Paying Guests

by Claire Rayner

  He laughed aloud at that. ‘Oh, dear Tilly, have you learned nothing about me? I am one of the new people, remember? I don’t regard it as in any way at all shocking that a woman should have needs and desires of her own and that she should express them. Have you not listened to what I have said about the way people behave, or should? Have you not understood me at all? In common with most of the members of my Society and the people whose opinion I most value, I regard the relationship between the sexes as one that should be free and untrammelled by conventional ideas! There’s no need at all for you to be ashamed of what passed between us last night any more than there is for me. We should glorify the fact that we have found each other and can together explore the –’

  ‘I have no wish to explore anything!’ she cried and he stopped and stared at her.

  ‘Do you mean that? Truly? Look at me and tell me whether you mean that or whether you are being – well, conventional and making pointless protests you don’t in truth mean?’

  She lifted her chin and looked at him, stung by the accusation that she was behaving missishly and opened her mouth to speak. And couldn’t. The sensations that had crawled in her belly last night when he kissed her were conjured up again just by looking at him; she felt her face get hot as she found it was not just her belly that was feeling the sensations, but her breasts, the small of her back and her thighs, and indeed the most intimate parts of her body. She was bursting with desire and though at one level she recognized it as a delightful feeling on another she was deeply, desperately ashamed of it.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ was all she could say, and he smiled a wide triumphant sort of grin and stepped forward and pulled her to her feet and kissed her again. And just as she had last night, she cooperated with every atom of strength she had and enjoyed it hugely.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  SHE WAS GRATEFUL for the peace that succeeded those few days of upheaval. The first week after Sophie and Duff departed was not an easy one; the other guests clearly missed the company of the young people, notably Sophie, and there were a few flares of irritable temper due to the resultant boredom from Miss Knapp, from whom it was only to be expected, and from Mrs Grayling, from whom it was rather surprising. But Tilly managed to soothe them with a flash of inspiration when she purchased one of Charlie Harrod’s newest ideas, an exceedingly large and varied compendium of games. There were dominoes and cribbage, chess and bezique, Pope Joan and Nine Men’s Morris as well as a wickedly exciting racing game and, of course, draughts. In no time the drawing room after dinner rattled with the sound of dice rolling or counters clicking and the cries of exultant – or disappointed – players. The gap left in their social life by the loss of Sophie and her singing and general sparkling charm slowly closed over and calm and contentment returned to Quentin’s.

  Or it did for the guests. For the proprietor things were not quite so easy. She went about the business of her day looking as serene and purposeful as she always had, ensuring that every one of her guests had all they required for their comfort, that Eliza was able to run the kitchen economically and the maids were able to keep the house thoroughly clean with the maximum of efficiency. No one seemed aware of the fact that behind her smooth exterior a great deal of confusion swirled; not even Silas, though he spent a good deal of time with her – or at least as much as he was able, allowing for her busyness.

  He tried to persuade her to spend the evenings in her morning room in his sole company, but she was adamant that she owed it to her guests to be with them and insisted in such a way that he could not see it as anything but the thoroughgoing concern of a hardworking businesslike lady trying to run her establishment in the best possible manner. For Tilly it was enough always to see Silas in the company of other people; the last thing she wanted was to be alone with him.

  His presence continued to make her body react with a degree of excitement that alarmed her; she was continually aware of the hunger that lurked inside her, which only he could assuage, but was determined to maintain complete self-control. She was not going to let anything, anything at all, spoil the life she had built for herself and her son, she would tell herself night after night as she prepared for bed and thought of Silas doing the same in his room along the hallway; allowing loose rein to her feelings for Silas would do just that. It could not be.

  And a wicked little inner Tilly would quiz her, asking her if she was quite sure? And she knew she wasn’t, but still managed, somehow, to maintain her façade. But it was far from easy.

  At least all was peaceful below stairs. With the departure of Dora, Eliza had relaxed considerably and looked blooming and happy. That she was fattening was obvious, but oddly no one seemed to be all that surprised by the fact or to draw any embarrassing conclusions from it. Eliza was a cook, and cooks were supposed to be large and comfortable – or the best of them were. All Eliza was doing as far as the maids – and the guests, when they saw her – were concerned was ensuring that she fitted her role properly.

  That she was happy was undoubted. She would hum cheerfully beneath her breath as she worked and sit comfortably sewing in her rocking chair in the kitchen or reading one of her beloved magazines, as solid and secure as a lighthouse and giving off the same sense of security to all around her who could bask in her light. She made Tilly in particular feel better than she would have thought possible, under the circumstances, and certainly the whole house seemed to be in a particularly tranquil mood.

  Until the letter came from Duff that removed any possibility of tranquillity for Tilly.

  It arrived by the third post one dull afternoon, thick and heavy with many sheets of closely written paper, with a certain amount of scratchings out and heavy underlinings that showed how anxiously it had been written. Tilly, recognizing the hand as soon as Rosie gave it to her, escaped to her morning room with it, and sat down on the sofa to read it.

  But she did not read it for a considerable time, finding it easier to sit turning it over and over in her hands, for she was filled with a sense of unease. What was he going to tell her? What horrid news did this thick missive contain? She had no doubt at all that it was horrid; she had been fearful ever since he had gone away, her dear Duff, that he might not come back to her, and now, she told herself, almost in tears at the prospect, that it had happened just as she had feared. Around her the pale walls seemed to leap and dance as the flames that burned so high and briskly in the grate threw light against them and there were glints of rich light reflected back from the curving legs of her pretty fruitwood chairs and tables. After a moment she got to her feet and fetched herself a glass of Madeira wine from the decanter on the corner whatnot. There was always some there, although she rarely drank any. Why she kept it she was not quite sure; perhaps in memory of her mother, whose room this once had been and who had been very partial to Madeira. Too partial, in fact.

  With the glass on the small table beside her, she at last smoothed out the pages. And read, slowly and carefully, Duff’s effusion.

  ‘Dearest Mamma,’ he wrote. ‘This is such a difficult letter to write, even though it contains some excellent news because it also brings some that may dismay you, as you will see.

  ‘But let me tell you first that all is well with me here. I arrived in some Trepidation, since I was in advance of my invitation, even though I had sent a letter to Patrick to tell him I was coming a little earlier than planned, but the Dear Old Fellow did not object in the Least, but professed himself Most Delighted to see me, and assured me that he had been deep in Ennui until we arrived.

  ‘I say we, for the same Welcome was extended to Sophie, not that I am surprised by that, since she is so Charming. Patrick’s papa, the duke, seems particularly to like her, and spends much time talking with her and laughing at her Witty Comments. Patrick’s Sisters seem to be happy to have her company also, although Lady Euphonia, who is the eldest, is a shade waspish at times. But Patrick says she has always been thus, since she is the Eldest Child and feels Bitter that she cannot inherit the
dukedom, which is a comical notion, is it not?

  ‘Patrick and I have spent much time about the Estate, and he has shewn me much of country Life, which I find most Agreeable. He says I have a Natural Aptitude for such matters as the Keeping of Game and the Care of Horses, or rather the supervision of those who have such care, and is most most impressed, he is kind enough to say, by my ability with matters pertaining to money. He was always the worst in the school at Arithmetical matters and I often did his Preparation for him when we were boys there together.

  ‘Which brings me to the Excellent news I mentioned. I hope you will regard it as I do, with Approval. In talking one afternoon, I said that I wished I could always live in the country amongst such Agreeable People and with my Friends about me, as here at Paton, and he said in the most casual manner imaginable that perhaps I should learn to be an Agent! I have to confess to you as I did to him that at this stage I had no Notion of the work of an Agent, but he laughed and explained that all he does is oversee the running of the Estate of a Gentleman and take the burdens from the Landowner and see to it that the Income runs well and that the Tenants are Happy and the Hunting and Shooting interests are well protected. He says their present Agent who is a great friend to the duke, Patrick’s papa, dislikes Patrick excessively and when his papa dies and he succeeds to the Title, he fully intends to be rid of him. And he said then that I should take his place!

  ‘I gasped but then he rode me over to Little Egton, one of the villages on the Paton Estate, to show me the Agent’s house, which is a handsome one indeed, well proportioned and comfortable, being perhaps a hundred years old but with modern conveniences, Patrick said, they have their own excellent Well which never dries up in even the hottest Summer, as well as natural drainage that ensures there is no problem of Middens and such. He said I should have the House to live in as it is part of the Agent’s Entitlement as well as an income of some Hundreds of Pounds a year to live on!

  ‘I was amazed by this, but Patrick was quite certain and spoke in the most relaxed manner possible of this plan. He cannot arrange this until he is Duke, but he says, and I dare say he knows, that his Papa is a sick man and is well known in the County to be living on Borrowed Time. I thought that it was sad to speak so of his own Papa but he says his Papa hates him and that it is a tradition in his Family that the Son and Heir is always cordially Loathed by his father and why should they be different?

  ‘Also he says I must stay as his Permanent Guest, learning secretly the work of an Agent so that when the time comes, as he is sure it will inside the next Twelvemonth, to tell the man Oakburton that he must leave, I shall be ready to take up my Duties.

  ‘I have not spoke to Sophie yet of this, for I felt it proper I should Apprise you first of this Excellent Change in my fortunes, but I shall tell her as soon as I hear from you that you are happy for me in my choice of Career – I am sure you must be, since you have mentioned often your concern that I should choose some way to make my way in the world, and that you will see that the future is now most Sunny for me. To live in so handsome a house as Little Egton Hall with an Assured Income must make me most Eligible and able to ask Sophie to wed me, and then we shall be as happy as we may be!

  ‘I await eagerly, dear Mamma, your reply to my letter assuring me that you are as Happy as I am with the way my Lines Have Fallen, and rejoice in my Good Fortune, all of which I owe to my friendship with the Dearest Fellow in the world, Good old Patrick.

  ‘I must hurry to Post this letter, Mamma, which is villainously ill-written for which I Beg your Pardon, and sign myself Affectionately and with all Respect, your son Francis Xavier Quentin.’

  And after that he had provided a sort of afterthought, his usual scrawl of ‘Duff.’

  Slowly she reread the letter, and then folded the sheets with careful fingers, ensuring that she made no new creases and then hid it away in one of the smallest pigeon-holes of her desk, the one with a sliding cover to it that she could lock it with the smallest key on the bunch she wore at her waist. And then she sat down again on her chair by the fire, to try to order her thoughts.

  Duff, an agent to a duke? It sounded a great opportunity indeed, but it was as full of holes as a fisherman’s net. First of all her boy was a London boy. He had been born in this very house, and had spent his youngest years no nearer to nature than the park, where he had chased sparrows and pigeons and thrown crumbs to the ducks on the Long Water but then had walked home over cobbles through the din and smell of town life. To be sure, he had learned to ride at school, and had found himself able to join a shooting party on a great estate, and now a hunting one, but did that fit him for a life in charge of a great countryside establishment? She tried to imagine it, and could not. The thought of Duff in breeches and gaiters and carrying a gun, in the manner she had seen in illustrations in Punch, was absurd.

  And then there was the question of the duke. She found it repugnant to hear that her son’s friend had spoken so flippantly and indeed hopefully of his father’s death. Perhaps in high society of this sort it was normal to hate one’s parents and to say so, but to do so as openly as this young man seemed to do shocked her.

  She tried to remember how it had been in her own father’s lifetime. She had feared him and often disliked him and, indeed, on occasion had found him hateful but she could never, surely, have spoken so cheerfully of his death with such – such – the words ‘gloating delight’ came into her head and she dismissed them. Duff had not actually said any such thing and she had never met Lord Patrick Paton so she had no reason whatsoever to think in such terms; but there had been something in Duff’s account of his conversation with his friend that had created this thought for Tilly. And she shivered at it.

  She made herself think about the worst aspect of the whole letter; his desire to remain in Leicestershire to learn how to be this agent at some unknown future time, a time dependent on an old man’s death. She shivered again at the thought and shook her head. It could not be. She would write to him at once and bid him come home. He could not stay there, living in someone else’s house, however rich and commodious, for a prolonged period. It would not be proper. He would cease to be a guest, surely, and would become a sort of parasite, could even be treated as a poor relation, with all the unpleasantness such an existence made inevitable. She was not rich but she was comfortably off, with Quentin’s as successful as it was, and her son did not have to rely on living in a grand house as an object of charity. She would not countenance it! And she got to her feet quickly and hurried over to sit at her desk and kindle a lamp so that she could see better to write a strong letter to Duff.

  And then she stopped, the pen in her hand. Was she going to insist he return home? How could she? He would be so desperately unhappy at the suggestion that he might baulk at it. She had seen enough of her now almost adult son since he had returned from school to know he was no longer the biddable child he had once been. This was a young man with strong views about what he would or would not do. To try to force him to do as she said as though he were still a child would avail her nothing. He might – and the thought made her chill as though she had swallowed pieces of ice – flatly refuse to obey her. And then what? Go to Paton herself and drag him away in ignominy? He would never forgive her. They would never deal happily together again. She had to find a better way of dealing with the matter. But the harder she tried to think the worse her anxiety became.

  And then, at last, slowly an idea began to form. It might not work, she told herself; it smacked of the most disagreeable dishonesty; it could not work; and yet –

  She thought hard for some time and then again picked up her pen and a sheet of her letter paper and began to write. But the letter was not addressed to Duff.

  ‘Dear Sophie,’ she wrote with a steady hand. ‘I trust that you are finding your stay at Paton agreeable. I understand from Duff that he is to stay on at Paton for some time; he will himself explain to you why this should be so, I am sure.

  ‘I have thoug
ht a good deal about our last conversation and feel that I was perhaps too hasty –’

  She swallowed. It was painful to write such weasel words, but what else could she do? she asked herself almost piteously. Somehow she must lure Duff home and if the only way to do it was to use Sophie, and bend her own head to her, well, so be it. She would do it. She was not anxious to have the two of them together under any roof, but if they had to be, it would be better here, under her own, where she could observe what was happening and perhaps protect her son from a girl she was convinced was avaricious and thoroughly dishonest, than at some far distant duke’s house.

  She continued with her letter. ‘I realize now that you were not to blame for any disagreements we might have had, but that Duff misbehaved. That being so, I believe the least I can do to recompense you for my ill humour is to invite you to stay at Quentin’s as my guest in the future. Not as paying guest, you understand, but as one of the family. You are, as you say, known to me from your childhood and I will be happy to include you here as one of us. This will, I hope, release you from anxiety about money, which I suspect you have. I do recall your speaking of the need to earn your living; well, live with me and the need will evaporate and you will never again have to display yourself on the public stage in a way that you must find distasteful on occasion.’

  I hope I haven’t gone too far, she thought, biting the end of her pen. I don’t for a moment think she finds it distasteful to display herself, but she does find it distasteful to be short of money. She will rise to the bait, I’m sure: come to live here free of cost and then return to dancing, just to annoy me, as she will see it, and keep all her money for herself. She will like that very much.