London Lodgings

by Claire Rayner

  Prudently she said nothing about any legacy. This young officer might be the soul of probity, but equally possibly he might be cut of the same cloth as Mr Cobbold. She had assumed him to be a man of virtue until she found out otherwise, so she would take no chances now.

  He looked at her dubiously. ‘I don’t see what we can do here, Madam,’ he said. ‘There’s a large number of – ahem – young lady cousins who find themselves more enamoured of a uniform than they might be.’ He smirked slightly. ‘No doubt your young relation has her own reasons for staying away from her family. Who are we, after all, to expose her shame unless –’

  ‘Why assume there is shame to be exposed?’ Tilly was now irritated and forgot to be demure. ‘I assure you that when we last spoke all that time ago she had every intention of marrying. She told me his name.’

  ‘That’s different. Why didn’t you say sooner? If you’ve got a name – and better still a regiment.’

  ‘I have no details other than a name and even there –’ She hesitated. ‘I recall his first name perfectly. His second name was – another Christian name.’ She shook her head. ‘I have tried and tried to recall it, but it eludes me. However, I am sure that if I see it written down I will know it at once.’

  He stared at her and then laughed. ‘Oh, come, madam!’ You cannot expect to be able to read the whole roster of men here and just pick one to accuse of running off with this cousin of yours!’

  She was scarlet with embarrassment and anger now. ‘It is not like that! I do most strongly assure you it is not. She was to marry her Walter – whatever his name was. I have tried so hard to recall it. It was a classical name, I am sure – perhaps it was in a poem I once read. I do assure you that I am not trying to do anything at all underhand! I seek only to help a distant relative. If I were your sister, would you expect a brother officer to treat me as unkindly as you are doing?’

  He looked back at her in the soft light of the gas as it hissed and plopped overhead, and it was his turn to be embarrassed. ‘Well, I suppose it can do no harm – though if the adjutant discovers – well, I will let you see some of the lists. Not all. There are hundreds of men here and we cannot allow you time to sit and read the entire roster of their names. But you may start when you choose. See how far you get.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Sir.’ She was irradiated with gratitude and he seemed for the first time aware of the fact that, for all her dark respectable pelisse, she was a young and not uncomely woman.

  He bobbed his head and said awkwardly, ‘Well, Ma’am, that’s well enough,’ and hurried away to fetch the big ledger books which bore the names of the men at Knightsbridge Barracks, in row after row of spidery copperplate.

  He allowed her to remain with the ledger until six o’clock, at which point he returned to tell her that he was now off duty and it was as much as his life was worth to permit her to remain until the next officer took over; but agreed a little unwillingly that she might return next morning when he would again be on duty. She had, she pointed out, got only as far as the Ds, having skimmed the surnames in search of those that might be similar to Christian names. ‘I am sure I will be able to identify the man after a couple of hours with these ledgers,’ she told him earnestly.

  And so it turned out. She returned the next day at nine in the morning (much to Duff’s noisy delight, for it meant she had to abandon his lessons for the day). This time she wore a gown of lilac sarsenet beneath her nicest pelisse in purple satin-trimmed velours with a chip bonnet decorated with matching ribbons. Prudently remembering the ordure-strewn barrack yard she added pattens to protect her feet, and after she had picked her way delicately to the guard-house, holding her crinoline well clear of her ankles, she was gratified to catch approving eye of the young lieutenant. Today, she promised herself, she would succeed. It would be much easier in daylight to beguile the officer into letting her check the names of every soldier here. She must find Dorcas’s husband that way, surely?

  And she did. It was well past the luncheon hour (and she had politely but firmly refused the lieutenant’s offer of a little collation in his quarters) when she reached the Os. She was about to slide over them, not being able to imagine any classical male Christian name that began with that letter, but scolded herself for lacking diligence. She plodded through them and there it was. It leapt off the page at her so forcefully that she could almost hear Dorcas’s voice whispering it down the long corridor of the years. ‘Walter Oliver’s a big man – a lot of substance there.’

  She sat and stared at the name and tried to think. She had been so set on tracking Dorcas down that she had not thought much beyond this point, and it was high time she did. She was still struggling with her confusion when the lieutenant came back.

  ‘I’m afraid I have to –’ he began, and she shook her head and jumped to her feet.

  ‘have found him,’ she said simply.

  He looked startled and then dubious. ‘Who?’

  ‘Oliver. Walter Oliver. I told you it was a man’s Christian name, and a classic one, did I not? Like in Roland and Oliver, you know. That was the man my cousin planned to marry. If you can arrange for me to see him then?’

  He looked at the roster over her shoulder and shook his head, almost with relief. ‘Oh, no. The star next to his name – you see? That indicates he is to be deleted from the roster when the next roll is made up. Got his discharge, he did. Or maybe –’ He peered again at the page and looked a shade uncomfortable. ‘Ah – maybe it wasn’t quite – well, he’s not here any more, that’s the thing.’

  ‘Not – but he is listed here! Surely if a man is enlisted that means he –’

  ‘It means only that he was here,’ the lieutenant said brusquely. ‘Once they’re discharged or dead, then we can’t just scratch their names out. We star ’em like that, so we know the next time the page is rewritten it’s got to be done without that name. That’s all.’

  She looked at him sharply. ‘Are you saying he’s been killed?’ she said bluntly. ‘Is that why you were so – you seemed uncomfortable when you looked at the entry.’

  He looked more uncomfortable still. ‘Well, it’s not for me to say. Matter for the Commanding Officer, don’t you know.’

  ‘Oh, really, Captain!’ she said, knowing perfectly well she was promoting him and hoping that would smooth her path. I am not a woman given to fits of the vapours at the mere mention of death! I did not know the man, remember, only Dor – my cousin. I will not weep to hear she is a widow. I am a widow myself, and it is after all not so bad a state.’ She did her best to dimple at him, disgusted at her own duplicity but at a deeper level enjoying her new-found ability to get her own way by such means.

  He took a deep breath and nodded at her, making a little grimace as he did so. ‘You’ve got it pretty right, Ma’am,’ he said candidly. ‘According to the small cross by the name – not the star, see? – he is indeed dead. Could have been the Chinese Expedition.’

  ‘Chinese?’ She was startled.

  ‘Oh, yes, we were there. Last year, you know – there was a force sent to Peking to put down those Chinese pagans who’d been causing so much trouble these past twenty years or more. They had it coming to them, of course, disgraceful carryings on. Boarded one of our ships, don’t you know – the Arrow – arrested our men on a charge of piracy. Outrageous. We’d have put them down long since, I’ve no doubt, but that we were still sorting out the business in the Crimea. Last year –’ He was clearly enjoying his reminiscences and she lifted her brows at him.

  ‘You were in China too, then?’

  ‘Me? Er, no – held the fort here, don’t you know. But we sent detachments from this Barracks, indeed we did. Took a lot of work, servicing that little fracas. It would seem your Walter Oliver was one of ’em. Can’t say I remember the fellow, you understand, but –’

  ‘Have you any record of where his wife might be?’ He reddened a little at the sharpness of her interruption.

  ‘Well, as to that –’


  ‘I’m sure you’ll want to help a poor widow to re-establish her ties with her family,’ Tilly said, making herself demure again with an effort. ‘Since he gave up his life for his –’

  ‘Yes, yes, quite so,’ the lieutenant said hurriedly, clearly undecided as she gazed at him beseechingly. After a long pause he picked up the ledger and took it away to his inner office.

  ‘Wait here,’ he said and disappeared. Fifteen minutes later the lieutenant returned, and she jumped to her feet.

  ‘It is against all the rules of the service of course,’ he said in a low voice. ‘And if you tell anyone whence you received this information I shall be forced to deny it. But here is the address of the person he gave as his next of kin. It is the only help I can give you. I truly have gone too far already. I’d be grateful, Ma’am, if you’d leave as soon as maybe. I fear the adjutant may be here soon.’ He urged her towards the door and she went gladly, clutching the scrap of paper firmly in her hand, and made her way out of the office and across the barrack square, before escaping gratefully out on to the street beyond. Only then did she look at the paper.

  ‘Mrs Walter Oliver,’ she read, ‘17 Waterford Street, Fulham –’ and took a sharp little breath in through her nose. Not far away at all; and she peered at the watch on her fob, fumbling inside her pelisse. Three in the afternoon. Still time to go there, if she could get a fast cab; she bit her lip, thinking of Duff waiting at home for her, and then decided. The sooner this was sorted out the better. Duff was in safe and happy hands with Eliza, and she would not fuss too much if Tilly was late returning. She had warned Eliza when she left this morning that she could not promise any time for her return, but would endeavour of course to be in before dark when there might be footpads about. Eliza was sure that the night streets were infested with persons who were hell-bent on murder and mayhem, even though Tilly often reminded her that Knights-bridge was a respectable area now and not at all the thieves’ kitchen it had been before the Great Exhibition had brought prosperity to the district.

  At last she saw in all the traffic a four-wheeler available for hire – a hansom would be cheaper, but a four-wheeler was more comfortable, and perhaps quicker – and for once her natural thrift was overcome.

  Waterford Street proved to be a narrow thoroughfare of neat and tolerably well-kept artisan’s cottages, and she stood on the pavement outside number seventeen looking at the front door beyond its tiny sliver of front garden tucked behind intricate railings. It looked spick and span indeed, and had window boxes on the lower sills in which a few late geraniums straggled, trying to look brave and bright in the fading light of the November afternoon. Behind her she heard the cab turn and the horse’s hooves clop away and for a moment she wanted to run after it and climb in and go home; but she straightened her shoulders and tucked one hand into her pelisse and walked up the tiled front path, to knock on the door.

  There was a long silence, and then a shuffling sound, and finally the door opened, but only enough to allow one suspicious eye to peer out at her.

  ‘Yerss?’ a cracked voice said.’ ‘Oo is it?’

  ‘I am looking for Mrs Walter Oliver,’ Tilly said. ‘Is she here?’

  ‘Oo wants to know?’

  ‘I am a – er – a distant connection,’ Tilly said, hoping that Dorcas, if she were indeed in this little house, would not discover her lie. ‘I am anxious to reach her.’

  ‘’Oo says she’s ’ere?’ The eye, Tilly realized, belonged to an elderly man, for it had that gummy, watery look of antiquity, and the voice, though thin and cracked, still had some depth to it. ’Eh? You tell me that. ‘Oo says she’s ’ere?’

  ‘I got this address from Knightsbridge Barracks,’ Tilly said. ‘I assure you, Sir, that if I am at the wrong house and am incommoding you, I would be most –’

  ‘The Barracks?’ The door opened wider. ‘You bin down the Barracks?’

  ‘Why, yes,’ Tilly said, puzzled, for now suddenly the manner of the speaker was all affability. ‘I went there to seek the whereabouts of Mr Oliver and with some little persuasion they told me that he – he was killed in a recent battle in China and that his widow resides at this address.’

  ‘Well, well, well!’ The old man cackled with great glee and put out a grimy hand towards her. ‘The Barracks sent you, did they? Told you it was my old Regiment, did they? Nineteenth Light Infantry Trooper, that was me. Show you me old shako I will, what got shot into when I was fighting the Afghans. Nasty ‘eathens they was! Poor old General Whatsisname, oh ’e didn’t know what to do with ’em! Our General – Lightower, ’e was, ’e should ha’ bin the Commander-in-Chief.’

  ‘No – er – they did not precisely tell me –’ Tilly said awkwardly and then stopped. He was such a very odd looking old man, tall and thin, the wreck of what must once have been a magnificent body seeming to hang on the scaffolding of his bones like old rags. He was wrapped in a large tartan rug and his slippered feet peered out from beneath it, and on his clearly bald head he was wearing a very tattered and rather dirty nightcap.

  ‘Then why did they send you ’ere, eh? Tell me that. Why should they?’

  He was suspicious again, and peered at her with narrowed eyes as he began to shuffle backwards into the house, for he had come right out on to the doorstep.

  ‘I told you. To find Mrs Oliver.’

  ‘Well, you can’t ’ave her. She ain’t ’ere, see? There’s only me, Trooper Adams, at your service.’ And he essayed a shaky salute and she felt a sudden pang of deep pity and immediately reacted to it, impulsively holding out one hand.

  ‘Oh, Sir, I am proud to meet you,’ she said. ‘I would not have disturbed an old soldier like you for the world, indeed I would not. I will go away and –’

  There was a creaking behind her as the front gate opened and she was pushed aside, and almost lost her balance as something small but very firm and strong shot past her. She looked round and then down, and saw a small child standing there. She had dark red hair that her bonnet displayed quite clearly, for it hung by its ribbons halfway down her back, and the lavish curls spread over her shoulders in a most delectable fashion. Her eyes were wide and dark in a face that was small, pale and pointed and the mouth that was pursed a little in consideration as its owner stared up at Tilly was as pink and rosebud-like as any of those depicted in the sentimental pictures in Eliza’s favourite domestic magazines. Her coat was a deep turquoise blue and trimmed with black fur and looked very costly; and the small matching muff that hung in front on twisted silk cords was of a most elegant design. The child’s boots were polished so brightly that even in this uncertain light they shone, and her legs in their black stockings were slim and handsome above them.

  ‘Who are you?’ she demanded in a shrill and very self-confident voice for one so young – and Tilly estimated she could not be much different in age from her own Duff. ‘What do you want?’

  Tilly looked at her and then back at the man, puzzled. They seemed a very unlikely pair to inhabit the same house, yet the child was standing next to him now, with her legs firmly apart on the doorstep and her head up, every inch a person on her own territory. Tilly lifted her brows and said, ‘And who are you? Is this your grandpapa?’

  ‘Of course not!’ the child said scathingly. ‘This is Trooper A, the best man in the Regiment – you tell me who you are.’

  ‘It’s no matter, Sophie. I know who the lady is.’

  The voice came from behind Tilly and she whirled, and stared and then took a deep and rather shaky breath. A woman was standing there, her face a little shadowed by her most elegant bonnet. Her hands were tucked into a handsome fur muff. She was wearing a pelisse of dark red and the gown beneath it was most tastefully trimmed with matching braid on its rich, darker crimson flounces. She looked every inch the modern lady of fashion, and she was Dorcas.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  ‘IT IS NOT SO much as I might have expected,’ Dorcas said judiciously and stretched out one foot from beneath her silk flounces to
admire her new kid boots and white silk stockings. They all looked very fine. ‘Only fifteen thousand pounds.’

  Tilly felt the familiar irritation Dorcas had always been able to arouse in her and firmly put it aside.

  ‘I would find it a useful enough sum,’ she said in a neutral tone, and Dorcas laughed.

  ‘Oh, my dear, I am sure you would. But then you are so much more sensible than I, are you not? Oh, Tilly, do look at her! Isn’t she quite delicious?’ On the other side of the room Sophie behaved as though she had not heard a word and continued to build her bricks, but now with a somewhat studied air rather than the genuine absorption she had displayed hitherto and which had indeed looked charming. ‘I get such delight from her when she is being good! Which is all too rarely, of course – dearest Sophie, you must let Duff play with the bricks a little if he chooses – they are his, after all!’

  ‘I am far too old for bricks,’ Duff said with a lofty air, though he had been watching Sophie for some time and clearly ached to be meddling with the building she was constructing. ‘I stopped playing with them years ago! But I will help you if you like,’ he added magnanimously and moved a little closer to Sophie, who at once glared at him fiercely and hissed, ‘If you touch this I shall break it all to pieces, so there!’

  ‘Well, if you do not wish to play, that is all right, Duff,’ Dorcas said and beamed at Sophie. ‘But do not spoil Sophie’s sweet games, will you? That would never do,’ She had clearly already lost interest in the children and returned her attention to her new boots. ‘These are indeed most elegant, are they not, Tilly? I shall get some more I think,’

  ‘They look very nice,’ Tilly said, still managing to sound neutral.

  ‘Oh, indeed they are,’ Dorcas said with great satisfaction. ‘Quite the best of quality,’

  ‘So you had no problems with Mr Cobbold? He was – was he surprised to see you?’