by Betty Neels
‘No, sir.’
He wished her goodnight then, and she closed the door after him, bolting it and locking it securely. He paused on the pavement and looked down at the basement window. She had drawn the curtains and there was only a faint line of light showing. He frowned; he had no interest in the girl but living in that poky basement didn’t seem right... He shrugged his shoulders; after all, she had chosen the job.
A week went by and Arabella had settled into a routine which ensured that she was seldom seen during working hours. Tidying Miss Baird’s desk one evening, she had seen the list of patients for the following day, which gave her a good idea as to the times of their arrival. Now she checked each evening’s list, for not all the patients came early in the day—once or twice there was no one until after ten o’clock, which gave her time to sweep and dust her own room and have a cup of coffee in peace. Nicely organised, she found life bearable if not exciting and, now that her room was very nearly as she wished it, she planned to spend part of her Sundays in the London parks. She missed the country. Indeed, come what may, she had promised herself that one day she would leave London but first she had to save some money before finding a job near her old home.
‘We will go back,’ she assured Percy, ‘I promise you. Only we must stay here for a while—a year, perhaps two—just until we have enough money to feel safe.’
* * *
Only Dr Marshall came in on the Monday morning. Dr Tavener would be in directly after lunch, Miss Baird told her. He was taking a clinic at one of the nearby hospitals that morning. ‘He’s got a lot of patients too,’ she warned Arabella. ‘He probably won’t be finished until early evening—he doesn’t mind if he works late; he’s not married and hasn’t any ties.’ She added kindly, ‘If you want to run round to the shops I’ll see to the phone and the door.’
‘Thank you. If I could just get some vegetables? I can be back in fifteen minutes.’
‘Don’t hurry. You do cook proper meals for yourself?’
‘Oh, yes. I have plenty of time in the evening.’
It was a cheerless morning, not quite October and already chilly. Arabella nipped smartly to the row of little shops, chose onions and turnips and carrots with care, bought meat from the butcher next door and hurried back. A casserole would be easy, she could leave it to cook gently and it wouldn’t spoil however late she might have her supper. A few dumplings, she reflected, and a bouquet garni. It would do for the following day too.
She prepared it during the lunch hour, gave Percy his share of the meat and tidied herself ready to open the door for the first of Dr Tavener’s patients.
The last patient went just before six o’clock and Arabella, having already tidied Dr Marshall’s rooms, started to close the windows and lock up. There was still no sign of Dr Tavener when she had done this so she went down to the basement, set the table for her supper and checked the casserole in the oven. It was almost ready; she turned off the gas and set the dish on top of the stove, lifted the lid and gently stirred the contents—they smelled delicious.
Dr Tavener, on the point of leaving, paused in the hall, his splendid nose flaring as he sniffed the air. He opened the door to the basement and sniffed again and then went down the stairs and knocked at the door.
There was silence for a moment before he was bidden to enter—to discover Arabella standing facing the door, looking uncertain.
Neither of them spoke for a moment. Arabella was surprised to see him—she hadn’t known who it was and had secretly been a little frightened—and as for Dr Tavener, he stood looking around him before remarking, ‘Dear me, you have been busy and to very good effect.’ He glanced at the table, nicely laid with a white cloth, the silver, one of the Coalport plates, a Waterford glass and a small vase of flowers. Their new caretaker was, indeed, a little out of the common. ‘I hope I didn’t startle you; something smelled so delicious that I had to see what it was. Your supper?’
She nodded.
He said with amusement, ‘Are you a Cordon Bleu cook as well as a plumber?’
‘Yes.’
‘Surely if that is the case you could have found a more congenial post?’
‘No one would have Percy.’
Dr Tavener studied the cat sitting before the little fire staring at him. ‘A handsome beast.’ And then, since their conversation was making no progress at all, ‘Goodnight, Miss Lorimer.’ As he turned away he added, ‘You will lock up?’
‘I have been waiting to do so, sir.’ Her voice was tart.
His smile dismissed that. ‘As long as you carry out your duties, Miss Lorimer.’
He had gone then, as quietly as he had come.
‘He isn’t just rude,’ Arabella told Percy. ‘He’s very rude!’
When she heard the front door close she put the casserole in the oven again and went upstairs to clear up his rooms, close the windows and turn the key in the door before the lengthy business of locking and bolting the front door. Only then did she go back to her delayed supper.
Sitting by the gas fire later, sewing at the cushion covers, she allowed her thoughts to dwell upon Dr Tavener. He didn’t like her, that was obvious, and yet he had come down to her room—something Dr Marshall would never think of doing. Perhaps she should have been more friendly, but were caretakers supposed to be friendly with their employers? She doubted that. He unsettled her. While her parents had been alive she had had friends, cheerful young men and women of her own age, but none of the young men had fallen in love with her, nor had she been particularly attracted to any of them. Dr Tavener wasn’t like any of them. It wasn’t only his good looks—perhaps it was because he was older. She gave up thinking about him and turned her attention to her work.
She had only brief glimpses of him for the rest of that week and beyond a terse greeting he didn’t speak to her. On the other hand, Dr Marshall, while evincing no interest at all in her private life, was always friendly if they chanced to encounter each other.
Then Dr Tavener went to Oslo, his nurse took a holiday and Arabella found herself with less to do. True, she checked his rooms night and morning, but there was no need to Hoover and polish now he was away. There were fewer doorbells to answer too, so she had time to spare in which to make apple chutney from the windfalls dropping from the small old tree at the bottom of the garden. She had, of course, asked Dr Marshall first if she might have them and he had said yes, adding that he had had no idea that they could be used. So for several evenings there was a pleasant smell of cooking apples coming from the basement. She made bread too, and a batch of scones; and buns with currents—nicely iced; and a sponge cake, feather-light. The tiny old-fashioned pantry, its shelves empty for so long for Mrs Lane had only fancied food out of tins, began to fill nicely.
Dr Tavener was due back on the following day, Miss Baird told her. Not until the late afternoon, though, so there would be no patients for him. ‘And I dare say he’ll go straight home and come in the next morning.’
So Arabella gave his rooms a final dusting. There were still some Doris pinks in the garden; she arranged some in a glass vase and added some sprigs of lavender and some veronica. The room was cool so they would stay fresh overnight—she must remember to turn the central heating on in the morning and light the gas fire. She put everything ready for the nurse too, so that she could make herself a cup of tea when she arrived, then she went round checking the windows and the doors, and went downstairs again.
Dr Marshall had a great number of patients the next morning; she was kept busy answering the door and Dr Tavener’s nurse, short-tempered for some reason, found fault with her because the central heating hadn’t been turned on sooner. In the afternoon it began to rain—a steady downpour—so the patients left wet footprints over the parquet flooring and dropped their dripping umbrellas unheeding on to the two chairs which flanked the side-table. Arabella had taken a lot of
trouble to clean them and polish them and now they were covered in damp spots. She would have liked to bang the door behind them as they left...
The house was quiet at last and she fetched her plastic bag, her dusters and polish, and lugged the Hoover from its place under the stairs. There had been no sign of Dr Tavener; he would have gone straight home as Miss Baird had suggested. Arabella bustled around, intent on getting back to her own room. Tea had been out of the question and she thought with pleasure of the supper she intended to cook—a Spanish omelette with a small salad. She had made soup yesterday, with bones and root vegetables, and she would have an apple or two and a handful of raisins. Bread and butter and a large pot of tea instead of coffee—what more could anyone want?
The weather had turned nasty, with a cold wind and heavy rain. It was a lonely sound beating on the windows; she wondered why it sounded so different from the rain on the windows of her home at Colpin-cum-Witham. There the wind used to sough through the trees—a sound she had loved. She had finished her tidying up when she remembered that the nurse had complained about the light in the waiting-room. The bulb wasn’t strong enough, she had been told, and another one must replace it. She fetched it and then went to haul the step-ladder up from the basement so that she might reach the elaborate shade hanging from the ceiling.
She was on the top step when she heard the front door being opened, and a moment later Dr Tavener came into the room. He was bareheaded and carried his case in his hand. He put it down, lifted her down from the steps, took the bulb from her hand and changed it with the one already in the socket. Only then did he get down and bid her good evening.
Arabella, taken by surprise, hadn’t uttered a sound. Now she found her voice and uttered a stiff thank you.
He stood looking at her. ‘It’s a filthy night,’ he observed. ‘You wouldn’t be kind and make me a cup of tea or coffee—whichever is easiest?’
She started for the little kitchenette leading from his rooms but he put out a hand. ‘No, no. No need here—may I not come downstairs with you?’
She eyed him uncertainly. ‘Well, if you want to,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘I was going to make tea.’
She went down to the basement, very conscious of him just behind her. The room looked surprisingly cosy; she had left one of the little table-lamps lit and the gas fire was on. She went to turn it up and said rather shyly, ‘Please sit down, the tea won’t take long.’
He sat down in the small shabby armchair and Percy got on to his knees. ‘Have you had your supper? Do I smell soup?’
‘Are you hungry?’ She warmed the teapot and spooned in the tea.
‘Ravenous. My housekeeper doesn’t expect me back until the morning.’ He watched her as she made the tea. ‘I could go out for a meal, I suppose. Would you come with me?’
She looked up in surprise. ‘Well, thank you for asking me but I’ve supper all ready.’ She paused to think. ‘You can share it if you would like to, though I’m not sure if it’s quite the thing. I mean, I’m the caretaker!’
He smiled and said easily, ‘You are also a splendid cook, are you not?’ He got up out of his chair. ‘And I don’t believe there is a law against caretakers asking a guest for a meal.’
‘Well, of course, put like that it seems quite...’ She paused, at a loss for a word.
‘Quite,’ said Dr Tavener. ‘What comes after the soup?’
She laid another place at the table. ‘Well, a Spanish omelette with a salad. I haven’t a pudding, but there is bread and butter and cheese...’
‘Home-made bread?’ And when she nodded he said, ‘I can think of nothing nicer. While you are cooking the omelette I shall go and get a bottle of wine. Five minutes?’
He had gone. She heard the door close behind him and the car start up. She broke three eggs into a bowl and then a fourth—he was a very large man.
The omelette was ready to cook when he got back, put a bottle on the table and asked if she had a corkscrew. It was a good wine—a red burgundy of a good vintage, its cost almost as much as half of Arabella’s pay-packet. He opened it to let it breathe.
Arabella was ladling soup into the large old-fashioned soup plates which had belonged to her grandmother. Dr Tavener, sampling it, acknowledged that it was worthy of the Coalport china in which it was served.
He fetched the wine and poured it as she dished up the omelette and, warmed by its delicious fruitiness, Arabella forgot to be a caretaker and was once again a well brought-up young lady with a pleasant social life. Dr Tavener, leading her on with quiet cunning, discovered a good deal more about her than she realised. Not that he asked questions but merely put in a word here and there, egging her on gently.
They finished the omelette and sat talking over coffee and slices of bread and butter and a piece of cheese. If he found the meal a trifle out of the ordinary way of things he gave no sign. Bread and butter, he discovered, when the bread had been baked by his hostess, was exactly the right way to finish his supper. Being a giant of a man, he ate most of the loaf and a good deal of the butter. She would have to go to the shops the next day...
It was almost ten o’clock when he went, taking her with him so that she could lock up after him. He stood on the pavement, thinking of her polite goodnight and listening to the bolts being shot home and the key turned in the lock. He had never worried about Mrs Lane being alone in the house for the simple reason that she frequently had had various members of her family spending a few days with her, but Arabella had no one. The idea of Arabella being alone at night nagged at him all the way to his home.
* * *
It was on the following Saturday afternoon that Arabella added another member to her household. She was returning from the shops, laden with a week’s supply of basic food, taking shortcuts through the narrow streets which would bring her into Wigmore Street. It had been a dull, chilly day and bid fair to lapse into early dusk bringing a fine drizzle of rain. Head bowed against the damp wind, weighed down with her shopping, she turned down a short alleyway which would take her close to Dr Marshall’s rooms.
She was almost at its end when a faint movement in the gutter caused her to stop. A puppy lay there, rolled up and moving to and fro, its yelps so faint that she could hardly hear them. She put down her plastic bags and bent to take a closer look. It was a pitiful sight, thin and very wet, and someone had tied its back legs together. Arabella let out a snort of rage and knelt down the better to deal with it. The cord was tight but roughly tied; it took only a moment to untie it and scoop up the small creature, pop him on top of her shopping and carry him back to her basement.
He was a very young puppy and, even if well fed and cared for, would have had no good looks. As it was he was a sorry sight, with tiny ribs showing through his dirty coat and sores on his flanks. Notwithstanding, he lay passive on the table while she gently examined him, and even waved a very long and rat-like tail. She dumped her shopping, fetched warm water and some old cloths, and cleaned him gently, wrapped him in an old curtain and set him before the gas fire where he lay too tired to move when Percy went to examine him in his turn.
‘Bread and warm milk,’ said Arabella who, living alone with only a cat for company, frequently uttered her thoughts out loud, and suited the action to the words. It was received thankfully and scoffed with pathetic speed so she gave him more warm milk with some vague idea about dehydration and then, aware of Percy’s indignant stare, offered him his supper too, before taking off her jacket and putting away her shopping. She got her own tea presently, pausing frequently to look at the puppy. He was sleeping, uttering small yelps as he slept, and presently Percy stretched out beside him, with the air of someone doing a good deed, and curved himself round the small skinny creature.
‘That’s right, Percy,’ encouraged Arabella. ‘He could do with a good cuddle. He’ll be a handsome dog if we look after him.’
He woke presently and she gave him some of Percy’s food and took him into the dark garden, and when she went off to bed she lifted him on to its foot beside Percy. He looked better already. She woke in the night and found him still sleeping, but Percy had crept up the bed and was lying beside her.
It was then that she began to wonder what Dr Marshall was going to say when he discovered that she had a dog as well as a cat. Why should she tell him? The puppy was very young—his bark would be small and until he was much stronger he might not bark at all. Indeed, he would be no trouble for some time; he was far too weak to behave as a normal puppy would. Things settled to her satisfaction, she went back to sleep until Percy’s nudges woke her once more.
Being Sunday, she had the place to herself and nothing could have been more convenient. The puppy, shivering with terror, was borne out into the garden again and then given his breakfast while Percy ate his, afterwards curling up before the fire and allowing the puppy to crouch beside him. Presently Percy stretched his length before the warmth and the puppy crept even closer and went to sleep.
He slept and ate all day and by the evening he cringed only occasionally, waving his ridiculous tail in an effort to show his gratitude.
‘I shall keep you,’ said Arabella. ‘Percy likes you and so do I! And you’re more than welcome.’
The puppy, unused to a kind voice, gave a very small squeaky bark, ate a second supper and went to sleep—this time with his ugly little head on Percy’s portly stomach.
Monday came and with it a nasty nervous feeling on Arabella’s part, but she went about her duties as usual and by the end of the day was lulled into a sense of security by the exemplary behaviour of the puppy who, doubtless because he was still very much under the weather, did nothing other than eat the food she offered him and sleep, keeping as close to a tolerant Percy as possible.
By the end of the week he had filled out considerably although he was still quite content to curl up and sleep. He went willingly enough into the garden before anyone was about and, although the dark evenings scared him, provided Percy was nearby he ventured on to the grass and even scampered around for a few minutes.