No Place for a Lady (2 page)

“Who on earth are you, and what are you doing here?” I inquired. I had not meant to sound so abrupt, but surprise lent a sharp edge to my voice.

He gazed down at me with a quizzical smile on his face. “As you see, I am busy knocking young ladies off their feet. Are you all right?” I realized then that he was still holding on to me and drew back.

“I appear to be still in one piece,” I replied.

“As to your other question, I am Mr. Alger.” He bowed. “And you, of course, are Miss Irving.”

“How did you know my name?” I asked in confusion.

“Why, I had it of Mrs. Scudpole. We have all been looking forward to meeting you, ma’am.” His bold eyes traveled across my smudged face, down over my apron and grimy hands, apparently finding pleasure in the unsightly spectacle before him.

“You must excuse the way I look,” I said, blushing furiously.

“But you look charming. Younger than I expected—and
much
prettier.” His hand came out and flicked a bit of dust or cobweb from my cheek in a very familiar way. I shied away from him.

His eyes widened in astonishment, then he laughed. “If I did not know better, I would say you are frightened of me, Miss Irving.”

“It is my house. Why should I be frightened of you?”

“That is precisely the question that occurred to me.”

“You have not told me what you are doing here, Mr. Alger.”

“I came to express my condolences on the death of your aunt.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I am sorry if I sounded abrupt. You took me by surprise. I did not see you come in the front door.”

“I did not come in the door. Actually I was about to leave, but I wished to meet you, and—”

“If you did not come in via the door, may I ask how you did enter my house, sir?”

His eyebrows drew together in a frown. “What I meant to say was that I came down from upstairs.”

“From upstairs? Did Mr. Duggan send you?”

Before he could reply, dragging footsteps announced the arrival of Mrs. Scudpole, bearing the tea tray. “G’d evening, Mr. Alger,” she said, and brushed her way between us to deposit the tray on one of the many tables. “Cold mutton and cheese,” she said grimly. “The butcher hasn’t been paid in a month. If ye’ll be wanting to eat here, you mun give me some blunt. Mistress.”

Mr. Alger smiled in sympathy and said, “I shall leave you to your tea, ma’am. I look forward to meeting you again soon. And may I welcome you to Wild Street.” He bowed and left. I don’t believe I said a word in reply, or even curtsied.

“Who was that man?” I demanded of Mrs. Scudpole.

“Number 2A,” was her unhelpful reply.

“I beg your pardon?”

“He’s hired out suite 2A, hasn’t he?”

“Where? What was he doing here?”

“Lives on the next floor, Mistress. I’ve nothing agin Mr. Alger.
He
always pays regular, unlike some.”

“He
lives
here? Do you mean my aunt hired rooms?”

“Gorblimey, didn’t you know? She’s hired out every square inch above the first level, even the attics. Mind you, if it’s only yourself and the old malkin,” she said, tossing a glance at Miss Thackery, “there’s plenty of room for you both on this floor.” She leaned against a bow-fronted chest and settled in for a coze. “Now in your attics, you’ve got Professor Vivaldi. He’s—”

“Thank you, Mrs. Scudpole. That will be all for now,” I said, and stared at her until she stood up straight. “I shall speak to you after we have had tea. It has been a tiring day.”

“You owe the butcher three pounds and four-pence,” was her parting shot.

Meanwhile Miss Thackery had arranged the tea table. “I was watching from the doorway and wondered what that fine gentleman was doing upstairs,” she said. “He looks well, but he would not be renting rooms in this part of town if he were respectable. I daresay he is an actor from Drury Lane.”

“An actor! Yes, that would explain it. He was very handsome, was he not?”

“I thought his manner unpleasantly encroaching. You must give him a good setdown next time he comes mincing in.”

She helped herself to a sandwich. “This mutton is quite good, Cathy,” she said. “You will feel better able to cope with the situation after tea.”

So saying, she poured tea into two chipped cups, and we had our first meal in our new home on Wild Street.

Chapter Two

After tea and cold mutton, we felt sufficiently restored to tour that part of the house my aunt Thal had occupied. Miss Thackery, who can find a reasonable explanation for anything, soon settled how my aunt came to be living in this squalid place and hiring out rooms.

“You recall, Cathy, her husband had something to do with the theater,” she said. “A sort of manager, I believe. It would make sense for him to buy a house near Drury Lane. I daresay the neighborhood was respectable when he bought the house, and you know how difficult it is to move once you are established. So when her husband died, your aunt Thal just kept on here—and hired out rooms to pay the grocer. One can see how it came about.”

“And all the unnecessary furnishings?” I asked, wondering how she would leap this hurdle without proclaiming my aunt a certifiable lunatic.

Mrs. Scudpole, who occasionally peeped her head in at us as we toured—and obviously had no notion of the meaning of the word “privacy”—spoke up from the doorway. “Only way she could get her blunt out of some of the folks she rented to, wasn’t it? If they owed her, she seized their belongings. Bit by bit, she furnished the flats herself, but there was things left over, like.”

“Quite a few things,” I said, squeezing past a dining room table with one full set of chairs around it—and another dozen against the wall.

“She never used this room,” Mrs. Scudpole assured us.

“Where did she eat?” I was curious enough to inquire.

“Wherever she liked.”

“Where is the master bedroom?” I asked.

“Right at the end of the hall.”

We went to the end of the hall and entered another used-furniture warehouse. Three dressers, two toilet tables, and against the far wall, one hideous canopied bed. A second bed would not have gone amiss as both Miss Thackery and myself are accustomed to sleeping alone. Unless the second bed were to hang from the ceiling, however, there was no room for it in the bedchamber.

“That there bed belonged to Mrs. Siddons a dozen years ago,” Mrs. Scudpole told us.

I lifted the fading gold coverlet and saw a set of sheets that might very well have been slept in by the aging actress a dozen years ago.

“Why did you not change the linen, Mrs. Scudpole? You knew we were coming.”

“Nobody told me to.”

“Would you please change the linen now,” I said, quelling my temper. No doubt the linen closet held dozens of sheets seized from Thali’s tenants.

“I shall call in a used-furniture dealer tomorrow,” I said to Miss Thackery. “No one would buy the house in this condition. I must turn off the tenants as well, I daresay.”

“Unless they have signed leases, of course,” Miss Thackery said calmly. “You may be required by law to honor their leases. You will have to speak to Duggan about that.”

“I shall hire my own solicitor. Duggan has not been very helpful. He did not tell me the house was fall of tenants.”

“If they are all as respectable as Mr. Alger, perhaps the new buyer would be happy to have them.”

I had not forgotten Mr. Alger by any means. His was not an easy face to forget, but I was by no means sure of his respectability. While Mrs. Scudpole changed the linen, Miss Thackery and I returned to the saloon. We had just taken a seat when a young woman appeared at the doorway.

“Good evening,” she said in a good provincial accent, and curtsied. “I am Mrs. Clarke, from 2B. And you must be Miss Irving,” she said to Miss Thackery.

We soon straightened that out, and I asked what she wanted. “I came to give you my month’s rent, ma’am,” she said. She peered to make sure we were alone, then added, “I could not like to give it to Mrs. Scudpole. We had thought the lawyer would come to collect it. Perhaps I should have sent it to him.”

The girl was pleasant, and respectable in appearance. She was younger than myself. I judged her age to be about eighteen.

“Do you and Mr. Clarke live in 2B?” I asked, as she had introduced herself as Mrs.

“Oh no, Ma’am. I am a widow. My husband was killed in the Peninsula. He was an officer,” she said proudly.

“I am very sorry to hear of his death.”

“It was a great tragedy,” she said sadly, “but at least I have little Jamie to bear me company. My son,” she said, smiling softly. “It is difficult to raise him on my husband’s pension, but I was fortunate to find a woman who looks after him while I work. That is Bea Lemon—Miss Lemon.”

“What sort of work do you do, Mrs. Clarke?” Miss Thackery asked.

“I am a modiste,” she said. “You would not think it to look at me, but I am quite good. I get it from my mama. She was French. Not that I speak French myself,” she added hurriedly, and looked to see that I did not think she was giving herself airs.

Indeed I would not have taken her for any of the things she claimed to be. She did not look like a widow or mother or French modiste. She looked like a yeoman farmer’s young daughter, halfway up the ladder to becoming a lady. Her blond hair was arranged somewhat haphazardly about a pale but pretty face. Her eyes were blue, long-lashed, and had the glow of youth. But the girl looked tired, as well she might with the hard life she lived. One had to feel sorry for her, soldiering on alone to raise her little son.

“You won’t be raising the rents, will you?” she asked timorously. “Mr. Butler mentioned it.”

“Nothing has been decided. I shall very likely sell the house, Mrs. Clarke.”

“Oh I wish you will not! Some horrid old rack-rent will buy it, and either turn it into a gin mill or raise the rents on us. I don’t know what I shall do! It is so hard to find decent rooms within walking distance to the shop, and I cannot afford to hire a cab twice a day.”

I felt extremely sorry for her, yet I could not base my whole future on the convenience of one poor widowed mother.

“We shall see,” I said vaguely.

She looked at me with tears brimming in her big blue eyes. “I wish you will stay. You seem so nice.” Then she lifted her fingers and wiped away the tears. “I’m sorry, Miss Irving. I would not ask it for myself, but for Jamie ...”

I had a strong feeling Mrs. Clarke would face lions or tigers for her son. “In any case, I shall try to help you find some other rooms if I decide to sell,” I promised rashly.

She smiled sweetly and repaid me in the only way she knew. “You can come up and see Jamie tomorrow, if you like. He is sleeping now.”

“Thank you, my dear. I should very much like to see him.”

It was the first time I had ever called anyone “my dear.” It made me feel old.

“He takes after his papa,” she said, shyly but proudly. “I had a likeness of James taken before he left. It is such a comfort to me. Mr. Butler knows an artist who will make a copy on ivory, for me to wear as a pendant, but it costs a guinea.”

“Won’t you sit down, dear?” Miss Thackery said, as the girl seemed in a mood to talk—and we had nothing more demanding to do.

“I should be getting back upstairs. Would you mind giving me a receipt, Miss Irving? Mr. Butler said I should always get a receipt. Not that Mrs. Cummings ever tried to diddle us, but Mr. Butler was made to pay twice in a different establishment.”

“Very prudent,” Miss Thackery said approvingly.

“I am afraid I don’t have a receipt book,” I said. I felt a little annoyed that she did not trust me, but realized it was only my lack of business experience. The girl was right.

“In the middle drawer of the desk, Miss Irving,” she said, nodding to one of many desks in the room. I found the receipt book and wrote out her receipt.

She was about to leave when another tenant called. A decent-looking young gentleman came bowing in and announced he was Mr. Butler, the same fellow who took such a keen interest in the widow’s affairs. He was of medium height, and decently appareled in day clothes. The buttons on his blue worsted jacket were several sizes larger than gentlemen wore in Radstock, but the jacket itself was well enough. He had bright brown eyes and reddish hair that curled in a way any lady would envy. His face looked the way a cherub’s face might look after a few years of dissipation. Not that Mr. Butler looked dissipated, but he did look more harassed than a cherub.

He could not keep his eyes off the young widow. Until she darted back upstairs to Jamie, there was not much sense to be gotten from him. Once she had left, he turned to business.

“That is my month’s rent, paid up right and tight. Scudpole was hinting for it, but I am not such a greenhead as to hand it over to
her.”

I wrote out his receipt without asking. “Do you have a lease for your flat, Mr. Butler?” I asked, as I was curious to know how soon I might be rid of my unwanted tenants.

“Eh? A lease? No. I daresay you are wondering why we pay by the month, instead of quarterly. Mrs. Cummings had no use for leases. She said she found it easier to boot unmannerly tenants out if they did not sign a lease. Are you planning to raise the rents? If you mean to go charging us more, the least you might do is have a light in the hallways at night. And fix those drafty windows. Mrs. Clarke tells me there is a regular gale blowing through her bedroom in the winter.”

“I have no intention of raising the rents, Mr. Butler. I plan to sell the house, and am merely curious to know how much notice I must give the tenants.”

“Demme! I don’t know what poor Mrs. Clarke will do if you kick her out. It ain’t every house that will take a child in. She has had a rough time of it, I can tell you.”

“Are you and Mrs. Clarke old friends?” Miss Thackery asked. “From the same part of the country, is what I mean.”

“No, I only met her six months ago. She is from Somerset. Can you not tell from her pretty accent? I am from Devonshire. My papa sent me to London to work upon ‘Change, thinking I would make my fortune.”

“What do you do upon ‘Change?” Miss Thackery persisted.