Jenny Telfer Chaplin (17 page)

Chapter 3

Miss Petronella Martin was absolutely delighted with her new assistant. Not only did the desperate-for-paid-work Meg Spence treat her employer with the respect and deference due to an astute business woman of the social calibre of Petronella Martin, Meg with her careful vowels, absence of the Glasgow glottal stop, neat appearance, and pleasant manner also charmed the customers which was excellent for repeat trade.

However, there was one thing on which they could not see eye to eye and this morning Miss Martin in a quiet spell between customers launched yet again on her favourite topic.

“I’m only saying it for you own good, my dear Meg. It just isn’t natural, or even healthy, for a lovely young woman like you, with all the proper social graces, to spend all of her free time cooped up in that one room in your boarding house. You really do need to get out more. Go places, do things, meet people of your own age and social position. Perhaps even be introduced to some eligible young bachelors of good social and financial standing. Do face the facts, my dear Meg; you surely don’t want to end up like me, a spinster of the Parish, with neither husband nor child to call my own.”

If Miss Martin ever met Nellie and her coarse speech and manners what on earth would she think? Oh My Lord, if she ever found out about Becky I’d be out of a job quicker than a flash. And as for meeting eligible young bachelors … well … my one adventure was, as it turned out, neither eligible nor a bachelor. I don’t think I’m ready to try that again for now.

“Are you all right, my dear?” Miss Martin peered at Meg, inches from her face, and placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Oh, yes, sorry, Miss Martin. I was miles away. But yes, I did hear what you were saying. You think I should get out more – escape from time to time from the confines of my poky little room.”

Miss Martin sat back and nodded. “So you were listening after all. Well now, about that room in your boarding house … I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that. Recently I’ve been giving a lot of thought to your living conditions. A room in a boarding house with who knows what unsavoury characters to be met at the common meal table is not really suitable. Here is what I’ve come up with … just an idea, of course … but one which I think could well be of interest to you and advantageous both financially and socially. So let’s have our morning tea and I’ll explain matters to you in detail.”

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Chapter 4

It had been a long, tiring, and indeed rather stressful day at the haberdashery … and not least on account of Miss Martin’s detailed outlining of her so-called master plan to have Meg leave her ‘socially unsuitable’ accommodation and take a room at Miss Martin’s home.

On Meg’s way back to her lodgings her employer’s words were still ringing through her head as she mentally considered the advantages and, yes, the very real possible disadvantages of such a move, involving, as it would, helping with the care of Miss Martin’s elderly mother. The more she thought about it the more Meg was inclined to accept the kind offer even with the strings attached.

Yes, Meg thought. In many ways it would suit me very well. But there’s no need to make up my mind for a while yet. After all, once I commit myself to such a scheme that’s me locked in.

As Meg quickened her steps along the darkening city streets she thought: Strange that remark Miss Martin made about my meeting up with unsavoury characters at the lodging house.

The elderly spinster was more accurate than she might have guessed. It wasn’t only at the communal dining-table there was danger from unwelcome advances. It would not be the first time that Meg had been harassed and ogled by another tenant in an upper hallway. Even in the street on her way from work she had been accosted by men appearing from otherwise deserted alleyways.

In allowing her thoughts to dwell on this troublesome aspect of her daily life, Meg felt she was in danger of losing the meagre self-confidence she had managed to dredge up after the debacle of her fall from grace and the horrendous trauma of having given birth to an illegitimate child. Perhaps what her sister Nellie had said, in her usual less than ladylike language, that as a ‘fallen woman’ she was indeed sending out the wrong signals to, “randy, gaspin for it, dirty auld men.”

Meg was unsure what these real or imagined signals could be. However, being a lone, unaccompanied, obviously unattached, yet fairly presentable young woman living in a lodging house that was perhaps giving out an unintentional come hither look. Of course, those were the wrong signals the never ending stream of commercial travellers and other such casuals who passed through the rooming-house thought she was sending.

That night at the evening meal while firmly ignoring the lustful stares of her known tormentors Meg instead listened politely to the conversation of the new arrival across the table from her.

He proved to be a most interesting dinner companion with tales of his travels and amusing anecdotes. Alone at the table when the others had left, he bashfully and with boyish naivety confessed: “I’m a lay preacher. I don’t generally let this fact be known to casual acquaintances. I suppose I fear that because I’ve found God it makes me, in some people’s eyes, a sort of latter day goody-goody mama’s boy.”

Meg and her new-found friend laughed at this and Meg, feeling herself to be on safe grounds with this sound, upright citizen, light-heartedly said: “Don’t worry, Mr Lay Preacher, sir, you’re dastardly secret is safe with me.”

On that happy note Meg headed upstairs to soak her feet, aching after a long day standing in the shop, then to unpin and brush out her hair. Finally she sought the comfort of her single bed in the cell-like freezing room she now called home.

Almost asleep, something brought her fully awake and she sat up in bed to peer round the room in the faint light afforded by the street’s flickering gas lamp outside her window. There it was again. A sound she couldn’t quite place.

A mouse? Oh Lord, don’t let it be a mouse.

Meg pulled the patchwork cover tight around her and over her head and lying down again tried to get back to sleep. The sound came again, but this time Meg, now fully awake, identified it. No mouse was big enough or clever enough to be trying to turn the key in her bedroom door. While she considered herself a coward, a shivering wreck of a woman when faced with a mouse she would be damned if any lustful man would ever again ruin her life. Meg, as she rose, was just in time to see a sheet of paper being slid through the wide gap under her door.

This is no secret love letter, she thought. Any minute now my bedroom door key is going to be pushed from the lock to fall onto that paper and be slid back under the door into the grasping hand of whoever is there.

She took hold of the key and quietly removed it from the lock.
That done, she looked round the room for anything of sufficient weight with which to barricade her door. The rickety old chair certainly wouldn’t fit the bill nor would the wobbly cane bedside table. If she could possibly drag over the solid oak chest of drawers, however, that would do the trick. Using every ounce of her strength she dragged the piece of furniture towards the door. Before the chest was finally in place, with her bare foot she pushed the offending piece of paper under the door and back to its owner. With one last surge of energy the chest with a final thump was firmly in place. That achieved, a stream of the most vile, foul language was directed at Meg from the unseen, would-be lecher.

Even with the security of the physical barrier Meg’s mental torture of what might have happened went on well into the early hours of the morning. To add to her distress her tormentor was apparently in the room next to hers with his bed seemingly on the other side of the paper-thin wall between them. Throughout the rest of Meg’s terror-filled night he banged, knocked, and scratched on the dividing wall to the accompaniment of drunken shouts about: “… the f***ing whore who led a poor fellow on with her bedroom eyes … then got cold feet when a fellow followed up on her invitation.”

When Meg came down for breakfast next morning it was all she could do not to gag at the very thought of eating the porridge Mrs Farley set before her. However, feeling somehow ashamed and dirty as if the night’s escapade had indeed been an unlooked for and certainly unwelcome result of her ‘bedroom eyes’, Meg was determined to act as normally as possible and not let pass even a hint of what had happened. When Mrs Farley brought in the sparsely filled rack of toast Meg noticed that for once she seemed to be dining alone.

Almost as if she had caught Meg’s unspoken thought Mrs Farley leaned forward and said: “It’s a pity you weren’t down quicker. You’ve just missed that handsome new lodger of ours. You both seemed to be getting along so well at supper last night … quite taken with you he was.”

Meg’s head jerked up from her contemplation of the toast and the two small regulation curly knobs of butter.

“Oh, now don’t you go imagining romance where none existed, Mrs Farley. I was merely being polite and sociable that was all. He’s a lay preacher no less.”

Mrs Farley nodded absently. “Well, that’s as may be. Anyway, ships that pass in the night. To tell you the truth, dear, I very nearly missed him myself. You know how deaf I am. He had one foot out the door when I came through. He said he hadn’t wanted to disturb me at such an early hour especially since he wasn’t hungry and didn’t want anything to eat. Something about a business meeting at the Trongate. All a bit of a rush and he wouldn’t after all be spending another night with us. He’s going to collect his little attaché case later today and would pay me then for both nights anyway. Isn’t that really generous of him? Such a nice man, don’t you think?”

Meg gave a noncommittal ghost of a smile and thought: Unless I’m very much mistaken, Mrs Farley, we have both seen the last of that handsome new lodger, lay preacher or not.

On her way to work half an hour later Meg mused that the ‘ship that had passed in the night’ while cheating the besotted, stone-deaf Mrs Farley out of her money had at least done some good. His fumbled efforts at intended rape had decided Meg on her plan of actions. She would accept Petronella Martin’s offer to move into her Great Western Road home and help out with Miss Martin’s elderly mother.

Yes, indeed. What could be better? Yes, something good had certainly come out of something bad.

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