Paying Guests (43 page)

And behind all that there were her still lingering doubts about what would happen to the house next door. She had almost convinced herself there would be no trouble after all; that Dorcas had spoken when newly out of prison from remaining anger at her two years of misery. By the time she returned from wherever she was, Tilly would tell herself, she would surely have forgotten all that nonsense about turning the house next door to Quentin’s into a house of ill repute. Even the thought of having Dorcas living there became attractive in comparison.

All this discomfort and anxiety was hidden, as it usually was with Tilly, behind a façade of busy serenity. The house blossomed into holly and laurel wreaths as Christmas arrived and the tree, a five-foot high rather bushy example of the genus Norway spruce, obtained with some difficulty and considerable expense with the aid of the market gardener, was set up in the drawing room and decked with candles which tended to set the branches alight and make them smell rather powerfully, and ribbons and German baubles bought from Charlie Harrod (who had an amazing array of them, for they had become fashionable this year). The amount of food which Eliza
prepared for the holiday was staggering; as well as the actual Christmas Day dinner for which the centrepiece was two huge and beautifully roasted geese, with baked apples around them and a stuffing of prunes and nuts and other delicious things, there was a massive baron of beef, an equally large haunch of venison and two great boiled hams which made the table look fit to groan. There was such a profusion of tarts and pies, jellies and puddings and patties and ices that by the time the flaming plum pudding was brought in no one had any room to eat it – or so they said. But it vanished fast enough once Tilly started to serve it.

And that was not all. They ate almost as vast a supper on Christmas night and the following day started again as though they had been starving for weeks. By the middle of the week after christmas when efforts were made to return the household to normal, everyone was somnolent and a little bad tempered. Tilly had escaped this morning, ostensibly to shop for replacements for all they had consumed, but in truth to be alone for a while.

It was a melancholy trip to do her ordering, and she wished she hadn’t made it. Jem’s shop was unrecognizable, for the new tenant, whoever he was, had changed everything. Where Jem’s window displays had had some elegance and shown good quality merchandise, this new man, Tilly decided as she stopped to look, was all set to sell the cheapest stuff he could find. The window was hung with a profusion of cloths that to Tilly’s experienced eye were wickedly wasteful, for cheap as they were, they would wear so badly that in the long run buying them would be an expensive business. The shopkeeper himself, a tall and rather thin man with a drooping set of whiskers and a most unpleasant oily manner, was standing at the door of the shop trying to coax customers inside and Tilly escaped him hurriedly and went on her way to Colonel Nichol’s and to Charlie’s, glad she did not need to rely on what had once been her shop of choice for materials for sheets and towels and gowns, and tried to be happy for Jem.

His wedding day had not been easy for her. At first she had determined not to attend and then had realized how unkind that would be, for was he not an old and good friend who would be
saddened by her absence? So she sat stolidly in church as Fanny Goodall, in a froth of white lace and satin that Tilly privately thought a shade excessive on one of her rather sallow appearance (a sentiment for which she reproved herself sharply), moved happily along the aisle clinging to her new husband’s arm and clearly very pleased with herself. Jem had a slightly bewildered look, she told herself as she followed the wedding party out into the street and on to the wedding breakfast; would he have looked so had it been I who had wed him today? Again she scolded herself for such thoughts. Altogether it had not been an agreeable party and she had gone home gratefully after Jem and Fanny had departed on their wedding trip in a shower of rice, and went to bed early with a headache.

Now she felt a touch headachy again and marched on determinedly to complete her shopping at Charlie’s, having decided not to seek new flannel for nightgowns for herself at Colonel Nichol’s after all. That could wait. She would go only to Charlie’s to make all the necessary arrangements to refill her depleted larder and storerooms and then hurry home as fast as she could. It was so raw a January day and the back of her throat was tickling. She hoped she had not caught a cold.

Charlie was full of talk of the wedding and the fact that the happy couple would return from their wedding trip to Ostend – ‘Getting very smart ideas, our Jem, ain’t he?’ he said approvingly – in another week and begging Tilly to consider attending a dinner party he and Caroline intended to give for the newly weds. It took her some time to extricate herself from that; Jem might have been her dear friend, and still was, of course, but she should not have to sit and watch him with his new wife. That would be pushing the demands of friendship too far.

She returned home despondently, painfully aware of the flaws in her own character in a way that was most unpleasant. To feel so helpless in the face of so many anxieties, to refuse to set her wounded pride aside (for that was all she felt regarding Jem, surely?) and to be harbouring the early symptoms of a cold was enough to make anyone miserable.

It started to rain long before she reached home and unfortunately she had come out without her umbrella, believing when she had left the house that the dull coldness would remain long enough to bring her home dryshod, if chilly, but she could not have been more wrong. It was the sort of fine, bitter rain that entered every gap it could find in clothing, and she was disagreeably aware of the fact that she was wearing rather thin house shoes instead of her sensible boots and that her feet were, in consequence, sopping wet. She felt the damp rising up her woollen stockings in a most unpleasant manner and also spreading up her skirts.

She would not stand still in such unpleasant conditions long enough to forage in her reticule for her door key, so as she hurried home with her head down against the driving rain, she decided to enter the house through the kitchen. It would be better, anyway, than dripping all over the freshly polished hall floor. As she pushed open the area gate, registering the fact that it creaked and needed some oil on its hinges, something got into her eye painfully, and gratefully she almost tumbled through the kitchen door to stand stamping her ice-cold feet on the doormat just inside.

The kitchen glowed with the firelight and was warm and smelled pleasantly of new bread, for Eliza had been baking today, and she took a deep breath of relief in spite of the pain in her eye as she pulled off her soaking wet pelisse and bonnet and shook out her hair.

‘Eliza!’ she called, eyes tightly closed. ‘Are you there? My face is wet and I have something in my eye – please to fetch me a towel, will you?’ And she reached out one hand blindly.

She heard movement across the kitchen as the chair by the fire rattled on its rockers, and then a towel was pushed into her hands, wordlessly, and she rubbed at her face, and then gingerly tried to open her eyes, though the left one, which contained the intruding object was still painful.

‘Oh, Eliza, can you see if there is anything there, and perhaps remove it?’ she implored and tipped up her chin and again tried to open her eyes. She managed it, though both were swimming with rainwater and sympathetic tears by now and she could see only a
dazzle as careful fingers reached for her face and with a corner of the towel dabbed at her right eye.

‘No!’ she cried. ‘The other one, the other one – ah!’ She took a deep breath of relief. ‘That’s better. I think it’s washed itself out – just a moment now.’ And she mopped at her eyes again with the towel, and was filled with gratitude at the relief from pain.

‘There!’ she said and opened her eyes properly to peer at Eliza, still standing silently in front of her. ‘Thank you so much –’ and then stopped short.

Because it wasn’t Eliza at all.

‘DUFF!’ SHE CRIED delightedly and hurled herself at him, throwing her arms about him and hugging him so tightly that he grunted as she expelled all the air from his chest. ‘How wonderful to see you! Oh, my dear, I have missed you so! How is it that you are here? Why did you not write and say you were returning? What has –’

She stopped, turned her head to kiss his cheek and then let go of him and led him to the fireplace.

‘I was so delighted to see you I did not stop to think, my dear,’ she said. ‘Clearly there is some problem. In your last letters you were – well, let’s settle ourselves and then we can talk.’

She took her pelisse and arranged it on the small clothes horse by the fire where Eliza usually kept her tea towels to be aired and perched her bonnet beside it. It was unlikely, she found herself thinking inconsequentially, that she would be able to rescue it for future wear, for it looked sadly bedraggled. As if that mattered! And she turned to look at Duff through eyes which still felt hot and sore, especially the left one, but which now gave her a clear vision of all there was to see.

He looked quite shocking. His face was drawn and tight and there was a greyish tinge to his skin, beneath what was clearly an out-of-doors reddish roughness. His chin had not been shaved today, so looked dirty and sad and his eyes looked as her own felt, red-rimmed and painful. There were pouches beneath them that spoke of long sleepless hours spent in tears and she felt her insides
twist in sympathy as she looked at the total picture of misery that he presented.

Gently she made him sit down in the rocker and pulled over the low stool that was Polly’s usual seat to settle herself at his feet. They sat in silence for a while as her skirts steamed gently in the warmth of the fire, and her hair, too, began to dry and form tendrils around her face. Beyond the kitchen the house was silent, and in here they could hear only the faint hiss of the kettle on the fire and the occasional crackle of the burning coals. It was very peaceful and, had it not been for Duff’s unhappiness, which seemed to hang in the room like a fog, it would have been a pleasant interlude for Tilly.

To have her boy back under any circumstances was what she had wanted; but now she did wonder, looking at his ravaged face. He seemed to have aged ten years since she had last seen him and in a surge of maternal anguish she squeezed both his hands between hers and said, ‘Oh, dearest Duff, I dare say you would rather I left you in peace, but I cannot bear to see you so unhappy. What has happened, my dear? Why are you here? Is there –? Tell me about it, please. Unless it is really too painful for you.’

When he spoke she realized it was the first time since she had come in and marvelled a little at the way he sounded. His voice was dull and heavy and he croaked rather like a frog.

‘That’s all right, Mamma. I have to tell someone – and who better than you?’

She said nothing, not wanting to prompt him and after a long pause, during which he stared at the fire, he said abruptly, ‘I’m not sure, but I think the worst bit is that I feel such a
fool
. To think I didn’t see it, and it was right beneath my nose! Such a fool.’

Still she said nothing, just sitting there and holding his hand. The next pause was a little shorter.

‘I mean, the whole thing was so contrived! I thought – I never thought he could behave so to me – he was my friend, you know? I loved him! You remember, Mamma, how much I loved him and how he tried to persuade me to play the stupid – well, be like the other fellows, and I wouldn’t? And yet – well, perhaps it was that as much as anything. I mean, I remembered he had always had a liking
in that direction and could never have imagined he would be interested in a girl. And anyway Sophie – she was
my
Sophie.’

His head came up then from its drooping posture and he stared down at her and his eyes seemed to bulge a little. ‘He knew that! I sat there with him the night I arrived and I told him all. I begged him not to tell anyone else, but he knew how much I yearned to marry her and – and everything. And he seemed so understanding and sympathetic.’

He took a deep shuddering breath. ‘And I was delighted to see Sophie so happy as the days went by, you know. Patrick’s papa liking her so much and the girls, except for Euphonia –’ He brooded for a while then. ‘She was the only one who was honest, I think. Patrick was always so hateful about her, and said such cruel things, and called her a she-horse and so forth, for she is rather plain, but she is an honest person, I believe, much more so than any of the others.’

Tilly took a chance and spoke. ‘Are you saying that all of the family, apart from this one, were – misbehaved to you?’

He looked down at her miserably. ‘Yes. In a way. I mean, I think they knew what was happening. You see, it was his papa – he liked Sophie vastly – he kept saying so, and Lady Euphonia didn’t like it above half. She is the lady of the house, you see, since the duchess died. Well, they – the others – they were all so amused by the way the duke fussed over Sophie and only Euphonia didn’t seem to like it, and that was one of the reasons I did not like Euphonia either – but I see now –’