Paying Guests (42 page)

‘Hush,’ she said. ‘You must not –’

‘Why not?’ He was looking a little wicked, and leaned back in his chair and glanced at her from beneath his lashes with mock delicacy. ‘I would have thought that good
close
friends such as we are should be able to speak to each other in any way we wish. Are we not intimate friends now, Tilly?’

She bent her head, again very aware of the physical effect he had on her. ‘Well, yes, but –’

‘No buts.’ He was serious now. ‘No buts at all – ah!’ He looked up in satisfaction as Mr Gee got to his feet and made his way to the dining-room door, the
Morning Post
held neatly under his arm. ‘On your way then, Oswald?’

‘Yes. I must be at court in –’ Mr Gee looked at his watch and tutted importantly – in just an hour, you know. Must be about my business! Good morning to you, Mrs Quentin! Geddes!’ And he went in a bustle, leaving them alone. Rosie had not come up to clear yet.

‘I must make the most of my opportunities,’ Silas said rapidly. ‘I know this is neither the most romantic time nor place, but you give me little opportunity to be alone with you in such circumstances, so I must make the best of what there is. So, here amongst the wreckage of our excellent breakfast, dear Tilly, will you be my wife? There, I’ve asked you. I never thought I would ask any woman that, so greatly valuing my freedom as I do – not wanting even the trouble of owning my own house, let alone a wife, but you, Tilly, are enough to make any man forget his resolutions.’

She gaped at him, so taken aback that she was breathless. Of all the things she had not expected to happen this morning, this had to be the most remarkable. That he might declare himself one day was a possibility that had, of course, occurred to her and she had tried to think about what her response might be; but this had caught her so much by surprise that she could not think at all.

‘Why, Silas –’ was all she managed and then had to shake her head. ‘I hardly know what to –’

Behind her the door opened again and Rosie came in, bearing her tray.

‘May I clear, Mum?’ she said, hovering at the door. Without stopping to think, Tilly, ever the careful housekeeper and well aware of the importance of getting out of the servants’ way so that the work of the day could be properly executed, got to her feet at once.

‘Of course,’ she said almost automatically and then stared at Silas, who was looking startled and not a little annoyed. She bit her lip. It must have seemed to him a dreadful snub not to have sent Rosie away for a while, and she said quickly, ‘Come to my morning room, please, Silas –’ and hurried away, without waiting to see whether he would follow.

Happily, he did and came to sit beside her on her small sofa and took both her hands in his and smiled.

‘Well? Now you have ensured that your housekeeping duties have been given due precedence,’ he said, ‘am I to have my answer? Or will you play the shy miss and insist upon making me wait?’

She swallowed. ‘My dear Silas, I am not a shy miss, nor would I wish to ape one, but this is – I am so surprised that I must of course have time to think. And I am not precisely alone in this matter, am I? I mean, if I am to wed again I must – my son – he is part of –’

‘Now, Tilly, hear me!’ Silas said with a sharp change in his manner. He had become masterful and not at all the easy unruffled man of thought and letters he usually was. ‘Your son is a grown man, or as near as makes no matter. You worry too much about him. Indeed, you have let him rule your life to a degree that cannot be healthy for either of you –’

Her brows snapped together. ‘What do you mean?’

He spoke more gently now. ‘I mean only, dear Tilly, that he must live his life and you must live yours. Of course you will always be as close as mother and son should be, and he will, I know, love you dearly always. But he will wed one day – and you must remember he seems to have made his choice on that score – and to have you left behind alone and lonely may make him most unhappy. If you wish
him
to be happy you will seek happiness for yourself, for the two go together. You don’t need to ask his consent to make me his stepfather. You must decide it for
yourself
and then simply tell him of your decision. You must see that, Tilly, I am sure, if you think about it.’ He softened then and smiled happily. ‘And anyway, are not Duff and I very good friends? I cannot imagine he will have any objection to me as a stepfather. He knows I have his good interest at heart, in his own right. If he knows that I am tied to him by marriage to his beloved Mamma, why, I am sure he will be glad of it. He has no father or brothers, after all.’

She was unable to think clearly at all, and turned her head away. ‘I must think,’ she said a little stiffly. ‘Please to give me some time.’

‘Of course.’ He was all gentleness now. ‘I have been most hasty in speaking as and when I did, but as I say, chance is all. Be kind to me and to yourself, dearest Tilly. Choose well.’

And he bent and kissed her hands one after the other, and then
leaned forward and kissed one cheek as well and got to his feet and went, leaving her more breathless than usual by his attentions.

She sat for some time staring at the wall, trying to think, and could not get her mind into any sort of order, and needing some sort of physical action, jumped up only to tumble her letters, which she had carried with her from the dining room, all over the floor. She crouched and picked them up and then noticed that one of them was unfranked. It had not been brought in the post at all, but delivered by hand, for it bore on the envelope only her name, and she turned it in her hands, distracted completely now from Silas and his proposal.

It must be from Dorcas, she thought fearfully, sitting back on her heels, and looked again at the handwriting, but it was hard to tell. The letters were all in capitals, and it seemed had been written with some difficulty and Tilly, remembering Dorcas’s cut and reddened fingers, could imagine how painful it might be for her to use those hands to write and was more certain than ever. She bit her lip to control the sudden surge of anxiety that filled her, and slit it open.

‘Dear Tilly,’ the short letter read. ‘I am to go away to recover my health. I shall be back in the New Year at some time, possibly not until February or later. Meanwhile, the house will remain empty and no steps taken.’ There was no subscription other than her name, scrawled in large letters, like those on the envelope: Dorcas Leander Oliver.

How odd, she thought staring down at it. Why should she have kept her mother’s name in that manner? How very odd.

TILLY’S GREATEST PROBLEM, she decided a few days later, was that she could not sort out the confusion of problems she had to face.

First of all, there was the matter of Silas’s proposal. One part of her wanted very much to accept him. That she needed and would greatly enjoy the intimacy of marriage even after so many years of solitude was clear to her now. She had even started to dream about episodes with Silas that made her blush to remember them in the morning. But she could not wholeheartedly go to him and give him the answer he wanted.

The trouble was, she told herself, not only his criticism of her close attachment to and concern for Duff, justified as it was, in part; it was more because of the way he had spoken when he had proposed. She could hear it still echoing in her head: ‘I never thought I would ask any woman that, so greatly valuing my freedom as I do, not wanting even the trouble of owning my own house, let alone a wife.’

If she had learned anything about her years as the proprietor of a busy guest house it had been that people do not change. They may put on shows of some forms of behaviour in order to impress new acquaintances, but when they were comfortable where they were, they soon reverted to being themselves. The Graylings, for example, had put on a great performance of being elegant people, well connected and of excellent
ton
when they had first come to her house with a view to taking rooms, but since they had settled in
had shown themselves clearly for what they were, ordinary people from a trade background and none the worse for that. There had been many others over the years who had taught Tilly the same lesson. And, she had to ask herself, was Silas now reverting to the person he really was? He made a parade of his free thinking, of his attachment to ideas of equality and the rights of the individual, but he had not spoken so when he had proposed: ‘the trouble of owning my own house, let alone a wife’.

Had he meant that he regarded a wife as a possession? Tilly had had enough of that when she had been married to Frank Quentin, just as she had had enough of being her father’s possession before that. For more than twelve years she had owed allegiance to no one but her son and herself, and any others she chose of her own free will. Did she want to give up that freedom simply for the sake of passion and the admitted comfort of having a husband to share her burdens? She rather thought she did not.

But that was the least of her problems, she decided. Silas had agreed, the day after he had proposed, when she had not been able to prevent him asking for an answer, that he would wait until she was quite certain she was ready to marry. He seemed to accept her doubts to an extent and said very cheerfully that he was glad they could at least regard themselves as engaged to be married and was quite happy to leave matters at that for the present; there was plenty of time yet to tie the knot. And he also agreed, though less willingly, to keep their decision a secret from everyone else in the house.

‘I could not bear the chatter and the way the Misses K and F would go on and on – and Mrs Grayling – and the men would torment you, I’ve no doubt –’ she had said and he had made a little grimace and acquiesced. So, for the time being, all was well. She had not fully made up her mind, even though Silas thought she had, and she had time to think. So that was one problem she could set to one side.

The next was not so easy to sort out. Sophie did not reply to her letter. Nor did she reply to the one that Tilly sent after that repeating her invitation and not even to the one she had sent most
recently, in which she hinted that she had news of her mother for her.

Tilly had thought carefully about that and at first had decided it would be better to let Dorcas tell her daughter herself of her plans (if she chose to, and knew of her whereabouts, of course) rather than that she should hear from other lips; but she was so baulked by Sophie’s silence that she had almost recklessly thrown the information at her. But it made no difference. She remained silent.

Duff wrote regularly of course. He prattled on cheerfully in letter after letter about the wonderful time he was having learning how to ride to hounds which was ‘splendid fun, even though I take far too many tumbles – but it is hardening me nicely, Patrick says’ – and his ardent interest in all matters rural as he spent long hours at the farms and in the stables.

He was less forthcoming about Sophie although he did write that she was ‘still having a most enjoyable time, and is the Object of everyone’s Attention. Patrick’s younger sisters take her everywhere, to Parties and Balls to which they are invited, though I am not, and Sophie loves to go of course, and I am glad she has company to beguile her while I am so busy working about the place –’

Tilly had a picture of Sophie leading a life of giddy social excitement with much to entertain her, while Duff was left a little forlornly on the sidelines watching her. But she said nothing in her letters to him about that, nor did she try to persuade Duff to return home even for the Christmas celebrations, however much she disliked the arrangement he had made with Patrick Paton. She had taken Silas’s words to heart more than she realized at first. She did try to cosset Duff too much, did try too hard to keep him at her side. He was a man now and had to find his own way in the world, and even though it was one she disliked, she would keep silent on the matter. Silas had taught her that much.

But she did not tell Silas of her change of mind, for she was a little ashamed to admit she had been so wrong in the past and that, too, worried her when she thought of their engagement. Surely she should not wish to hide anything from one she had told she would – no,
she would not think about that. There was plenty of time for that.

And then there was the problem of Polly and the baby Georgie and the effect they had on Eliza. With every day that passed the child became ever more vigorous, and was most active, and Eliza took a great pleasure in him, finding an echo in caring for him of the years when she had looked after Duff and, of course, with her present interesting condition. She taught Polly a good deal about how to care for so large and hungry an infant, gleaning her knowledge from memories of the way she had cared for her own brothers and Duff in his infancy, and told Tilly privately that she was even more convinced that Polly would make a grand nursemaid for the new baby as well as for Georgie. ‘It’ll all work out beautifully, Mum, you see if it don’t,’ she said on several occasions, a comment which made Tilly uneasy, for it was clear to her that Eliza had quite made up her mind that her baby was to be adopted by Tilly and nothing she could say would shift that notion.