Paying Guests Read online

  Also by Claire Rayner

  The Meddlers

  A Time to Heal

  Maddie

  Clinical Judgements

  Dangerous Things

  First Blood

  THE PERFORMERS

  Gower Street

  The Haymarket

  Paddington Green

  Soho Square

  Bedford Row

  Long Acre

  Charing Cross

  The Strand

  Chelsea Reach

  Shaftesbury Avenue

  Piccadilly

  Seven Dials

  THE POPPY CHRONICLES

  Jubilee

  Flanders

  Flapper

  Blitz

  Sixties

  Festival

  THE QUENTIN QUARTET

  London Lodgings

  THE QUENTIN QUARTET 2

  PAYING GUESTS

  Claire Rayner

  ebook ISBN: 978-1-84982-030-1

  M P Publishing Limited

  12 Strathallan Crescent

  Douglas

  Isle of Man

  IM2 4NR

  United Kingdom

  Telephone: +44 (0)1624 618672

  email: [email protected]

  M P Publishing Limited

  First published 1995

  Copyright © Claire Rayner, 1995, 2010

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

  ISBN 978-1-84982-030-1

  For Geoffrey Ring. With gratitude.

  For making assurance doubly sure.

  Chapter One

  ‘HOW MUCH?’ TILLY QUENTIN said and stared at the man on the other side of her little desk with horror. ‘How much did you say?’

  ‘Sixty-five pounds all together,’ Mr Collins said with gloomy relish. ‘Twenty guineas to Colonel Nichols for sundry items of gentleman’s tailoring, fifteen to Jerrison the jeweller in Brompton and the rest to various merchants in Kensington. I fear that you are liable, Ma’am.’

  ‘I liable for those debts as well as the more direct ones to me?’ Tilly was wrathful. ‘How can that be? Is it not enough that he mulcted me of seventeen guineas for his rent and board? Why should I have to take on the burden of these other debts as well, and –’

  ‘I am afraid he used your name as guarantor, Ma’am, and that was why he was accepted as a customer so readily. I dare say you could indeed refuse to pay on the grounds that he acted criminally in not consulting you and obtaining your consent, but I am not sure that this would be wise. It would cost you far more in goodwill and reputation than it would save.’ The lawyer shook his head dolefully and stared at her for all the world, Tilly found herself thinking crossly, like a mournful dog with his red-rimmed eyes and shaggy head of grey hair. She could have shaken him in her frustration, but instead she took a deep breath and tried to compose herself.

  She had to face the fact that once again she had been baulked in her plans. Running Quentin’s Guest House was not, as she had once fondly imagined it would be, a matter of simplicity. Two lady schoolteachers had been her financial salvation long ago when, as a young widow with an infant son to support, she had first taken paying guests. The thought of opening her home to strangers had been repugnant, but at least it had been an answer to her problems. Now, seventeen years later, when she had managed to add the adjoining premises to her original establishment and make the pair of high-fronted terraced houses into a harmonious whole by means of judicious rebuilding and rearrangement of the interior, it should have been much easier. All she had to do was let her twenty rooms, provide care and food for the various people who occupied them and tuck away into the bank the money she earned to build a snug fortune for her dear son, Duff, now so close to leaving school and embarking on adult life.

  But over and over again, matters failed to proceed as smoothly as they should. There had been the time when, owing to the widespread building work being done in the neighbourhood, together with the construction of new sewers and water supply pipes, a section of Quentin’s back garden had fallen into a crater and the cost of shoring it all up again and replanting the garden had been considerable. She had found herself liable for that because she had neglected to supply herself with adequate insurance cover. Then there had been the matter of the drains, which one resident had insisted had been the cause of her severe attack of fever five winters ago, and which had needed costly repairs, not to speak of the constant expense of painting the exterior of the building and keeping the interior as handsome as persons paying as much as three guineas each week for their rent had a right to expect. And now this! In spite of paying a sizeable sum in insurance premiums each year to protect her establishment from the sort of depradations she now realized were horridly commonplace for even the most careful and hard-working of proprietresses, she had to face yet another loss.

  She lifted her head and looked at Mr Collins. ‘Could I not claim this loss from the insurance company, Mr Collins?’ she said hopefully. ‘After all, I pay considerable sums for their protection and –’

  ‘No, Ma’am.’ He shook his head regretfully. ‘It was decided, do you not recall, that the cost of paying for such cover would be prohibitive. No one can guard against wicked dishonesty. I suggested to you then that the only way of guarding yourself against unscrupulous persons of Mr Greenwall’s sort was to insist that your guests pay you in advance rather than in arrears.’

  She shook her head, her old stubbornness rising in her. ‘No, sir, that I cannot do. These are my guests, remember, and I wish them to feel that they are – that they are more than mere customers. In none of the shops from which I buy my necessaries do I have to pay before I receive the goods – it is my right, after all, to be sure that I am suitably supplied before I agree to pay. I cannot treat my guests in a less honourable manner. I am sure you will agree.’

  ‘Then you must take your chances, Ma’am, that one of them will cheat you as Mr Greenwall did, running off in the middle of the night.’ He said it with an air of self-satisfaction that made Tilly’s hackles rise, but she did her best to control it. He spoke only the truth, after all. He had, she remembered, tried to warn her that people might cheat her, and she had dismissed his lugubrious words almost airily. She would choose her guests with such care that it could not happen, she had told him. And now look at what had happened!

  Though she had to be fair; this was the first time she had suffered the experience of having a guest sneak off, complete with luggage, leaving a sizeable bill unpaid. He had requested only three weeks ago to change his arrangements from paying at the end of each week to paying monthly and since he had been her guest for almost six months, and she had found him agreeable (he had been a good-looking young man and full of wit and Tilly enjoyed the company of amusing people), she had stifled any doubts she might have had and agreed. And now she had paid for her own trusting heart.

  She got to her feet in a flurry of dark green sarsenet, pushing her skirts to one side with a pettish gesture, finding some relief of her irritation in the physical action, and he stood up politely and bowed in a vague sort of way.

  ‘Is there nothing more, Ma’am?’

  ‘Since you are so adamant that nothing more can be done to recompense, then I suppose not,’ she snapped and then softened as the old man blinked at her. ‘It is not your fault, Mr Collins. I should not be so – well, I am sorry.’

  ‘I
t’s understandable,’ he said. ‘None of us likes to be cheated.’ He sighed then. ‘It is so difficult to find the right people to deal with, is it not? Here I am, well ripe to step back a little, and take some ease as I grow older – I am past seventy, you know. Oh, yes, seventy. You must not look so surprised, for although I am hale and hearty, I was born in the last year of the old century, indeed I was – 1799, that was my birth year, and I am not ashamed to say so!’

  Tilly, who had not been at all surprised, for she had always regarded him as exceedingly elderly, composed her face and tried to look impressed.

  ‘Indeed, sir, I would never have thought it,’ she said politely.

  ‘Well, there you are, you see, there you are! Healthy living and a tranquil life, that is what does it. But what was I saying? Oh, yes – as to being cheated – I have been looking for some time now for a new young lawyer to work with me and take some of the burdens from me, since my son was lost to me you know, yes, lost in the Chinese wars, and he but a young man, but there you are, you see – as I say here I have been searching for a new young lawyer to work with me this many months and no success have I had of it, for they are all only interested in lining their own pockets, don’t you know, and that is not the idea at all, no indeed. So I –’

  Tilly, who had enough problems of her own to think about, interrupted the flow of language crisply.

  ‘I well understand the problems you have, sir, as well as I understand my own. You tell me that there is no possibility of insuring against any such future losses as this Greenwall one?’

  ‘It would be very costly,’ he said heavily, a little sulky at having been treated so by such a chit of a girl; Mrs Quentin she might be, but not a day over thirty, he’d be bound. And then he remembered about the boy being seventeen and amended it in his head; she must be thirty-five, but she looked little more than a chit. And she should have had better manners than to interrupt him as she had.

  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.

  Chapter Two

  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 he
r 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.