CHAPTER FOUR
TRIALS OF A PUBLISHERAfter a peaceful night Alice was woken by the housemaid’s tap at her door. The nightgown complex rose in her mind, but in a flash she remembered how she had found it safely and was now wearing it. When the housemaid had drawn the curtains and brought in a jug of hot water she approached the bed.
‘Would you like your fire lighted, miss?’ she said.
Alice thought it sounded nicer than anything she could possibly imagine. To lie luxuriously in bed, looking out on a cold, bleak day, and watch a housemaid rouse those grey ashes in the fireplace to a glowing flame, would be as good as the Decline of the Roman Empire. But as usual she had to find a dark thought to take her own happiness away. Was it thinking of others to lie in bed and have the fire lighted for
