In March, something happened which would prove to be of the utmost importance to Celia. Mrs. Ellwell died of pneumonia.
Mr. Tomlinson, more than twenty years her senior, was stunned with grief and incredulity. There was no question of his attending the funeral, as it was in Hampstead where her late husband was buried, but it was Celia who went personally to order his flowers and return to tell her employer that they were beautiful, exactly what he had specified. It was Celia who suggested that Mrs. Ellwell would have liked him to finish his book and gradually joggled him back to life again.
Dr. Fowler said that for a few days there it had been nip and tuck. Mrs. Cannon, who had never bothered to learn the names of the various threats to her inheritance, went unaware and said nothing at all until it was too late and her uncle, usually so gentle of tongue, turned on her with such vehemence that she sought Celia out angrily in the kitchen.
“Really, Celia, you might have let me know about Mrs. Ellwell. Although why it could have been such a shock . . . he can’t have seen the woman for months and months—”
This time Celia did keep her lashes down. She said quietly and with some degree of truth that although she did not have Mrs. Cannon s telephone number Dr. Fowler did, and had assured her that if his patient became critical at any time he would let Mrs. Cannon know. She did not add that in her opinion Dr. Fowler, not pleased at his last interview with Mrs. Cannon, would leave that very late.
Mrs. Cannon paced handsomely. She was too proud to appear suddenly as the loving niece whose sole concern was her uncle’s happiness, but she said sharply, “I understand that you’ve been very helpful, Celia, but in the future—here, I’ll give you my telephone number—I would appreciate your letting me know if anything like this happens again. You needn’t wait,” she added wintrily, ‘until Dr. Fowler decides it’s necessary.”
Celia thought later that it might have been that day when Mr. Tomlinson made up his mind—but of course she knew nothing about it at the time.
What did become apparent was a favorable shift in her own situation. Until Mrs. Ell well’s death Mr. Tomlinson had enjoyed, however surreptitiously, the best of both worlds: Celia to run his house and do his typing by day, his portly forbidden flame to spend a few hours with him on an occasional evening. He came of an unbending generation and would not have heard a word uttered against his niece in his presence, but he would never have turned to Mrs. Cannon for comfort.
Perhaps unaware that he was doing so, he turned to Celia.
The process came about so gradually that even Mrs. Meggs, on the scene three days a week, would only be able to shake her head dumbly at official questions later. To Dr. Fowler, Celia remained the self-possessed young woman who had cooperated with him at every turn and almost certainly prolonged his patient’s life. To the infrequent visitors, she was notable chiefly for her baked clams.
She slid out of uniform imperceptibly; it would have been hard to say where the charcoal wool-and-acetate ordered by Mrs. Cannon ended and the lighter gray or taupe began. The simple lines stayed much the same because they became her—with her bold shoulders she would never be able to wear floaty or frilly clothes—and took kindly, on her evenings off, to the chunky costume jewelry then in fashion.
In his first access of grief over Mrs. Ellwell’s death Mr. Tomlinson said bewilderedly, “It seems so strange that she should go, while I . . . Don’t leave me, Celia.”
“I won’t, Mr. Tomlinson. Not now,” said Celia, and the implied deadline agitated him almost as much as if she had given notice on the spot; he forgot that ten months ago Celia had been the interloper supplanting Mrs. Ellwell. “Aren’t you happy here, Celia? If it’s a matter of salary . . .
Celia was far too shrewd to give up her present advantages for the sake of a few extra dollars a week and eventual dismissal; if Mrs. Cannon had managed to have her way about Mrs. Ellwell she would certainly have her way about Celia. So she said that although she was satisfied with her salary this was a lonely situation for someone her age, seeing her family only once a month as she did.
“But you have friends,” pointed out Mr. Tomlinson. “The young people you had in one evening.”
One evening, Celia’s pensive gaze reminded him, and that five weeks ago. She sat at the typewriter with an air of abstracted thought, and as though he feared that this would lead to an unfavorable decision Mr. Tomlinson said hastily, “I’m sure we can arrange something.” He gave a deep, premonitory sigh, which he covered at once with an anxious smile and a glance at his pocket watch. “Perhaps that’s enough work for this morning. I can’t seem to arrange my thoughts . . .”
Celia’s determination to repeat that single evening was never far out of her thoughts, but apart from that she was very contented.
Far from objecting to the typing, she found it a pleasant change from purely domestic routine. She was careful not to show any reflection of her increased stature in the house to Mrs. Meggs, and as a result the two got along well. The cleaning woman was pleased at her extra day’s work; Celia was equally pleased that her own duties in that area, never arduous, were further cut down.
Nor was she lonely in the sense that she had implied to Mr. Tomlinson. She still saw Willis Lambert once a week, although he was becoming a nuisance after a weekend she had finally consented to spend with him at Fire
