Paying Guests Page 11

  ‘As you wish, Eliza,’ Tilly said dreamily, still stirring. She was happier than she had been for some time, now Duff was safely on his way. For good or ill the die was cast, she thought, and that is why I feel so much better. It’s also because I know now how foolish I have been to fret so. He is a sensible, good boy. There is no need for anxiety.

  The lemon juice went into the fragrant crimson mass and still she stirred as the boiling went on, and then skimmed busily to ensure that the jam would be clear. It took a full hour before it showed itself ready to set, which they tested by dropping a little of the jam on to a cold plate Eliza fetched from the dresser and checking it for wrinkles.

  And then what for Tilly was the best part: taking the prepared hot jars from the oven and ladling them full and noting that the fruit was well distributed and did not sink to the bottom; a sure sign that they had succeeded with their careful boiling. Then came a tedious but still enjoyable task; each pot had to be covered with a slip of paper over which they had brushed the best olive oil, and after that with larger covers of tissue paper which they brushed over on both sides with white of egg. It was a sticky, tiring job, but satisfying too as one after another the finished pots were set in rows waiting for their labels.

  Halfway through this operation Eliza broke away to see to dinner, which tonight was to be a cold collation. She had already dealt with her salmon from Mr Jerryman’s shop, which she had dressed in a chaud-froid, the aspic and mayonnaise mixture setting to a perfect gloss on the poached fish, and garnished with radishes and the last precious cucumber of the summer together with hard-boiled egg wedges, and now she had to prepare a number of salads. A chicken one and another of duck, together with a small array of lobster patties and another of cheese puffs. There was to be a side of good roast beef and a cold raised pie of grouse and mutton which was a concoction of Eliza’s own and much admired by the guests, who had clamoured for more when she had last offered it, so although none of the food might be hot, ‘all will be toothsome’, as Eliza put it. The custom of serving a cold collation one night a month to allow Eliza her evening off was a well established one at Quentin’s and no guest had ever complained about it.

  By the time Eliza, Rosie and Lucy had set the dining room ready and arranged the dishes on the table as well as the sideboard, it was almost a quarter before six o’clock. Eliza’s meeting commenced at half past six, and she went off happily to her room alongside the kitchen to get ready. She put on her best bonnet which was in a most handsome Dolly Varden style, a forward tilting ellipse of yellow straw decorated with flowers which looked, when set over Eliza’s rather red face, a touch incongruous to tell the truth, and her summer mantle, a much fringed garment in a rich yellow faille that made her look somewhat larger than she was. But she clearly admired herself greatly in the ensemble and came out of her room for Tilly’s inspection.

  ‘You look most elegant, Eliza,’ Tilly said approvingly and, indeed, despite the fact that the fashions were a touch extreme for Eliza’s colouring she had an air about her that made her very pleasant to look at. ‘It seems a pity there are only other females at your association to admire you!’

  ‘Oh, as to that, I wouldn’t be too sure,’ Eliza said saucily. ‘Several of the meetings are attended by men as guests, you know, for not all men are empty-headed ninnies who never read a word! Not that it is to meet the men that I go there, you understand.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Tilly said. ‘Well, enjoy yourself – and we shall see you later.’

  ‘I’ve doused the fire under the copper, now, so there’s no need for you to do anything else there. I’ll see to the waxing of the corks when I get in. As for the peaches, I’ll see to them tomorrow. Give over, Mum, do. You’ve worked hard all afternoon and you should take some rest before dinner, now you know that.’

  ‘Well, I shall, Eliza, so don’t keep on at me! The raspberry jam looks very fine, does it not?’ And she nodded her head at the dozen or so pots that stood like rubies capped with snow in rows on the kitchen table.

  ‘They do indeed, Mum. We can label them tomorrow. Now, you be away upstairs, please.’

  ‘I will,’ Tilly promised and at last Eliza went, taking herself out of the back door and up the area steps in a little wash of parma violet scent and a flurry of her taffeta skirts.

  Tilly stretched and sighed and took off her apron and took it out to the scullery to put it in the big hamper which contained the laundry awaiting collection by Mrs Skinner. Then she went back to the comfort of the kitchen and she stood still for a moment on the rag rug that spread its vivid colours over the stone floor beside the fire, as she pulled down her sleeves and rebuttoned them.

  The place breathed warmth and peace at her, from the great dresser and its displays of blue and white china to the brindled cat asleep on the rocker amid Eliza’s crumpled old cushions and she felt her shoulders relax with the sheer comfort of it all as the cat woke, stretched and mewed.

  She bent to stroke him and as she did so a bell rang and she peered up at the row of them above the kitchen door. The dozen or so that hung there on their coiled springs were labelled with their source; and it was the front door bell that was dancing madly; she lifted her head to listen and heard footsteps going across the hall upstairs. Good. Rosie or Lucy had heard it. She wondered briefly who it might be, for all the guests had their own keys, and then smiled. Probably Mr Cumming, she thought. He was always forgetting to take his keys to St George’s with him, or left them there when he came home at the end of his day; she really would have to scold him for making so much extra effort necessary for her housemaids.

  She bent and stroked the cat again, who purred, rubbed himself against her hand and looked blissful, and then straightened as the door at the top of the stairs swung open, and she looked up.

  ‘If you please, Ma’am,’ said Rosie, sounding a touch startled. ‘It’s a lady as wants to see you. Says it’s important but wouldn’t give me no name, Ma’am, so I thought I’d set her in the hall and come and –’

  ‘You need not concern yourself further,’ a voice said and Rosie looked over her shoulder, even more startled, as someone came past her and set her firmly, though not at all roughly or rudely, aside. ‘I know my way here.’

  Tilly stood staring upwards, her hand still on the cat’s head as it rubbed itself against her, purring loudly. She couldn’t quite see who was there in the shadows at the top of the stairs. The voice was unfamiliar and yet had a ring about it that she knew, she thought, and then wanted to laugh aloud at such a contradictory notion. Either it was strange or she knew it, she told herself, and peered again into the shadows. It couldn’t be both.

  The person on the stairs came forward and began to walk down; a tall, slender figure, which moved with considerable grace, and wearing one of the newest of tight tied-back skirts and close-fitting bodices, all in a tasteful shade of deep gold, trimmed with copper-coloured braid. She was wearing a Leghorn bonnet, very like Eliza’s Dolly Varden but infinitely more chic, in a golden straw that matched the gown exactly and which showed off to perfect advantage the hair beneath it.

  Dark red hair, thick, curly, twisted into the most handsome of coiled tresses and plaits to form a great chignon above the back of the slender neck. The face beneath was small and pointed and the skin was the colour of fresh cream.

  ‘Sophie,’ Tilly heard herself say, a mere breath of a word and the vision on the stairs arrived in front of her, tucked under her arm the lacy cream-coloured parasol she was carrying and extended both hands towards her.

  ‘How clever of you to recognize me, Aunt Tilly! And after so long, too! How are you?’

  Chapter Eleven

  TO SAY THAT Miss Sophie Oliver was self-composed was to put it at its very least. She sat at her ease on the kitchen chair beside the table as though it were a satin chaise longue in the most handsome of salons, her thread gloved hands, small and very neat, crossed comfortably over each other on the crook of her parasol and smiling at Tilly with what seem
ed to be practised charm.

  Now that Tilly could see her properly, she realized how much the child she had known had changed. However, she did remember the colour of her hair, which really was remarkable, and the timbre of her voice. It was similar to that of her mother, Dorcas, with the same faint twang of an accent, but in Sophie’s case it was greatly disguised. She had, Tilly thought fleetingly, gone to a lot of trouble to cultivate a sweeter voice with thrilling low tones as well as a silvery laugh, which she had already demonstrated when she had observed how amazed Tilly was to see her.

  But the rest was very different. The small pointed chin was still there, admittedly, but with a more pronounced cleft in it than Tilly remembered and the dark eyes seemed to have enlarged amazingly. The lashes were long and swept over the cheeks most appealingly and the nose, small, straight and surmounting a charmingly short upper lip that kept her mouth slightly open to reveal perfect little white teeth, was the sort that most girls yearn to have. She was altogether bewitching to look at, and the more she looked, the more Tilly felt her heart sink. What had she done in asking Jem to seek out this girl? What had she done?

  ‘You have not asked me why I am here, Aunt Tilly!’ Sophie said at length. ‘I may so address you still, I trust? I remember I used to.’

  ‘Do you remember so much?’ Tilly said. ‘You were very small when you left this house.’

  The perfect little mouth curved, so that the cleft in the chin became a mere dimple, though still a pretty one. ‘I have an excellent memory, Aunt Tilly. I can recall so much! That sad man in the basket chair, for example, when we were at the seaside, you know, and the way you and Mamma –’

  ‘Yes,’ Tilly said hastily, not wanting at all to discuss Freddy, who had been so ill when they had met him on a summer visit to Brighton, and certainly not wishing to discuss Dorcas. ‘I have heard that sometimes people have great recall of their childhoods. My own is less –’

  ‘Well, you would not recall as much as I do of the times when I was here,’ Sophie said kindly. ‘After all, you were already a grown up lady and I was but a child.’

  Tilly blinked, suddenly feeling extremely old compared to this vision of lovely youth, and then straightened her shoulders.

  ‘I have always had much to think about,’ she said tartly.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Sophie said soothingly, and she looked around the room with a faint smile on her lips. ‘How charming it is to see the old kitchen again. I can recall sitting here with darling Duff, eating our bread and milk for supper, and dear Eliza bustling about – is she still with you?’

  ‘Indeed she is,’ Tilly said, watching her carefully. What was the girl up to?

  ‘She was so kind to us. And I remember how excited she was when the new range was put in – we watched the men do it and she was so – well, cock-a-hoop is all I can say. And there the range still is, and there have been no changes. It is so comforting to find all is the same as I remember it.’

  ‘Not quite,’ said Tilly, stung. ‘We have much more that is modern. New taps and sinks in the scullery and the great chopping board is there as well as a cold larder to supplement the ordinary one.’ The girl was reminding her, and clearly deliberately, that the cooking range that had been put in the kitchen all that time ago had been paid for not by Tilly, but by Dorcas. It was not a comfortable reminder; those had been the days when Dorcas had been plump in the pocket, with a tendency to try to exert some control over Tilly in consequence.

  ‘How exciting,’ Sophie said, stretching her eyes and smiling again. ‘And what else, Aunt Tilly? I saw when I came in that the house looks quite different. Where there was a small hall there now seems to be a vast one and the stairs are wider.’

  Tilly let her shoulders loosen. ‘Yes, that is so. We – the two houses were knocked together. The hallway is double width, therefore, and the drawing room doubled in size upstairs. The dining room too.’

  Sophie looked at her sharply and this time her admiration seemed genuine. ‘Then you have a considerable establishment, have you not? It must be – why, I cannot guess how many bedrooms – a dozen and a half, I imagine?’

  Tilly’s brows tightened. This girl had a shrewd ability to assess space. ‘Twenty,’ she said a little stiffly. ‘Not including the family’s rooms of course.’

  ‘Well, that is indeed a considerable establishment,’ Sophie said. ‘It is almost as big as a provincial hotel – bigger in fact.’

  ‘It is not an hotel,’ Tilly said shortly. ‘I offer my guests the comfort of home on a – on a more permanent basis than an hotel does. I prefer it that way.’

  ‘Oh yes, paying guests,’ Sophie murmured. ‘It is so much more genteel, is it not? One cannot be sure who will come into an hotel and demand accommodation, but if they are regarded as guests –’

  ‘Precisely. I am able to be very selective about whom I will accept to join our – well, we regard our guests as a large family. We are all on excellent terms.’ She suppressed awareness of the occasional irritations she had with Mr Cumming, and the way Mrs Grayling’s chatter made her sometimes want to snap at her, and looked directly at Sophie. ‘We prefer it that way.’

  ‘I am sure you do,’ Sophie said heartily. ‘And so should I! Now, before we say any more, do please tell me how Duff is. I remember him with such delight. My dearest little playmate –’

  ‘He is well enough,’ Tilly said and then looked at her closely. ‘You haven’t yet said why you are here.’

  Sophie raised her brows. ‘Why, you make that sound as though you would prefer I was not! And I am so happy to see you again and to see the dear old house. It is, I have to say, like coming home to me – that is why I begged we might stay here in the kitchen rather than repair upstairs. Just yet.’

  Tilly let the last words go by her, and went on looking closely at Sophie. ‘But why now? Did you – well, why now?’

  Sophie shrugged. ‘I cannot say – was it an impulse? Perhaps. It was just that my carriage was going along the Brompton Road, where I have not been for such a long time, and I saw Mr Harrod’s shop and how enlarged it was and thought – surely I have a recollection of that shop as being much less grand? And I got down to look around in there. He was about to close but he remembered me and stayed open to show me all his new departments! So charming – and of course asked if I were to come and visit you and I said it was a splendid idea. So, here I am!’

  Tilly shook her head. ‘And no one told you that – no one else asked you to come and see me?’

  Sophie set her head to one side and looked at her for a long moment and then slowly smiled. ‘Now, what a strange question, dear Aunt Tilly! Why should such a thing happen? Unless you set out to find someone who could ask me? Someone who knew where I might be found?’

  ‘Uh – not at all. I mean – not precisely – I mean –’ Tilly floundered, furious with herself. Why on earth had she asked so stupid a question? This might be just what Sophie had said it was, a minor coincidence. But by asking the question she had alerted the girl.

  Sophie was still gazing at her with that wide, limpid look and now she laughed, ‘Oh dear Aunt Tilly, I do remember you so well! So gentle and kind and so – well, to be truthful I could always tell what you were thinking by looking at your face. You are not at all as I am, naturally given to hiding your inner thoughts, are you?’

  ‘As to that,’ Tilly said bravely, trying to salvage some of her composure, ‘I really cannot say.’

  ‘Well, never mind. Let me just confess that I had perhaps heard a distant murmur that you had asked after my welfare. There! Is that better? I will not pretend it was a coincidence that I took my carriage down the Brompton Road. To tell the truth, I had not thought about Brompton or the time I lived here for – well, for such a long time. If I ever did think of it at all, in fact. I am not one who looks back over her shoulder, you know.’ She looked down at her hands and smoothed her gloves thoughtfully. ‘No, I am one who enjoys the present and looks to the future always. And I had not thought abo
ut the old days at all – until I heard from a friend that enquiries had been made for me, and I thought – now, I wonder why? And it suited me well enough at present to retreat a little from – well –’

  She smiled delightfully. ‘Let me take a leaf from your book, Aunt, and speak frankly. It will suit me very well at present to withdraw a little from public view. So hearing that someone in Brompton – and who could it be but you? – had an interest in seeing me again – well, here I am!’

  Tilly sat and looked at her. The light of the sun was coming in long, low beams now through the area window as the afternoon slid away into evening and it lit Sophie to an almost unbelievable gold; her gown, her bonnet, her gloves and, above all, her hair. The tips of the curls and the tresses and plaits were outlined in gold dust and the effect was totally beguiling. Tilly almost gawped at her. And was only brought out of her state of bemusement by the sound of footsteps overhead and then a clatter at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Tilly, are you there? May I come down, if you please?’ a voice called and Silas came down, taking two steps at a time, and then stopped as he reached the bottom one. ‘Oh, I am so sorry – I did not know you were occupied.’

  Sophie had lifted her head at the sound of his voice and now turned her head so that she looked at him over her shoulder, and Tilly could not help but notice what a smooth and careful move it was. Not the half turn that most people would have made to ensure a clear view behind them, but a sweet and somewhat coquettish turn of the chin that left her peeping up at Silas, who was just behind her. She must have presented a charming picture, for Tilly saw his eyes widen as he looked down at her and his jaw seemed to slacken slightly. And suddenly she was angry.

  ‘I really do not intend to entertain in the kitchen any longer,’ she said firmly and got to her feet. ‘We shall repair upstairs, if you please. To the drawing room. Come along.’ And she swept past them to the stairs, not looking round to see if they were following her.