Paying Guests

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Enlarge Quentin’s?’ She stared at him. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Well, Mr Collins assured me that the insurance we will definitely get will cover the repairs here and some more besides. He also told me’ – and here the glee almost boiled over – ‘that he acts for the house next door! It seems that when Dorcas lived here – I wonder if you know this? It is all very surprising – she followed you to his firm to become a client and after the first two partners died, and he took over, she remained with him. It was he who bought the house for her, and well, to cut it short, Mamma, she gave him full authority to do as he thought best for her benefit while she was unable to do so for herself. She told him this, he said, two years ago when she had to go away for some purpose – he would not say what – and she has not countermanded it. So –’

  He stopped and looked at her, for the first time showing a moment of doubt. ‘I hope I did not do the wrong thing, Mamma. Perhaps I should have woken you and asked but you know, I was so sure. I thought and – well, I was sure and felt so light-headed and yet so full of energy –’

  ‘Not enough sleep, that’s all,’ Eliza said sapiently from the other side of the kitchen table, where she was slicing beef for the dining-room platters, but Duff paid her no attention.

  ‘Well, I did it. I told him that the house would get no insurance payments, for we knew the fire not to be accidental, and would make sure the insurers were told of the fact if the firemen did not, which they will. And that means, I said, the house had no value to his client at all and that we would buy its lease. I told him we could give two hundred pounds for it and not a penny more, unless we could have the freehold which would cost us another forty pounds. And he said it was a fair offer and he would ask her as soon as he could find her, but I said he must decide now, for if he did not the offer would be taken away and he would never find anyone else who would take the place but us, for why should they, when it is such a wreck, and he said – he said –’ Duff swallowed, ‘he said he would consider it.’

  ‘He said he would consider it,’ Tilly said, almost stupefied by the turn events had taken. ‘I cannot believe that – Duff, I have wanted to take over that house for – well, for some time, but after the affair of Greenwall –’

  ‘Greenwall?’

  ‘Oh, you did not know of him, perhaps. Well, let that be for the present. Let me just say it seemed unlikely I could ever buy the house, for I had managed to save less money than I had hoped. And I dislike going into debt if I can avoid it. Yet now you tell me you have made an offer for a house that – How much did you say?’

  He repeated the money terms and she listened intently and then nodded slowly. ‘Well, it is a great deal of money, but –’

  ‘Say we can, Mamma! I am determined it will work well for us!’

  ‘I see little point in saying anything before we hear whether or not the offer is acceptable,’ she said with a hint of asperity. ‘I must warn you, dear boy, that there is more to doing business than merely speaking of offers and so forth!’

  ‘I know that!’ Duff said and went a little pink. ‘I am not entirely foolish! But it seemed to me important that we strike at once or lose all. Anyway, Collins said he would return and let us know.’

  ‘He is coming himself, the old man?’ Tilly said.

  ‘He said to me when I took him out to the door as he’d probably send his young partner,’ Eliza said. ‘Seeing as how he’s too tired to make the journey twice in one day. Not best pleased, he wasn’t, I thought. But glad to get the offer from Mr Duff. He stood outside and looked at the mess there next door for a bit before he told his driver to whip up the horses and take him off, and I never saw a man so grim.’ She laughed then. ‘It’s my belief he knows when he’s well off, that one. I’ll bet you any sum you like Mum, as the answer’ll come back that the house is ours for the asking.’

  ‘Ours?’ Tilly said and looked at her and then at Duff, and could not help herself. She began to laugh and could not control it, until she was laughing so much that she wept. They stood and stared at her until at last she caught her breath and dried her streaming eyes and managed to speak again.

  ‘My dear Duff, Eliza too, you are both almost too much for me sometimes! You get a notion of what you would like to see happen and then you – you simply arrange matters so that it does! You, Eliza, and your plans for Polly and her baby and – and well, you understand. And you, Duff, with your great dreams of buying houses. I feel like a cork bobbing on the water between you.’

  ‘Well, that’s all right then,’ Duff said and grinned at her. ‘You let us carry you along and all will be well.’

  They all stood very still then, as a bell pealed from above and Eliza pulled up her apron and rubbed her streaked face with it.

  ‘That’ll be the lawyer,’ she said, trying to sound matter-of-fact and not succeeding too well. ‘I’ll let him in myself, shall I, Mum?’ and she went, leaving Duff staring at his mother across the kitchen.

  ‘Is it all right, Ma? Have I done wrong?’ he asked and she looked at him and shook her head and then held out both hands to him.

  ‘Dear Duff, I cannot say you have done anything right or wrong until we have talked to Mr Collins, but I will say only that I am happy, indeed more than happy, quite delighted, to see you take such an interest in my affairs. I thought you were ashamed of Quentin’s and me with it –’

  ‘Perhaps I was when I was younger and more foolish,’ he said, sounding as old as he was able. ‘I know better now. I can see the fascination of making something that will grow, of making things happen the way you want them to – it is much better than being in the hands of people like Patrick, who run their lives on whims and notions.’ His face darkened for a moment, but then he set his mouth and shook his head as if to rid himself of unwanted thoughts. ‘I tell you I will be very content to work here with you.’

  She held on to his hands warmly, giving him time to compose himself again, for some of the old misery was back in his face. ‘Well, I am quite overcome with it all, dearest Duff,’ she said. ‘To have you to share my work would be – well –’

  ‘I shall do so very well, Ma,’ he said seriously. ‘And if we are allowed to buy the house next door, you will need me anyway. It will be a mammoth task, will it not, to –’

  Eliza appeared on the stairs above them and they looked up at the sound of her rather elaborate throat clearing.

  ‘I got Mr Lansdown here, Mum. Come in place of Mr Collins,’ she announced with heavy deliberation and came down into the kitchen, followed close behind by a tall man who had to bend to negotiate the way without banging his head on the low ceiling. ‘This way, Mr Lansdown.’

  He behaved as though they were all in the most elegant of drawing rooms in the richest of houses. He seemed sublimely unaware of the cooking smells, of the state of the floors, of the general mess, and bowed politely over Tilly’s hand and murmured his greetings and Mr Collins’s apologies.

  ‘I am doing most of his work now, Ma’am, since he is becoming more tired and is less able to work as he should like. I would have attended you this afternoon, had I not been previously occupied in a matter that was unavoidable, though happily now complete.’

  ‘I hope it went well,’ she said with automatic politeness and he suddenly seemed to change before her eyes. He had seemed at first glance a somewhat dour man with very dark eyes under heavy straight brows, and a saturnine expression, but now he smiled and his whole face lifted into a much younger cast and she felt herself warming to him.

  ‘As to that,’ he said with great satisfaction, ‘the rogue did not, as he believed he would, get off scot-free, but was dealt with sharply by the magistrate and my client is now a happy man!’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ she murmured, a little startled and then, as Duff pushed forward a chair for her and then one for Mr Lansdown, was glad to relax into it. This day was becoming more and more bewildering.

  ‘I have all the necessary information you require here,’
Mr Lansdown was saying, and he reached into the leather case he was carrying and extricated some papers. ‘The deeds are to be re-written and will be available in due course, but at this stage –’

  ‘Do you mean our offer is accepted?’ Duff cried, no longer able to contain himself and Mr Lansdown looked up and stared at him.

  ‘But of course,’ he said simply. ‘I told Mr Collins as soon as I heard of it that it was clearly the best course of action for all our clients, both you and Mrs – urn – the vendor of the house. The offer you made was misrepresented to me, I fear.’

  He smiled again and once more it lit his face agreeably. ‘I suspected Mr Collins had got it a little wrong. I checked the asking price of our – of the vendor, and here are the details. I think you will find them in order.’

  He held out the sheet of paper in his hand and Tilly, a little bemused, took it and she and Duff together bent over it.

  It was a simple but clear document. The house next door to Quentin’s, known as number eighteen, was to pass into the sole ownership of Mrs Matilda Austen Quentin for the sum of two hundred pounds, including the freehold for which there would be no additional charge, the price of the house being deemed to be one hundred and sixty pounds and the freehold forty pounds. It was unencumbered land and property, the paper said, and went off into a great many other lawyerlike sentences that Tilly made no effort to read. She just raised her head and looked first at Duff and then at Mr Lansdown.

  ‘Are you sure this is fair?’ she asked.

  ‘You think it too much?’ Mr Lansdown looked perturbed. ‘I can if you wish go to the vendor and ask her – but – um – it may take time to find her and she may not be willing to drop her price.’

  ‘No,’ Tilly cried. ‘I did not mean – I was thinking –’ And then stopped. Why was she worrying about whether the sum offered to Dorcas was a fair one? Had Dorcas ever shown any concern for fairness in her dealings with Tilly? She bit her lip and looked up at Duff. He was staring at Lansdown with his face quite incandescent with delight.

  ‘Then my offer is accepted –’ Duff said.

  ‘Less forty pounds. Yes, Mr Quentin,’ the lawyer said. ‘It is accepted. If you will arrange with me to have the papers signed and the money paid into the bank within three working days, then all will be arranged to everyone’s satisfaction, I hope –’

  ‘Satisfaction?’ cried Duff. ‘I should say so!’ And he laughed aloud in his delight.

  ‘I shall have to seek a loan,’ Tilly murmured, looking down at the paper. ‘Charlie perhaps –’

  ‘As to that,’ Mr Lansdown said smoothly, ‘we do have clients who are able to offer some venture capital on loan at advantageous rates. I am empowered to act for them – it is not unusual to arrange matters so – if you wish. I would have to see you from time to time to oversee the repayment of the loan, of course, if that were not too tiresome.’

  ‘Tiresome?’ Tilly said and now it was her turn to smile. ‘No, it would not be tiresome. We must think about this, of course. Three days, you say?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mr Lansdown said gravely. ‘You have three days to sign finally.’

  ‘It will be done,’ Tilly said and folded the paper and tucked it into her waistband, and then looked at Duff. ‘Well, Duff?’

  Duff seemed to glow as though a great lamp had been lit inside him. ‘Then I did the right thing, Mamma? You will let me work here with you? We could make Quentin’s into a glorious hotel, Mamma, better even than the guest house it has been so long. A big and elegant hotel for the ton and the –’

  ‘An hotel?’ Tilly said and stopped and stared and then repeated slowly, ‘An hotel. Quentin’s Hotel. Well, my dear Duff, my own darling Duff, why not? We shall indeed have an hotel. You and I together. And Eliza too, of course.’ And she held out a hand to Eliza who came round the table to stand at Duff’s other side.

  ‘Well, well,’ Mr Lansdown said. ‘An hotel. What an interesting thought. It would be gratifying indeed to act for an hotel. We have none in our practice at present and as one with an interest in and a taste for fine foods and wine, why, I think it will be a pleasure to act for you, Mrs Quentin, Mr Quentin.’

  She looked up at him and smiled as the last shred of lingering guilt that she had been feeling about parting from Silas Geddes shrivelled and died. She would still have to see him, talk to him, tell him that she had, regretfully, to release him from their engagement and try to explain why without hurting his feelings. It would be difficult, if not impossible, for how do you tell a man you find him no more than physically interesting, that his tendency to talk rather than do, and to pose rather than be, was too irksome, and a destroyer of affection? A way would have to be found, and soon, but at present it was enough to be where she was, and with whom she was.

  ‘Do you know, Mr Lansdown, I suspect you will be a great asset to us here at Quentin’s Hotel. Thank you for your interest.’

  ‘It will be consistent, I promise you,’ he said gravely, and then got to his feet. ‘I would like, if I may, to see the damage next door. I have not had the chance to look.’

  It was Duff who led the way out of the area door and up into the street above, and they stood there in the darkening evening, the four of them, Duff with an arm round the shoulders of both Tilly and Eliza, with Mr Lansdown alongside them, staring up. The front of number eighteen was stained with smoke and soot, and the gaping holes that showed where once windows had been and where bricks and stucco had caved in, seemed ominous and sad at the same time. Beside it the spruce front of Quentin’s lifted its head and seemed to glow bravely in the darkness, each of the windows where there was still glass winking cheerfully and the paint gleaming softly.

  And Duff said quietly, ‘Just you wait. Oh, Ma, Eliza, just you wait. This time next year – well, it will be the best thing you ever saw. Quentin’s Hotel! I shall fetch some champagne from the cellar – for no amount of fireman’s water down there will have harmed that! – and we and all our guests, our friends – shall drink to the future. What do you say? Shall we?’

  And they did.