Quickly she opened up the top drawer of the filing cabinet, the metal scraping loudly along the struts as she did. "Blasted thing.." she cursed under her breath as the noise truly set her teeth on edge as it screeched around the room, cannoning off the walls and clawing at her spine.
Carefully flicking through the files within it, Chummy found what she was looking for and placed the file on the top of the cabinet, leaning down to the bottom drawer in the cabinet next to it, again it opening with an entirely unnecessary blood curdling scream. She would have to find some oil sooner rather than later as that noise would have awoken the dead.
"Camilla?" came a voice from behind her, resisting making a comment regarding his view, and she stood up to find her husband standing in the doorway to her office, minus their son who he had been entertaining since breakfast.
"Where's Freddie?" she asked, checking the little chap was not wandering around her office.
"Holding court with Amy-with-the-black-hair" Peter replied. Oddly there were three girls called Amy and they were known by their hair colour. Amy-with-the-black-hair, Amy-with-the-red-hair and Amy-with-the-blonde-hair. "Very clingy; won't leave her alone. I tried but he wasn't having it!"
"She'll be the next to go then" Chummy mooted, holding the files to her chest, noting he was dressed in a blue overall and a pair of his battered old plimsolls.
"Next to go?" Peter asked curiously, brow furrowing.
"Into labour. I read it somewhere" she continued. "Toddlers get very clingy to women who are days away from giving birth. Especially if they are familiar with them. I don't know whether its an old wives tale but he got Jane right the other day" she noted, not going to close the filing cabinet quite yet as she knew that noise went through Peter too.
"I might start running a book then" Peter considered. "Taking bets on who'll give birth next. Freddie can be my runner!" Chummy smiled and shook her head, eyes examining him up and down, wondering why he was wearing overalls and he must have read her mind. "I was going to start that inventory of the cellar. Presuming you haven't done it already?" he asked, hand rested on the door frame.
"No" Chummy replied, walking across to her desk and placing the files down before she sat on the opposite side. "But you don't have to do it either. It's not like you are being paid".
"I don't mind Camilla" he replied, taking a few steps towards her. "Fred's more interested in his girlfriends, you're working and …."
"You have two days off work Peter" she interrupted him, feeling guilty when it came to it. "You've got one job already and you need to have your rest too you know. I don't expect you to lift a finger around here".
"I know, but I don't mind helping you and I know it's a job you wanted to get done". It was either the cellar or start painting the downstairs bathroom and as he tended to get paid 'in kind' anyway, he didn't mind picking up odd jobs here there and everywhere otherwise he would be bored senseless.
She sighed and acquiesced. "I didn't get to start it. There a pen and a new notebook in that top drawer over there" she said, gesturing towards an oak writing desk in the corner that she used for storage.
Peter smiled and reached across the desk to give her a quick peck on the cheek. "Never know what I might find down there…." he quipped. "Gold, Frankincense, Myrrh?"
"Spiders" Chummy replied, brushing her hand down his face. "But Freddie will probably have one as a pet so if you find any…." She shrugged her shoulders. There was all kind of wildlife in the cellar and around this property generally and Freddie had already presented her with a Daddy Long Legs that he had somehow managed to get hold of and not kill at first glance. Chummy had mused, when it had been offered to her, that it must have been a very old and slow Daddy Long Legs to have surrendered itself to her son so easily.
Peter smiled. He knew about his son's interest in all things muddy and creepy and kept it in mind.
A good few hours later, Chummy yawned as she descended the narrow steps down to the cellar, careful that they were so rickety and damp in places. She had not seen Peter since he departed her office, borrowing a torch from the toolbox, and as it was approaching lunchtime she decided to go and find him and take him a cup of tea as well.
"Peter?" she asked. The cellars had some light, but it was minimal and she couldn't see the torch he had taken with him flashing about down there. Placing a hand carefully on a door frame she looked into one room and found nothing bar old bed frames, chairs with broken legs and boxes piled high; the next one the same. "Peter?" she repeated, taking a glance further down the corridor that was lined with rooms, shadows casting around her that unnerved her.
She heard something move, just a scratch on the stone floor ahead of her. "Peter?" she repeated, voice wavering slightly, curious as to whether it was him or a rat, preferring the former if she could really help it. "If you plan on jumping out on me, be warned I have a hot cup of tea in my hand".
"I wasn't" he replied, stepping out from the room directly ahead of her at the end of the corridor. He had a dusty mark on his face and the overalls were filthy at the knee. It also looked like he had wiped his hands several times on his belly too.
"How's it going?" she asked walking down to the end room, seeing he had made some progress as he stepped back to let her in. She put the tea cup on the top of an old rusting filing cabinet.
"Not too bad really" Peter replied. "Most of its junk but you might be interested in them though…." He pointed to several packages, still wrapped up in brown paper and string, one he had ripped open to see what was in it. "They look like they are full of baby clothes. Quite clean as well".
Chummy looked inside the one he had already opened, fingers toying with the wool. "I wonder why they were down here…" she considered. "There isn't a mark on them". They looked like donations made by some kind person, shoved away down here in the dark. "Mind you who knows what that old Sister was up to". Chummy, with the help of Dr Turner had already found 'discrepancies' in the Home's accounts as well as other unsavoury issues that the doctor had promised to take up with the Board at the first available opportunity.
"I think I know" Peter replied, taking her hand to walk further into the room where there was a box on the floor. He kicked it gently and she heard the clink of glass.
"I keep finding gin and whiskey bottles. In boxes, behind boxes, in that filing cabinet. That little ante room" he said, pointing further along. "... smells like a brewery".
Chummy sighed. "Those poor girls".
Above their heads, they heard the office telephone ring and Peter looked at her expectantly. "Amy-with-the-red-hair is keeping an eye out for it for me. She'll answer it" she replied, having left her orders upstairs, even though she was only going to be away for a minute or two.
Peter nodded. "I think these need to go in the bin without the girls seeing somehow!" he sighed seeing her agree, casting her eye around the room as they stood hand in hand, until they heard a voice shout down the stairs.
"Sister?!"
"Yes Amy?" Chummy replied, looking towards the corridor and the stairs at the end where the voice was coming from.
"Ver's a bloke on ve phone wiv a plum in his mouf askin' for ye Sister! A Mister McKenzie!" Amy replied, having answering the telephone and being rather shocked at just exactly how posh this man sounded. She knew Sister talked well, but this fella was something else.
"That's the chap who's been telephoning about the new resident" Chummy whispered to Peter. "I'll be up in two shakes Amy! Thank you!"
"S'alright Sister" she heard as the girl walked away.
Chummy smiled. "Best go and speak to him. See what he has to offer!" Peter took one last look down at the box full of bottles as she shot up the upstairs and sighed loudly, brushing dust off his hands as he did, wondering what else he was going to find.
"No, one does appreciate that Mr McKenzie" Chummy said for probably the fiftieth time in the conversation and her patience was wearing thin, which for her was saying a lot. "But with so little information one is afraid that…."
Chummy was cut off by the voice on the other end of the line. "Yes, I do fully appreciate that Mr McKenzie and one can assure you that the girl's details are all kept highly confidential…." To anyone listening in it would be more than clear that this person on the other end of the line was not letting her speak.
"Yes that's…." she began again listening intently at the voice. She had come across some people with condescending attitudes towards women in her time but he was taking the biscuit."No that is not correct Mr McK…"
"No, one can wholeheartedly... "
Peter pushed the door open a crack, hearing her huff loudly at the latest interruption. He had heard her from the other side of the wall becoming increasingly frustrated in her conversation, having brought the box full of bottles up to go into the bin. The sound of her voice had attracted him, if that was the really quite the correct word for the tone of her conversation, and he had hovered by the door, her back to him as she had the telephone pressed to her ear. Peter actually saw that her knuckles were white from gripping the telephone so tight.
"Yes… no. One can only repeat… Mr….." Chummy pressed her lips together, trying desperately to keep her patience and she listened a moment again, blood quite frankly boiling at what she was hearing.
"If you would let me...". The line suddenly went dead and she stared at the receiver in disbelief. "Odious little creature!" she exclaimed, not quite slamming the telephone down, spinning her chair around and looking up to find Peter standing against the door frame.
"Did you hear that?" she asked apprehensively and rather meekly he noted. Was she afraid that he would shout at her? Could he see that in her eyes?
"Most of it" Peter replied, walking into the room and closing the door firmly behind him. All the girls knew that if Sister's door was closed tight, that was a signal she wasn't to be disturbed and he knew that she needed a moment to herself. The box full of bottles went onto the small table in her office. "So he won't tell you any more?" he asked, taking up a seat across from her.
"No" she sighed, still bolt upright in her chair and Peter could feel her annoyance creep across the table to him. "I am only the Nurse who will have to care for the gel and as a mere female I am clearly not even allowed to know which part of London she is from, let alone anything about her medical history or even… " She wanted to scream and sat back quickly, the chair groaning as she did.
"One does hope he is not going to arrive with her tonight. I might have to bite my tongue!"
"Camilla" Peter replied, calmly, his voice low and soft. It took her agitation down a peg or two and she smiled at him.
"I know" she said, her tone equally as quiet. "He is not worth worrying about, but he does irritate me so Peter. He really does and I have not even met him yet!"
"Do you want me to be downstairs when she arrives tonight?" he asked, wondering if his presence might help or at least if it came to it, he would end up being the referee. She looked up at him. "Camilla, he is probably five foot three with a squint and shouts at women because any sane woman wouldn't lay a finger on him in anger or lust or anything else!"
"That's rude..." Chummy replied, although she did want to agree with him. Difficulty was, she now had an image in her head that wouldn't go away wondering whether she could now greet this Mr McKenzie with a straight face tomorrow night or not!