Free Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald Page B

doing some accounts, and surrounded by dusty furniture; perhaps she had been cruelly deserted on her wedding day, and had sat there ever since, refusing to have anything touched. She did not look up when the girls came in, although the billiard table was connected by a cord to a cow-bell, which jangled harshly.
    ‘Where’s Mr Stephen, please?’
    Without waiting for or expecting a reply, Martha and the reluctant Tilda walked through into the back office. Here no conversion had been done to the wretched little room, once a scullery, with two steps down to a small yard stacked high with rubbish. Mr Stephen, sitting by a paraffin heater, was also writing on pieces of paper, and appearing to be adding things up. Martha took out the two tiles and laid them in front of him.
    Well used to the treasures of the foreshore, the dealer wiped the gleaming surfaces free, not with water this time, but with something out of a bottle. Then, after carefully taking off his heavy rings, he picked each of the tiles up in turn, holding them up by the extreme edge.
    ‘So you brought these all this long way to show me. What did you think they were?’
    ‘I know what they are. I only want to know how much you can pay me for them.’
    ‘Have you any more of these at home?’
    ‘They weren’t at home.’
    ‘Where did you find them, then?’
    ‘About the place.’
    ‘And you’re sure there aren’t any more?’
    ‘Just the two.’
    Mr Stephen examined the gold and silver bird through a glass.
    ‘They’re quite pretty tiles, dear, not anything more than that.’
    ‘Then why did you take your rings off so carefully?’
    ‘I’m always careful, dear.’
    ‘These are ruby lustre tiles by William de Morgan,’ said Martha, ‘with decoration in gold and silver – the “starlight and moonlight” lustre.’
    ‘Who sent you in here?’ Mr Stephen asked.
    ‘Nobody, you know us, we’ve been in before.’
    ‘Yes, but I mean, who told you what to say?’
    ‘Nobody.’
    ‘Mrs Wilhemina Stirling,’ Tilda put in, ‘ninety-seven if she’s a day.’
    ‘Well, whoever you’re selling for, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but these tiles can’t be by de Morgan. I’m afraid you just don’t know enough about it. I don’t suppose you looked at what’s left of the lettering on the reverse. NDS END. William de Morgan had his potteries in Cheyne Walk, and later he moved his kilns to Merton Abbey. This is not the mark for either one of those.’
    ‘Of course it isn’t. These are part of a very late set. His very last pottery was at Sands End, in Fulham. Didn’t you know that?’
    Dignity demanded that the dealer should hand the tiles back with a pitying smile. But he could not resist holding the bird up to his desk lamp, so that the light ran across the surface and seemed to flow over the edges in crimson flame. And now Martha and he were united in a strange fellow feeling, which neither of them had expected, and which they had to shake off with difficulty.
    ‘Well, I think perhaps we can take these. The bird is much the finer of the two, of course – I’m only taking the dragon to make a pair with the bird. Perhaps you’d like to exchange them for something else in my shop. There are some charming things out there in front – some very old toys. Your little sister here …’
    ‘I hate very old toys,’ Tilda said. ‘They may have been all right for very old children.’
    ‘A Victorian musical box …’
    ‘It’s broken.’
    ‘I think not,’ said the dealer, leaving the girls and hastening out front. He began to search irritably for the key. The woman sitting at the table made no attempt to help him.
    ‘Tilda, have you been tinkering about with the musical box?’
    ‘Yes.’
    Martha saw that discovery, which could not be long delayed, would reduce her advantage considerably.
    ‘We’re asking three pounds for the two De Morgan lustre tiles. Otherwise I must trouble you to hand them back at once.’
    Tilda’s respect for her