Until now. Sitting with her back very straight and her hands folded on her brown taffeta skirts she stared at Dorcas, too surprised to treat her with the icy indifference she usually offered.
Tilly noticed at once that Dorcas looked older and that pleased her. Her face was pale and rather thinner than it had been, with no dimples to be seen, and her curly hair, once so carefully dressed, was lacklustre and lay on her shoulders in a way that once would have been attractive but now looked merely unkempt. She was wearing a gown of dark green merino with white collar and cuffs but they looked crumpled and a little grimy, and Tilly felt her brows close in a sharp frown. Dorcas looked ill; but then she pushed down the wave of concern that had, to her surprise, risen in her. Why should she care about Dorcas, ill or well?
‘I have to speak to you,’ Dorcas said gruffly and closed the door behind her. At once Tilly lifted her book and opened it at random and bent her head and purported to read. But it made no difference. Dorcas ran across the room and almost collapsed at her feet in a rustle of skirts and tugged the book from her grasp. ‘Oh, don’t behave so, please! I have to talk to you. This is no time for old grudges – you must forget the past and hear what I have to ask you –’
Tilly had not meant to speak but the words came out in a splutter of indignation. ‘Forget the past? Old grudges? You behave like a – like a street drab and you tell me I must forget the past and – and –’
‘Oh, Tilly, do be quiet and listen to me! I have so little time! She’ll be here and will – oh, she’s done enough! Look, will you!’ She pulled at her grimy collar and it opened at her throat and she dragged back the fabric to expose her neck and upper chest. ‘See what she did when she – oh, do be quick and listen or she’ll be here and then heaven help me!’
Tilly stared at Dorcas’s skin, appalled. There were vivid blue bruises there, and long red lines of scratches and she put both hands to her head in horror. ‘You – what happened?’
‘She –’ Dorcas jerked her head at the door and both knew she meant her mother. ‘She did it. She found out – Tilly, you must help me! I have to get away, somehow, but I have no money and –’
‘But Dorcas –’ Tilly shook her head, dazed. It was as though the silence of the past months had never happened, as though the two of them were conspiring again as they had as children, though in those days it had always been Tilly begging Dorcas to help her. ‘What can I do to help you? You are the one who knows everything and can do everything –’
‘Except what I want to do.’ Dorcas was bitter. Her voice was thick with it. ‘If I do as she wants, then I am all that is good. If I don’t – you know what she is –’
‘But how can I help you? I have no –’
‘You have money, though, haven’t you? Now that you’re married. You must have money, especially as you live here and don’t have the expense of your own establishment.’
Tilly felt her face smooth out with the shame of it; she tried to sound as expressionless as she could. ‘I have no money of my own,’ she said, after a moment. ‘If I need anything, I have to ask Frank or Papa.’
‘Well, your Mamma has,’ Dorcas said urgently and got to her feet and went back to the door to listen for sounds from the house beyond. ‘Hasn’t she? Where do you get her gin if not with her own money? Can you not let me have some of that?’
‘I get the gin from the dining-room.’ Tilly said with what dignity she could gather around her, ashamed to admit she was stealing it for her mother, ashamed to admit her mother demanded it. ‘The only female in this house who has any money to handle is your Mamma, as far as I can see. Even the maids are better off than I, I imagine, in that they can put their hands on their own wages. I don’t even have that.’
‘Oh, God!’ Dorcas said and closed her eyes. ‘Oh, God, what shall I do? What shall I do?’
Tilly sat and stared at her. She had never heard Dorcas so despairing, had never seen her so woebegone and bedraggled, and the anger and ice of the past months melted out of her until all she could remember was the time when she was small, when Dorcas had been the centre of her life; unpredictable, often bad tempered, sometimes cruel, but at least alive and interested and knowing as no one else did that Tilly too was a person with feelings and dreams and ideas. It was almost more than she could bear to see her so unhappy and she got to her feet and hurried over to her and put her arms about her.
‘Oh, Dorcas. I’ll do what I can, I promise. I will try to get some money. What do you need? How much? And how soon, and –’
There were footsteps outside and then the door handle rattled and Dorcas’s eyes dilated with terror, and for Tilly the last vestiges of doubt about Dorcas melted away. Whatever she had done to Tilly in the past, she was a fearful person now and that was something Tilly understood very well. And could deal with.
She pushed Dorcas sharply so that she was back against the wall behind the door, and then pulled it wide to stand firmly in the opening with her hands folded against her skirts and the crinoline of her afternoon gown more than filling the space. Anyone trying to get into the room would have to push past her boldly; and Tilly was in no mood to be pushed aside.
Mrs Leander stood staring at her with eyes as black and round as boot buttons, and she moved forwards as the door opened and said smoothly, ‘You rang, Mrs Quentin?’
Tilly didn’t move though Mrs Leander was standing very close to her now, her sharp eyes peering around behind Tilly, trying to see into the room. ‘Indeed I did, Mrs Leander. You will fetch me some tea, if you please, and some of the cake that Cook sent up yesterday afternoon. I found it agreeable. At once, if you please.’
‘Tea?’ Mrs Leander said and moved closer still, trying to make Tilly give way. But she didn’t, even though the woman’s face was so close to her that she could feel her breath hot on her face – an unpleasant sensation.
‘Tea,’ Tilly said firmly and reached behind her and took the doorknob in her hand and tugged. Then she stepped back sharply and closed the door in Mrs Leander’s face, calling loudly as the latch clicked down. ‘At once, if you please.’
And then she turned back to Dorcas and helped her to her feet, for she was crouching down behind the door, and half pulled her, half led her to the window that looked out of the morning room into the garden.
‘Out you go,’ she said urgently. ‘Go on. I’ll be in my room after I’ve had the tea – come to me there as soon as you like. We’ll sort something out for you. But you’ll have to tell me all the whys and wherefores, you understand. But be on your way now – quickly. Leave your mother to me. I’ll deal with her.’
As Dorcas obeyed, startled but silent, Tilly went back to her chair feeling remarkably pleased with herself. Whatever Dorcas’s problem might be, one thing was sure; because of it Tilly had been given the strength to stand up to Mrs Leander in a remarkable way, and for that alone Dorcas could be forgiven almost anything.
Chapter Three
TILLY ACCEPTED WITH equanimity her tea and cake from the housemaid sent by Mrs Leander and enjoyed it, taking her time, before making her way out of the room. She was aware as she walked across the hallway that Mrs Leander was standing in the shadows beside the green baize door that led down to the servants’ quarters, watching her, but she pretended she didn’t know, and hummed softly to herself as she went; and then, on an impulse, stopped beside the occasional table at the foot of the stairs and ran a housewifely finger along the edge of the rosewood. She looked at the dust on her finger and then at the track left on the table and shook her head and sighed in exasperation; and went on her way, smiling to herself at the anger she was sure she had left behind her, and went into the dining-room and closed the door.
Once inside she stood and listened a little breathlessly, then, feeling ashamed of the guile but quite determined none the less, bent and looked out through the keyhole to the hall beyond.
She heard Mrs Leander’s heels clack on the black and white tiles of the floor, and watched her come into view, and sto
p by the occasional table. Then Tilly wanted to laugh aloud, and had to cram her fist between her teeth to prevent it, for Mrs Leander took her handkerchief from her pocket, and with deft, angry movements dusted the table and each of the gewgaws on it.
‘I won!’ thought Tilly gleefully, as happy as though she had won a vast wager, and listened as Mrs Leander clacked away to the baize door and beyond, leaving the hall silent and empty.
Tilly straightened and looked about her at the heavy mahogany furniture, also a little filmed with dust, and the great sideboard with its many cupboards and drawers, and after a little more thought, moved purposefully towards it. There were things she had to consider before she went upstairs to Dorcas, who anyway needed time to return to the house from the garden and thence upstairs, without her mother seeing her.
Ten minutes later, Tilly went quietly upstairs to her room, so quietly that Dorcas nearly jumped out of her skin in terror as Tilly closed the door behind her. That made her marvel a little. Fearless, outrageous, brave Dorcas to behave so? What had happened to her to make her so anxious? And she looked at the other woman huddled at the foot of her bed with a combination of pity and concern and triumph and revenge that made her feel as though her chest would swell up and burst out of her gown; it was an exhilarating sensation, if a touch shaming.
‘Well now, Dorcas,’ she said and sat down tidily on the small round chair that stood at the foot of her bed. ‘You had better tell me all about it. First of all, why have you no money of your own? You’ve been paid wages all these years, I imagine? And have few expenses, living here –’
Dorcas looked at her sharply and for a moment the old edge was there in her glance, but then she looked away, and shook her head. ‘Oh, I got some wages, I suppose. Not much – your father’s no fool when it comes to hard cash – but I like pretty clothes and there was none coming the usual way –’
‘The usual way?’
‘Other ladies’ maids get hand-me-downs from their mistresses,’ Dorcas said with a flash of spite. ‘You never gave me nothing – not so much as a kerchief.’
‘I couldn’t,’ Tilly said with what dignity she could. ‘You said yourself my father’s hard with cash. I have few clothes, and what I have I need –’
‘Well, anyway, I spent what I got, and there’s an end of it. I’ve not a penny behind me now when I need it – say you’ll help me, Tilly. Just five pounds is all –’
‘Five pounds?’ Tilly’s voice rose to a squeak. ‘But that is a vast sum! What can you want with so much?’
‘To get married, that’s what. I’ve done the computations very carefully, and I’ll never get Walter turned off without a bit of a blowout and –’
‘Walter? A blowout?’ Tilly frowned suddenly. ‘Are you asking me to provide for a party of some kind, Dorcas? For if that is the case I have to say –’
‘Oh, please listen!’ Dorcas curled up again into the small huddle she had been in when Tilly came into the room, seeming to find comfort in the posture. ‘It’s much more than that –’
‘I’m listening,’ Tilly said and folded her hands on her lap in her favourite pose.
‘It’s Mamma – she wants me to marry well,’ Dorcas said. ‘It’s what she’s always said, “Money’s money, my girl, and don’t you forget it.” And the only way to get it, she reckons, is on your back. Women don’t get no other chances, after all. You never saw a woman yet with a business of her own except what she got from under her pillow in the marriage bed, did you? No. Ma always wanted to have her own public house, you know. A superior kind, in a decent district, none of your nasty alehouses, but my father was useless and would not help her to it. Indeed –’
Tilly was startled. She had never considered the possibility of Dorcas having a father. Mrs Leander was so powerful that it had never occurred to Tilly that she wasn’t capable of producing a daughter without help from any mere man. But obviously there had to have been a Mr Leander once.
‘– my father brought her nothing but trouble and debt,’ Dorcas was saying. ‘She thought he had money, for he came of a good family but he was a younger son and anyway they didn’t like Ma and that was that. He disappeared before I was born and there she was with just her wits to keep us. And she told me as soon as I could hear the words and make sense of ’em that I was to wed money, for she had not managed it and since no one of fortune would have a woman with a brat in tow, it was my duty to her as had borne me and raised me –’ Dorcas sighed suddenly, a deep intake of breath that made her whole body seem to swell, not just her lungs. ‘And I saw the sense of it, I swear I did. I’d set my sights on a better life than we had – I turned away a dunnamany likely lads, for they weren’t good enough. Not a penny between them, apprentices and so forth. Any worthwhile ones were soon taken up by the likes of your father seeking matches for their daughters.’ She peeped sideways at Tilly, but then buried her head again and went on quickly, ‘I wanted a man of substance – and then –’ Again that huge sighing breath shook her, ‘– well, I got one. Walter Oliver’s a big man, a lot of substance there –’ And she managed a sort of giggle that became a sob almost at once. ‘Past six feet and with shoulders like one of Mr Spurgeon’s best oxen. All beef, my Walter –’
‘But not a rich man,’ Tilly said.
‘Rich? And him a soldier? No, he’s not rich. But he’s beautiful. Oh, you should see him in his regimentals, Tilly! He throws your Frank into the shade entirely.’
Tilly stiffened, hearing the spiteful tones of a much younger Dorcas teasing her about her dolls, but Dorcas seemed unaware of her reaction and went on, almost dreamily.
‘As handsome and exciting a man as ever stepped. I never thought I’d be so milk-and-waterish as to fall in love, but I did, Tilly, oh I did – I saw him in the park, by where the Crystal Palace was – back when your Ma used to be took out in her Bath chair, after she had that fall and broke her leg, and I used to push her there on sunny mornings. It was a wicked long walk, and she as heavy as lead and whining all the way, but it was worth it. I saw Walter with all the other guardsmen and –’ Dorcas sat up, holding the bedpost ‘– it was wonderful. All those nights when we met, and the parties at the Barracks and all. Wonderful – and you sitting here at home being the high-up married lady, and me having all that fun and – well, it helped. I felt so left out when you wed.’
‘Left out?’ Tilly was agape at her. ‘You felt –’ She stopped, unable to find another word.
‘Well, so I did.’ Dorcas was gazing at her now. ‘I had no one to talk to and laugh with any more, once you were wed. But I found my Walter. And we were so happy. Until –’ Her eyes glinted with tears, or seemed to. ‘And then he had to go away to the war, and I cried bitterly. I thought he would be killed but he came home after the fall of Sebastopol, injured, you understand, but safe. He has the most romantic limp and is still my dear handsome – oh, Tilly, what shall I do if he won’t have me? I shall have to spend the rest of my days like Ma, putting up with the sort of life she does with your Pa, and I couldn’t bear it, for he treats her so dirty and evil –’
Tilly found it hard enough to accept Dorcas’s view of herself as abandoned by Tilly on the occasion of her marriage, but this new tack erased all consideration of that from her mind. She went cold, staring blankly at Dorcas, who suddenly seemed aware of the impact of her words and stopped. Dorcas then said awkwardly, ‘Well, it must come as no surprise to you – he is not a – well, he behaves as gentlemen do, I suppose, only a deal rougher than some.’
‘Rougher?’ Tilly said in a small voice and Dorcas lifted her brows at her, almost irritably.
‘Oh, come, Tilly, I know you are a soft, silly creature and can’t see what’s in front of your eyes half the time, but why do you think your Ma’s the way she is? There was no other way out of the strange practices and the hateful things he demands as far as she was concerned, but to pickle herself. And it worked for her, for he has such disgust for her now that he uses my Ma instead. But she is made of harder stuff a
nd can deal with him. Though I’ve heard and seen a few things –’ Her voice hardened. ‘And I shan’t be like that, I shan’t. No man shall use me in such a manner! Not even to wed a rich man would I bear it. And I can make a rich man of my Walter, I swear to you, once we’re wed. Only get him wed I must, and soon, before he realizes and takes fright –’
‘Realizes what?’ Tilly whispered, seizing on the question, needing to ask something, anything, to take her mind away from what Dorcas had said about her father, and what was happening inside her head. What had he done to her Mamma to make her as she was? And what did he do to Mrs Leander and – she swallowed and said again in a louder voice, ‘Realizes what?’
‘That I’m knocked up,’ Dorcas said, her voice muffled, for she had curled herself into a ball again. ‘That I’m in the pudden club. He’ll run a country mile if he knows that, for all it’s his.’
‘Pudden –’ Tilly said and Dorcas let out a sudden whoop of laughter.
‘Christ, but you’re green! Increasing, you idiot! With child.’ And she sat bolt upright and smote her belly hard. ‘I’ve got a brat in here, God help me, and unless I’m safely wed this month and no later, I’m in the gutter for sure, for not even the bloody Hearne would have me – and before you ask, he’s the man Ma’s picked out for me and I’ll not have him for all his gelt. I’d rather work myself to death to make my Walter rich than take on a fifty-year-old death’s head like him.’
Tilly sat silently, trying to understand and to think at the same time. She felt much older, suddenly, as though she had put on years between coming into the room and this moment, and she could not be quite sure what had made her feel so. Dorcas’s pleading need of her had to be part of it and was enough to upset her equanimity, of course, but it was more than that. She felt now the old married woman in a way she never had, and she tried to push away her growing awareness of why that should be.
London Lodgings Page 4