A SECONDARY STAIN, PART TWO: The View From The Kitchen
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The water was piping hot; Mrs. Collins lifted it off the fire with padded hands and gratefully poured a thin stream of the kettle off the boil into the steeping-pot below. Yxing pottery. A reminder of the old days. Water splashed on the letter resting by the saucer. She shrugged, uncaring. It wasn't as though she was going to keep the wretched thing.
Some individuals, when faced with the correspondence of well-meaning but ill-informed (and slightly daffy) relatives, would submerge their feelings in a cup of something stronger. Mrs. Collins wasn't like that. It was a sorry day when a pot of tea couldn't cure her ills. In her case, it was hawthorne-berry tea for her heart. She appreciated her sister's sentiment, but the idea of selling her property and moving in to the family house, within 500 yards of a hypochondriac brother in law was not to be contemplated.
The small window-glass set high in the sunken room of the kitchen reflected a thin, watery image of herself. She knew she was still attractive, as far as women of her age went. Her hair was smooth and grey as steel, the lines on her face carved from wit and humour more than sorrow. It was hard to let Grief rule her, when there had been so many things to take joy in.
Rumor held that a certain woman off Paddington Station and close to Hyde Park lived in a building that had been given to her in a gesture of infatuation by a patron of the arts after witnessing her dance. He had been a broker of real estate, so perhaps it was not a falsehood. The truth was, the dancer soon married a broker, and they moved to the building together, and their evenings were thus spent content in each other's company until his death and circumstances forced her to carve up half the rooms into rental property. She was quite grey now, and growing a little thick around the middle, but the night was still a special time for her; it reminded her of the dancing the most.
The Stage remained a clear memory she liked to visit like an old friend. In quiet nights like this she could roll back her memory like a tablecloth and see its lights, the curtains and the music—and when she retired, it was to swing wheels about the stone floor of her garden path as paper lanterns hung lights about the high walls and planted trees. Mr. Collins had shared her love of dancing, and until they had met, both had felt a little alone in a crowded world.
Her reason for dancing was now gone, buried with Mr. Collins, and the parties were gone. Tonight she was most grateful that the house was (momentarily) silent as a stone beagle. Events had been tiresome of late. Her tenants were ordinarily good as gold and it wasn't anyone's fault that all five children between the two families been laid up with fevers and chills…
Still, it had been hard for their landlady to think of resting when half the house was plagued by fretful children and parents driven to distraction with the need to isolate their offspring while ensuring their health. The new baby upstairs was causing the most worry; she was no bigger than a minute, and it was her first experience with being ill. She had finally dropped to sleep after two days of fretting. Mama and Papa were certainly following suit. Bless them all.
So it was, Mrs. Collins was sitting by herself in her kitchen and warming her hands around her mug of red tea and basking in the low snap of the coal-fire by her feet when she heard the clop of a growler pulling up to her doorstep.
Dear Lord, not at this hour, the old dancer thought. Please not at this hour. But she sighed and re-checked her wrapper for decency, and had just reached the door when the first knock rattled the wood.
She wrenched it open with a fierce twist to her face. "Shush!" The old diva hissed right into the face of the startled young Constable. "Everyone's asleep and well they should be! Sick children for half the week! What is it?"
"Begging your pardon, Mrs. Collins." Policeman or not, he wasn't too old to remember the terror of his youth on the street, when she had caught him scrumping her apples. "But there's a bit of trouble come up at Whitehall. I'm to come back with the Inspector."
His reward was a frosty glare. "And they sent you, no doubt, to pull him out of bed because no one else was brave enough, eh Young Master Treasure." The boy flinched all over, as though someone had tossed ice water down his collar. She sighed, giving up on the abilities of the callow youth to hold their composure. They were always much more tolerable when they carried flowers and chocolates and hand-composed sonnets…"Yes, I know who it is…I never forget a face. I hope those green apples were worth the ache it must have given you…" She stepped aside, giving him entrance. "You sit in the kitchen and have yourself some of the tea there. I'll wake the Inspector."
PC Treasure watched her go, at turns relieved that she hadn't taken him fully to task for those stolen apples, and the genuine fear that she would return to that topic in front of the Inspector. He didn't know what would happen if word about his heedless childhood got out at the Station, but he was honestly terrified at the possibilities.
He swallowed dryly and looked about him. She had all but shoved him inside the small kitchen. With his size, it looked even smaller.
She had told him to have some tea.
There were no other teacups besides the one she had poured for herself.
He couldn't see himself yanking open cupboards in search of a cup. Not from Mrs. Collins. She would kill him.
And, he was fairly certain, dance on his grave.
TBC…
