London Lodgings

by Claire Rayner

  Burying Freddy in a storm seemed fitting, somehow, for his re-emergence in her life, so short a time ago, had indeed been as violent as any storm could ever be. She stood in the churchyard after the others had gone, watching the grave-diggers hide Freddy for ever. She was glad to be soaked through by the rain which had come at last to cool the air. It seemed a small price to pay for the guilt she felt about Freddy, and the bequest she knew he had made; and at last she had turned and left him there.

  Back in London with the children she had locked herself in her own purdah. But now the will had been proved, probate had been granted, and she must consider her next step.

  Mr Cobbold was later than he had said he would be. It was now two in the afternoon, when he had assured her he would wait on her at half past the hour of one, and she gnawed her lower lip, wondering what might be amiss. She tried to push away the memories that had flooded her since she had been forced to prepare her mind for this visit.

  She had stayed with Freddy on their wedding day until very late. Mrs Friel had put him to bed once the strained and painful merrymaking was mercifully over and Tilly had gone to his room to sit beside him. He had lain there, so reduced in body that it seemed his head hardly made a dent in the pillow, and she had held his hand. He had smiled at her briefly and then closed his eyes and so had remained for the rest of the time she was there. She had not been able to tear herself away, not because of her affection for him, but because of her embarrassment at not knowing what to do. To wake him to say good-night seemed impossibly cruel; to go without saying good-night seemed impossibly ill-mannered. So, she sat and waited and had herself fallen asleep in the chair and woken with a start at four in the morning. He was still in the same position, apparently asleep, and now she threw her doubts away and left him to creep down the stairs in the dark and silent house and let herself out into the street.

  She could remember it still. The sky was already greying gently in the east, though it wanted more than an hour to sunrise, and the salty reek of the sea rose to her from the foot of the hill. She had set out to walk to her lodgings, listening to her heels clacking lightly on the cobbles and knowing herself to be the only soul abroad in the blessedly cool air, perhaps the only soul in the entire world. She had lifted her chin to the sky and whispered to it – I had to do it, I had to. What else could I have done? But there was no comfort to be found in the silence, not so much as a bird chirping sleepily. The dawn chorus would have comforted her, told her that she had acted as she should but it was too early for that.

  She had slipped into her lodgings with great stealth, grateful for the key her landlady had grudgingly allowed her to have, and crept upstairs to bed. She had stopped for a moment at the children’s bedroom door and then looked in. Duff had been sleeping as he always did, sprawled out, the blankets in a tangle at his feet and his hands flung up to curl, with the heartbreaking vulnerability of childhood, on the pillow on each side of his head. She had gently tugged the blankets back to cover him and then looked across the room to the other little truckle bed where Sophie slept when she came to stay with Duff, which was frequently. She was lying tidily as she always did, her hair spread sumptuously on her pillow and her hands neatly on the sheet that covered her, and the blankets folded back carefully at her feet. Clearly she had been too warm when she went to bed, and Tilly hesitated, wondering whether to risk waking her by covering her. And then had shivered a little herself in the cool of the morning and so pulled the blanket up gingerly and covered Sophie, who turned her head and opened her eyes briefly but closed them again immediately and slept on. When Tilly at last went to bed herself, she lay awake watching the sun rise over Brighton and pondering her future as Mrs Compton instead of Mrs Quentin.

  She had, however, decided since coming back to London not to use her new name. There was no reason why she should, she told herself. To make a point of announcing it would cause much conjecture and she shrank from that. It was easier to remain as she was. Not until the letter addressed to her as Mrs Compton had arrived had anyone in Brompton, apart from herself and Jem, known of what had happened in Brighton. She had to tell Eliza then of course, but she could be trusted.

  She had brought the letter to Tilly in puzzlement and Tilly had taken it, and sighed and bade Eliza sit down and had told her all about it. Eliza had listened and then stood up and straightened her apron and said matter-of-factly, ‘Well, Mum, I don’t see you could have done any different, seein’ as how the poor gentleman was, God rest his poor soul. Will you let me try out some curried salmon for this evening’s dinner, Mum? I’ve got a new recipe from the Englishwoman’s Domestic Magazine as I think you’ll all like. I got the left-over salmon from yesterday you see, and it won’t keep good much longer than today. That veal Spurgeon sent will keep perfectly till tomorrow.’

  Tilly’s gratitude to Eliza had never been greater than at that moment and she smiled tremulously at her and said, ‘Yes, that will do very well. Thank you, Eliza.’ Eliza had patted her shoulder in what others might have regarded as a familiar way, but which both knew for what it was – a gesture of affection, and Tilly wept for a little while after she left and felt the better for it. Dear good Eliza!

  Tilly bent forward to look out of the window and there was Mr Cobbold, in his sombre clothes and tall ugly hat, coming round the corner. She felt a sudden wave of anxiety, and went to her favourite corner beside the fireplace, now filled with a paper fan and an arrangement of ferns, and waited.

  He seemed shrunken, she thought when she first looked at him closely. He had been a man of rotund appearance, but since being caught up in matters evangelical, clearly his interest in such earthly matters as satisfying a healthy appetite had vanished. He stood in her drawing-room looking half the man he had been and sour of face with it, and bowed to her.

  ‘Good afternoon, Mrs Compton.’

  ‘If you please, Mr Cobbold,’ she said firmly. ‘I choose to use the name by which I am best known. I did not live for any time with Mr Compton and it is not, I think, necessary for me to take his name.’

  ‘It is customary, Mrs –’

  ‘It may be,’ she said firmly, still feeling the tightness of apprehension in her and puzzled by it; why should she be afraid of this man? He was only disagreeable, after all. ‘But I prefer to have my way in this.’

  ‘Very well, Ma’am,’ he said and smiled involuntarily. Clearly he would never address her by name, ever again. Well, that suited her well enough. ‘I have come to you with news of your – ahem – husband’s will.’

  ‘I had expected as much,’ she said. ‘He told me of its contents before he died, of course. I am not likely to be unduly surprised.’

  ‘I must for all that apprise you of its contents and take instructions on the next steps. You will, I imagine, be considering a plan that involves selling this house, since you are not free to sell the adjoining one.’

  She was nettled. Freddy had told her that she would not be free to sell, and that the house that had been Alice’s must be passed on to a member of her family, just as it had been left to him as a member of Alice’s, and of course she should have thought about it by now. But she hadn’t, and this man had no right to point out to her that she had been lax. So she snapped at him without stopping to think, her irritability fed by the lingering apprehension she still felt.

  ‘I do not see why I should sell this house, unless I choose to. And anyway, perhaps I have other plans,’

  ‘I hope you have, Ma’am,’ he said with a sort of dry triumph. ‘Since I must remind you that this house bears precisely the same embargoes that the one adjoining does. You are permitted to change the interior and the usages of the house in any way you choose, but you must not give it or sell it to anyone. It came to you from your mother’s estate, and must be passed on to your issue in due course. So you have two houses, Ma’am, each the twin of the other. Your esteemed father and his neighbour might well have discussed their plans and ideas for the future; I do not know. But I can tell you that
Mr Spender and Mr Kingsley were of a mind in this. You cannot sell either house, ever. An expensive pair of properties, hmm? For these of course, must be carefully maintained. They will cost you more than you are likely to earn from them.’

  She was dumbstruck and stared at him and he clearly enjoyed that, for now he came further into the room and, uninvited, sat down and opened the small case he had been carrying under one arm and took out some documents.

  ‘It is not perhaps as grim as you fear, however.’ He seemed to say this with some regret. ‘Mr Compton’s will also leaves you some money. There is not a great deal; his – ahem – first wife was the one who had the money in the marriage and he was not a sensible man. He permitted her to retain full control of her inheritance after her marriage.’

  ‘And why not?’ flashed Tilly, finding her tongue at last, and Mr Cobbold smiled sourly.

  ‘Society will come to a pretty pass if husbands lose control of their families’ finances, Ma’am, and so I tell you. See what harm has already been done by this nonsense of allowing females to dictate what will happen to their houses! Their fathers were fools to leave their properties to women who could not find husbands who knew the right way to go about matters. It never does for women to control their own incomes for they are well known to be capricious and extravagant.’

  ‘That is nonsense, Mr Cobbold,’ Tilly said through tight lips. ‘And well you know it. Many are the households where the wit of the woman and the good sense she displays in dealing with the household’s income is vital to the health of that household. And I, in running my small affairs here, am far from extravagant. However, I do not wish to discuss your views on this. Merely tell me what you have to tell me and we may be done.’

  He looked pleased with himself, aware that he had touched her on the raw, but contented himself with an inclination of his head.

  ‘Very well. The sum of money that Mr Compton had to leave was seven hundred pounds. It will not go far, of course, but it is yours and quite unencumbered. The fortune that had been Mrs Compton’s – the first Mrs Compton – was some twenty-five thousand pounds, a considerable sum. She left that to her cousin in Staffordshire. I tell you this merely out of general interest of course. It is no direct concern of yours.’

  ‘So there was no need to tell me,’ Tilly said tartly. ‘Is there anything else?’

  He tightened his nostrils. ‘The cousin, Mr Egbert Spender, is not entirely pleased that the house here in Brompton Grove has gone out of their family, as he sees it.’

  ‘Then he must be displeased, I am afraid, and live with his displeasure as best he can.’ Tilly got to her feet. ‘Since Freddy made his decision and that is the end of it.’

  ‘I wish only to advise you that he considered going to court to seek to overturn Mr Compton’s will on the grounds that it was made under duress,’ he said smoothly and she gaped at him.

  ‘Duress? Duress? When it was I who – that is outrageous! I will not tolerate such a –’

  ‘I have assured him it is not so, Mrs – um – Ma’am,’ Mr Cobbold said. ‘I am well aware of the fact that all the decisions were made by Mr Compton of his own free will. He came to me well before he met you again to attempt to leave you his possessions. It was I who had to point out to him that he had no title on the house here in Brompton Grove, and I who further pointed out to him that only if you were his wife would he be able to make that provision to you. So I had to advise Mr Spender that there was no question of any grounds – to my knowledge of course – for him to seek to overturn Mr Compton’s will. But I believe it is best if you know he bears a certain animosity towards you. It is understandable.’

  ‘Understandable?’ Tilly said with some bitterness. ‘I did not want Mr Compton’s bequest, I can assure you, but it seems to me disgraceful that Mr Spender, who I am told already owns a large part of Staffordshire and has recently inherited twenty-five thousand pounds into the bargain, should grudge me this far from massive piece of property.’

  ‘If you did not want the inheritance, Ma’am,’ Mr Cobbold said in a deceptively soft voice, ‘why did you agree to wed him? He was in such a parlous state of health that it seems to me –’

  ‘I dare say, Mr Cobbold,’ she said shortly. ‘That you could never understand the needs and desires of a dying man and how a woman such as I might feel obliged to defer to them.’

  He looked sceptical. ‘And the inheritance matters not a whit, then?’

  ‘Not for myself,’ she said and then could not bear to be dishonest, even to this dislikable man. ‘Although I do have to think of my fatherless son, of course.’

  ‘Ah!’ He seemed satisfied and got to his feet. ‘Am I to understand then, Ma’am, that you will let the adjoining house? If so perhaps you will need our services.’

  ‘Oh no, Mr Cobbold. I will not need your services at all,’ she said, grateful for the chance to be so direct. ‘In fact I have decided that I must take all my affairs out of your hands and deal with someone more convenient.’ She considered fleetingly the possibility of adding ‘and more agreeable’ but her innate good manners forbade her. ‘Since it is so far from here to the City and Leadenhall Street, I would be grateful therefore if you could send me all documents and details of your bill so that I can make my new arrangements. Good afternoon, Mr Cobbold.’

  He looked at her with his eyes narrowed and his face expressionless, and then turned and went, only stopping when he reached the door.

  ‘Good afternoon, Ma’am. I do of course wish you well, in all Christian charity. I must warn you, however, that –’

  ‘I am not concerned with warnings, Mr Cobbold,’ she said icily. ‘Good afternoon.’

  He left and she took a deep shuddering breath. If he had embarked on one of his hell and damnation tirades, she told herself, she would have been driven to distraction and might have done or said something she would regret. Her gratitude that he was gone was all she had to sustain her for a moment and she went back to her chair and sat there, her head resting back on the brocade upholstery, slowly trying to regain full control of herself.

  But not for long, because not twenty minutes later her drawing-room door opened and Dorcas was standing there.

  ‘I must talk to you,’ she said in a hard and very direct manner and Tilly snapped her eyes open and looked at her. She was wearing one of her newer toilettes; a handsome gown in the richest purple surmounted by a fur pelisse which looked very much to Tilly’s admittedly inexpert eye as though it were made of sables, which she was pulling off as she came into the warmth of the firelit drawing-room.

  ‘Is it important, Dorcas? I have a headache – or, well not precisely but there are matters on my mind that I must deal with.’

  ‘I too have matters on my mind,’ Dorcas said and threw the pelisse on to a sofa where it lay like a sleeping animal, and then collapsed into the other armchair with a soft swish of her skirts. The gown was silk and Tilly found herself thinking: she is spending so much on clothes, it is amazing she has time to wear them all.

  ‘The subject I must discuss with you is difficult, Tilly, but I have no choice in the matter. I am driven – well, you will see. Now, tell me first what Mr Cobbold came to see you about this afternoon. And then I will tell you what I intend to do.’

  ‘Tell you – but that is no concern of yours!’ Tilly sat up very straight and stared at her, amazed. ‘How dare you ask me to –’

  ‘Oh, Tilly, do stop your fussing!’ Dorcas said testily. ‘I know all that is happening! I know about that ridiculous matter of your wedding in Brighton and more besides. You seem to forget that my Sophie is a child of great intelligence who notices things. And that she tells her Mamma everything.’ She smiled briefly. ‘So, let us have no fuss, I do beg you. Tell me why he was here.’

  Chapter Thirty-three

  ‘I WILL NOT TELL you anything at all,’ Tilly said with some spirit. ‘I don’t even know how you knew he was here.’ Again Dorcas sighed.

  ‘Will you never understand me, Tilly? I list
en, I pry and I watch! I saw him arrive – and if you will not tell me, I will tell you and you may correct me. If you can. He said that the house next door which you have inherited from your Frederick Compton is part of the family property of his first wife, Alice Spender. Am I right? Yes. And that you may not sell the house but only use it in your lifetime. After that it may be left to Duff.’

  Tilly was stunned and could hardly speak. ‘But, but –’

  ‘Am I right?’ Dorcas sounded impatient.

  Tilly found her voice. ‘But Sophie could not possibly have known that! It is beyond her comprehension anyway. She could not have told you –’

  ‘No, about the house she did not tell me. She knew only that Mr Compton wanted to marry you. She told me all about the old man in the Bath chair and all the things she heard you say to him. As I say, she is a noticing sort of child.’

  ‘You should not encourage such spying tricks, even if you use them yourself! She is but a child, and it is your duty to teach her otherwise. I could not conceive of my Duff ever behaving so. If he tried to tell me matters that did not concern him I would give him very short shrift.’

  ‘Which is why I am sitting here as your tenant and you are sitting there as a landlady,’ Dorcas said and smiled, ‘and why my Sophie will go further in the world than your Duff. Oh, it is no special trick of my darling Sophie that told me this much. It is the man I have been seeing these past months.’