Paying Guests (18 page)

‘Oh, pooh!’ Tilly said vigorously, glad the subject had been turned and therefore being a little more vigorous than she might have been. ‘I will not be impressed by grandeur, and nor should you, Jem. You are worth as much as any duke, I do assure you and your home is as elegant as his, in its own way, and no less special than this one. You must not let notions such as these hold you down.’

He lifted his brows at her. ‘Well! You speak like Daniel Carter, who keeps the farrier’s shop up near Knightsbridge Barracks! He is a republican, he swears, and yearns for the day when we have a Commonwealth again as in Cromwell’s time and wants an end to lords and ladies. Are you such a one? I never thought so.’

‘Well, the new thinking, you know, is most interesting. I have been so busy about running my house that I have not thought as much as I might about wider affairs, but I am now remedying that. I have been to a couple of meetings of the Society for the Propagation of Scientific and Philosophic Knowledge and learned much. It is not inevitable, you know, that there should be those who have all the wealth and others who suffer poverty, any more than it is right that one class of person should always be regarded as subservient to another. Are we not all of the same species? Do we not all develop from the same source?’

‘Darwin,’ Jem said with an air of discovery. ‘You have been hearing the ideas of Darwin.’

‘And why not?’ Tilly looked at him sharply. ‘They are very interesting and show the way to an understanding of the world that I never had before.’

Jem looked troubled. ‘Well, as to that, I cannot deny that widening one’s understanding is a good thing, but is it a good thing to set the world upside down? And it can’t be anything but upside down to take the world as God made it and seek to find new reasons for it.’

‘Well,’ Tilly said, knowing she would shock Jem sorely but feeling a little reckless, ‘as to God making the world, precisely – we cannot even be sure of that. The story told in the Bible is an agreeable one, to be sure, but hardly likely, in any scientific way. I find Mr Darwin’s ideas much more acceptable.’

‘Dear me!’ said Jem, staring. ‘You have indeed learned new ideas, Tilly! I am quite amazed.’ He was silent for a while and then went on, ‘And did you just go to these meetings because –’ He stopped, leaving the question hanging in the air, looking at her anxiously.

She had to answer it. ‘Mr Geddes invited me,’ she said, her head still down over her industrious needle. ‘He thought I might be interested and as I told you, I find that I am. Now, Jem, will you take some more Malmsey? I have this bottle set aside just for you, since I know it to be a favourite with you.’

‘You’re very kind,’ Jem said abstractedly and accepted his refilled glass from her hand. ‘These meetings –’

‘Well, if you wish you must come sometime,’ Tilly said and put aside her sewing. ‘Now, if you will forgive me, my dear friend. I must go and deal with the matter of tonight’s dinner. As you know, Duff will return this afternoon, in a couple of hours or so in my estimation, and we must welcome him home properly!’

‘Yes, indeed,’ Jem said. ‘Shall I be on my way then?’ He sounded defeated, prepared as always to do as she asked him, but far from happy and she leaned forwards and patted his hand affectionately.

‘Oh, Jem, of course not! You stay here as long as you choose and rest and drink your Malmsey. I wish only to check matters with Eliza. She is the one who is doing all the work, of course. She and Lucy – if I seek to join in today I fear she’ll be most put out! But there may be stores she needs and I have the keys. I shall return in a few moments.’ And she escaped.

It was true that she would have at some time to dole out Eliza’s special stores, but her main concern had been to be free of Jem for a little while. It was her own fault that he had become so heavy all of a sudden; she should not have mentioned the way her mind was moving under Silas Geddes’s prompting and certainly should not have mentioned Silas Geddes’s name. Jem’s affection for her was too deep and true and constant to be so abused, she thought as she went downstairs, her skirts whispering on the steps behind her. To let him know that there is another man whose attentions are not unwelcome to me is hardly fair.

Not unwelcome to me. She stopped in the hallway, just before the green baize door that led to the kitchen stairs and pondered. She had been trying not to think about the matter this past few days, but without success. Since Sophie had arrived, somehow she had been forced to think about it. And she did not like what she discovered in the depths of her mind and heart.

Silas Geddes had become too interesting to her. She found his conversation absorbing, his company deeply enjoyable, his physical presence exciting. When he came into the drawing room in the evenings she knew it even if she was not actually looking at the door to see him; it was as though a new lamp had been fetched in
to make the whole room brighter. If he lingered to talk to other people before coming to sit beside her and talk to her, she became restless and irritable. And worst of all, resentful.

It was that which perturbed her most. Life had changed at Quentin’s since Sophie Oliver had moved in. Now, rather than everyone scattering about their own affairs in the evenings or going to their rooms, they all congregated in the drawing room for at least an hour after dinner, often longer, while Sophie and the young men played and sang and made jokes. There was much laughter and jollity and it was clear that the social atmosphere in the house had risen considerably. ‘Every night is like a party,’ as Miss Fleetwood had said with an odd mix of waspishness and approval and everyone liked it that way.

Including Silas Geddes. He would come into the drawing room after everyone else, as a rule, having the habit of taking a brisk walk along the road after meals, ‘for the sake of my digestion’, as he would say, and Tilly would be there in her usual chair, presiding over the coffee and tea trays and waiting for him. She tried to pretend she was not, tried to avoid noticing when he arrived, but it was impossible. She was, every evening, on tenterhooks until he arrived, tense with a sort of animal excitement that startled her, but which she had to admit she enjoyed.

And he would stop beside the piano to speak to Sophie and make a jocular comment of some kind, and every time it felt as though someone had pushed a sharp pointed stick into her ribs and made her breath catch. Usually he would come to sit beside her almost immediately; he rarely lingered by the piano among everyone else for longer than a few moments, but it always disturbed her to see him with them.

Am I jealous? she asked herself bleakly, staring at the green baize on the door and her hand on the fastening. At my age, am I jealous of a slip of a girl young enough to be my daughter? One I have known since her infancy? How can that be?

‘Very easily,’ she murmured aloud and bit her lip and glanced behind her to see if anyone had overheard. She must be more careful; her habit of introspection and speaking aloud to herself had
always been a part of her. But now it could betray her deepest feelings and they had to be secret.

I shall ask Silas to take Jem to a meeting as well, she thought then as, at last, she pushed the door open and ‘Went down the stairs into the kitchen. That will reassure Jem that I am still his good friend and will show Silas that he is not alone in finding my company agreeable and will somehow help me to understand how foolish I am being. For I am too old and too set in my ways to even consider a new attachment to a man. Is it not bad enough I have been married twice? I cannot possibly wish to change my situation now.

In the kitchen it was clear that Eliza was in one of her rare takings. Generally a sweet-tempered woman of great capability, there were times when she did become ruffled and less in control of matters than she might be, and when that happened to Eliza, everyone around her, with the exception of Tilly of course, suffered it. Her tongue became razor sharp and her speed of work quite terrifying. She would whirl about her domain like a dervish, getting through a vast amount of work and expect her minions to be as fast and capable as she was herself. Since no one could be, the result was Eliza in a rage with them and they in tears and sulks. Tilly now walked into the middle of just such a scene.

Dora was standing by the scullery door with her apron thrown over her face, in a flood of tears, and a scatter of broken shards of a dish at her feet. Lucy was standing shrinking against the dresser, while Rosie could just be seen peering over Dora ‘s heaving shoulders from her place of safety in the scullery. Eliza was standing with both hands balled into fists on the scrubbed wood of the kitchen table and her face was scarlet with fury.

‘You clumsy limb of Satan!’ she was roaring as Tilly came to the top of the stairs. ‘If there was a scratch on the floor you ‘d trip over it, you clumsy creature! That’s the third plate you’ve broken this month and this time you pay for it, Missy, and pay hard. I won’t have you breaking the china over our heads like this for want of a bit of –‘

‘Eliza!’ Tilly said, lifting her voice above the hubbub. ‘Eliza, what
is
going on?’

Dora lifted her head from her apron, peered at Tilly and went off into another even louder paroxysm of weeping, and Lucy at the dresser began to whimper as Eliza whirled and glared at the stairs.

‘This – this lump of idiocy don ‘t know she’s alive, Mum, and so I tell you! She wanders around in a dream all because of some stupid notions of her own and breaks your dishes and wastes my time and I won’t have it, you hear me? I won’t have it!’

‘I am sure we can sort this out: Tilly said soothingly and came down into the kitchen. ‘Now, Dora, you tell me. Why is Eliza so angry with you? What have you done?’

‘Done?’ Eliza said wrathfully. ‘What has she done? So busy whispering to Madam out there that she lets the best big platter we got go sliding out of her hands and there it lies, as much use as she is, and I wish it was she who was in pieces at my feet, for she’s no more use than a pile of broken pottery at that and fit only to be swept up and thrown out!’

‘Eliza: Tilly said and looked at her directly. ‘I am speaking to Dora, if you please.’

Eliza opened her mouth, took a breath as if to speak and thought better of it, and set to work on the pastry that was lying on the table in front of her, beating it to submission in a way that made Tilly think at the back of her mind that tonight’s pies might lack their usual lightness of texture. Tilly turned to Dora and said quietly, ‘Now, Dora, stop that caterwauling at once and speak to me.’

Dora gulped, snorted, sniffed and managed to obey and Tilly put a hand on her shoulder to push her out into the scullery, nodding at Rosie to leave them. Rosie went with alacrity, scuttling out to the kitchen to set to work with ostentatious busyness, turning the handle of a mincer fixed to the other side of Eliza’s table, nodding to Lucy to come and help her feed the pieces of meat she was grinding into the hopper. And Tilly went and leaned against the shelf at the back of the scullery and said quietly to Dora, ‘So?’

Dora snivelled but managed to speak. ‘I spoke out of turn, Mum. I shoul’n ha’ said nothin’, but it was only meant as a joke, like. I never knew she’d get into such a takin’.’

‘What did you say?’ Tilly was patient. Sorting out servants’ squabbles was a necessary part of a day’s work for any lady running a household and she was luckier than most; it was a rare enough happening at Quentin’s. But she still knew how to cope. ‘You had better tell me, for if you don’t I cannot know how to deal with the matter at all. I need to know whether it is right that you should pay for the broken dish, you see. If you were indeed at fault, then of course you must. But if it was not entirely you to blame –’ She stopped invitingly.

‘Oh, Mum!’ Dora said, looking as though she would start wailing again, given the least encouragement. ‘I only said to Rosie as Eliza was looking tired and not surprising seein’ what time he went last night and all.’

Tilly tilted her head in puzzlement. ‘Who went where last night?’

‘Why, her follower, Mum. Her Mr Reagan, Mum, what visits here. He stayed till gone three last night, creeping out up the area steps like a burglar! I saw ‘im on account I woke up when I ‘eard ‘em whisperin’ out there.’

Tilly was dumbstruck. She had never attempted to control Eliza’s friends in any way, and had over the years been most concerned that she might be missing her chances of marriage and motherhood because she made so little effort to meet potential sweethearts, but Eliza had always stoutly denied any interest in such nonsense. To hear now that she had a follower and one who visited her late at night was a revelation.

‘He left at –’

‘Yes, Mum, three o’clock. I got a clock o’ my own, and I checked.’ There was a little glitter in Dora’s eyes now, as though she was beginning to see that she might have her own back on the hectoring Eliza. ‘It ain’t the first time neither. My room sees right over the area steps on this side of the ‘ouse like and I always ‘ear people come and go. And he comes late, after you’ve all had your dinner, like, and we’ve cleared up and gone to our beds, and stays late, too. But never so late as last night. And I just said to Rosie –’

‘Yes,’ Tilly said; trying to accommodate this information about someone she had always known so well and never doubted to be
anything but totally honest in every way was difficult, to say the least. ‘And I must tell you that it is none of your affair. Such visitors as Eliza chooses to have are her own affair and the hours she keeps are also none of your business. She is my housekeeper, not a cook or maid only, and as such is entitled to privileges you may not have. So you must stop spying on her from your room – and if you do not then I shall see to it that you are moved to the other side of the house, which as you know is not so agreeable since the outlook is not so pleasant, and then you will not be able to meddle at all. I am not surprised that Eliza was angry and especially so if your silly gossiping made you clumsy. You must pay for the plate if Eliza says so. She is in charge of such matters and I will not interfere. Now, go and apologize to Eliza for being so ill-mannered as to gossip about her and then be about your work.’