why she had called and the woman stood aside to let her in with casual cheerfulness. ‘Upstairs, dear—back room, and I ’opes no one expects me to look after ’is room or that cat of ’is. I’ve enough ter do.’
She opened a door and shuffled through it, shutting it firmly on Tabitha, who, left on her own, went briskly up the stairs and into the back room. She switched on the light, closed the door behind her and looked around. The room was small and very clean, and although most of its furniture was strictly of the sort found in furnished rooms, she was surprised to see what she took to be some good pictures on its walls, and several pieces of Wedgwood and Rockingham china on the mantelpiece. There was a desk in one corner of the room too—a beautiful piece of furniture which she thought to be Sheraton; it bore upon it a small ormolu clock and a pair of silver candlesticks which would probably have paid the rent for a year. It wasn’t her business, anyway. She set about looking for Podger.
He was squeezed under the bed, a large black cat with a worried expression on his moonlike face. She gave him bread and milk which he gobbled noisily and then looked at her for more. It was impossible to leave him alone, at the mercy of anyone who chose to remember him. She gathered him up easily enough and went downstairs and knocked on the landlady’s door. Podger cringed a little as it was opened and Tabitha said more firmly than she had meant to: ‘I’ll look after the cat. Perhaps you would be good enough to lock the door while…’
The woman eyed her with indulgent scorn. ‘Till ’is rent’s due I’ll lock it. After that it’s out with ’is things. I can’t afford to leave me rooms empty.’
Tabitha put a gentle hand on Podger’s bull neck. ‘Yes, of course. I’ll come back tomorrow evening—perhaps something could be arranged.’
She made her escape, and as she settled the trustful Podger beside her in the car her mind was already busy with the problem of what was to be done. The old man must be hard up, even though some of his possessions, if sold, would keep him in comfort for some time. She started the car, and still pondering the problem, went back through the city to the quiet street where she had her flat.
As she parked the car outside the little house, she could see Meg standing in the open door, and as she crossed the road, Podger under one arm, she heard her soft Dorset voice. ‘Miss Tabby, where have you been? It’s all hours—and what’s that you’ve got with you?’
Tabitha shut the street door firmly behind them and opened the door into the flat, then crossed the minute hall and went into the kitchen, where she put Podger on a chair. She said contritely: ‘Meg dear, I’m so sorry. I’ll tell you what happened, but I must feed this poor creature.’ She rummaged around and found some cold ham and gave it to the cat, explaining as she did so. When she had finished, Meg clucked her tongue just as she had always done when Tabitha had been a very little girl and she had been her nanny.
‘Well, what’s done can’t be undone,’ she remarked comfortably, ‘poor old man. Did you get your supper?’
‘No,’ confessed Tabitha, ‘not all of it,’ and was prevailed upon to sit down immediately at the table and given soup while Meg made sandwiches. With her mouth full, she said: ‘You spoil me, Meg. You shouldn’t, you know. You could get a marvelous job with an earl or a lord or someone instead of being cooped up here with me on a wage Father would have been ashamed to offer you.’
Her erstwhile nurse gave her a severe look. ‘And what would I be doing with earls and lords and suchlike? Didn’t I promise your dear mother that I’d look after you, and you didn’t think that I would stay behind when you left home, now did you, miss?’
Tabitha offered Podger a morsel of cheese and jumped up to hug Meg. ‘I’d be lost without you,’ she declared soberly, and then: ‘I don’t want to go to Chidlake on Friday.’
‘You must, Miss Tabitha. It’s your stepsister’s birthday party, and though I know there’s no love lost between you, nor yet that stepmother of yours, you’ve got to go. When you left Chidlake after your father married again you did promise him you’d go back, Christmas and birthdays and suchlike.’
‘Oh, Meg, I know, but Father was alive then. Stepmother and Lilith don’t really want me there.’
‘Maybe not, but it’s your home, Miss Tabby dear, whatever they say—you belong there and they never will. You can’t leave the old house to strangers.’
Tabitha went over to the sink with her plate. She loved her home very much; Meg was right, she couldn’t leave it completely. She said heavily: ‘Of course I’ll go, Meg. Now we’d better go to bed. I’ll take Podger with me, shall I, in case he’s lonely. And don’t get up early, Meg. I’m on at eight and I’ll have plenty of time to get something to eat before I go.’ But Meg was already laying the table for breakfast; Tabitha knew that whatever she said, the older woman would be down before her in the morning, fiercely insisting that she ate the meal she had cooked. She yawned, suddenly tired, ‘Today’s been beastly,’ she observed.
Meg gave her a shrewd look. ‘Tomorrow’s always a better day,’ she stated firmly. ‘Go and have your bath and I’ll bring you up some hot milk—there’s nothing like it for a good night’s sleep.’
But hot milk or not, Tabitha found sleep elusive, perhaps because she had been talking about her home, and doing that had awakened old memories. She had had a happy childhood, accepting her happiness with the blissful, unconscious content of the very young. She had had loving parents, a beautiful home and no cares to spoil her days. She had been happy at school too, and because Chidlake had been in the family for a very long time, she had known everyone in the village as well as a great many people in nearby Lyme Regis. She had been fifteen when her mother died and almost twenty when her father married again, and by then she was a student nurse, living in hospital in the cathedral city some thirty miles away, so that she came home only for days off each week. At least, it had been each week to begin with, but she had come to dread them, for her stepmother made no pretence of her dislike of her and lost no opportunity of poking sly fun at Tabitha’s lack of looks and young men, so that Tabitha, whose placid nature could turn to a fiery rage if sufficiently badgered, had made the journey home less and less frequently, and finally had thankfully qualified and with her increased salary and the small annuity her mother had left her, had set up house for herself in the tiny flat near the hospital. Her father had allowed her to choose enough furniture from Chidlake to take with her, and had raised no demur when Meg had announced that she had appointed herself housekeeper of the small menage.
Tabitha had continued to go to Chidlake from time to time, but after her father’s death she went less and less—and only then because she had promised her father that she would and because she loved the old house so dearly. Sometimes she wondered what would happen to it, for her stepmother disliked it and Lilith hated it; probably it would be sold. When Tabitha allowed herself to think of this she longed to have the money to buy it, for it was, after all, hers by rights and she had been given to understand that her father had asked her stepmother to leave it to his elder daughter when she died. But Tabitha was only too well aware that that would be the last thing she would do, for she had bitterly opposed Tabitha’s inheritance of a few small pieces of furniture and family silver and had ignored his request that she should make provision for Tabitha, although she had been powerless to prevent the payment of Tabitha’s annuity and Meg’s few hundred pounds.
Tabitha sat up in bed, switched on her bedside light and thumped her pillows into greater comfort. It was past twelve o’clock and she had to be up soon after six, but she had never felt so wide awake. She gazed around the room, soothed by its charm. Although small, the few pieces of furniture it contained showed up to advantage and the pink shade of the lamp gave the white walls a pleasant glow. She began to think about the weekend. Lilith’s party was to be
