”
“I would if I needed to,” he said roughly. And if it hadn’t been for Isobel and her money, he easily might have.
“Oh, Gerhard, really,” Isobel said with a slight toss of the head. “We are not going down that road, please.”
“And which road—”
“I have something to ask,” Rose interjected, more out of a desire to stop them than any thought-out plan.
“Of course,” Isobel said, but she was still scrutinizing Gerhard as she said it. Then she swiveled back to Rose. “Yes?”
“Well . . .” Rose hesitated. Could she ask Mr. Cohen for the extra money? Margaret? “My landlady told me that the cost of my room is going up,” she confessed. “I’m afraid I’m going to need more money for the rent.”
“How much more?” Gerhard asked with a bluntness that Rose wished surprised her.
“It doesn’t matter,” Isobel said.
“Isobel, please—”
“Twenty shillings more weekly,” Rose answered, undercutting the figure by ten—too ashamed to say the full amount. She could make up the difference out of her pocket money; she was certain she could.
“That’s quite a jump,” Gerhard said.
“I know,” Rose said wretchedly. “That’s what I told her.”
“For God’s sakes, Gerhard,” Isobel said. “Of course we’ll give her the money.”
“That’s not the point. We—and she—should know the details. Perhaps Deering is taking advantage of her. Also, we do have an abundance of room here. And with the baby on the way, she could be useful—”
“Me? With the baby?” The words fell out of Rose’s mouth, she didn’t have time to scrub them free of her distaste.
“I’m not saying you should,” Gerhard said, “only that we should discuss it as a possibility.”
“You don’t have to,” Isobel said quickly.
“No, it’s just that—you’re so far from school—”
“Not that much farther than South Kensington,” Gerhard pointed out.
“Gerhard,” Isobel chided.
“What?”
Rose could barely hear them. This was what she had been afraid of from the moment they offered to pay her expenses. She wasn’t herself on these weekly visits. The thought of living here made it difficult to breathe. Maybe it wasn’t absurd to ask Mr. Cohen for the money. Mrs. Cohen still made it clear that she thought literature an impractical pursuit for a girl like Rose, but several months ago, Mr. Cohen had come to London on business and he called on her. She hadn’t seen him in well over a year. The last time he had been in town, she was still employed by the factory, and she avoided him. He knew where she worked but that didn’t mean that she had to talk about it. Rose was grateful that the Cohens had taken care of her, resentful that she needed such care. Often there was an air of stiffness to their conversations. But this time proved different. Mr. Cohen waxed nostalgic about reading Kipling and Tennyson during his own school days. “You’ve turned into quite the young lady,” he said as he shook her hand upon leaving. He undoubtedly approved of her studies. She could ask him for a temporary loan to carry her for a few months. Rose could get a job, something part-time, so she could continue at school. She would figure out a way if need be.
“It’s—how much is the increase?” Isobel asked.
Rose hesitated. “Thirty shillings more a week,” she eventually said.
“You said twenty before,” Gerhard said.
“I made a mistake,” Rose said, appealing to her brother. He had to understand how difficult this was for her. “It’s thirty.”
Isobel said: “That’s less than fifty pounds yearly. You know, my family doesn’t have so much money . . .” Rose gaped at her, baffled. Isobel had more money than anyone she had ever met. “. . . But we have enough. We certainly have more than enough for you not to worry about such things.”
“Thank you,” Rose managed. Thank God. “Thank you, Isobel.”
“We are glad to help,” Isobel said, and she stood up, leaned her heavy frame against Gerhard. Rose watched them, relieved. She was always surprised to see how much shorter Isobel was than Gerhard, and she wasn’t more than a few inches taller than Rose herself. “I want you to think of it as your money too.”
Rose nodded. “Of course,” she murmured. But that was like imagining a London without the war ever happening: such an exquisite thought, but altogether impossible.
“Miss Zimmer,” Professor Hillman said. He gestured toward the seat close to the door with his chin. He had a pronounced chin, Rose thought now; she had never noticed it before. She tried to focus on this detail and his receding hair, and not the fact that she had been called in to speak with him. She had thought her paper on The Brothers Karamazov was all right. Was it her best? No. But she hadn’t been sleeping well. It was difficult to concentrate. Although Isobel said they would cover the difference in her rent, Rose still feared that it wouldn’t happen, that her brother would become even more attracted to his idea that she move in with them. Isobel—and indeed her brother—had given Rose no reason to believe this. Still she worried.
Professor Hillman’s office was tiny, the bookshelves hulking. There was no samovar. Rose positioned herself at the edge of the chair, kept her moist hands folded in her lap. It was hot in here; she had an urge to pull at the collar of her jumper, allow in more air, but she didn’t dare.