The Lodger: A Novel by Louisa Treger Read Free Book Online Page B

able to see many things simultaneously; they were more profoundly, richly alive … Men saw life in terms of externals, and only one thing at a time. Their sense of superiority was born of being free to be out in the world, but they did not understand what went on below the surface with people.
    Miss Boyd gave up waiting for an answer. “Aren’t you glad you are alive today, with all these things going on?” she asked.
    “What things?”
    “Well, cycling and things. Aren’t you going to have any pudding?”
    There was a loud hammering on the front door; a peremptory noise, not in the least sociable. Mrs. Baker looked up sharply. Carrie was already on her way out of the room to answer it.
    “That was a fine dinner, Mrs. Baker. Thank you,” Dr. Weber said.
    “Well, you wouldn’t have me starve my boarders.”
    “I certainly wouldn’t. Fortunately, the reverse is true.”
    “Another helping of pudding, Mr. Cundy?”
    Mr. Cundy was sitting at Mrs. Baker’s right hand, looking about for the dish of apple pie. His black hair was brilliant with grease.
    “I don’t mind if I do. It seems a crime to let it go to waste.” He smiled sideways down the table, his eyes not quite meeting anyone’s full-on. “Your dinners are miniature masterpieces, Mrs. B, a bright spot at the end of a hard day’s work. Something a chap looks forward to…” He helped himself to pie as he carried on; his obsequious mouth feeling clumsily for compliments.
    Carrie hurried in. Something in her face caused a hush to fall over the assembled group.
    “What’s wrong?” her mother asked.
    “A dreadful thing,” she said, in low stunned tones. “It’s Mary-Lou Jones—”
    “Who?” the new gentleman asked, cupping one hand against his ear.
    “Mary-Lou Jones. A typist; she rents a room down the road…” Carrie seemed unable to go on.
    “What happened?” Dr. Weber prompted gently.
    Carrie turned her large watery blue eyes on him. “She threw herself out the bedroom window because she owes her landlady thirty shillings, and the landlady asked her for it outright.”
    A buzz of consternation rose from the shocked table. Something had entered the room—a naked despair—and many were only too familiar with it.
    “That is terrible ,” Dr. Weber exclaimed. “Is she still alive?”
    “I don’t know; I don’t think so. She fell from the top floor. There’s a policeman with her and a crowd of people … I saw grey stuff coming out of her head. Oh, it was horrible.”
    “I’ll go and see if I can help.” Dr. Weber picked up his hat and went out hurriedly.
    Dorothy couldn’t face the roomful of people and their excited revulsion. Asking Mrs. Baker to excuse her as well, she went upstairs to her bedroom. She sat down on the greyish-white counterpane and hugged her knees, feeling rattled and queasy.
    She tried to imagine Mary-Lou Jones opening her bedroom window and clambering onto the sill; she would have been hampered by her skirt. She saw her balancing precariously on the edge like a voluminous bird; looking vertiginously down at the ground.
    What did the moment of unalterably pushing herself off feel like; had her skirt billowed out around her as she plummeted through the unresisting air, like a sail or a parachute? What could have been in her mind? Did she, even then, wish it undone; did she wish herself safely back in her room, with the window fastened? Or was life so bad, she couldn’t wait to die and put an end to her pain. Had she welcomed the hard pavement as it rushed up to meet her?
    Dorothy shivered as she contemplated the richness of a consciousness being snuffed out in an instant on a grimy London street, to the uncaring accompaniment of cab whistles and hansom cabs rattling and jingling past.
    St. Pancras clock struck ten. Mary-Lou was part of a growing army of outwardly confident young female office workers in the city. But their independence came at a price. Dorothy understood very well the precipice edge the girl