Chapter 4: The Ledger

On Tuesday afternoon I carried the composition book into Donal Dalton's study and set it on his desk.

He had a slab of black walnut for a desk that took up half the room.

A brass lamp stood on it and a grate burned behind it.

He read the ledger standing up.

I had written it as a kitchen inventory.

Every Friday, Peg gave me an envelope, and I wrote the figure down and subtracted it.

Across the top of the first page, in my best hand, I had put the number $380,400.

Under it, on the first line, was October 12th, and then ring, 4,000.

He turned the pages for a long time.

"Thirty-one thousand four hundred," he said.

"Plus the ring," I said.

"You've paid the debt of a man who isn't yours any more."

"He's mine until I say he isn't."

He looked up at that.

Then he opened the top drawer of the desk and took out a small brown envelope, soft with handling.

He laid it on the ledger, and I heard the little weight of it.

"I haven't counted it," he said. "I've had it eleven months. I never wrote it in a book."

"Then write it now," I said.

"No."

I set my jaw.

"Donal."

It was the first time I had said his name.

He heard it and went completely still.

"You can't just say no," I said. "It's your money."

"Then it's my say."

"It's a sum. You can't pretend it doesn't exist just because I'm..."

I stopped, because I didn't know the end of that.

"Because you're what?"

"Because I'm a nuisance," I said.

"Is that what you think?"

"It's what my father thinks."

He shut the ledger.

He put it in my hands, closed, and kept his hand on top of mine for about a second longer than the handing-over needed.

"I never wrote you in any book, Miss Finnegan.

"Peg pays you a wage. You're the best cook this house has had, and the men know it."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the one I have." He took his hand back. "Friday. You'll sit at my table."

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