She’d have to keep a close watch on the situation. Fifteen hundred pounds a week plus board and lodging was surely a lot to pay a mere tutor. ‘Hanky-panky’ was the expression that suggested itselfto her next, and the one she used as they cycled home after lunch.
‘If you think you’re going to get up to any hanky-panky with that woman, you can think again,’ she shouted at Wilt when they came to a Stop sign.
He grinned at her.
‘You’re the one who set this job up,’ he yelled as they started off again. ‘Anyway I don’t understand why you’re saying that now. I was only trying to fit in with your plans. And in any case, Lady Clarissa was as pissed as a newt.’
‘I daresay, but you didn’t have to fawn all over her.’
‘I thought that was what you wanted, love,’ said Wilt, giving the word a rather different intonation than he’d used in the restaurant. At least all her warnings to him about looking respectable and not getting drunk had worked.
They cycled on in silence to Oakhurst Avenue, but once they were in the house Eva became newly aggrieved.
‘She kept calling you Henry while I was merely Mrs Wilt. I thought that was rather unnecessary. She could have called me Eva.’
‘She called you “dear Mrs Wilt” several times. After all, she’s employing me, not you, and in her circle they probably always use Christian names with the servants. I can’t see why you’re making such a fuss about nothing.’
‘It’s going to stay nothing, too, if I have anythingto do with it,’ warned Eva before remembering another suspicious circumstance. ‘And when she said she’d drive you up, you jumped at the offer. I didn’t like that much either.’
‘I only did that because you’ll need the car to fetch the quads. Anyway I didn’t jump at the opportunity, and I’m damned if I fawned on the ruddy woman. I was just doing what you told me to do: being very polite to her. Dressed up and made to have a short back and sides … What did you expect me to do? Insult her?’
Eva had to admit that he was right. All the same, she hadn’t liked the way Lady Clarissa had gazed at Henry with such obvious interest. True, the woman certainly had been drinking before they arrived, but how could Eva be sure she wouldn’t drink like that again while Henry was living in the same house as her? In fact, it was almost certain that she would.
Eva went upstairs to make the bed – Henry, who was still sleeping in a separate room, could make his own – wondering what she ought to do about the potential threat. The quads were more important to her than anything else in her life; she couldn’t stand in the way of them receiving the education they deserved. And anyway, Henry was so sexless that Lady Clarissa could make as many eyes at him as she liked but was it really likely he would respond? All the same, Eva definitely needed to get up thereherself just as soon as the quads finished school, and once safely installed she would keep her eyes pinned on him, to make quite sure he behaved himself.
Chapter 8
Uncle Harold – or the Colonel, as he’d insisted on being addressed – wasn’t having a pleasant time at all in the Last Post. On his second night there he’d no sooner got to sleep in his room on the ground floor than he was woken by a crash above him – the sound of what he supposed was someone falling out of bed – followed by Matron’s scurrying footsteps. He couldn’t hear what the ambulance men were chattering about as they headed upstairs in what were surely hob-nailed boots, but they were fast followed by several other people, including the doctor who was loudly summoned from across the road. They all stayed in the room above for an age, seemingly in constant motion, and when they finally came out the doctor’s tactlessly loud voicereached him from the landing, saying: ‘They may be able to do something for the poor old sod at the Hospital, though I very much doubt it. What on earth was he
‘If you think you’re going to get up to any hanky-panky with that woman, you can think again,’ she shouted at Wilt when they came to a Stop sign.
He grinned at her.
‘You’re the one who set this job up,’ he yelled as they started off again. ‘Anyway I don’t understand why you’re saying that now. I was only trying to fit in with your plans. And in any case, Lady Clarissa was as pissed as a newt.’
‘I daresay, but you didn’t have to fawn all over her.’
‘I thought that was what you wanted, love,’ said Wilt, giving the word a rather different intonation than he’d used in the restaurant. At least all her warnings to him about looking respectable and not getting drunk had worked.
They cycled on in silence to Oakhurst Avenue, but once they were in the house Eva became newly aggrieved.
‘She kept calling you Henry while I was merely Mrs Wilt. I thought that was rather unnecessary. She could have called me Eva.’
‘She called you “dear Mrs Wilt” several times. After all, she’s employing me, not you, and in her circle they probably always use Christian names with the servants. I can’t see why you’re making such a fuss about nothing.’
‘It’s going to stay nothing, too, if I have anythingto do with it,’ warned Eva before remembering another suspicious circumstance. ‘And when she said she’d drive you up, you jumped at the offer. I didn’t like that much either.’
‘I only did that because you’ll need the car to fetch the quads. Anyway I didn’t jump at the opportunity, and I’m damned if I fawned on the ruddy woman. I was just doing what you told me to do: being very polite to her. Dressed up and made to have a short back and sides … What did you expect me to do? Insult her?’
Eva had to admit that he was right. All the same, she hadn’t liked the way Lady Clarissa had gazed at Henry with such obvious interest. True, the woman certainly had been drinking before they arrived, but how could Eva be sure she wouldn’t drink like that again while Henry was living in the same house as her? In fact, it was almost certain that she would.
Eva went upstairs to make the bed – Henry, who was still sleeping in a separate room, could make his own – wondering what she ought to do about the potential threat. The quads were more important to her than anything else in her life; she couldn’t stand in the way of them receiving the education they deserved. And anyway, Henry was so sexless that Lady Clarissa could make as many eyes at him as she liked but was it really likely he would respond? All the same, Eva definitely needed to get up thereherself just as soon as the quads finished school, and once safely installed she would keep her eyes pinned on him, to make quite sure he behaved himself.
Chapter 8
Uncle Harold – or the Colonel, as he’d insisted on being addressed – wasn’t having a pleasant time at all in the Last Post. On his second night there he’d no sooner got to sleep in his room on the ground floor than he was woken by a crash above him – the sound of what he supposed was someone falling out of bed – followed by Matron’s scurrying footsteps. He couldn’t hear what the ambulance men were chattering about as they headed upstairs in what were surely hob-nailed boots, but they were fast followed by several other people, including the doctor who was loudly summoned from across the road. They all stayed in the room above for an age, seemingly in constant motion, and when they finally came out the doctor’s tactlessly loud voicereached him from the landing, saying: ‘They may be able to do something for the poor old sod at the Hospital, though I very much doubt it. What on earth was he
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