Paying Guests (2 page)

She continued, unaware of his disapprobation. ‘So, I must go on
as best I can, choosing my guests as carefully as may be and ensuring also that I store all portmanteaus and trunks and suchlike in the attics. Mr Greenwall preferred to keep his in his room, he told me, and I should have been suspicious, but – well – in future, all such items will be taken and put away behind a locked door.’ She patted the keys she had on a chatelaine at her waist. ‘Then any future would-be absconder will realize that they must leave their baggage behind if they choose to flit. That way at least I will have some recompense.’

‘Indeed,’ he said, still a little sulky. ‘And get them to pay in advance, at least for a month or two until you are sure they are reliable.’

She ignored that, moving towards the door of her small morning room to persuade him that the interview was over.

‘Well, as to that, I have told you my views. This means, I fear, that I am no nearer making you an offer for the house next door, which has been empty so long that I am amazed some other person has not taken it. It has long been my hope that –’

‘Well, Ma’am,’ he bent his head towards the maid out in the hall who, at a gesture from Tilly, had fetched him his hat and stick, ‘as to that, I cannot say. It is available to anyone who makes a suitable offer, as you know. Perhaps the reason it has not yet found a buyer is its proximity to a guest house. Not all householders wish to live in an area where private residences and trade establishments stand cheek by jowl, as it were. Good morning, Ma’am!’ With which shrewd parting shot he marched out of the hall and on to the top step where he stood for a moment with his hat clutched in his hand and his grey hair lifting in the warm summer breeze that filled the street, looking at her. ‘I hope, Ma’am, that this will be the last of your misfortunes. I will, as you directed earlier, ensure that all your insurances are reviewed and checked. Good day to you.’

She watched him go with a twinge of conscience as well as irritation; she could have been kinder to him, perhaps, but she had every right to be in a disagreeable frame of mind, and she moved back into the house and snapped the front door closed behind her, her face marred by a frown which sent the maid scuttling for the
kitchen out of her way. Absconding guests or no, Tilly told herself firmly, she had other guests to consider and that meant she had to shop for them. She lifted her skirts and ran up the stairs to fetch her bonnet, ready once again to take on the daily business of running Quentin’s.

Another week or so, and Duff, her dear Duff, would be home from school for good. Then life would be a great deal more agreeable and she would be able to work more happily and be less angered by the bad behaviour of a guest. When Duff was about, life was altogether a sunnier business, and she was able to be grateful for her good fortune. She might have been much worse off, after all, she assured her reflection as she tied her bonnet strings in front of her dressing-table mirror; lacking any man to care for her and with no other family connections to support her, she could have been quite indigent, and what would have happened to Duff then? As it was, despite the many vicissitudes of her early life, she was now snugly established.

And, she reminded herself as she settled her light summer pelisse over her shoulders, there was always Eliza, once the tweeny in Tilly’s father’s household, now peacocking a little as the Quentin housekeeper, but above all Tilly’s prop and stay and, within the bounds of the servant–mistress situation, her good friend. Life was tolerable after all. All she had lost with Greenwall was money, and that she would soon earn again.

And she hurried downstairs to see Eliza in the kitchen and collect her list of requirements and promised herself she would never think about the wretched Greenwall ever again.

THE TURBOT IN the centre of Mr Jerryman’s slab looked back at her blankly, its indigo stare accusing and insulting at the same time. ‘It must have been something you said or did,’ it seemed to imply. ‘How could it be otherwise when he has always been so sweet and biddable before?’ She stared back at the turbot, denying its accusation deep inside her mind. It can’t be due to my behaviour in any way. I have always cared for him more than any other person in this whole world. How could I possibly cause him any distress? And anyway, he isn’t distressed precisely. He’s just –

‘Perhaps the cod, then, Mrs Quentin?’ Mr Jerryman’s voice intruded on her reverie. ‘If you’re not sure about the turbot – though I has to tell you, it’s as fine a turbot as was ever pulled from the briny. A good six-pounder, that is, lovely. Be any bigger and it’d be nasty and stringy. This one’ll be as tender and firm as a young nut, believe you me. I could have that dressed for you in a trice, Mrs Quentin, and your Eliza, she’d see it cooked up as delicate as may be and you’d not regret it. But if you feel it’s a touch more’n you want to go to, why then the cod’s as sweet, if not so ‘andsome.’

‘I shall take the turbot, Mr Jerryman,’ she said briskly, pushing away all thoughts of Duff and banishing any fanciful notions of turbots communicating with her. ‘And a second like it, together with three pints of shrimps to make a sauce for them. That should serve twenty and a little left over for the kitchen.’

‘I’ll give you some ‘errings for the kitchen, Mrs Quentin, Mum.’ Mr Jerryman was scandalized. ‘That there turbot runs out at
ninepence the pound, Mum! You don’t want to go feeding that to your servants, or they’ll be getting as uppity as may be. A few penny ‘errings’ll do them very nicely.’ And he bustled about his sea-scented marble-slabbed emporium, picking up handfuls of slippery silvery fish and tossing them into his scales with the dexterity of a stage magician, and Tilly was content to let him do so. Two turbot, now she thought about it, would just be sufficient for the dining room, since she had a full complement of guests at present, so the herrings for the kitchen were no bad idea; and she pulled on her gloves and turned to go.

‘Send it up at once, Mr Jerryman,’ she instructed. ‘And some finnan haddock for the breakfast table. Oh, and Eliza requires some extra bones for her fish stock, if you please.’

Mr Jerryman escorted her to the street from his premises with as much dignity as if his open-fronted shop had been a palace and she a queen, and she nodded at him and made her way further along Brompton Road towards number one hundred and five, very aware of the bustle and noise about her.

The road had changed in more than just its name in the past few years; what had once been an ordinary row of shops called Middle Queen’s Buildings was now one side of a handsome thoroughfare with some elegant establishments. Colonel Nichol and his wife, once Miss Elizabeth Harvey, had extended their ribbons and lace shop into a most handsome emporium well supplied with the latest in silks and chiffons as well as ribbons, and Jem Leland’s place with its new, wide shop front was bidding fair to overtake its neighbour in style. But she did not wish to speak to Jem today; tomorrow would be soon enough to discuss with him the provision of new linen to replace some of the worn sheets at Quentin’s. Today she had promised to go and see the progress at number one hundred and five Brompton Road, lately number eight Middle Queen’s Buildings, and she had never been one to fail a promise.

The noise, when she reached Charlie Harrod’s shop, doubled and redoubled. The thudding of hammers and the clatter of chisels and screwdrivers as well as the shouts of workmen at the rear of the premises made her head ring and she said – or rather shouted – as
much to Charlie when she found him at the front of his shop with his bowler hat on the back of his head, as usual, and his shirtsleeves pushed up. He would have been mortified had any of his assistants – he had a dozen of them now – been seen without their proper calico jackets, but for himself, shirtsleeves were permissible.

‘Don’t I know it!’ he said and his face shone with pleasure. ‘I keep ‘em at it! I won’t have any humbugging when they’re working for me! Oh, it’ll be handsome, really handsome, when it’s all done. Come and see, do.’ And he almost pulled her further into the shop and led the way towards the back.

The shop was busy, in spite of the noise from the rear, with ladies at every counter earnestly poring over the new catalogue – a typical piece of Charlie Harrod’s forward-looking ways, she told herself as she passed them – selecting their teas and coffees, and in many cases the daring new foods Charlie was now importing from Italy, notably preserved olives and raisins of a very superior quality. Everywhere there were piles of neat packages and deep boxes of biscuits, jars of jellies and essences on the mahogany counters and, of course, bottles of wine and oil and vinegar. The smell of cinnamon and cloves, mace and pepper and sugar hung in the air, mixing not unpleasantly with the scent of good ham and other preserved meats, and altogether made the atmosphere of Harrod’s stores its usual agreeable self; she took a deep breath of pleasure and followed Charlie to the far back.

‘You see?’ he said eagerly and took her arm in a way that would have seemed shockingly familiar in anyone else, but in Charlie Harrod was not, being simply an expression of his excitement of the moment and his trust in her as one of his oldest friends as well as customers. ‘That’s where my old kitchen and parlour were – it’s as well my Caroline can’t see what’s happening, or it’d break her heart, much as she likes living in Esher in that fine new house, but there it is. You can’t blame her for being sentimental, seeing this is where we first set up together. Now, over
there
I shall be selling patent medicines. Yes, I shall – there’s a big call for them and I don’t see why the apothecaries should have it all their own way. And here on the other side, stationery and the like. And perfumes – that was
young Will’s idea, and I don’t deny a good one. He’ll turn out to be the best of ‘em all yet, for all he’s my sister’s boy, and young as he is –’

‘Not as young as you were when you first started in the shop,’ she said and smiled at his eagerness. He had changed a great deal in the past dozen or so years, being now a solid, and it could not be denied, slightly paunchy thirty-two year old with a big round face, a tendency to look sour when not smiling but a permament twinkle about the eyes. She thought of the boy he had been, all lanky boniness, rumpled hair and impudence, and smiled even more widely. The impudence of those days had become a breezy self-confidence, but he was still Charlie. A good man.

‘Oh, well, as to that, I was thirteen when I started working for my old father, but I had advantages Will don’t have. He ain’t as quick in the understanding as I was, but he’ll shape up, you see if he don’t. Good as a son he could be to me.’ Suddenly his face lost its beam and Tilly spoke quickly to distract him.

‘I saw Caroline only last week, at the church bazaar and thought she looked uncommonly well.’

‘Oh, she’s well enough,’ Charlie allowed and the moment passed. The repeated loss of Caroline’s pregnancies were clearly as much a sadness to her husband as to Caroline herself. ‘But I shan’t let her see what we’re doing here till it’s done. Going to have another floor, you know! Yes, another floor, one flight of stairs up! Won’t that be capital!’

‘Capital indeed,’ Tilly said. ‘You will need more assistants, I imagine.’

Charlie beamed. ‘I will indeed. I shall take in four more to start with and see how we do.’

‘And will you start to dress your windows with your goods?’

Tilly said, knowing herself to be teasing him and laughed aloud when he bristled.

‘Indeed I shall not! Vulgar ostentation, that’s what window displays is. Fine enough for linen drapers and the like but not for me. I’ll keep ‘em the way they are, and no one shall make me change ‘em!’ He glared at her as sternly as if she had volunteered
that moment to set about putting goods in the window with her own hands.

She laughed again. ‘I agree with you, Charlie. They look very fine as they are.’ They both looked over their shoulders at the great plate-glass windows which were Charlie’s pride and joy, with the simple arrangement of wire blinds bearing his name in gold letters: C.D. Harrod.

‘I’ve got it all worked out, you know,’ he said then in a confiding manner. ‘I shall set the perfumes right in the far corner of the first floor, so that customers have to go past all the other goods to reach ‘em. They’ll spend more that way – they’ll all go to the far corner, for what lady can resist a perfume display?’

‘Ah,’ said Tilly. ‘Then a display of goods
inside
the shop is not vulgar and ostentatious?’

He looked at her sharply and she looked back at him with a wide-eyed, limpid gaze and after a moment he laughed.

‘Well, you was always one to tease me, Mrs Q!’ he said. ‘And I wouldn’t have you any other way. Now, tell me, did young Duff enjoy that ham we sent round? The best Bradenham it was, as succulent as could be. I chose it myself for him. I’ll bet he tucked in!’

Tilly had forgotten, just for a moment, her worries about Duff, but now they all came flooding back. She felt her face go a little pink and was glad of the dimness of the shop interior.