Paying Guests

by Claire Rayner

  But she ignored that cool and critical watcher and let herself sink into the sensations she was so enjoying, sensations which filled her belly with heat and tightened her chest and made her breasts ache. Her nipples felt hard and very sensitive against the fabric of her nightgown as he pulled her closer and began to caress her back with both hands, and she thought the hurt was wonderful. There was nothing for her but the here and now and feeling, feeling, feeling.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  SHE WAS VERY tempted not to go into the dining room for breakfast but to send for a sweet roll and coffee in her morning room; but she found a shred of pride somewhere deep inside and refused to behave in so craven a manner. She dressed carefully, getting up as soon as Rosie brought her morning tea and her jug of hot water, and went to considerable trouble to make herself look as presentable as she could.

  It was not easy. Her head ached dully, and her eyes were reddened and the lids were swollen. She bathed them in cold water which helped a little, but all the same, even when she had put on her newest day gown, a crisp russet-coloured gaberdine with handsome green braid, in which she knew she looked particularly fetching, she looked the way she felt. Drained, pallid and bone weary.

  She had slept eventually, but the sky was already paling by the time she did so. The first thought to come into her head when Rosie rattled her curtain rings was not the earlier part of last night’s extraordinary events, but what had happened with Silas Geddes. She had come to, as though from a faint, when his kisses had started to become more urgent, and his hands had moved from her back further forwards, all of which she had found herself liking, but somehow she had managed to dredge out of her depths a few shreds of constraint, and was able to pull herself away and say in a cracked and gasping voice, ‘No – please. No –’ He had stopped at once, pulling back from her to sit in the corner of the chaise longue, staring at her with wide eyes and an expressionless face.

  ‘I think,’ she had said after a silence, ‘I think I would like you to leave now, if you please. I am very tired – and I think I would like you to leave.’

  He did not move. ‘Are you angry with me?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Angry?’ She considered that carefully. It was difficult to think; her head felt stuffed with feathers, and ideas had to push and claw their way to the surface. ‘No, I do not think I am angry precisely –’

  Then what are you?’

  Tired,’ she had cried, almost piteously. ‘I am desperately weary and I must, I really must ask you to leave me. I cannot cope with much more, indeed I cannot!’

  At once he had got to his feet and stood there, his head a little bent as he looked down at her.

  ‘Then of course I shall go! I want you to know, though, before I do, that I regard you – with – with the greatest respect and behaved as I did only out of – out of an impulse which I did not have the strength to put down. It is not an ignoble impulse, however, and is based, I am most anxious you should know, in only the deepest of regard for your character, your charm, your intellect –’

  ‘Oh, please!’ she cried, unable to take another moment of his careful speech. ‘No more, please. Just go – I cannot take another word – goodnight – goodnight.’ And she had turned her head away from him and put up her hands to her face and stayed resolutely so until she heard the door close softly behind him.

  She had collapsed into bed then, and had been certain that she would fall asleep immediately, but of course she had not. The remainder of the night, short as it was, seemed endless, and when at last she did sleep it was to dream dreadfully vivid dreams which she could not remember when she woke. Which made them harder to be rid of, for the menace in them seemed to hang over her.

  But she did the best she could and came downstairs in what was, she hoped, her normal composed manner. Polly was at the foot of the stairs, a duster in her hand, rubbing the bannisters, and Tilly stopped when she saw her and frowned.

  ‘What are you doing there, Polly?’ she said sharply. ‘Why are you not in the kitchen with Georgie?’

  ‘He’s had his breakfuss, Missus, and he’s asleep, in the corner, Missus, so I asked if I could do somethin’ useful, and Mrs Horace, she said I could do this.’ She scowled a little then. ‘If I’m doin’ it wrong then I’ll ‘ave to be taught ‘ow, won’t I? I can’t know from nothing, can I? I never lived in ‘ouses like this before.’

  ‘It’s all right, Polly,’ Tilly said, her voice softer now. ‘I did not mean to sound harsh. I was just surprised. Afraid that Georgie –’

  The child’s face split into an unlovely grin. ‘Georgie’s fine, Missus, real fine. Why, carryin’ ‘im’s making my arms ache, I swear to you, ‘e’s that ‘eavy now. No need to fret over ‘im.’

  ‘Good,’ Tilly said and made to pass on. ‘Don’t worry about the stairs. I dare say you are doing them well enough. If Eliza is happy, I shall be.’

  ‘Please, Missus,’ Polly said as Tilly reached the dining-room door. ‘Did you find out anythin’? Did you go to the beak’s?’

  Tilly stood with her back to the girl, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. Heaven forgive her, she’d totally forgotten the matter of Polly’s father. It seemed an eternity now since she had gone to Clerkenwell Magistrate’s Court to find out about him and had discovered so much more than she had expected. Dorcas – there too was unfinished business she would have to give some thought to, surely –

  Slowly she turned and looked at Polly. ‘Yes, Polly. I have been there.’

  ‘And did you find out anythin’?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tilly said and stopped.

  Polly looked at her very directly, and then with an odd gesture pushed her hands through her hair, setting her cap askew. ‘Oh, well,’ she said and her voice was harsh, as though she had swallowed some caustic substance that had abraded her throat. ‘I said as ’e was dead, didn’t I? I knew it. It ‘ad to be.’

  ‘But I didn’t say –’ Tilly began but again Polly made that odd gesture and then shook her head.

  ‘You didn’t ‘ave to, Missus,’ she said, and now her voice was normal again, a little thin, pitched rather too high for comfort. ‘Seen it in your face. ‘E’s six foot under, ‘n’t ‘e?’

  ‘Yes, Polly,’ Tilly said gently. ‘I’m afraid that’s the case.’

  ‘Well, it’ll suit ‘im well enough,’ Polly said and turned back to the bannisters. ‘It’ll be peaceful now, any road, and ’e won’t get cold and ’e won’t be ‘ungry or in a takin’ over us. Better off, really.’

  ‘Oh, Polly, I am so sorry,’ Tilly said and without stopping to think reached out to the girl and put her arm around her. For a second the girl stood rigid, and then she softened and for just a moment leaned against Tilly who held her close.

  Then she stood up again and pulled back. ‘It’s all right, Missus,’ she said equably. ‘Don’t you fret none for me. I’ve got Georgie, see, and the boys is all right, or so I’m told, and as for pa, like I said – ‘e’s comfortable enough now, I got no complaints. I’m better off ‘n I ever thought I could be, and I’m grateful to you for that, Missus. So don’t you fret none over my pa dyin’ an’ all.’

  ‘I shall take you to the country this very Saturday, to see your brothers, Polly,’ Tilly said on an impulse born of guilt. ‘I should have done it long since, but there has been so little time – but we shall make some. I shall order a carriage from the stables and we shall go into the country and see them this very week.’

  The girl’s face lit up and again that wide grin appeared. ‘Oh, Missus, Georgie’d like that,’ she said. “E ain’t never been in a carriage, not Georgie, or not so ‘s ‘e’d notice much.’

  ‘Then he will on Saturday,’ Tilly promised, her heart sinking a little at the thought of a long journey with a baby. ‘I won’t forget.’

  Mr Cumming came down the stairs at that point and greeted them both with a cheerful ‘Good morning!’ and Tilly seized her opportunity.

  ‘Mr Cumming, I am planning to take Polly to see he
r brothers in the country this Saturday coming,’ she said. ‘I would be glad if you could let me have full directions of where they might be found.’

  ‘Oh, that is a pleasure, Mrs Quentin,’ Melville Cumming said heartily. ‘I shall collect that today. It was somewhere in Kent, I believe. Edenbridge, perhaps? Somewhere like that. I shall obtain all you need to know this very afternoon.’ He peered at her a little more closely. ‘Some country air will do you no harm either, Mrs Quentin,’ he pronounced, suddenly every inch the doctor. ‘You are looking a trifle peaky, Ma’am!’

  ‘Oh, I am well enough,’ Tilly said quickly and went into the dining room, with Cumming close behind her, still talking.

  ‘Well, you may believe so,’ he said. ‘But there are signs that are clear to the expert medical eye, and I can see that you are not as well as you might wish to be. A touch run down, you know. Nothing a little rest and country air won’t cure, mind you. I’ll get you that information this very afternoon.’

  ‘What, our Mrs Quentin unwell?’ Miss Barnetsen was sitting at the breakfast table with a large plate of kedgeree in front of her. She looked archly at Tilly as she came to her place at table and went on. ‘We cannot have that! You are our prop and stay, dear Mrs Quentin, is that not so, Mr Cumming?’

  ‘Indeed it is,’ Mr Cumming said heartily. ‘Good morning all. Good morning, Hancock. Drat you, I made sure I’d be down before you today, but I was waylaid on the stairs so it does not count towards our totals.’

  The two young men had a running wager on which of them left their bed with the greatest alacrity in the mornings; it was a jest that they were all well used to and to which no one else paid much attention.

  ‘As to that, you make excuses,’ retorted Hancock. ‘Mrs Quentin, I am sure, will give you the lie – will you not, Mrs Quentin?’

  Tilly lifted one hand and gave a deprecatory shake of her head but Hancock would not be stopped.

  ‘It’s only fair, Mrs Quentin! There’s fully three half crowns resting on this wager! You must not be partial now – admit to me that he was not at all delayed on the stairs by you.’

  ‘Not by Mrs Quentin, man, but by her protégée!’ Cumming was helping himself to a great deal of bacon and devilled kidneys. ‘We were speaking of Mrs Quentin taking the girl Polly and the baby to the country this weekend.’

  ‘Protégée!’ squeaked Miss Barnetsen, as the Misses K and F came sailing in to take their places at table. ‘That little housemaid with the dreadful teeth who was in the hall polishing the stairs when I came down? Surely she is not a protégée!’

  ‘Indeed she is,’ Mr Cumming said. ‘And her infant brother.’ He shook his head. ‘I thought everyone in the house must know by now of Mrs Quentin’s kindness in taking in this baby and his sister. Beggar children, yet she has given them a home.’

  Tilly threw a look at him that was ice cold in its displeasure. ‘I would have preferred this matter was not for general discussion, Mr Cumming,’ she said frostily. ‘I find it difficult to act always in the bright glare of attention.’

  The room was filling rapidly now as more and more of the guests arrived to take their breakfast, and Tilly felt rather than saw Sophie come drifting in. She was scented with Parma Violets and, Tilly saw when the girl passed her, dressed in a gown of beautifully cut silvergrey wool that made her hair seem to flame more vividly than usual.

  ‘A baby as well!’ Miss Barnetsen fluted. ‘How generous and kind you are. I had seen the infant about but I had considered – well,’ she simpered, ‘I did not presume to ask what it was or to whom it belonged.’

  ‘Well, it was hardly likely to be mine,’ Tilly said somewhat waspishly, and then shook her head. ‘I would much prefer we did not discuss this matter.’

  ‘I am happy not to do so as long as there is no interference in our comfort.’ Mrs Grayling was sitting very upright, the last of the arrivals and looking somewhat flustered, for she had dropped her reticule on the way in and had only just managed to rescue all its contents. ‘All is so very comfortable as we are that I fear any changes in our circumstances must be for the worst, for they cannot be for the better.’

  ‘I will accept that as a compliment, Mrs Grayling,’ Tilly said evenly. ‘And I assure you that the presence in this house of these two young people – who are not, I assure you, beggars any longer, but well cared for members of my household – will not discommode anyone in the slightest. Has anyone heard the infant cry?’

  ‘I have once or twice,’ Mr Hancock allowed, his mouth full. ‘But then I dare say once or twice it’s heard me snore!’ And he laughed loudly and then jumped to his feet and bowed as the Salinas family came in. He was clearly delighted to see Mademoiselle Salinas and Tilly found herself wondering bleakly if there had been or were about to be any more amatory adventures in her lodgings. Was the establishment about to slide into the gutter? Mrs Grayling had, perhaps, more to worry about than she knew, she told herself and got quickly to her feet.

  ‘I must leave you to serve your own coffee and tea this morning if you will forgive me,’ she murmured. ‘I have much work to do in my office. I shall collect that information from you at dinner time, Mr Cumming – yes? Thank you so much. Good morning, everybody.’

  And she escaped to her morning room, grateful that at least Silas and Duff had not appeared. It was only Sophie she had to avoid as she fled, and once she was in the hall she found herself thinking, why should I flee? Is she not the one who should be ashamed to show herself to me? I am the one who has been affronted by misbehaviour under my roof, she the one who committed it –

  ‘And Duff,’ whispered her secret voice.

  She hurried along the hall to her morning room as though she could run away from her own thoughts, and was about to close the door behind her, safe inside at last, when it resisted and was pushed open again.

  It was Sophie who stood there and Tilly let the door go as she saw who it was and walked to her desk, proud of her own steadiness, for inside she was feeling very shaky indeed. The only way to deal with her anxiety was to fan it into something hotter and deliberately she let anger take over, encouraging her own rage so that when she reached her chair she was able to whirl and sit down in a susurration of skirts and then look at Sophie with her head up and say sharply, ‘Well, Miss! And what do you have to say for yourself?’

  ‘Why, only that I am leaving for Leicestershire today,’ Sophie said and smiled. She looked as lovely as ever, not one of her beautifully arranged tresses disturbed, and her skin even more glowing and peach-like than usual. Did she use rice powder in the mornings? Tilly found herself wondering and then dismissed the idea as one that should be beneath her contempt. As if it mattered, after all.

  ‘And I trust will not be returning here,’ Tilly said and lifted her chin. ‘It will be better, I think, if you did not.’

  ‘Oh, do you?’ Sophie asked and shook her head in apparent regret and then looked about her to select a chair, into which she sank with great elegance. ‘I cannot imagine why. Do I not pay my bills regularly? Do I not entertain your guests on every possible occasion? You cannot deny that they all positively adore me and would sorely miss my company. So why should you wish me not to return?’

  ‘Oh, don’t play the artless puss with me, young woman!’ Tilly cried. ‘You know perfectly well! I will not have my house turned into a – a –’

  ‘A bawdy house?’ Sophie said sweetly as Tilly stopped, lost for words. ‘What an interesting comment for you to make.’ She laughed then, the soft tinkling practised laugh that was so musical. ‘You may not know how wisely you speak, dear Aunt Tilly. But let that be. Let me say instead that you can hardly blame me for what you observed last night, your son seeking to besmirch my honour and my name by making advances to me in the middle of the night – why, if I were to broadcast that fact, imagine the sense of revulsion that would fill your guests’ hearts!’

  ‘My son – my –’ Tilly almost spluttered it. ‘It was you! I saw the look on his face and on yours. You loo
ked so – so very pleased with yourself while he – he was positively frozen with alarm!’

  ‘I grant you that he was much the more bouleversé of the two of us,’ Sophie said with a thoughtful air. ‘Indeed, yes. But then he is so young a boy, is he not? So very inexperienced.’ She shook her head in a reminiscent manner. ‘Well, he will learn, no doubt. But let us be clear, dear Aunt Tilly, that you have no reason to be angry with me. It is your son you should speak to. Whose door was he at? Mine. I was not at his, let me remind you. I do not believe that you are being just in your reactions, and neither would anyone else, given the same facts to contemplate. I know it is painful to discover a beloved child is less than perfect, but please, Aunt Tilly, you must be fair.’

  She got to her feet and smiled down at Tilly. ‘Well, we shall see what we shall see. For my part, I shall leave for Leicestershire today. I was assured my welcome would be great at whatever time I chose to arrive. I think it will be politic to go now and furthermore it will let the heat die out of dear Duff a little if I am ahead of him as a guest. Then when he arrives he will not be so embarrassed as he might be were he to have to face me here in his own house, under the very roof beneath which he attempted to – well, let be. As I say, I shall make no fuss about what he did last night and I am sure you will see the wisdom of that. Goodbye for now, dear Aunt Tilly. I shall complete my preparations and be away from here in an hour or so. I shall leave my rent for the next two weeks, of course, so that my room awaits my return. Goodbye, dear Aunt Tilly.’