House of Strangers (2 page)

‘It seems to me you have quite a few useful accomplishments Look how quickly you summed up my position.’

Flora sighed. ‘But not enough skills to please an employer.’

There was a silence between them and then Cousin Chris said, ‘I could use a housekeeper, to help me run the guest house. What about it?’

Chapter 3

‘Me?’ Flora was astonished.

‘You strike me as a very capable young woman—kind, too, to take the trouble over an elderly relative. I think we should get on very well. I am rather impulsive by nature, as you may have gathered, but I think reasonably easy to get along with. And something tells me that you would be glad to get away from this household.’

‘Oh, I would, I would!’ Flora cried.

‘There you are then. Think about it.’

‘I am impulsive too.’ Flora smiled at this astonishing old lady. ‘I don’t need to think about it. I would be very glad to come and housekeep for you—if you think I would do,’ she added a little bashfully. In the distance, Flora could hear footsteps. It must be Aunt Mina, she thought.

‘I think we would get along together very well,’ said Cousin Chris. ‘My lodgers—that is really what they are—are an interesting lot. A little eccentric perhaps, but then,’ she said proudly, ‘I am a little eccentric myself.’ She thought for a moment, then said, ‘Shall we say a trial three months? If you find me impossible, you are free to leave.’

‘I’d like to come if you will have me.’

‘Then it’s agreed,‘ said Cousin Chris, stretching out a gnarled hand. ‘I would welcome you. Tell me,’ she said as an afterthought, ‘what made you so eager to accept my offer to be my housekeeper? After all, we only met perhaps an hour ago.’

‘Because,’ said Flora, ‘as I’ve already said, I am impulsive by nature.’

‘And was that the only reason?’

Flora shook her head. ‘I wanted to get away from Aunt Mina.’

The old lady chortled. ‘I can understand that.’

Flora hesitated. ‘You have never been here before. May I ask—if it isn’t impertinent—what made you come here today?’

‘I’d heard about you. John wrote me when your mother died and said he was asking you to stay with them, and now I wanted to see if Mina was treating you well. She is a selfish and difficult woman. I wanted to be sure you were happy here and not being treated as a drudge.’

Flora felt the tears welling up. No one since her uncle’s death had cared whether she was well-treated or happy. Suddenly she knew she had made the right decision.

‘And now if you will help me up,’ said Cousin Chris, ‘I will call for my cab, and I will write to you with directions and we must agree how much you are to be paid—there is a lot to arrange. And before I go,’ she added, ‘I must break the news to Mina.’

She smiled and stretched out a hand. ‘Goodbye, Miss Holmes. We will meet again soon.’

*

That night Mina went to bed with a thankful heart. As she braided her hair and drew the winceyette nightdress over her head, she felt grateful that the day had been such a success despite all her misgivings.

She remembered the ceremony and the tears she had wiped away as she watched Nancy make her way towards the front of the drawing room where Henry was waiting.

‘Dear God,’ she prayed as she slipped to her knees, ‘may she be happy. Thank you for such a perfect day.’ At this point, her thoughts strayed as they often did in prayer, to the menu: the cold chicken, the salads, and the triumph of the desserts, meringues and trifle. It had all been perfect. ‘Thank you,’ she continued, ‘for the wedding breakfast and the generous speeches and the many gifts bestowed upon my dear daughter.’ During the past few months she had often prayed for fine weather so that guests might enjoy the garden, and here too her prayers had been answered.

And last of all there was this unexpected bonus—Cousin Chris actually seemed to want Flora to keep house for her. Goodness knows why, she thought uncharitably. Flora had never run a household - she couldn’t imagine her giving orders to the cook, for example. But Cousin Chris seemed to want to employ Flora, and Flora herself seemed eager to take on the position. ‘We’ll see how long it lasts,’ said Mina to herself. ‘And she needn’t think she can come crawling back here when Chris throws her out.’

However, she caught herself up, it might work. She didn’t know Chris except as a very eccentric relative. ‘How glad I am that I invited her to the wedding,’ she thought, even though Chris had to be hidden from the important guests.

‘Perhaps it will all work out,’ she told herself. And at any rate, Chris was taking Flora off her hands. No need now to go round her friends to see who would be willing to take Flora as a companion or lady’s maid. ‘So,’ Mina said to herself, ‘I must be grateful to Chris. She has solved a problem.’ And she almost forgave her for the gift of the despised jelly pot.

Almost but not quite. There were limits, she decided, as she finished her prayers with a quick ‘Amen’ and slipped between the linen sheets.

*

Anyone waiting for the train to Edinburgh on a crisp September morning would probably not have noticed a slim, fair-haired girl dressed in an unfashionable black coat who kept anxiously looking up the line for the approaching train, checking her ticket was tucked into her glove, and occasionally glancing around her at other passengers who might be catching the 11:15.

After all, she was not beautiful, not even pretty. She had plain features and a pale complexion. No one would have spared her a second glance, so the casual passer-by would not have remotely guessed at the mixture of eagerness and dread behind that calm, almost aloof, expression.

‘I’m on my way,’ thought Flora. ‘This is an adventure.’

Mina had been so relieved at the prospect of Flora’s departure that she was almost generous towards the girl. Ahead lay a pleasant and comfortable life in her new home with its beautifully worked lace curtains, little tea parties with friends, the happy thought of supervising Nancy’s new kitchen, all without the reproach of Flora’s presence, which made her feel slightly guilty. So she pressed on Flora a plain black dress of Nancy’s. Nancy had never liked it, and after all, the period of mourning had been over for some time now. It would suit Flora, she thought, poor thing. She has so little.

As well as the black dress, which Flora did not like either, Mina gave the girl some good advice before she left for Edinburgh. ‘Mind, my dear, you must always behave like a lady. Remember how carefully you have been brought up here, and never forget that your uncle was a pillar of the community, respected by all. And an elder of the church.’ She stopped and sighed, wiping her eyes on her lace handkerchief. ‘Cousin Chris,’ she went on, ‘has not perhaps the same background. Oh, she is wealthy,’ she continued, ‘or so I understand,’ remembering the slight of the glass jelly pot. ‘But that does not mean you will move among the elite of society, as you have done while under my roof.’

‘Yes, Aunt,’ Flora had said obediently. ‘I am grateful to you’ (and more so to Uncle, she thought) ‘for taking me into your home.’ She thought a bit bitterly, if it had been left to you I would have not had a roof over my head—you didn’t care a jot what happened to me. But she didn’t say this, only thought how glad she would be to be quit of the place.

And now, standing on the platform, waiting for the train to Edinburgh, she felt free for the first time in years. Free from Nancy and her patronising remarks, free from Aunt Mina and her ill-concealed exasperation at Flora’s lack of social skills. Free even from the indifference of the servants.

Suddenly she felt as if a burden had been lifted from her shoulders. ‘I am Flora,’ she told herself. ‘Flora is quite different from Flo. Flo was a drudge, running to and fro at Aunt Mina’s commands. Flora is calm and capable, an independent woman.’ She liked the sound of that.

Flora was sensible enough to realise that she wouldn’t change overnight. ‘I’ll still be afraid sometimes,’ she said, ‘but I won’t show it.’

No one had come to see her off, and she thought it was better that way. Aunt Mina had, rather grudgingly, paid for a cab to take Flora and her belongings to the station. So now she stood with only a small trunk, waiting for the train.

She pressed a coin into the porter’s hand as he lifted her trunk into the carriage; at least Aunt Mina had given her some money for porters. Cousin Chris, who seemed to think of everything, had written, ‘Take a cab from Waverley Station to Morningside, and I enclose money for the fare—and be sure to give the driver a tip. If he is obliging, that is. If he is not, then he doesn’t merit a tip.’

Flora smiled to herself. There was something very direct about Cousin Chris. She felt sure they were going to get on.

When the train arrived at Waverley, Flora felt almost dizzy with the noise and bustle. Porters hurrying about with their barrows; the steam and the smoke from the trains. And where were the cabs? She looked around her, bewildered, until she asked a passing porter. ‘They’re at the station entrance,’ he nodded towards the cab rank.

Flora thanked him, feeling very ignorant and unsophisticated. Was it so obvious, she wondered.

The journey from the station passed in a confusing whirl of cabs and tram cars and crowds jostling on the pavements. She saw all these large stores she had heard about—C and A Modes, Forsyth‘s, and more. Flora leaned out eagerly. She remembered Nancy shopping at these places.

‘Have ye no been to Edinburgh before?’

‘Never,’ Flora confessed. She did wonder if the cab driver was taking her the right way, but she had no means of knowing. He looked honest enough, she decided.

‘Then you’re in for a treat,’ said the cab driver with an air of satisfaction. ‘There’s plenty grand places to see in the city.’

The cab stopped for a few moments in a throng of tramcars, cabs and paper boys darting through the traffic ‘You’ll be from the country,’ he commented as the traffic began moving again.

Flora was transfixed by the crowds; she thought she had never seen so many people in her life, most of them hurrying through the streets with an air of purpose, although she saw and envied several smartly dressed ladies with muffs and fur tippets admiring the windows of the large stores. She wished the journey could last forever, but it seemed no time at all before they reached the quieter suburban streets, with their tall, grey houses and almost uniform gardens of spotted laurels and hydrangeas.

‘Are we nearly there?’

‘Not far now—you’ll not have been at the house before.’

Flora shook her head. ‘I’m going to stay with my cousin, Miss Dunbar.’

‘Is that so?’ The driver sounded doubtful. ‘ I hope you’ll get on all right.’

‘Why ever not?’ Flora was surprised.

‘Och, naething. It’s just—it’ll maybe be a bit quiet for a lass like you. And don’t you believe what they say about the house. Oh, you’ll be fine. There’s plenty nice places nearby. There’s the Princes Street Gardens, they have concerts there, and the Botanic Garden, that’s near enough. It’s a fine place for a walk, they tell me.’

After the excitement of the drive through the city streets, it seemed to Flora as if a sudden hush had fallen over the tree-lined roads. There was the occasional nursemaid pushing a pram, and a boy bowling a hoop, but there was not even the activity she had noticed on the street where Mina lived.

‘Ah well,’ said the cabby suddenly. ‘This is it. We’re here. Will you be all right, miss?’ The cab stopped in front of a tall house with net curtains over the downstairs windows. Flora shivered. It was a forbidding sort of house, she thought. There was no one about, no sign of activity. It hardly looked as if anyone lived here.

But then she told herself, this was nonsense. It was—she checked—the correct address, and Cousin Chris was expecting her.

‘I’ll bring your bags,’ said the cabbie.

‘There’s not much,’ said Flora apologetically, ‘just that trunk and my travelling bag.’

She remembered Cousin Chris’s instructions to tip the cabbie if he was helpful and pressed a coin into his hand.

‘Thank you, miss,’ he said as he set down the bags at the front door.

‘Pair, young lass,’ he said to himself as he watched her climb the few steps and ring the bell. He had noticed the shabby black dress and coat, her timid expression and hesitancy as she handed him the tip. Her luggage too was poor-looking: a worn Gladstone bag and a small shabby trunk.

He was not a man given to sentiment; a fare was a fare, wasn’t it? But he couldn’t help wondering about this young woman. Was she going to be a servant or maybe a governess? Or maybe a poor relation, down on her luck, hoping for a bit of help from whoever lived in the big house? And that house… well, they said all kinds of things, didn’t they? He glanced up at the shuttered windows on the top floor. He hoped this lass would be all right; she looked kind of poor and shabby, and a bit nervous too.

But there, it was none of his business, he decided as he turned back towards the city.

Chapter 4

Flora watched him go. Her first wild optimism had vanished. At first she had looked forward eagerly to her new life; anything at all to escape from the stultifying refinement of Aunt Mina’s home. To have some independence. To see a new place, new people. She had felt buoyed up with enthusiasm.

But now… ‘What have I done?’ she thought. ‘You always were impulsive,’ she told herself. ‘Why didn’t I say I’d think it over?’

And those hints that the cab driver had dropped, as if there was something odd about the house. But, she reminded herself, it was too late now.

On the step, Flora had pressed the brass bell and waited, a little anxiously. There was nothing to be seen behind the net curtains and no sign of life. Then there were footsteps, and the door was wrenched open. Flora asked timidly, ‘Is my cousin , Miss Dunbar, at home?’

‘There now,’ said the woman who had opened the door—she was wearing a white apron and a cap, and her round rosy face broke into a smile. ‘You’ll be the young lady who’s come to be the housekeeper.’

Flora hesitated. She hoped very much that the cook—as she took the woman to be—was not going to take umbrage. Would she think herself supplanted by Flora?

But the woman beamed at her. ‘I’m Mistress Young, but they call me Nelly,’ she said, ‘and we’re right glad to have you here. There’s a lot to be done, and your cousin, Miss Dunbar—’ Flora felt she was about to say something more, but had stopped in time before she said something indiscreet. ‘You’ll find her in the sitting room—off the hall.’ She pointed to a door at the end of the hall.

Flora had only time to take in the large brass gong by the entrance, and a few pictures of Highland scenes. She was intrigued by the legend set in mosaic tiles on the floor: ‘Welcome the stranger’ on one side of the hall and ‘ Speed the parting guest’ on the other.

‘Thank you,‘ she said, relieved to find that this cheerful, homely woman was not going to resent her. Anyway, she thought, I’m not going to be scared. Not of anything or anyone. Pull yourself together, Flora.

From now on she would try to be confident, no matter how she felt. And if Cousin Chris proved to be demanding and difficult… well, she could cope with that. Hadn’t Aunt Mina been highly demanding?

But then Cousin Chris had been friendly when they had met at the wedding and Flora had not felt that working for her would be at all alarming. She reminded herself of this as she knocked at the sitting room door.

‘I’m here,’ she called. ‘Cousin Chris, it’s Flora.’

Cousin Chris looked up from her game of Patience and rose, scattering the cards on the floor.

‘My dear!’ Her face lit up. ‘I didn’t hear the bell; I am getting a little deaf. How good it is to see you!’

Flora felt warmed by this reception. ‘I hope I haven’t arrived too early,’ she said, hesitating.

‘Indeed no,’ said Cousin Chris. ‘We will have tea now. You must be ready for a cup after your journey.’ She pressed a bell by the chimney piece as Flora glanced round the room. She had seldom seen a room more full of objects.

Sheets of music were piled any which way on the top of a grand piano; a bureau that stood wide open disgorged files and letters in no seeming order; and there were books everywhere, Flora was glad to see—books on shelves and books perched in precarious piles on small tables.

There was a large sofa in the centre of the room and various small chairs dotted around. Despite the fact that it was a warm September day, a fire blazed in the grate. The grate itself was edged with Delft tiles showing people at work: carrying milk pails, toiling in the fields, leading oxen.

Flora gazed in astonishment, and she hastily apologised as she heard Cousin Chris speak again.

‘I‘m so sorry…’ she began.

‘You are looking at my treasures,’ said Cousin Chris. ‘I have lots of things, as you have already noticed. I like Things,’ she went on, investing the word with capital letters. ‘I know the fashion is for spare rooms with the minimum of furniture, but that is not my style. Every object here has a story,’ she said proudly. ‘Oh, where has that woman got to? You must be starving...’ She broke off, as the door opened and the cook put her head round the door. Flora was beginning to feel embarrassed. ‘Oh, please don’t worry for me. Tea will be quite enough.’

‘I’ve made scones,’ said the cook, ‘and there’s fruit cake. You’ll be hungry after your journey.’

‘A good cook,‘ said Cousin Chris, with satisfaction, a little later, ‘and an excellent baker. She has been with me a long time. The housekeeper—the one who left—was idle, and I think she was dishonest, so you can see why I am pleased to have you here. I don’t expect,’ she went on, ‘that the house should be orderly—I wouldn’t know where to find anything—but I do like appetising meals, served promptly and with a good grace. It is not a great deal to ask. Apart from Nelly, I have a little maid of all work, Betsy, who comes in every day to do the rooms, sweep and dust. She is a very silent child, but hard working.’

Flora took a deep breath. ‘I hope you won’t be disappointed in me,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been a housekeeper. Oh, I looked after the home when my mother was ill, and after that I just did whatever Aunt Mina wanted, but I’m not used to ordering staff, or keeping books, or organising a household.’

Cousin Chris laughed. ‘This is not a well organised household. I just want the house to be comfortable with good meals and happy boarders.’ She smiled.

‘Don’t worry. I took to you right away when I met you at the wedding. And I knew you were my answer to prayer. That wedding—’ she began to laugh. ‘Tell me, how are things with your aunt—and the bride?’

‘Aunt Mina is in her element,’ said Flora solemnly. ‘She spends most days at Nancy’s new home, ordering the cupboards, making sure that the kitchen is in order—no crusts in the bread bins and that sort of thing. She is as happy as the day is long. Whether Nancy is quite as happy, I don’t know.’

Cousin Chris began to laugh, and patted Flora’s hand. ‘I can see you and I will get along famously,’ she said. ‘And soon,’ she said, rising a little stiffly, ‘you will meet my boarders—I mean guests—at dinner. I hope you will find your room comfortable. Nelly will show you where it is.’

Flora looked round her new bedroom with satisfaction: the crisp white bedspread, the wallpaper with its small pattern of yellow rosebuds, the well-polished dressing table, and freshly laundered net curtains. She had drawn aside the curtains to look out on the quiet tree-lined road. There were few passers-by; only the baker’s boy on his bicycle, the occasional nursemaid with her charges, a child skipping along the pavement.

What a change from Aunt Mina’s house! She remembered the dull little room, with cast-off furniture and a brass bedstead with dreary black and white prints on the walls.

‘The dinner’s early, six o’clock.’ Nelly’s voice broke into her thoughts. ‘I’ll leave you to unpack your things. You’ll ask if there’s anything you’re needing?’

Nelly closed the door behind her. So this is my new home, thought Flora, and liked the idea. She began to feel more cheerful.

Flora, her hair brushed and braided, made her way downstairs to the dining room, wondering what the lodgers would be like. On the first landing, she could hear from behind a door someone singing. The voice swooped up and down, ending in a trill.

Flora, intrigued, assumed this was one of the lodgers, but didn’t like to seem inquisitive. Then suddenly the door burst open, and Flora gazed at the impressive figure that appeared: a very large lady in a vivid red costume that had a vaguely Eastern look about it. The jacket, trimmed with lace, was hung with several floating scarves in vivid peacock blues and oranges. Her two long necklaces were looped around her slightly puffy neck and she wore several diamante brooches pinned to her bodice

When she saw Flora staring at her, she was not at all put out.

‘Excuse me,’ Flora stammered. ‘ I didn’t mean to...’ her voice trailed away.

‘You have heard me practising,’ said this person, with every appearance of satisfaction. ‘One must keep in practice, in trim, must one not? For one never knows when the call will come.’

‘Oh, yes, of course.’ Flora was even more confused. What call? A call from above? She felt inclined to giggle.

‘You, my dear, must be Miss Dunbar’s young relative, I think.’

Flora admitted that she was.

‘I knew it! I knew it instantly! And I feel drawn to you; perhaps we shall be soul mates.’

Flora had never met anyone like this before, so she said, hesitating, ‘You are a singer?’

‘A singer!’ The woman flung out her arms dramatically as if she was acknowledging applause from an audience.

‘I expect you have heard of me,’ she said, ‘Arabella Murgatroyd,.’

‘I’m afraid,’ said Flora, ‘that I don’t know very much about music.’

‘So you won’t have heard me sing. I have sung leading roles in all the great works, I have sung at Covent Garden, and… elsewhere. I have toured through Britain—’ she broke off. ‘But perhaps you have not been in the metropolis.’

‘I belong to Ayrshire.’

‘Ah, the land of Burns. And your name?’

‘It’s Flora—’

‘Flora!’ Miss Murgatroyd gave a little shriek. ‘I knew it. I knew it at once. Flora. It is exactly right for you, my dear.’

Flora was beginning to feel a little out of her depth. ‘I would like to hear you sing in opera,’ she ventured.

‘And so you shall, my dear. Just as soon as the call comes. I keep up my practising, though there are some,’ she added darkly, ‘who have no soul for music. Italian Grand Opera means nothing to them. You will know of whom I speak .’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Flora was quite bemused by now.

‘Some who live not a hundred yards, not ten yards from here,’ said the woman dramatically, pointing upwards.

‘I’ll be going down for dinner shortly,’ said Flora.

‘Then so must I,’ said Miss Murgatroyd. ‘One must keep body and soul together. Besides which,’ she added, ‘Nelly is a good cook, and we are well fed.’

Flora was pleased to hear this and also glad to find that the conversation had taken a more prosaic turn.

‘You will find us a very different group,’ the soprano confided. ‘But I like to think I can add a little colour to the conversation.’

Flora, looking at the dramatic appearance of her new friend, had no doubt of it.

‘Miss Craig,’ the woman confided, ‘is a New Woman. I hope,’ she said, ‘you are not one of them.’ She leant towards Flora and said in a low voice, ‘A suffragette.’

‘Really?’ said Flora. She was fascinated. She had heard of the suffragettes but had never met one. Of course, she reasoned, Aunt Mina did not believe in votes for women, so it was unlikely there would be any suffragettes among her friends.

‘They had a march, the Edinburgh suffragettes,’ said Arabella. ‘Right along Princes Street. Of course I didn’t go to watch, but I believe Miss Craig took part. It was all very proper,’ she allowed, ‘but not quite the thing for ladies. There were huge crowds, so I’m told, lining Princes Street, people hanging out of upstairs windows.’ She shuddered. ‘Well, you will no doubt meet Miss Craig, aand Mr Turnbull,’ the soprano went on, ‘is a dark horse. What is he doing here?’ She nodded so that the bracelets and necklaces jangled.

‘But you must judge for yourself, my dear,’ she said. ‘I will see you at dinner.’

By now Flora began to feel distinctly anxious but she tried to talk to herself very firmly.

‘You have no need to be afraid,’ she decided. ‘Just be confident—be yourself.’

But it wasn’t a very confident self who opened the dining room door. ‘Good evening,’ she said, her voice quavering a little.