The Blind Side Page 2

  She said in an agitated voice, “But, my dear-where are you? And I’m just starting-I really am.”

  “Darling, you always start half an hour too soon-you know you do. I’ll be as quick as lightning, but you must listen. Are you listening?”

  “Yes-yes-But haven’t you sailed? I thought you were at sea-”

  “Well, thank goodness I’m not. Darling, it was a wash-out.”

  “A wash-out?”

  “Absolutely. And I shall put it across Madeleine Deshenka next time I see her-only I don’t suppose I shall now, because from the way she talked you’d have thought she knew these Merville people in their cradles, and I only found out by accident two days before we were due to start that she’d picked them up in the Casino at Monte Carlo a couple of months ago, and all she really knew about them was that they’d made a packet.”

  Miss Lucy gave a horrified gasp.

  “Oh, my dear-how dreadful! I always said-”

  Lee made a face at her end of the line.

  “Darling, I know you did. But this isn’t the moment to trample-it really isn’t.”

  “Oh, Lee, you can’t go with people like that-not to South America -you really can’t!”

  “I’m not going. Anyhow it wasn’t them any longer-it was him. They had a row-darling, I can’t begin to tell you what a really first-class row it was-and then she walked out and took the little girl with her. And he seemed to think I was going to stay and just sail away with him into the blue, so I walked out too, and here I am.”

  “Where?”

  “Victoria Station. Don’t get rattled, darling-nothing has happened, and nothing is going to happen. But listen. Can I have the key of Cousin Mary’s flat and stay there for a bit while I look round for something to bring in the shekels, because this has just about cleaned me out and it won’t run to digs.”

  Miss Lucy felt, and sounded, completely distracted.

  “Oh, my dear! How very, very unfortunate! And I’ve paid for my tickets, or I might have been able-Oh dear, I wish I weren’t going away, but Mary made me promise-you know how unselfish she was, and she thought it would take my mind off. She’d been an invalid so long, and of course that is always a strain, and she made me promise that as soon as I could after the funeral I would go right away-and when Peter told me about this cruise-”

  “I know. Dear Cousin Lucy, do listen. I should hate you not to go for your cruise.”

  “She made me promise,” said Miss Lucy with a sob. “But I don’t really feel I ought to go, because-oh, my dear, you know Ross is turning me out.”

  It was Lee’s turn to gasp. She said, “No!” and Miss Lucy said, “Oh, he is!” and gave another and a much louder sob.

  “Ross Craddock is turning you out? Cousin Lucy, he can’t!”

  “He says he can. He says there was nothing in the will. He says he wouldn’t turn Mary out, but now she’s gone he wants to throw the three flats into one, and he says I’m quite able-bodied. He says I’ve got to go. I got the letter this morning.”

  Lee stamped her foot so hard that she jarred the line.

  “What a swine!” she said, and shocked Miss Lucy a good deal.

  “Oh, my dear, I don’t think-”

  “Well, I do! What put him up to it?”

  Miss Lucy’s voice trembled.

  “He says he wants the whole floor to himself-dear Mary’s flat, and his, and mine-and to throw them all into one. He says he wants more room. But I think it’s because I spoke to him about Mavis-I do indeed. He was so angry, and told me to mind my own business, but after all she is my niece, and I told him it wasn’t right and he was getting her talked about. And this morning I got his letter-such a horrible, cruel letter-”

  Lee said, “Swine!” again, then added hastily, “What an ass Mavis is!”

  “Oh, my dear!”

  “She always was. But Ross Craddock-what on earth-she can’t like him!”

  “Oh, I don’t know-he is a very handsome man. I feel I oughtn’t to go away, but I promised Mary-”

  “Of course you must go.”

  Miss Lucy sniffed.

  “To stay here and keep on meeting Ross in the lift and on the stairs-I feel I really can’t! I feel as if I should do something before, and it’s so very uncomfortable. It’s not just because he wants to turn me out. There’s Mavis-she’s so young-and there are reasons-” Miss Lucy became very much agitated. “I have got quite a desperate feeling-I have indeed. And Peter says it would be better for me to go away.”

  “Much better,” said Lee firmly. “And look here, darling, let’s get down to brass tacks. Can I have Cousin Mary’s flat?”

  Miss Lucy’s agitation became less tearful. She said in a flustered voice,

  “Oh, no, dear, you can’t-Peter’s there.”

  “Peter? Living there?”

  “Yes, dear. He is the executor. He is going through all the papers. Dear Mary never destroyed anything. There are boxes and boxes and boxes of them.”

  “Bother! Then that’s a wash-out. Well, what about your flat? That’s a bright thought, isn’t it? I’ll keep it aired and warm and beautifully clean, and I won’t let Ross so much as cross the threshold. If he tries anything on whilst you’re away, there’ll be murder done. I can’t say fairer than that-can I?”

  “My dear-”

  “Now, darling, step on it, or you won’t catch that train! Listen! I’ll be at the barrier. Is it the Folkestone train-the seven-thirty-three? It is? All right, I’ll be there. You can bring the keys along and press them into my hand. And you’d better just murmur to Rush that I’m moving in. You needn’t bother about Peter-I’ll break the news myself.”

  Miss Lucy was heard to draw a breath that was almost a gasp.

  “Oh, Lee-I don’t know if you ought-if I ought-so many people away, and no one on this floor except Ross and Peter-”

  “Darling, I’ve never had a chaperon in my life. Now hurry, hurry, hurry! And don’t forget the keys!”

  Chapter IV

  Lee paid her taxi and ran up the steps of Craddock House. It was a very hot evening and the sun fell scorching on the steps and on her back. All the trains had been hot, and the station like an oven on baking-day. She thought lovingly about getting into a large cold bath and wallowing there.

  Rush came up out of the basement with a highly disapproving air. If he was really going to disapprove of her having Cousin Lucy’s flat, life wasn’t going to be worth living. She cast hastily about for a scapegoat-or goats. Since he disapproved of nearly everyone in the house, she led off with affectionate enquiries about the occupants of the other flats.

  By the time they had got her luggage upstairs she had managed most successfully to divert his attention from herself. Most of the flat-holders were holiday-making, and Rush didn’t hold with all these goings and comings.

  “What people want to go away for when they could stay ’ome and be comfortable beats me all to blazes. Not my place to call them silly fools, but nobody can stop me thinking it. There’s Lady Trent out of number six-where’s she gone? You’ve got something mortal ’eavy in this case, Miss Lee. Abroad, that’s where she is, and seventy-five if she’s a day and seventeen stone if she’s a hounce. Why can’t she sit quiet at ’ome and see her doctor if she wants company? And Cornells out of number five-gone hiking they have-next to nothing on their backs and their knees showing in them shorts. Not my idea of what’s decent in a young married lady. And Potters away out of ten and eleven-seaside for the children. And number two’s away, and number three, and your aunt-”

  “Cousin,” said Lee.

  Rush snorted.

  “Aunt’s what she looks like! Sea-voyaging she’s gone, and sick she’ll be if what she’s like in the lift’s anything to go by. Twenty-five years she’s been going up and down in it and she’s never got over saying ‘Oh!’ and a-clasping of herself. Is it bricks you’ve got in ’ere may I ask, miss?”

  “Books,” said Lee.

  Rush banged the case down at the foot of
Miss Lucy’s bed.

  “They’re pretty well all away,” he said. “Mr. Ross, he’s in number eight, and Mr. Peter Renshaw’s in number nine a-tearing up of your Aunt Mary’s papers.”

  Lee murmured “Cousin,” and got a baleful glare.

  “Your Aunt Mary’s papers,” said Rush firmly. “And Miss Bingham in number twelve, she come back yesterday. And number one’s here-Mr. Pyne, he don’t go away, not much he don’t.”

  “Well, that’s nice for you,” said Lee kindly.

  Rush straightened up. He was a sturdy, square old man with a close-cut grey beard and a bright, belligerent eye.

  “Look here, Miss Lee, I don’t want none of that,” he said. “What’s in my job I’ll do, and what’s in other people’s jobs I’ll see to it that they do, or the worse for them, but that there Pyne in number one, do you know what he arst me to do no further back than yesterday? ‘Rush,’ he says, ‘your boots is that ’eavy they jar my nerves. Couldn’t you wear slippers in the ’ouse?’ he says. Laying back in his chair he was, with smelling-salts in his ’and. And I says, ‘I could, Mr. Pyne, but I ain’t going to. It ain’t part of the job,’ I says. What’s he think I am-sick-nurse or summat?” He gave a short angry laugh.

  Lee had an entertaining vision of Rush in a starched cap. She said consolingly,

  “Well, you’ve still got Mr. Pyne, and this floor’s full-me in here, and Ross in number eight, and Peter in number nine. Quite a nice little family party, aren’t we?”

  Rush stumped out of the room into the hall.

  “I’ve not got nothing against Mr. Peter,” he said. “Mr. Ross, he’ll go too far one of these days.”

  Ross seemed to have been making himself popular. Rush grumbled at everyone, but there was something harsher than a grumble in his voice now.

  She said lightly, “Don’t start quarrelling with your bread and butter,” and saw the old man fling round with a jerk.

  “Bread and butter?” he said. “That’s all some folks think about! There’s time I feel as if Mr. Ross’s bread ’ud choke me, and I’ll be telling him so one of these days-or choking him.”

  In spite of the heat a little cold shiver ran over Lee. The outer door of the flat stood half open, and as she shivered she heard a step go by. It went past, and it stopped. A latch clicked, a door banged. Lee ran across and shut her own.

  “Oh, Rush, how stupid you are!” she said in a scolding voice. “Why do you want to say things like that at the top of your voice for everyone to hear? If that was Ross, what’s the odds he heard what you said? You’ve torn it properly!”

  The old man stood there glowering.

  “It might be Mr. Ross or it mightn’t. How do I care what he heard? Didn’t I say I’d be telling him one of these days? If he goes too far, he goes too far. And if he heard what I said, he’s welcome!”

  “Why are you so angry with him? What’s he been doing?”

  Rush elbowed her away from the door in his rudest and most determined manner.

  “Nothing I’d be likely to talk about to you!” he said, and went stumping out, and down the stairs.

  She could hear him muttering to himself all the way to the next flight. She wondered more than ever what Ross had done to offend him. Of course it was very easy to offend Rush. He had been porter there for thirty years, and considered that the place belonged to him. He remembered John Peter Craddock, and he had served John David. The present owner had never been anything more than Mr. Ross, and if he disapproved of Mr. Ross he could see no reason why he shouldn’t say so.

  Ross wouldn’t be so stupid as to take it seriously-Ross couldn’t. But Ross was turning Cousin Lucy out. If he could do that…

  Lee frowned and went to shut the door, but before she could do anything about it there was a knock and a deprecating cough. Instead of shutting the door she opened it, and beheld the limp, dejected form of Mrs. Green.

  Twenty years ago Mrs. Green would have been described as a char. Now she aspired to the title of caretaker, but after one severe trouncing from Rush at the beginning of her engagement three months previously she had had to fall back upon the useful compromise of daily help. She scrubbed the stairs and cleaned the lift, very inefficiently according to Rush, who had been heard to describe her as a snivelling hen. She also “obliged” in several of the flats. She had a lachrymose voice, a good deal of untidy grey hair, and a large port-wine mark all across the left side of her face. In spite of the heat of the day she was shrouded in an old Burberry. A black felt hat of uncertain shape was tipped well over on one side of her head. To the other she clutched a faded blue crochet shawl with a border which had once been white.

  Beholding Lee, her mouth fell open.

  “Oh, Miss Fenton-”

  Lee felt as if everyone in the building was in a conspiracy to prevent her from having that nice cold bath. She prepared to be short with Mrs. Green.

  “Oh, Miss Fenton-I thought perhaps I’d just catch Miss Craddock-”

  Lee shook her head.

  “She’s gone.”

  Mrs. Green leaned against the door jamb. She groaned and shut her eyes.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I do feel that bad. I was going to ask if I might set down for a minute.”

  There was nothing for it. Lee stood back without any very hospitable feeling.

  Mrs. Green swayed limply to one of the hall chairs and sank down upon it with another groan. A glass of water was not welcomed with any enthusiasm. She touched it with a shrinking lip, and murmured in the manner of one about to swoon,

  “If Miss Craddock had a mite of brandy-”

  Lee wondered just how bad the woman was, and then scolded herself for being harsh. The brandy sounded suspicious, but under a hastily switched on light Mrs. Green really did look rather ghastly. Lee said with a catch in her breath,

  “What is it? Won’t you tell me? Shall I call Rush?”

  She could have administered no sharper restorative. At the porter’s name Mrs. Green’s drooping head came up with a jerk.

  “Him?” she said. “Why, he hasn’t got any ’uman feelings, Rush hasn’t-thinks no one can’t enjoy bad health except that lazy old lie-abed wife of his.” Her voice dropped into a sob. “Oh, miss, you won’t tell him. I’ll get the sack for sure if you do.”

  “For being ill?” said Lee.

  Mrs. Green sniffed.

  “He hasn’t got ’uman feelings. Last time I had one of me turns he carried on something shocking. ‘And I suppose you think I do it to enjoy myself, Mr. Rush,’ I said, and he took and told me that if I did it again I could go and enjoy myself somewhere else. And all I done was arst for the loan of a mite of brandy. ‘Just you take a drop of brandy when you get one of your turns, Mrs. Green, and it may be the saving of you.’ That’s what they told me in the ’orspital. I suppose Miss Craddock hasn’t left a drop?”

  “I’m sure she hasn’t,” said Lee.

  “Then I’ll be getting along,” said Mrs. Green in a voice of gloom. “The sooner I get along and into my bed the better, because this isn’t only the beginning of it, this isn’t. Twenty-four hours my turns last, regular. There isn’t nothing you can do for them neither let alone a drop of brandy that eases the pain. Right up in the top of my head it starts, and that violent no one ’ud credit it, not if they hadn’t had it like what I have, and down it goes till it’s through and through me. Grips my heart something cruel it do, and if I don’t get home before it comes to that I’m liable to faint right off. Many’s the time I’ve been picked up and taken home for dead.” She heaved a heavy sigh and got to her feet. “I done the stairs this morning. Mr. Rush can say what he likes, but I done them. And Mr. and Mrs. Connell’s away, and I’ve cleaned up after them and no business of Mr. Rush’s, and if he’s got anything to say about my taking a day off, it’s a sinful shame, and I hope there’s some that’ll speak for me. I wouldn’t mind going to Mr. Craddock about it. It’s him that’s master here, and not that upstart of a Rush, when all’s said and
done.”

  “Yes, I should,” said Lee, and opened the door.

  Mrs. Green paused on the threshold to groan and wreathe the faded shawl about her neck.

  “There’s a bus I could get if I’d some coppers for it,” she said in hollow tones.

  Lee gave her sixpence, and was glad to see her go. But when she had shut the door her heart smote her and she thought, “How horrible to be a daily help, and have turns, and go round cadging brandy and bus fares.” She wondered if the turns were real, because if they were, perhaps she ought to see Mrs. Green safely back to wherever it was she lodged. She had taken off her dress and turned on the bath, but it came over her that she had been harsh. Supposing she had been a brute to Mrs. Green. Supposing Mrs. Green was swooning on the stairs or being taken up for dead in the street…

  Lee put on her dress again and ran down. There was no one to be seen except Rush, who was crossing the hall. He looked so bad-tempered that Lee thought she wouldn’t ask him any questions. The big front door stood open. She ran down the steps and glanced up and down the street. A bus had just gone by. With any luck Mrs. Green must have caught it.

  She turned back, relieved, to meet Rush’s glowering eye.

  “I was looking to see if Mrs. Green had gone.”

  “Want her?” said Rush.

  “Oh, no,” said Lee.

  “Snivelling hen,” said Rush.

  Lee ran upstairs with a clear conscience, and found the bath running over.

  The cold bath was delicious. When it had washed all the clammy, sticky heat away Lee ran some of it off and turned on the hot tap, because even on the most boiling day you can’t dally too long in an icy bath, and she wanted to dally. Thank goodness there was a communal hot water supply, very efficiently superintended by Rush, so she wouldn’t have to bother about lighting stoves or, what was more important, paying for fuel. She brought the water to a comfortable temperature and wallowed.

  A pity about South America, because she had always wanted to go there. Very annoying to have the relations proved perfectly right. Each, every, and all of them had warned her in the most aggravating and aggressive terms.