It actually sounded like she was moving furniture.
"Camilla?" Peter almost shouted from his place, buried up to his neck in deliciously hot water in the bath. He had thought about an invitation to join but decided against it. One step at a time - just one step and maybe one day courage might help to make the suggestion and not fear she will look at you like you have tentacles. That said he was now stretched out and thawing out nicely, but he was still sure she was moving furniture.
"Camilla?" he repeated, not wanting to get out of the water quite yet. The noise stopped.
"Yes?" Chummy asked. He wasn't sure whether she was slightly out of breath.
"Are you alright?" he questioned.
"Yes perfectly" she replied cheerily.
Peter decided that the best course of action was to leave her to it and closed his eyes, not hearing any more shifting or shoving. By the time had had dragged himself from the bath, dried and dressed in pyjamas that had been lazing on the small radiator and found himself back in their bedroom, he noticed immediately what she had been doing and it explained everything.
The settee that had been underneath the window, its back facing it, had now been turned around to an angle to the glass so whoever was seated on the far end could at least see down the road. The sash window was raised from the bottom and the net curtains wafted gently in the night breeze.
Putting on his own dressing gown he found her, curled up at one end of the settee knees up to her chest, eyes closed underneath the eiderdown she had clearly appropriated from the bed.
"Camilla?" he whispered walking closer, thinking she certainly would not appreciate it if he left her sleeping there all night in an inhospitable environment for proper rest.
"Camilla?"
Nothing. He sighed and decided to sit down, on the other end of the settee, pulling the end of the eiderdown over his own legs feeling her react slightly, stretching towards him in what little space she had.
"Camilla?" Peter repeated, delving under the eiderdown, hand grazing the skin over her ankle and back of her calf as far as he could reach seeing her eyes flutter open something drifting into her subconscious that he was close to her and that particular hand was travelling.
She smiled sleepily and sat up. "Shoulder?" he questioned, as she shuffled across and rested her head, wrapping an arm around his middle as he tucked them both under the eiderdown, the net curtains now still.
"Peter?" Chummy asked suddenly.
"Hmmm?" he replied, eyes closing too one arm tightly over her shoulder.
"Do you remember I told you that I had a Trust fund?" She had told him quite a while ago, or at least early on in their relationship that it existed.
"The one you bought the Smith boy's bike from, yes I do". Peter hadn't truthfully given it a second thought after he had told her about it, young Jack Smith having come up in random conversation one day and she had mentioned where she had obtained the funds and it was only really in passing; the future not on their minds.
Chummy took a big breath. She had tried to put it to one side; the last few words that her mother and her had two days before the wedding but she needed to be truthful to him.
"Mater has cut off my access to it, or rather Pa has, I don't really know" she said. Chummy was unsure how she felt at their decision.
"Makes no difference to me" Peter shrugged. "I don't want a penny of it if that's what she was thinking".
"I think she was" Chummy replied sadly, so used to the auction of her feelings; sold to the highest bidder with a rather healthy incentive of her grandfather's money to tide her imaginary husband over until it was spent on vintage wine or another woman's jewellery.
"Yes well" he began. "I'd be more concerned if it's something you are worrying about".
"Well its not, not really but I thought you should know" she replied, deciding to start this marriage off on the right foot. "I never paid it much attention, but it was Grandpa's money. He left most of his money to me in his will when he died. He completely ignored my brothers apart from a few tokens. Mater was furious!"
Peter laughed quickly. "Why am I not surprised?"
"He told me he did it deliberately" she disclosed, never telling her mother that fact though.
She remembered that conversation with her ninety six year old grandfather vividly. Three days short of her eighteenth birthday he passed away in his sleep not telling a soul but his grand-daughter, some weeks earlier, that he had changed his will to include only her and her alone.
"I can't say one even knows how much is in it. Pa invested it all when he found out" Chummy continued. "One supposes one has to be thankful he did that at least", she said, before correcting herself. "Well, I might have been thankful".
"I don't care about your money. Like I said, I don't want a penny of it" he emphasized pressing a kiss to the top of her head, not thinking for one minute that she might resent him for coming between her and her Trust. He knew her well enough already to know that such a response would never cross her mind. "I married you because I love you not because you have whatever you have in the bank".
"Well I don't anymore!"
"Whichever way round Camilla it makes no difference to me and it will make no difference to us" Peter replied, confident in how he felt and happy just not to know the extent of her wealth. That way, if it really came to it, her mother could not accuse him of anything.
"Really?" It was so difficult to lose the feeling that had dogged her and realise that this choice she had made had been precisely that. A choice; albeit one that left her with no Trust fund but frankly she had not the desire for the money before so why should it be so now?
"We'll do fine as we are" he replied. "We won't be having champagne breakfasts every day but…"
"I cannot bear champagne", Chummy responded quickly. She truly could not see the fascination in the stuff.
"But we'll cope just like everyone else does. Clearly your mother thought I had one eye on your money and that was the reason I married you. She's wrong. Very, very, wrong". Chummy liked the fact that he sounded so steadfast and determined in his view.
She didn't quite understand though why he was so relaxed about the whole thing but she didn't want to turn tonight into a discussion about money or a situation that she had no control over whatsoever. If he thought they would be fine; then they would be fine. She had told him what she felt he ought to know and he had made his feelings clear on the matter. For once, Chummy would leave it at that.
Her eyes were shutting again now and frankly so were his. Subconsciously Peter had been drifting his fingertips up and down her arm and the only reaction it was provoking was a rather soporific soothing into sleep.
"Peter if we don't move soon enough…."
"I know" he muttered, reluctantly pulling the eiderdown off them as they got up, him dragging it after him crawling into bed. Chummy herself, dropping the sash window and pulling the heavy red curtains across before sliding in after him, taking off her glasses and settling on his shoulder. Just being held was something in itself.
"Do you really like this nightdress?" she asked suddenly.
The first thing that flew into Peter's mind was how much of an odd question it was. He'd already said once he did, so surely he didn't need to repeat himself?
"Yes" he affirmed. "Although I have to admit you never wore silk before".
"Things have changed now" she replied, far too conscious of how she ought to appear; how people tell her she ought to be. One day, she promised herself, she would stop thinking that way but right now she just wanted to be loved and she would do whatever she had to.
"Camilla, sometimes I am terrible with words" Peter began, "as they never come out the way my brain tells them to".
Chummy smiled. She knew that feeling far too well.
"But you don't have to dress up to please me or think that money made me interested in you". He paused. "That's all I want you to know".
"Thank you" she breathed.
"Although I can't say I'd turn down another one of these if you were thinking of making it…" She felt his hand that had been around her shoulder, slip underneath the lace strap of her nightdress, twisting it around. "But its what's buried here" he said suddenly serious, touching his fingers to her forehead, "and what comes from here" he concluded, brushing his knuckles just above her heart. "I saw that the moment I met you".
"Those words came out right" she whispered, forcing herself not to cry. "I think I need to start believing someone can think that way of me. That I've found someone that I know I can trust and….and you have been so wonderful to me that I will do whatever I can to make sure that what we have now never leaves us". She was actually stuttering and was not entirely sure she had made sense.
"You didn't do too badly with those words either know" Peter responded, just pleased to hear she was able to articulate what was in her head as she looked up at him.
"I was thinking" she said, holding him tighter across the chest, just remembering that poster she had seen at the train station and for a moment thinking it might be wonderful idea. "There's a dance on tomorrow night in the Music Hall. I saw it advertised".
Peter scrunched his nose up, clearly reluctant. "I will go if you want to".
"I just thought it would be nice, but let's decide tomorrow" she replied, feeling his disinclination and putting the decision off. He might feel different in the morning; mind you so might she and her confidence might just betray her by then and she might just think it such an awful idea. Dancing in public was usually an awful idea.
"We are terrible at vertical dancing Camilla. Let's not" Peter suggested, almost reading her mind.
"Vertical da...?" she asked, knowing sometimes it could take her ten minutes to cotton on. "Oh! Yes! As opposed to horizontal dancing?"
"Was that a proposition?" he questioned.
Chummy smiled to herself as she replied.
"I don't know what you mean".
