Bella hides money from Wedderburn’s gambling winnings

Bella Baxter’s concealment of four hundred friedrichs d’or from Duncan Wedderburn’s winnings turns a night of gambling excess into a small reserve of escape. The act is prompted by a fellow player’s warning: if Duncan gambles again, hidden money may be Bella’s only means of leaving town with dignity.

The warning

As Bella and Duncan leave the gambling rooms, Duncan is sleepwalking, as Bella says she herself had done earlier. She pinches him awake in the entrance hall to ask the name of their hotel. He heads for the lavatory, still unwilling to let his winnings out of his sight; a servant carries the money after him.

While Duncan is away, Bella’s new acquaintance speaks privately and quickly. He urges her to take and keep as much of the money as she can without Duncan knowing, insisting that this would not be theft. His warning is conditional and practical: should Duncan gamble again, the concealed funds could let Bella leave town with dignity. Bella takes his hands in both of hers, says she wishes she could help him, and watches him blush, smile, and depart.

Hiding the winnings

Duncan returns looking neater, without the trembling and weariness Bella had seen before. She recognizes that he has taken an anti-lethargy pill and expects another wedding night. He grips her arm as they go to the hotel, while she wonders how long he can continue in this state.

Their hotel, the shop, a bank, and the railway station occupy the same square, so the journey to their room is short. There Duncan takes the money from the servant, shuts the door without thanks or a tip, and empties the winnings onto a huge canopied bed. Envelopes split; he throws them aside, tears open others, and pours out coins until the gold spreads across the silk coverlet. Bella compares his eagerness to a child splashing in a mud puddle and realizes that he may spend the night absorbed in the pile. She needs to distract him.

The reserve and its significance

Godwin Baxter’s interruption supplies the concealed action that Bella’s account had omitted: she woos Duncan away from his obsession with the gold, settles him into a deep sleep on a bearskin hearth-rug, and removes four hundred friedrichs d’or from the pile. Duncan does not notice the missing money when he wakes and sorts the remainder into neat heaps.

The concealment gives material form to the shopkeeper’s warning. Duncan treats the money as a spectacle to possess and handle, while Bella quietly turns part of it into a possible means of departure. His confidence that his winnings will multiply, and his appeal to Bella’s faith in him as his lawful wife, sharpen the contrast: his gambling presents itself as reason and marital authority, but the hidden reserve protects an option he does not know she has preserved. The account’s two-page omission also makes the act arrive through Baxter’s editorial framing rather than through the full description Bella originally wrote.