London Lodgings

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Indeed, Ma’am, if that is your wish, although I must say that I see little business that is required. The will your husband left is clear – he had no other family but yourself and you are his sole legatee. But as I say, there is nothing there to be –’

  ‘Quite so, Mr Conroy,’ she said as steadily as she could. It wasn’t easy to ignore the supercilious look that had come over the solicitor’s face. ‘But I am, I imagine, an heiress in my own right.’

  He was very still then. ‘Mrs Quentin?’ he said at length.

  ‘I mean, of course, that my father –’ She swallowed. ‘Your partner is his man of business, Mr Conroy, I am asking you to tell me, from the knowledge of my father’s affairs that I dare say you may have gleaned from Mr Cobbold, precisely what my situation is. I am a widow, after all, and have no further means of support. I need to know what provisions for my future may have been made.’

  He stirred in his chair and set his hands together and looked over them at her. ‘My dear Mrs Quentin, I realize of course that these are early days and you are still quite bouleversé with grief, but I must point out to you that you are but eighteen years of age, and quite – um – unencumbered. I have no doubt that there will be other suitors. It is sure that you will wed again within a short space of time. Especially if –’ he looked at her consideringly ‘– you do not go out of your way to tell people your husband left you so ill provided for.’

  She flushed. ‘I do not see myself as goods in a marriage market, Sir,’ she said sharply. ‘And anyway –’ But she would not tell him. Why should she? He was not the sort of man who would regard the fact that she was expecting Frank’s child as good news in any way. She could not bear that her coming child should be described as an ‘encumbrance’. She was too frightened already about the state of her affairs.

  ‘Yes, Mrs Quentin?’

  ‘And anyway,’ she went on, ‘one thing has nothing to do with another. I wish to know what my situation is if – what my situation is.’

  ‘Is there any reason for you to doubt your father’s good intentions towards you, Mrs Quentin?’

  She was disliking this man more by the second. Prying and showing clearly that he didn’t care at all that she was aware of his doing so.

  ‘That is beside the point, Mr Conroy. I am asking for facts. I cannot consider my future on the basis of – of mere feelings and surmises. Is it possible for you to give me this information? Answer me yes or no and I will go away.’

  He smiled, and she thought that he looked even more unlikeable than when his face was still. ‘You are asking me to break confidence, Mrs Quentin, with a client of this house.’

  ‘If it is so difficult, then I will ask no more,’ she said, her patience giving out as suddenly as her composure. Another moment with this man, she told herself, and I shall weep again. This hateful illness! It has made me weak in every possible way.

  ‘It is not so much difficult, Mrs Quentin, as not possible. We may be partners, Mr Cobbold and I, but we still guard most jealously the confidence of our individual clients.’

  ‘Is that so?’ she snapped, using temper as a way of controlling shameful tears. ‘Perhaps if you had been more concerned about the welfare of your clients, Mr Conroy, you would have told me long since that my marriage settlement had not been paid.’

  ‘But you were not my client until now, Mrs Quentin,’ he said smoothly. ‘Your late husband was. Had he wished you to know, I dare say he would have told you. No doubt he wished to protect you from pain.’

  ‘No doubt,’ she said sharply and went to the door. ‘Well, Mr Conroy, I must thank you for your time. Good morning.’

  ‘It is my pleasure, Mrs Quentin,’ he said and smiled, but did not get up from his desk. ‘If I can be of any help in the future please do not hesitate to call upon me.’

  Tilly reached Leadenhall Street with her knees shaking and not entirely from fatigue. How dare he be so condescending? She was not, of course, a rich woman. Had she been, she was sure he would have been bowing and scraping at her like some –

  She suddenly stopped in the middle of the crowded pavement, as people rushed by, eddying round her as water eddies round rocks in streams. Mr Conroy had, in his behaviour, given her the answer to her questions. Her father had no intention of making her his heiress. He was planning, as she had begun to suspect, to leave his wealth to Mrs Leander.

  However much he might plead poverty and bad investments, there was no doubt in her mind that her father had a comfortable sum of money tucked away somewhere and of course there was the house, which had considerable real worth. It would make a tidy inheritance and until Frank’s death she had never thought about it. But now she had to; indeed it had been one of Eliza’s casual remarks that made her aware of the need to do so.

  ‘Lucky ain’t it, Mum, that you ain’t in a situation like my Ma was when my Pa went and died – or the one I was told was my Pa. Got throwed out of ’er ’ouse she did, on account it was tied to ‘im working on Mr Lumley’s farm. But you’re all right, God be thanked. You got your father’s house to live in and no problems.’

  But had she? And if she had, for how long? Since Frank’s death Mrs Leander had become more and more outrageous in her behaviour, treating the house as though it were hers entirely, and being exceedingly haughty with Tilly; indeed, almost as much as she was with Eliza. It was becoming quite unbearable and Tilly smarted under it painfully. Perhaps she was in no better a state than Eliza’s unsupported mother, thrown out of her village hovel. Could not the same thing happen to a widowed Tilly should her father die?

  She had never thought much about death before. There had been no real need to do so. Now, however, Frank was dead. He had been but five and twenty, yet he was dead. Night after night as she made the slow progression back to health, Tilly struggled with the guilt that filled her about Frank’s death. If she had not locked him out he would not have fallen down the area steps. If he had listened to me he would not have come home drunk again, a part of her mind would retort. But perhaps if I had not threatened to lock him out, he would not have been driven to drinking too much, just to assert his authority.

  So the arguments went on and on inside her head until they were displaced by fears for her father. Was it not reasonable to suppose that her father, at the age of fifty-six (as she suspected he was, from something he had once said about the year of his birth being in the last year of the old century), might soon die? He also drank heavily, and often came home much the worse for wear because of it. It was hard to love someone of whom you were so very afraid, but he was her father and, anyway, all she had. There were no other relations that she knew of. Both her parents had been only children, and neither had ever spoken of any connections of their own, so who else did she have? What shall I do if he dies and Mrs Leander throws me out of the house…?

  Such fears had driven her, on this sultry July afternoon, into the City to see what she could discover from Frank’s solicitor. No one had come to tell her of her situation after his death and in many ways life in the Brompton Grove house continued as though he had never been there, had never existed at all. Tilly’s father went on in his normal way, totally absorbed in his business affairs and coming home only occasionally to eat his dinners and spend time with Mrs Leander. He and Tilly had little contact, although he did at least continue to pay her the agreed money to run the house and she was grateful for that. Eliza had, by dint of working her way through The English Gentlewoman’s Magazine, managed to provide him with tolerable enough victuals so that he complained less than he once had. The house was certainly cleaner under Eliza’s devoted care and Tilly often marvelled at how energetic the girl was. She not only did all the cleaning and the cooking, but also looked after Henrietta and Tilly herself. And that was something else for Tilly to feel bad about, for Eliza earned so little for all she did and yet was so very contented.

  Altogether, as she stood there in the middle of the pavement in Leadenhall Street, Tilly felt very confused and unhappy.
She tried again to marshall her thoughts logically, but she could not rid herself of the notion that had fixed itself in her mind. Mr Conroy had, in refusing to answer her questions, made it clear that he knew Austin Kingsley had no intention of leaving his house or his money to his daughter.

  And his daughter’s child. Tilly set one hand on her belly, feeling the small bump she knew was there, so small that no one could yet see it but which was very apparent to her when she ran her hands over herself in bed at night. My child, she thought. Left with nothing. No home. No support. Nothing.

  This cannot happen, she told herself. I must find a way to prevent it. My father must be told – her thoughts baulked then. Tell her father what he should do with his own property? It was unthinkable. No, she must think again.

  Mrs Leander must forfeit her right to the house and the money. Again Tilly had to stop that line of thought. It was as impossible to imagine speaking to Mrs Leander of such a matter as it was to imagine the sun rising in the west tomorrow. There had to be another way. Quite what, she could not see, but there had to be another way.

  ‘Tilly,’ a voice said and she whirled, startled at hearing her own name said so warmly. She was suddenly aware of all the surrounding noise as horses plunged and jangled their harnesses in the shafts of vans and omnibuses, costers shouted and passers-by chattered and van drivers swore in the maelstrom that was Leadenhall Street.

  Freddy Compton was standing with his head on one side so that his top hat seemed most precariously perched on it, with the knob of his cane held in his mouth, watching her quizzically through those pallid lashes that made him look so startled and kitten-like.

  ‘Good morning,’ he said cheerfully and smiled, once again making the transformation of himself that had so surprised her the first time she met him, from a weedy young man to a very reassuring presence indeed. ‘How are you, my dear?’

  She stared at him, quite nonplussed. ‘Imagine seeing you here!’ was all she could say. ‘So far from home and in the middle of such a crowded street!’

  He went a little pink and then reached out, took her elbow and steered her to the side of the pavement, out of the way of an irritable passer-by who almost pushed her as he hurried past. ‘Well, that’s as may be,’ he said and smiled down at her again.

  ‘But it is most strange!’ she persisted, quite open-eyed at the coincidence of it all and he sighed, clearly embarrassed.

  ‘You quite undo me, Tilly,’ he said. ‘It is not perhaps such a coincidence after all. I was told by Eliza that you had insisted on coming up to town to see your man of business. She was most disapproving, I must tell you.’

  Tilly smiled at that. ‘I know. She told me so often! Such a very watchful child she is! I am fortunate to have her to take care of me so kindly.’

  ‘You are indeed. But she is also a chatterbox of course and when she told me where you had gone, I thought – well I must be in that part of town myself. I too have business to prosecute. After I have done it, why then perhaps I shall see Mrs Tilly and be able to take care of her and fetch her home. Just to please her housemaid, you understand.’

  ‘I understand well enough!’ Tilly said with mock reproof. ‘You and she were in a conspiracy over me! She tried to prevent my going out on the grounds that it was too much for me – and I have been better these many weeks now – and failing to persuade me, goes complaining to you.’

  ‘It’s not quite so bad. I did in truth come to call. Alice is in the country, visiting an old friend in Staffordshire and I am quite alone. I needed to flee from the rest of the workmen – they will never be done, they are so dreadfully slow – and you were not there, but here. Now I am here too.’ He looked at her a little more closely. ‘And not before time, I suspect. I think you are more tired than you know. You are quite white about the mouth.’

  She bit her lip and looked away. ‘Such nonsense –’

  ‘Not at all. Now, the time is past twelve. Time for a small luncheon, I believe. You will permit me, I am sure, to arrange this for you. Come along.’ And he made an elbow and tucked her hand into it and moved through the crowds to the kerbside again, waving his stick in the air with his other hand to summon a cab.

  She tried to protest but not very loudly. She was, to tell the truth, more tired than she had expected to be. She was still far from restored to her full health, and the thought of sitting down and drinking some hot tea, perhaps, was very attractive.

  He was quite masterful, putting her in the cab and talking easily of commonplaces as the driver whipped up his horse and plunged into the traffic; and she relaxed and allowed it.

  After a while she became aware that he had stopped talking and was regarding her anxiously.

  ‘Forgive me for my distracted state,’ she said quickly. ‘I have much to think about.’

  ‘Indeed,’ he said at once and then added sympathetically, ‘I hope your man of business did not have bad news for you?’

  She could not help it. She knew it was not right to burden a man who was little more than a stranger, however long ago she might have known his wife, with such matters, but it would be such a luxury to let out some of her anxiety, and so she indulged herself.

  ‘It was not good news,’ she said. ‘My husband left me nothing, and my father –’ She hesitated. ‘I am of the impression that he is less interested in my welfare than I would like.’

  ‘I see.’ He was grave and said little more as the cab arrived at the destination he had given to the driver, and they were decanted on to the pavement.

  ‘I have chosen this hotel,’ he said, as he helped her up a pair of handsome wide steps into a broad marble-clad hallway, ‘as one that is luxurious and yet totally respectable. The Hotel Cecil has an excellent reputation. They will provide a small luncheon that you will not find unpalatable. And,’ he added as she looked about her at the richly carpeted and clearly very expensive establishment, ‘we will be able to talk quietly of your situation. I am sure we will think of something that you can do to ease matters for yourself.’

  She looked up at him and surrendered the last of her doubts. It would indeed be comforting to have some help with her dilemma, and talking about it would be the greatest comfort. She followed him as he led the way to the hotel dining-room with more spring in her step than she would have thought possible half an hour ago.

  Chapter Fifteen

  BY THE TIME she reached home again she felt both rested and a great deal happier. She also felt that Freddy and she had been friends for many years and was at such ease with him that she was able to sit in the cab and kick off her boots, which had become tight and uncomfortable with the passage of time.

  She leaned back on the dusty leather squabs of the cab and said a little sleepily, ‘That was indeed a perfect luncheon. I do thank you for it.’

  ‘It was my pleasure to see you enjoying it so well,’ he said. ‘It is always delightful to introduce a friend to a dish they have not tried before.’

  That one was most interesting.’ She stifled a yawn. ‘I wonder if they really do eat eggs so in Florence? Or is it perhaps an invention of an English cook?’

  ‘I am assured at the Hotel Cecil that their chef is Italian and his dishes are quite authentic. Have you not eaten eggs served with spinach and so rich a sauce anywhere else?’

  ‘Indeed not –’ She lapsed into silence and then could not make polite talk any longer. ‘Will it work, do you think, Freddy?’

  ‘I am sure it will. Just leave it to me.’ He leaned forwards and patted her hand in an avuncular sort of way. ‘You must not worry, my dear. Just go to your room and rest and when you come down, it is my belief that Mrs Leander will have gone.’

  ‘But how can you be so sure that what you have to say will be enough to make her – I mean, will you not tell me what you are planning to say to her? What can there possibly be that –’

  ‘Now, you promised me! When I said I had an idea that would serve but that I must be left alone to apply it, you agreed. Yet you question me like
a Bishop at a catechism!’

  ‘I am sorry, Freddy – it’s just that I can’t imagine what you could say to such a woman to alarm her enough to send her packing. Nothing,’ she added with great feeling, ‘nothing at all ever alarms Mrs Leander!’

  He sighed, pretending to be exasperated. ‘My dear girl, I told you! If you tell persons like Mrs Leander that All is Discovered and that you hold information about their past lives, they will believe you. Such people always have past histories of which they are ashamed. They are also very well accustomed to making the best of their situations and regard caution as the wisest way. She will be no different, I am quite sure of it.’

  ‘But how do you know this, Freddy?’ She was wide awake now and looked at him thoughtfully as she sat with one hand tucked into the leather strap at the side of the cab to maintain her balance, for they were now out of the City and well on their way to Brompton village, and the cab was fairly rattling along and swaying severely in consequence. ‘You are after all a person I do not know well. Perhaps there are things about your past – perhaps I could tell you to flee because All is Known.’

  ‘Oh, pooh,’ he smiled. ‘Are we not old friends?’

  ‘Well,’ she said candidly, ‘not really. Are we? I knew your wife, of course, when we were children, though even then –’

  He chuckled. ‘I am well aware of that. She has a great gift for elevating memory to a higher status than it warrants. Dear Alice. I have no doubt that you hardly remembered her.’

  ‘Not at first,’ Tilly allowed.

  ‘But that does not matter. Now we are neighbours we must be closer. It is better for both our families.’

  ‘You have not answered my question. How is it you know how to deal with such persons as Mrs Leander? What in your past makes that possible?’

  ‘Put it down to worldly wisdom,’ he said easily. ‘I am, after all, rather older than you – almost twice as old, I believe – and I have travelled a good deal. France and Italy…’