The blue receipt

An original nineteenth-century-style fiction passage set in the 1880s. This is newly written practice material, not a historical extract.

At five o'clock the yard bell sounded, and the other clerks shut their ledgers with the satisfaction of men who had put the whole world in order. Daniel remained at his desk. Beneath his blotting paper lay the blue receipt which he ought to have entered that morning. The warehouse clock had stopped at noon; he had not. For five hours he had continued copying figures while the little square of paper seemed to grow heavier beneath his wrist.

Mr Vale had trusted him with the receipt because the money was intended for the families of two injured carters. Daniel had taken the envelope to the bank, as instructed, but had returned by the river to watch a vessel being unloaded. Somewhere between the bank and the warehouse the receipt had disappeared. Only when he emptied his coat at lunchtime had he found it caught in the lining. By then he had already told Mr Vale that the bank had forgotten to provide one. Now the proof of his carelessness was also the proof of his lie.

He copied the account again. He blotted the figures. He arranged three pens beside the inkstand, although none required arranging. Beyond the partition, Mr Vale's chair scraped the floor. Daniel's careful columns blurred; the nine beneath his pen acquired a second tail. He heard the office door close, and for an instant relief lifted him so suddenly that he almost laughed. Then the key turned in the outer lock. The receipt would remain unentered, the accounts would be sent away, and the lie would cease to be a sentence he had spoken: it would become a fact in the company's books. “Sir!” he called. His voice sounded small in the emptied room.

The key turned back. Mr Vale appeared with his gloves in one hand and a parcel of oranges in the other. The oranges disturbed Daniel more than anger would have done. He had prepared himself for an employer; here was a tired man carrying something home. Daniel held out the receipt. He began an explanation about the torn lining, stopped, and began again with the river. Mr Vale put down the parcel. Neither man looked at the clock.

When Daniel finished, the older man unfolded the paper and smoothed it against the desk. “The money reached the bank?” Daniel nodded. “And you thought I would sooner forgive the bank than forgive you?” There was no contempt in the question, which made answering it more difficult. Daniel could have blamed the hurry, the coat, the vessel. Instead he said, “I wanted you to think I had done everything properly.” Mr Vale examined the neat, useless copy of the account. “Yes,” he said. “I can see that.”

For several moments there was only the sound of a cart passing over the stones outside. Mr Vale drew a line through the incorrect entry and asked Daniel to write the truth beneath it. The correction spoiled the handsome page. It also made the page accurate. Tomorrow, Mr Vale said, they would check the remaining receipts together; trust was not a window which could be mended by declaring that the glass had never broken.

Daniel stayed to carry the books to the strongroom. At the gate, Mr Vale offered him an orange. He accepted it awkwardly, uncertain whether it was kindness or simply an orange that would otherwise weigh down the parcel. He did not ask. The river lay beyond the warehouses, bright in the last of the evening, but he took the direct road home. In his pocket the fruit was cool and solid, and he held it without trying to hide his hand.

In this passage, the writer attempts to show that admitting a mistake takes courage. Evaluate how successfully this is achieved. Support your judgement with detailed references to the whole passage.