Jenny Telfer Chaplin

by Hopes

  Even with the security of the physical barrier Meg’s mental torture of what might have happened went on well into the early hours of the morning. To add to her distress her tormentor was apparently in the room next to hers with his bed seemingly on the other side of the paper-thin wall between them. Throughout the rest of Meg’s terror-filled night he banged, knocked, and scratched on the dividing wall to the accompaniment of drunken shouts about: “… the f***ing whore who led a poor fellow on with her bedroom eyes … then got cold feet when a fellow followed up on her invitation.”

  When Meg came down for breakfast next morning it was all she could do not to gag at the very thought of eating the porridge Mrs Farley set before her. However, feeling somehow ashamed and dirty as if the night’s escapade had indeed been an unlooked for and certainly unwelcome result of her ‘bedroom eyes’, Meg was determined to act as normally as possible and not let pass even a hint of what had happened. When Mrs Farley brought in the sparsely filled rack of toast Meg noticed that for once she seemed to be dining alone.

  Almost as if she had caught Meg’s unspoken thought Mrs Farley leaned forward and said: “It’s a pity you weren’t down quicker. You’ve just missed that handsome new lodger of ours. You both seemed to be getting along so well at supper last night … quite taken with you he was.”

  Meg’s head jerked up from her contemplation of the toast and the two small regulation curly knobs of butter.

  “Oh, now don’t you go imagining romance where none existed, Mrs Farley. I was merely being polite and sociable that was all. He’s a lay preacher no less.”

  Mrs Farley nodded absently. “Well, that’s as may be. Anyway, ships that pass in the night. To tell you the truth, dear, I very nearly missed him myself. You know how deaf I am. He had one foot out the door when I came through. He said he hadn’t wanted to disturb me at such an early hour especially since he wasn’t hungry and didn’t want anything to eat. Something about a business meeting at the Trongate. All a bit of a rush and he wouldn’t after all be spending another night with us. He’s going to collect his little attaché case later today and would pay me then for both nights anyway. Isn’t that really generous of him? Such a nice man, don’t you think?”

  Meg gave a noncommittal ghost of a smile and thought: Unless I’m very much mistaken, Mrs Farley, we have both seen the last of that handsome new lodger, lay preacher or not.

  On her way to work half an hour later Meg mused that the ‘ship that had passed in the night’ while cheating the besotted, stone-deaf Mrs Farley out of her money had at least done some good. His fumbled efforts at intended rape had decided Meg on her plan of actions. She would accept Petronella Martin’s offer to move into her Great Western Road home and help out with Miss Martin’s elderly mother.

  Yes, indeed. What could be better? Yes, something good had certainly come out of something bad.

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