The Lodger

The Lodger, by Marie Belloc
Lowndes

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Title: The Lodger
Author: Marie Belloc Lowndes
Release Date: March 13, 2005 [EBook #2014]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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The Lodger
by Marie Belloc Lowndes

"Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance
into darkness." PSALM lxxxviii. 18
CHAPTER I
Robert Bunting and Ellen his wife sat before their dully burning,
carefully-banked-up fire.
The room, especially when it be known that it was part of a house
standing in a grimy, if not exactly sordid, London thoroughfare, was
exceptionally clean and well-cared-for. A casual stranger, more
particularly one of a Superior class to their own, on suddenly opening
the door of that sitting-room; would have thought that Mr. and Mrs.
Bunting presented a very pleasant cosy picture of comfortable married
life. Bunting, who was leaning back in a deep leather arm-chair, was
clean-shaven and dapper, still in appearance what he had been for many
years of his life--a self-respecting man-servant.
On his wife, now sitting up in an uncomfortable straight-backed chair,
the marks of past servitude were less apparent; but they were there all
the same--in her neat black stuff dress, and in her scrupulously clean,
plain collar and cuffs. Mrs. Bunting, as a single woman, had been what
is known as a useful maid.
But peculiarly true of average English life is the time-worn English
proverb as to appearances being deceitful. Mr. and Mrs. Bunting were
sitting in a very nice room and in their time--how long ago it now
seemed!--both husband and wife had been proud of their carefully
chosen belongings. Everything in the room was strong and substantial,
and each article of furniture had been bought at a well-conducted
auction held in a private house.
Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden,
drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song,
and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A
great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which
covered the floor; as, again, the arm-chair in which Bunting now sat
forward, staring into the dull, small fire. In fact, that arm-chair had

been an extravagance of Mrs. Bunting. She had wanted her husband to
be comfortable after the day's work was done, and she had paid
thirty-seven shillings for the chair. Only yesterday Bunting had tried to
find a purchaser for it, but the man who had come to look at it,
guessing their cruel necessities, had only offered them twelve shillings
and sixpence for it; so for the present they were keeping their
arm-chair.
But man and woman want something more than mere material comfort,
much as that is valued by the Buntings of this world. So, on the walls
of the sitting-room, hung neatly framed if now rather faded
photographs--photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting's various former
employers, and of the pretty country houses in which they had
separately lived during the long years they had spent in a not unhappy
servitude.
But appearances were not only deceitful, they were more than usually
deceitful with regard to these unfortunate people. In spite of their good
furniture--that substantial outward sign of respectability which is the
last thing which wise folk who fall into trouble try to dispose of--they
were almost at the end of their tether. Already they had learnt to go
hungry, and they were beginning to learn to go cold. Tobacco, the last
thing the sober man foregoes among his comforts, had been given up
some time ago by Bunting. And even Mrs. Bunting--prim, prudent,
careful woman as she was in her way--had realised what this must
mean to him. So well, indeed, had she understood that some days back
she had crept out and bought him a packet of Virginia.
Bunting had been touched--touched as he had not been for years by any
woman's thought and love for him. Painful tears had forced themselves
into his eyes, and husband and wife had both felt in their odd,
unemotional way, moved to the heart.
Fortunately he never guessed--how could he have guessed, with his
slow, normal, rather dull mind?--that his poor Ellen had since more
than once bitterly regretted that fourpence-ha'penny, for they were now
very near the soundless depths which divide those who dwell on the
safe tableland of security--those, that is, who are sure