At noon the hall filled with people who had come to see an antique and found themselves discussing umbrellas.
The butcher wanted to know whether Thursday contained frost. The schoolmistress asked about hail. A woman who had painted her front door that morning began counting the hours since her second coat.
Hesta answered every question she could answer, which was almost none.
“We can look through the glass,” she said, “but we cannot look ahead through it.”
From certain angles the vessel seemed full of sunshine. From others it held a grey, turning depth. Once, Hesta thought she saw a leaf. By the time she had fetched a magnifier, it was gone.
She raised her hammer.
“One complete Thursday. Public discharge. Reserve eighty silver. Shall I hear eighty?”
No hands.
“Eighty silver for a day with no missing hours.”
Somebody spoke in the second row. Hesta saw lips move and caught the end of a laugh. She smiled in anticipation.
Neri leaned close. “She asked if you would take instalments.”
“The council requires payment today.”
Mr. Rusk looked down at his ledger.
The silence grew into something Hesta knew how to use. Normally she would let it gather until someone became uncomfortable enough to bid. Today she watched the brass reed shake harder beside the glass.
The schoolmistress opened her purse.
“I have twenty-two,” she said loudly. “The school tank is nearly empty.”
“Not a bid at the reserve, I'm afraid.”
“It could be part of one,” Neri said.
Hesta looked at her. Joint bids were permitted. The potters used them every winter to buy enough dry air for their kilns. Their representative came with one purse and one raised hand. They did not assemble a consortium halfway through a sale.
“We might adjourn for ten minutes,” Neri said.
The stopper clicked.
Hesta felt it through the tabletop. Neri heard it. They looked at each other.
“Five minutes,” Hesta said.
The schoolmistress stood in the aisle. People moved towards her, awkwardly, with pockets turned out. The butcher offered eleven silver and a warning that he would not be paying for hail. The woman with the painted door contributed two, on the condition that someone lend her a tarpaulin. Neri went to fetch one from the storeroom.
Hesta remained on the dais. This was becoming a subscription collection. It lacked the speed, the lift, the lovely recklessness of an auction.
She had spent thirty-four years learning to make people want things. Now people plainly wanted something, and she could not bear the way they were going about it.
Pell came to her table.
“Withdraw it. I'll buy the bottle and cradle for twenty after you empty it.”
“The reserve is eighty.”
“For the weather. I am offering for the glass.”
It was sensible. He could still display it at the hotel. There was no malice in his face, only arithmetic.
“I will ask the receiver afterwards,” she said.
At the end of five minutes the schoolmistress put a purse on the table.
“Seventy-eight.”
Rusk took it, counted, and wrote the number.
Hesta looked at the purse. Two silver was the price of a proper lunch. It was also the difference between eighty and seventy-eight, and Rusk had already written it down.
She could contribute the two. Her pocket contained enough. But that would make her a participant in a sale she was conducting. She could have Neri conduct it. Neri would speak slowly, leave gaps, and ask whether there were any further bids without making it sound like an accusation.
Somebody at the back called out.
Hesta saw an arm. “Eighty?”
Neri, returning with the tarpaulin, said, “No. He said his two are already in the purse.”
The room waited.
Hesta looked down at her hammer. She had carved its handle to fit her hand, back when she believed fitting something once was enough.
“Neri,” she said. “Take the sale.”
Neri set down the folded canvas.
“You are bidding?”
“Two silver, towards the joint offer.”
She took the coins from her pocket and laid them beside the purse. Rusk counted again.
Neri picked up the hammer. She held it slightly too far from the head, but Hesta kept her mouth shut.
“Eighty silver for Thursday, jointly offered by the people listed here. The weather must be released today, over the entire town. Does anyone offer more?”
Pell shook his head. The butcher stared at the bottle, trying to identify frost.
“Any further bid?”
Neri waited long enough for someone to change their mind. No one did.
The hammer came down.
It made a thin, wooden sound. Hesta heard it perfectly.
Rusk signed the sale. Thursday belonged to twenty-three people, including Hesta Vale, who had never before bought anything without knowing what she would get.