Paying Guests

by Claire Rayner

  It was at this point that she realized she had been doing all the talking and made a strong effort to change the direction of the conversation. She found aid in the fact that he ate so heartily of Eliza’s cheese pastry but refused Lucy’s offer of a slice of Charlie Harrod’s black-skinned Bradenham ham.

  ‘I had understood that you did not eat meat on doctor’s orders,’ she said as Lucy removed herself back to the kitchen, together with the remains of the mushroom soup with which they had commenced their luncheon. ‘But you said before –’ She stopped invitingly.

  He smiled. ‘I often find it simpler to let people make that assumption.’ He was very relaxed and comfortable, seeming not at all put out by what must have seemed an implied criticism of his veracity. ‘The truth of the matter is that I have made a definite choice to abjure the eating of dead animals.’

  She stared at him. ‘What a very unpleasant way to describe the eating of meat!’

  ‘But isn’t it true?’ He seemed all gentle sweet reason. ‘Is not that there –’ and he indicated the ham, resplendent on its silver dish, its thick skin glistening with the black treacle and spices that had been used in its dressing, and the meat succulent and pink. ‘– is that not the hind quarter of a pig that not so very long ago was snuffling happily for acorns in some wood, or trotting along beside its mate in search of its cosy sty? Just as the collops of lamb which appeared at table last night, dressed with mint and green peas and new potatoes – which vegetables, by the by, I ate with great enjoyment – just as those collops, as I say, were this very spring gambolling in the fields and bleating for their mothers.’

  ‘Oh, really, Mr Geddes!’ Tilly protested. ‘You can’t speak so! It is true undoubtedly that the food we eat was once live animal or bird or fish, but that is the nature of the world. One creature feeds upon another. And anyway, these animals we breed for the table are not thinking creatures, are they? And wasn’t mankind given dominion over the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens and so forth, so that we might eat? I learned that in my infancy.’

  ‘Ah!’ he said gently. ‘If the things they taught us in our infancy about God and the Creation and so forth were strictly true, then of course it would be a different matter.’

  ‘True?’ she stared even harder, amazed and rather excited. She had never heard anyone speak so. ‘But how can it be otherwise – oh –’ and stopped.

  He looked at her closely and then laughed. ‘So! You too have had your doubts, I see!’

  ‘Doubts? I cannot say –’ She floundered and then bit her lip. ‘I have to say I have doubted the true goodness of some people who profess to be religious, but show themselves to be less than compassionate.’

  ‘Oh?’ he said. Again she found herself telling him more than she had intended.

  ‘It was – after Francis died. Before Duff was born. I was very anxious about – my father had died, you see, and I had no money that I knew of. I feared I might even lose the roof over my head, and with the baby coming, I – well, I went to our curate at the church where I had always attended and had been married and he –’ Her face hardened. ‘He had no help for me. None at all. I have not been to that church since, but chose another to take Duff to, and to attend. When I am able, that is –’

  ‘When you feel embarrassed at how long it is since you showed yourself there,’ he said softly. ‘Am I right? Not because you feel any loss of virtue, or any draw from the Divinity. Simply because it is a social affair, because successful people must display themselves at church if they are not to lose the respect – and the pecuniary benefit that accompanies that respect – of their neighbours.’

  ‘Really, Mr Geddes!’ She got to her feet, more ruffled than she would have expected. ‘You go too far!’

  ‘I apologize,’ he said at once and also stood up. ‘I meant no impertinence. But you were asking me about my reasons for not eating meat and suggested I was flying in the face of Divine Law in behaving so. And I needed to explain to you that it is possible to live a good and thoughtful life without being unduly concerned with – um – the opinion of the Deity.’ He looked at her silently for several seconds and then went on, ‘I did not think I had misread you. In watching and listening to you in the few days since I joined this household I had judged you a thoughtful person who would be interested in the new ideas that are now abroad.’

  ‘New ideas?’ She knew she should have gone by now, that this conversation was becoming amazingly intimate on so short an acquaintance, but she was curious and, she had to admit, a little excited. No one had ever spoken to her as seriously as this man was speaking to her; most men with whom she had dealings assumed her to be like all other women and interested only in the fripperies of daily life, clothes and children, servants and suchlike, and even though she had for this past many years been earning her own and her son’s living – a rare enough occupation for women of her class – they continued to treat her so. Yet this man had no qualms about implying that he lacked religious belief and even suggesting she might share his views!

  ‘What sort of new ideas?’ she went on cautiously. ‘I have little time, I am afraid, to read the latest books or sit and discuss weighty affairs.’

  ‘They are not so very new, after all. Thomas Paine expressed some of them before the start of this century – the rights of the individual, you know, and especially those of women.’

  ‘But he supported revolution!’ Tilly said. ‘I am not as educated as I would wish to be, but I do know that. Did he not support the French Revolution and all its blood and the American one? I can recall my father speaking very slightingly of the ideas of Paine.’

  ‘Oh, many people believed that he was only about revolution without understanding why he felt so. But many of the new ideas of today are more scientific in nature. Mr Huxley says –’ He stopped, and laughed a little awkwardly. ‘Mrs Quentin, I must beg you to stop me if I seem to become so enthusiastic in my manner that I grow tiresome.’

  She shook her head. ‘You are not tiresome, Mr Geddes. Surprising, perhaps, but not tiresome. Do explain.’

  ‘Well, there is a scientist for whom I have a great admiration – Dr Thomas Huxley. Perhaps you have heard of him? He created a considerable stir a few years ago when he and Bishop Wilberforce defended Darwin in an Oxford debate. Anyway, he is, I am proud to say, a friend, and I have learned from him that it is impossible to have true knowledge without science. The ideas of religion and some philosophers cannot be tested rigorously by the scientific method, so must be regarded as – well, it is better to be silent than to speak of what you cannot truly know.’

  ‘Ah!’ she said, enlightened. ‘I understand now! You are a scientist, Mr Geddes!’

  He looked a little uncomfortable. ‘I am interested in the subject,’ he said, ‘but I am not an active – an – I do not work in a laboratory, you understand, I am just interested.’

  ‘Oh?’ She felt on surer ground now. ‘Then do tell me, Mr Geddes, how you do occupy your time. What is your career?’

  ‘I have to confess that I am little more than a dilettante, Mrs Quentin, most interested in science and the new thinking that is so exciting at present. I edit a small and rather select magazine –’ He flashed a sudden smile. ‘That means we have only a few readers and organize meetings and discussions from time to time.’

  ‘It cannot be –’ She paused, seeking to be delicate. ‘It is not a lucrative occupation.’

  ‘I am fortunate in not needing to worry about that,’ he said and looked down at his hands. ‘I have a private income.’

  ‘Ah!’ She said no more but, puzzled, looked more closely at him from beneath lowered lashes. Generally her paying guests were drawn from the middling levels of society, people who needed to earn their own livings and who sought a place to live that was comfortable and respectable without bringing down on them the high costs of running their own homes. Schoolteachers like the Misses Knapp and Fleetwood and their special friend, Miss Cynthia Barnetsen; Mr Oswald Gee who was
an articled clerk to a lawyer in Kensington; and retired couples like Mr and Mrs Grayling who had sold their grocer’s shop and therefore their home over it, and now planned to live frugally with Tilly to ensure their savings lasted their lifetimes. To have a man with a private income and a tolerably large one at that, going by the costly appearance of his clothes, was surprising.

  He seemed to understand her surprise and smiled disarmingly. ‘I dislike the loneliness of life in a house of my own or in bachelor chambers,’ he said. ‘I have long been seeking the sort of accommodation where I might be comfortable and well cared for and yet have the pleasure of agreeable company when I require it. I think my search is now over.’

  ‘I am glad if that is so, Mr Geddes. It is our hope here at Quentin’s always to ensure that our guests are the centre of our concern.’

  She crossed the room to ring the bell and let Lucy know that she could come up from the kitchen to clear the dining room at last.

  Mr Geddes remained standing by the table, looking at her. ‘I – perhaps you might be interested, that is, that you might enjoy, well, I am organizing a meeting next week to explore the meaning of Mr Darwin’s newest book The Descent of Man. Dr Huxley will be speaking and it should be very interesting. Perhaps you will permit me to offer you a ticket?’

  Lucy appeared at the door and Tilly nodded at her, and she bobbed, came in and began to clear the table, and as Tilly led the way out of the room, Mr Geddes had to follow. She was thinking hard, and was in something of a fluster by the time she reached the hallway.

  ‘You are very kind, Mr Geddes. I will indeed think about the possibility – but I cannot be sure whether or not I will be engaged.’

  When he seemed about to try to persuade her she said, ‘My son is home from school, you know, and I intend to spend as much time with him as possible.’

  ‘Of course,’ he smiled at her as she reached her morning-room door and turned to stand with her back to it, so as to make it very clear that she had no intention of inviting him in. He had confused and excited her simultaneously and she needed time to think. Indeed, she now felt as though she needed to escape from him. ‘So, we shall see,’ she ended a little lamely.

  ‘Well, I shall ask you again!’ He was suddenly jovial, and took her hand and bent over it politely. ‘The meeting is next Friday at nine o’clock in the evening, so that people have time to dine first. It will be at the meeting hall of St Ethelburga’s Church in Kensington, so it is not too far away.’

  ‘At St Ethelburga’s?’ She was diverted. ‘A meeting about Mr Darwin in a church hall? You surprise me.’

  He chuckled. ‘Well, as to that, they do not know the subject of the meeting. It was arranged by me as a private affair. It will not be advertised, you see, since we have many members of our magazine subscription list who buy tickets in advance. So there need be no difficulty.’

  ‘It seems wrong to use a church hall,’ she ventured, wanting still to escape but drawn back to the argument almost against her will, ‘since there is much opposition to Mr Darwin in religious circles.’

  ‘Perhaps. But it is also amusing,’ he said and again bowed. ‘I shall speak of this again, Mrs Quentin. Until then, thank you for your company at luncheon.’ He turned and went, running lightly upstairs; as she watched him go, she found herself thinking that attending meetings even about the highly dubious Mr Darwin might be amusing, and there was little enough in her life to amuse her, after all. And then she too turned and went into the haven of her morning room and closed the door.

  She was just coming downstairs, dressed in her new dinner gown in the latest mode of two colours, emerald green and very pale blue, when the front door opened and Duff came in.

  She stood there, still buttoning her gloves, which were pale blue to match the underskirt of her gown and looked at him, her pulses thumping a little loudly in her own ears. She had been fretting over him all afternoon and now he was here she didn’t know what to say to him.

  ‘Oh, don’t you look fine!’ he said and took off his rather rakish top hat and flung it at the hat stand where it managed to find a hook and remain, albeit swinging rather wildly. ‘That’s a new gown, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes. I thought I’d indulge myself a little. I’m glad you like it. I wasn’t sure of the colours.’

  He looked at it, his head turned consideringly to one side and his hands thrust deep into his trouser pockets, so that his coat-tails bunched up behind him. He looked debonair, a little flushed with the freshness of the air he had left outside, and his hair was slightly flattened where his hat had controlled it. Almost involuntarily she smiled widely; he looked so very well and she was so very proud of him.

  ‘I tell you what, Mamma, it’s as handsome a gown as any I’ve seen. Bang up to the minute without being foolish, like some there are about. Why, I saw a lady t’other day in a gown that had a blue faille underskirt and a ruched green overskirt in, I think, taffeta, and to top it all, a great train in ruby velvet. She looked like an explosion, to tell the truth. You look most elegant, however. And I do like your cap. Very charming.’

  Tilly touched her cap which had been appallingly expensive for such a trifle of Chantilly lace and silk and smiled again. ‘Well, I feel I must make an effort for my guests,’ she said. ‘It would not do to come to the dinner table looking unkempt. They are all dressing at the moment, I was about to check in the kitchen –’

  She left the question in the air, unasked, but he heard it.

  ‘I thought, Mamma, that tonight I would dine out. I have an invitation from a friend.’

  She couldn’t help it. Her brows snapped together and she said, ‘Again? But you lunched with a friend. I thought now you were home we might see something of each other.’

  He seemed to lose some of the glow that had been about him, and certainly became less relaxed. He pulled his hands from his pockets and shrugged out of his topcoat and tossed it over one arm.

  ‘Dear me, Mamma, it is not as though you have always been so anxious for my company.’

  She stared at him, nonplussed. He was looking quite different now, hard and enclosed in just the way he had seemed yesterday when he had first come home, and she said impulsively, ‘Dear Duff! Whatever is the matter? Why are you so angry with me? What have I done that you are so – strange? I have been so worried! Yesterday you were so – well – as you are now. Angry. And this morning when you snubbed me in Brompton Road – I don’t understand it!’

  He went brick red and for a dreadful moment she thought he was going to shout at her. What had happened to her dear, sweet boy to make him so? She began to be more and more frightened.

  ‘I – am just as I have always been,’ he said then, and his colour subsided a little. ‘Less biddable, perhaps, more able to speak my mind.’

  ‘But why should doing so cause so much – I mean, what can there be in your mind about me to make you behave so unkindly? You were always such a sweet child and –’

  ‘Mamma! I am not a child! That is the trouble. You and Eliza were behaving yesterday as though I were the same age now I was when you sent me away.’

  ‘Sent you away – but you had to go to school!’ she cried.

  ‘I could have gone to school here in London and never left home,’ he said. ‘And if I had, then perhaps you would have seen that I am grown up now and not a child. As it is, you have not watched me change and can’t understand me now that I’m not a boy any more, but a man.’

  ‘At seventeen?’ she said and again his colour rose, clearly to his own fury.

  ‘It is not the same as seven!’ he snapped. ‘Or even ten or twelve. It is as near being full grown as may be, and I take leave to live like a man now I am one. I want to do what I want to do, and not what others tell me I should.’

  ‘Dear Duff, I would not try to stop you ever from following your own bent!’ Tilly said. ‘I love you too dearly to wish to make you unhappy! It is not as though we’ve even talked about what you will do now you’ve left
school, though I suppose some thought must be given to it some time. I mean, you cannot look to any sizeable income unless you have an occupation and that must be decided. But I have said nothing of that and I don’t understand why you are being so unkind to me now, I really don’t!’ To her horror she felt her eyes fill with tears as her voice wobbled and she had to swallow hard to keep it under control.

  It was that as much as anything that seemed to finish him. He stared at her with his eyes very bright and his mouth in a tight line and then shook his head and, pushing past her, fled up the stairs.

  ‘I shall be out for dinner,’ he called down from the top. ‘I shall return before midnight so please not to lock me out.’ And then he disappeared and she heard his bedroom door slam shut.

  Chapter Five

  THE DINING ROOM looked particularly fine tonight. Eliza had gone to the trouble of finding more roses from the garden (I must tell her to be less vigorous in her culling, Tilly thought. I shall have none left for the drawing room at this rate) and had arranged them prettily at intervals down the long table. Usually this was one of Tilly’s own tasks, but clearly Eliza had realized that her mistress was preoccupied with other matters and had dealt with it for her. She had added trails of fern from the far bed, quite in Tilly’s own style, and made it all look very dainty. ‘If only Duff would –’ But she lifted her chin and looked determinedly at everything else there was to see. She would not think about Duff, she would not.