London Lodgings

by Claire Rayner

  Sitting now gazing at the strengthening flames, she brooded. It was all Frank’s fault. Had he returned for dinner he could have dealt with the matter, but he hadn’t and now suddenly, at last, she was angry. Not miserable, not crushed beneath the weight of her unhappiness, but hotly, indeed incandescently, angry, and that made her feel a great deal better.

  She got briskly to her feet and went down to the kitchen. She had eaten nothing and that was not wise at any time and particularly not now, in her condition, as Eliza had put it. She spooned a large plateful of the now cold bread-and-butter pudding into a porridge bowl and gobbled it greedily, standing in the middle of the kitchen under the watchful eye of the large brindled cat which Eliza had adopted and permitted to sleep the night away in the hearthside chair. Once she’d eaten it all – and it was quite delicious, she had to admit – she would lock up and go to bed.

  Lock up. That was definitely what she would do, she thought grimly, and she went first to the back door, which led out to the area steps, and checked the key in the big old lock, and then to doubly assure herself that she was being careful, pushed home the bolts at the top and bottom. She checked the larder window too, the one which Eliza usually left open ‘to keep it airy, like, Mum.’ Well, the larder would have to do without its air for this night, she told Eliza inside her head, pulling it to and fastening it. No one would enter number seventeen Brompton Grove that way. And then went upstairs.

  Methodically she poked down the fire in the morning room so that the new coals were pushed to one side where they would die and could then be used to relight the fire in the morning, and put the screen in front of it. She checked the dining-room windows and pushed the locks home on them, and finally went to the hall.

  Here she became even more thorough. She lifted up the oil lamp she had been carrying with her from room to room so that she could more clearly inspect the small windows that flanked the front door. Both were firmly locked and indeed almost immovable because of the many layers of paint that had been applied to them and she nodded in satisfaction and then turned the big brass key in the front door and, instead of removing it and leaving it on the table as usual, left it in the lock, half-turned. Finally, she stood on tiptoe to reach the top bolt which was stiff for want of use, and dealt with that, and ended by shooting the bottom bolt.

  The house has not been so firmly secured for many years, she told herself with great satisfaction. There had been a time long ago when her father became alarmed at the possibility of robbery, for there had been a flurry of such crimes in the neighbourhood. Since the building of the new terraces in the open land between Brompton and Knightsbridge, however, fewer lawless men lurked in the area now and the need for domestic security had lessened; but the bolts had stayed in place, even though they were unused, and tonight Tilly was glad of them.

  She went upstairs slowly, letting the scene play out in her imagination. Frank arriving, drunken, on the doorstep. Frank trying to set his key in the lock and finding it impossible because of the key being left in place on the inside. Frank trying to open the dining-room windows in order to climb in and finding them locked too. Frank turning his attention instead to the steps that led down to the area and the kitchen door and larder window, only to find that they too were barred against him. Oh, but he’d be miserable! And, oh, but he’d be cold! And she saw him sit huddling unhappily against the back door to sleep the night away in great discomfort before being permitted to enter the house again, a sadder and much wiser man who was full of remorse, a man who had learned his lesson. A man who knew that when his wife said she would bar the door against him if he returned drunk and late, she meant every word.

  She took her time undressing and washing in the now lukewarm water, listening all the time and pretending she wasn’t. If she heard him arrive now would she go down and let him in? No, she told herself strongly. No, I would not, and then slid into a sort of frantic prayer. Don’t let me give in if he comes now, make me strong, he has to learn, make me strong enough to teach him.

  But he did not come and at last she knew that immediate revenge would be denied her. He was sleeping at his club tonight, clearly, and all her elaborate barricading had been a waste of time. As he had done before Frank would come when he was ready and carry on as he always had, and would never know how strong her resolve had been.

  And she wept into her pillow and yearned for sleep to take her away from her misery and the cold and emptiness that was left behind now that her hot anger had cooled.

  It did not come. All day and indeed for some weeks now (and could it be because she was with child, as Eliza had suggested?) she had fallen asleep on the slightest pretext. Sitting at table, over her breakfast, resting in a chair, almost all the time weariness hovered over her, but now it was banished completely. Her bed felt hot and heavy so she pushed back the covers and stretched her legs to the cool air, and then was chilled through and needed to tug the blankets and sheets back into position. The result was a tangle of such discomfort she had to get up and remake her bed altogether, never an easy task at the best of times and almost impossible in the dark.

  And still he did not come. She lay first on one side and then on the other as the clock on the distant Trinity Church chimed the quarters and the halves and the hours. Two a.m., a quarter past two, half past.

  At last her control of her thoughts began to slip. Images slid past her mind’s eye and she began to drift, gratefully. Then, suddenly, she was sitting bolt upright and staring out into the darkness of her room.

  The noise from below had started at a low level, but it got louder very quickly. There was a voice shouting and loud banging on the knocker and on the panels of the door and then a loud crashing and tinkling sound and she knew a window had been broken.

  She did not stop to think. She leapt out of bed and felt for the box of matches that lay on her bedside table and cried aloud as her fumbling hand sent them spinning to the floor. She fell to her knees, sweeping her arms wide from side to side in order to find them and at last did, and got to her feet again and with shaking fingers struck one to light her bedside candle.

  By this time the noise below was quite horrendous. She pulled on her wrapper and wasting no time in seeking her slippers, picked up her candle and, shaking so much that some of the hot wax spilled on her hand and made her wince, opened her door.

  From the floor above she could hear her father’s voice and loud thuds as feet landed on the bedside rug, and she could almost see him scrambling out of bed in a rage and wanted to weep with terror. Hurrying to the top of the stairs she almost tumbled down them in her eagerness to reach the bottom and stop the din.

  The light of her now leaping candle flame showed her for a split moment that there was a shower of broken glass glittering on the floor beside the front door and then the candle blew out, as the cold wind rattled the door and came curling into the house through the broken pane. She cried out in distress and turned and threw herself into the darkness on her way back to her room and the box of matches she had left on her bedside table.

  When she got there she had enough presence of mind this time to light her oil lamp rather than the candle, though it took a couple of tries, for her hands were shaking so much she kept dousing the match before it could ignite the wick. At last the flame took hold and she could put the glass chimney in place and go downstairs once more.

  The din had gone on, though not in the same way. The banging on the front door had stopped, but then there was a great metallic rattling and she realized that the railings beside the area were being battered with some sort of implement. She ran down the stairs, her wrapper flying behind her, to find her father and Mrs Leander, he in just his nightshirt and she in a somewhat heavily frilled peignoir in lavender muslin and her hair tied up in curl papers beneath a matching cap. Austen was shouting at the top of his voice as Mrs Leander tried to hush him and behind them Eliza hovered, her eyes wide and her white nightgown flapping around her rather red bare legs and feet.

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nbsp; As Tilly reached the hallway and set down her lamp on the table her father turned on her furiously. ‘What’s going on here? Why is he making such a noise?’

  ‘I – is it Frank?’ she managed and his eyes seemed to bulge in his head as he loomed over her.

  ‘Who else would it be, God damn your stupid soul? The man’s been shouting his head off this past God knows how long and you bleat, “is it Frank?” at me? Don’t you know your own husband’s voice? And who the devil else would it be, anyway?’

  ‘I –’ she tried and could say no more.

  ‘Who locked the door on him? Where’s the front door key? Has he forgotten his own key? What’s going on?’ Austen cried and still she could say nothing, straining her ears to discover what was going on outside.

  Mrs Leander had been feeling about on the table for the key and now she said in a loud voice, ‘It isn’t here. Austen. The key – it isn’t here.’

  ‘It’s in the lock,’ Tilly managed and they both stared at her.

  ‘In the lock? Why?’ her father roared, as from outside there came a loud thudding sound and a crash as of falling bins, and somewhere at the back of her mind Tilly thought – he’s fallen and landed against the ash cans by the kitchen door. He was trying to go down to the kitchen door and he fell on the steps, and she could almost see him doing it, as though she were inside his head and not her own. She could see the grey stone steps, worn and old with bitten edges from the frost damage of many winters, peeling away in front of her as she – he – went…

  ‘Yes,’ she raised her voice to be heard above the din. ‘I left it there so that he could not use his key –’

  But she need not have shouted, for the noise had stopped, quite suddenly. Her voice seemed to echo through the hall, and her father looked at her and said in a normal tone of voice but with an air of amazement, ‘You left it there on purpose? To keep him out?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tilly said dully. ‘I told him if he came home to me drunken again I would do so. I could not bear that, but he would not listen and I wanted him to learn.’

  ‘You locked him out? Mrs Leander said with a shrill note in her voice. ‘Good God, the creature’s got some spunk at that, Austen! She locked him out!’

  ‘Aye, and now he’s made enough noise to wake up the whole of Kensington, let alone Brompton!’ Her father whirled round. ‘Well, he shall have to pay the glazier for the damage he has done and pay him soon, for I shall not freeze in my own house, you may be sure. Go and fetch him and tell him so.’

  “E’s gone ever so quiet,’ Eliza said, and they all turned to look at her. They had forgotten she was there, and the girl went bright red and swallowed.

  ‘I mean, ’e made a noise like anythin’ and now all of a sudden ’e’s as quiet as the grave. It don’t seem right, do it?’

  Tilly felt it rising like a cold tide. Fear. She had hurt him. He had fallen and was now lying in pain, insensible at the foot of the area steps, and it was all her fault.

  ‘Oh, God,’ she whispered and turned and ran to the front door, quite oblivious of the glass shards beneath her feet, reaching for the key, turning it in the lock, pulling on the bolts at top and bottom.

  ‘Oh, you stupid creature,’ her father bawled. ‘You cannot go out of the house unshod!’ But she ignored him and at last managed to pull open the door.

  Before she could run out, the entry was blocked by the tall figure of a man in an ulster coat, worn over a nightgown which showed incongruously below the heavy fabric. His bare hairy legs were stuck into large untied boots.

  ‘Is there something amiss?’ he said. ‘We heard it, and were somewhat alarmed –’

  ‘Oh, Freddy, do tell me what is happening!’ a voice squealed behind him and there was Alice, in a peignoir even more frilled than Mrs Leander’s and a most enormous nightcap, her eyes wide and scared so that she looked rather like a distraught baby.

  ‘What the blazes –’ Austen began and Tilly shook her head almost in a rage of impatience.

  ‘It is Mr and Mrs Compton from next door – Alice Spender – oh, please do let me pass. I’m so afraid – it’s Frank – my husband, I think he must have fallen. I must go and see.’

  Freddy put out a hand and set it on her shoulder. ‘No,’ he said and his voice had a ring of authority that made Tilly stop pushing to get past him. She looked up at him and shook her head, trying to convey to him the degree of her anxiety, but still he held her back, and he went on more gently, ‘It is better I or your father should look, my dear. If he is hurt it will not help at all if you swoon – you remain here with Alice and your people, and I shall go and see. Sir? How do. Frederick Pomfret Compton at your service. From number sixteen. Shall we go?’

  Amazingly Austen Kingsley nodded and followed the younger man, looking very much in control despite his somewhat undignified costume, down the steps and along the railings to the area gate.

  Tilly was able to remain where she was only for a matter of moments. Alice was exclaiming at a great rate about the amount of noise she had heard, how alarmed she had been and how terrifying it was when there were accidents and how she did hope dear Tilly’s husband was all right, until Tilly wanted to scream at her to be silent. Instead she darted out of the door and down the steps, only now becoming aware that her feet hurt, and were wet and slippery. She looked down and saw they were bleeding and shook her head almost in irritation. Such a silly thing to notice at such a time; and she ran along the pavement to the area steps to peer down.

  ‘Oh, Papa!’ she cried. ‘Papa! Is it Frank? Do tell me, is he all right?’

  ‘All right?’ Her father’s voice boomed up at her. The man’s as dead as bleeding mutton and you ask if he is all right? What possessed you to lock him out, hey? Now see what you’ve done!’

  Chapter Thirteen

  BEING ILL, THOUGHT Tilly, was agreeable. She lay staring up at the ceiling, her nostrils filled with the scent of the lavender pastilles that were burning in a saucer on her bedside table and her limbs feeling wonderfully languorous. I wonder what disease I’ve got? Is it a fever? And she managed to move her head enough to look at her bedroom window. But there were no rolled cloths set on the sills against the cracks to keep out any noxious night airs, as there would surely have been had she a fever; and anyway she was not hot. Nor was she particularly cool, she discovered as she thought about it. She was not anything, really. Just sleepy. And she closed her eyes with a deep sense of luxury and dozed once more.

  When she opened them again it was in response to the sound of voices. The sun lay long on her counterpane, and the light had the deep hue of late afternoon. She blinked up at the ceiling and then turned her head towards the murmur.

  That man, she thought, I don’t know at all. Who is he? And what is he doing here? The woman – ah! That is Eliza! Looking surprisingly neat, with her hair pulled back very tightly under her cap, and an almost shiningly clean apron. Tilly wanted to say out loud that she approved and tried to, but no sound came out of her lips when she opened them but an odd croak which startled her. It startled the two murmuring people even more for they hurried from the window where they had been standing, and came to each side of her bed.

  ‘Well, Mrs Quentin, and how are we feeling now?’ the man said and took her wrist in his hand and she thought – Mrs Quentin? Who is – is he talking to me? Oh, yes, of course he is. How strange to have forgotten that she was no longer Miss Kingsley. There was something else I should remember, she thought, and blinked at him a little owlishly. Something else –

  He nodded at her, a serious little bobbing of the head, for all the world like a greedy bird which has just seen a worm, and she thought with a rush of gratitude, for her memory was coming back – oh, of course I know who this is. It is Mr Fildes, the apothecary from Kensington High Street. I must indeed be ill for him to he here. Papa would not have him in the house otherwise.

  Again memory stirred and the delicious languorous feeling began to retreat. Papa. Papa angry. Papa telling her it was all her f
ault. Papa –

  ‘I did not mean to be ill,’ she said, needing to tell Papa that, but it came out in a low whisper and Mr Fildes bent his head and said ’Eh, m’dear? What’s that?

  She tried again, ‘I did not mean to be ill. I am so sorry.’ This too came out as a low croak and Mr Fildes patted her hand kindly.

  ‘Don’t you stretch yourself, m’dear. You have had a nasty turn and need all the time you can to get yourself fit again. Your voice will indeed be bad for a while, for the disease was deep. Very deep.’ He nodded in the same serious manner and set her hand back on the bed. ‘But you are mending nicely, indeed you are. With my medicines and the good Lord’s help, of course.’ He smiled with satisfaction and Tilly knew at once that he meant her to understand that it had been his medicine that was responsible for her recovery. She frowned again and tried once more to speak.

  ‘What’s the matter with me?’ It came out more easily this time.

  It was Eliza who heard and she leaned close. ‘You’ve ’ad a very nasty turn, Missus,’ she said earnestly. ‘Got the pneumony, you did, from being all chilled through that dreadful night, going out in your bare feet and cutting them up so terrible, and then it all goin’ to your chest and throat like it did.’

  ‘Hush, girl!’ Mr Fildes said loudly. ‘You must not alarm your mistress so.’

  Tilly managed to get one hand from beneath the covers to clutch on to Eliza’s wrist. She ignored Mr Fildes and said urgently, ‘Tell me again –’

  Eliza looked over her shoulder at Mr Fildes and then, clearly making a choice as to which person to obey, returned to Tilly.

  ‘You’ve had the pneumony, Mum.’

  ‘The baby –’ whispered Tilly, and Eliza closed one rough red hand over Tilly’s clutching one.

  ‘I done all your personal care, Mum, and it’s all right. Nothing ain’t gone wrong that I could see,’ she whispered back. ‘And no one knows but you an’ me –’ and Mr Fildes came closer, leaning over fussily, clearly wanting to join in.