Patricia Wentworth - The Blind Side

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!”

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.