Paying Guests (40 page)

‘Oh, indeed it is,’ Dorcas said and laughed. ‘I was not completely taken in by Nicholas Rees, I must tell you, stupid though I was in some things. He thought we were putting all we had into the place in Covent Garden, but I – I always had concerns of my own. I bought this house all that time ago, and hid my treasures here and thank God I did, for otherwise I’d have come out of prison a pauper and died in the gutter. But now – now, my dear, I have such plans for this house! And won’t it be jolly that we should be neighbours, eh, Tilly? Just like old times in some ways!’

And it was very much the old Dorcas who laughed in Tilly’s horror-struck face.

THE NEED TO talk to someone about her confusion became ever more clamorous as the evening wore on. She had come back to the warmth and comfort and cleanliness of Quentin’s from the house next door feeling, as she stepped inside her own front door, that she had woken from a dream. It had been so cold, so very dirty, so very bleak in there, and her conversation with Dorcas so bewildering in all its implications that she did wonder wildly, just for a moment, if she had indeed been dreaming. But of course she knew she had not and went as always, when in need of privacy, to her morning room to collect her thoughts and try to decide what her next steps should be.

Inevitably Eliza came to her within minutes. Probably watching through the kitchen window to see me pass the area, Tilly thought a little wearily, as she came in and stood hovering expectantly at the door. For a moment Tilly thought of sending her away with her curiosity unsatisfied, but then relented. She could not do that to Eliza; not only was she entitled to know what had happened – it would be downright cruel to keep her in the dark.

‘She was looking around because she already owns the house,’ she said in reply to Eliza’s first question. ‘Not because she wants to buy it.’

Eliza gaped. ‘Owns it? But how can that be? How could she –’

‘She bought it,’ Tilly said shortly. ‘More than ten years ago, when the old man died – Mr Shepherd, you remember? His widow went on living there for a while, paying rent. That was why we did
not realize the house had been sold. It has lain empty since Mrs Shepherd died because Dorcas was not able to do anything about it –’

‘Because she was in clink,’ Eliza said succinctly.

‘Yes.’

‘And now she’s out.’

‘Yes.’

‘And coming back here to live.’

‘I’m not sure.’ Tilly shook her head. ‘She talked a little wildly – she’s had a very bad time, Eliza.’ Tilly tried to conjure up again the pity she had felt for Dorcas. It was not so easy now that Dorcas was not here in front of her, showing her scarred hands and battered visage, but she persisted. ‘She was stubborn in prison, I gather, and stood up for herself and they treated her badly.’

‘I dare say they did,’ Eliza said with a certain stubbornness of her own. ‘And I dare say she deserved it, the way she behaved. I remember her well enough not to be surprised at anything she did, that one. Nothing at all. It’s a miracle her daughter’s turned out so good as she has.’

Tilly stared at her and then threw back her head and laughed. It was a genuinely amused sound and Eliza stared at her.

‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ she spluttered at last. ‘It isn’t funny at all, in truth – it’s just that – I did not even mention Sophie! I did not tell Dorcas she had been living here nor about the letter I wrote to her this afternoon and –’

‘Letter, Mum?’ Eliza said, mystified.

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter, Eliza. It’s just so absurd that we talked for so long yet never once did either of us mention her child. Yet I would have thought for any woman in her situation that that would be the subject closest to her heart. How could she not ask me? How could I not tell her? You must agree it’s funny.’

‘If you say so, Mum,’ Eliza said soothingly. ‘But I wouldn’t fret over it, in your shoes. All that I’d be fretting over is what happens to us now. Is she to move in there, Mum? Because I’ll tell you flat, I don’t trust her one bit. Why, there’s no knowing what she mightn’t
get up to there and what would our people say if she caused any sort of disturbance, I want to know?’

Any remaining shred of humour vanished from Tilly’s face. ‘Yes,’ she said slowly. ‘I know.’

Eliza pounced. ‘She’s told you, Mum. She’s said what she wants to do.’

‘Yes,’ Tilly said. ‘She’s told me.’

Eliza waited, expectantly, her hands crossed on her comfortable big belly. It did not occur to her, clearly, that she was being impertinent, a servant to be so quizzing her mistress, and Tilly could not bring herself to think ill of her for that. Eliza was more than a servant; she was as much part of Quentin’s as Tilly was herself. I might own it, she thought, but she is the one who makes it work, who feeds and keeps them happy. I help her, but she is the engine that drives this machine – she has a right to be concerned, to ask questions.

‘Come and sit down Eliza,’ she said, and for once Eliza did not argue. She came and sat in a chair beside Tilly’s desk and looked at her anxiously.

‘First she says she has to get herself well,’ Tilly said cautiously. ‘The past two years have almost ruined her health, as you saw. But then she says she must use her equity in the house and she has some money she says, to have it set to rights and well furnished. She must use her property to give her a living.’

‘No doubt, Mum, but it’s a question of how, ‘n’t it?’ Eliza said and then frowned sharply. ‘She ain’t thinkin’ of settin’ up in competition to us, is she? Because if she is – well, it won’t make no never mind. We’ll still be the best place there is. No one as could get a room with us would even think of going to the likes of her, or anywhere else come to that.’

‘If it were so simple, Eliza,’ Tilly murmured and Eliza, still muttering about the superior quality of Quentin’s, looked at her and quirked her head.

‘I’m sorry, Mum, I didn’t quite catch –’

‘It doesn’t signify, Eliza,’ Tilly said and got to her feet. ‘All I can tell you is what I have said. That she is to get herself well, and then
decorate and furnish her house before she decides how best she can use it as a form of security against the future. Perhaps she will sell it, or perhaps she will let it, who can say? I doubt she will set up in opposition to us, for I do not think the district will carry another such establishment as Quentin’s and we were here first and so have the edge. Anyway it is very hard work to run a guest house and she will not like that – and I believe she is well aware of that. So you need not fret over the matter. Now, I think it must be getting very close to time for dinner and I have not dressed yet, so if you will check the dining room and kitchen for me this evening, I’ll be upstairs. You may sound the gong at the usual time, I shall be ready.’

This conversation had made it clear to her that she could not talk to Eliza about her fears and the details of her discussion with Dorcas. She would become much too anxious, she was sure, and anyway there was a shrinking in her at the idea of confiding in Eliza. Much as she loved and appreciated her, she should not be made privy to all matters pertaining to her employer’s affairs.

If only Duff were here, she found herself thinking as she presided over dinner. Eliza had found a section in one of her cookery books that discussed cookery
à la Russe
, and for the first course had made a cabbage soup rich with sour cream and a potato gratin and dishes of stuffed yeast pancakes which everyone was exclaiming over so happily that they hardly noticed that Tilly herself was picking at her food. Certainly she had time to think.

But Duff would not help me, she reminded herself. He is madly in love with Dorcas’s daughter. How can I speak to him of my fears and doubts about her, any more than I can risk doing so about Sophie? All I will do is estrange him utterly, the state of mind he is in. I must keep my own counsel.

And she found herself thinking yearningly of Jem, and how much benefit she would have obtained in speaking to him. He had known Dorcas too, known her very well indeed. If anyone would have ideas about how to deal with that lady, it would have been Jem. But how could she take herself to him? He was to be wed this coming Saturday. The invitation to the church and the breakfast had arrived
last week and she had been in the process of steeling herself to attend; he must be quite enthralled with his Miss Goodall, and certainly too busy about his own affairs to concern himself with hers. No, she could not speak to him.

Rosie was clearing the first course and bringing in the chicken pie and crimped cod and boiled leg of mutton in caper sauce which made up the second, and Silas, who was seated three places down on her right-hand side, with Mr and Mrs Grayling between them, leaned forwards and said across them (they being quite enthralled in a colloquy between themselves), ‘Are you ill, Tilly?’

‘Ill?’ She looked at him in surprise. ‘No, of course not.’

‘Then why are you not eating?’ he asked, and Mrs Grayling became aware of their conversation and looked sharply at Tilly, her wrinkled old apple face curving into lines of anxiety. She hated any hint of illness in anyone. It frightened her.

‘Oh, I ate too many of Eliza’s coconut cakes at tea time!’ Tilly lied hastily and Mrs Grayling looked relieved and returned to her husband’s conversation. ‘And I would prefer you not to make public remarks on such matters!’ Tilly finished
sotto voce
and with some sharpness. ‘I am perfectly well!’

‘Then eat your dinner, coconut cakes or not!’ Silas said and smiled to take the sting out of his injunction and she shook her head at him crossly as Rosie bent over her to enquire of which dishes she wished to partake.

She accepted a portion of chicken pie and let Rosie add some of the creamed spinach that Eliza had said would be the best accompaniment, and was very aware of Silas’s eyes on her as she ate it; and was glad she had, for she had indeed been hungry and not known it. Far from eating too many coconut cakes at tea time, she had taken nothing since lunchtime and then had been in no humour for more than tea and a few sippets of toast and honey.

By the time she had eaten her share of the last course, which included a most delectable bread and butter pudding, which was one of Eliza’s specialities, she felt a little less anxious. She had let Dorcas’s old ways and her memories of them cloud her judgement, that was the problem. The woman she had talked to in the house
next door had not been the Dorcas of long ago, full of energy and, it could not be denied, considerable wickedness, always determined to do as she pleased rather than what was good and proper. This was a woman who had suffered and had been punished for her bad ways, who had learned a lot. She would not connive and be cruel again as she had used to. Tilly was worrying for no reason.

But she thought, it still would be nice to have someone to talk to, and she looked consideringly at Silas as he came as usual into the drawing room and sat beside her to help her with the coffee equipage.

It was strange, she thought, how differently she felt about this man than she had felt about Jem, whom she had once intended to marry. Jem had been kind and gentle and good; a man to be relied upon, one she trusted completely; but he had not aroused in her that sense of need and delicious desire that Silas made her feel. Yet Silas, who could create that feeling just by sitting beside her as he now was, did not give her that sense of security and comfort she used to find with Jem.

I want the impossible, she thought as, with slightly tremulous fingers, she gave Silas a cup and saucer to carry to Miss Knapp. I want a man who is both Jem and Silas. And if I had him, she went on in her thoughts with a sudden shaft of self-understanding, I would probably find him lacking in some way. The truth of the matter is that I cannot trust
men
. I have had such difficult experiences with men that I never think that any one of them can behave well. Yet in truth it is a woman who now alarms me the most and I need a confidant. What shall I do?

When everyone had their coffee (or tea, which she now provided in the drawing room in response to various people’s entreaties) and the compendium of games had come out and everyone who wished to play had found themselves a place at a table, she leaned back in her chair and again looked consideringly at Silas.

Usually at this point in the evening he was claimed by one or other of the tables to make up the number of necessary players. But tonight, because the Graylings had declined their usual favourite, which was dominoes, and gone to bed early, there was in fact one
space less for a player, since one table had been abandoned completely. Silas had, by dint of great charm and a display of uncertainty about what sort of game he most wanted to play tonight, managed to cast himself as the spare one and settled down next to Tilly in the most natural manner possible. No one looking at him, not even the sharp-eyed Priscilla Knapp, would have guessed that he was deeply content, being precisely where he wanted to be.

‘Silas,’ Tilly said in a low voice. ‘I would be glad of some advice.’ She had made up her mind. In the absence of anyone else to talk to, it would have to be Silas. She really could not manage without some sort of discussion of her dilemma.