The Lodger: A Novel

For my late mother, Hazel, and my father, Gerald,

for my children, Adam, Imogen, and Alexandra,

and especially for Julian, with love

CONTENTS

1906

One

Dorothy stepped off the train. She could feel the clammy sinking sensation beginning to creep round her, as though she was a ghost drifting through the world of the living. Taking a deep breath to anchor herself, she looked around. It was a small clean station, brightened by hanging baskets of ruffled mauve and white sweet peas, the sharp green of their leaves almost translucent in the May sunlight. She told herself there was nothing sinister; no one was going to find her guilty. It was just a visit to an old school friend, recently married.

A short, tiny-footed man was hurrying toward her, already talking and flailing his arms in the air. He stopped in front of her; he wasn’t much taller than she was. He had sandy hair and a scraggy mustache; he could easily pass for an undernourished shop assistant. Yet as this thought flickered through her mind, she noticed his grey-blue dark-ringed eyes, vivid and edgy, taking her in approvingly. Instantly, hot color stained her cheeks and she willed it away fiercely, impotently.

He either didn’t notice, or he chose to ignore her confusion: perhaps, she had misinterpreted his look? He held out his hand; his grip was warm and confident. “Miss Richardson, how nice to meet you. I’m Herbert Wells, but my friends call me Bertie. I’m delighted you’ve come for the weekend; Jane has spoken of you so often.”

“Jane…?” She faltered, disoriented.

He grinned. “My wife, your old school chum. The rest of the world knows her as Amy Catherine, but I’ve shoved the name Jane on her, and she has graciously taken it for everyday use.”

She returned his smile hesitantly; she was unmoored by him. Jane? The name didn’t fit her friend. It was practical and plain; a touch governessy, even.

Bertie carried on talking. His voice was high and reedy, almost atonal. But the words he spoke soon dissolved any taint of weakness or mediocrity. He asked questions by making statements: “You haven’t much luggage. We can take it ourselves, without help from the porter. You found us brilliantly. The house isn’t far from here.” Words seemed to stream off the ends of his mustache and tumble down his waistcoat.

They approached the house from behind. As Bertie explained on their walk, it was built to open onto a view of the Kentish sea. He had designed it himself, he added, and Dorothy could feel his pride in creating such a home for his new wife and the family they would one day have.

It was an imposing and attractively proportioned house, crowning the cliffs ninety feet above the ocean, with lawns and arbors reaching down to the beach. Dorothy saw a tennis court, a croquet lawn, and several alcoves sprinkled with chairs for reading, thinking, or writing. The walls of the house were thick, and gave a sense of great stability and continuance.

As soon as they stepped through the Gothic front door, Amy Catherine—or Jane—came hurrying to greet them; she hugged Dorothy with a little cry of excitement. “Dora! I’m so glad you’re here, after all this time!”

The contact with someone from Dorothy’s old life—perhaps it was the pressure of Amy Catherine’s warm and pliant body against hers—brought a flood of feeling: a blend of relief and pain so potent, Dorothy feared it would crack her open.

Dorothy broke away and looked at her. Slender and fine-featured, Amy Catherine had thick fair hair and large limpid brown eyes. She was simply dressed in a white muslin blouse and navy skirt, with no ornaments.

Amy Catherine was studying Dorothy’s face carefully.

“You’re as pretty as ever,” she pronounced, in her soft clear voice. “Your hair has turned slightly darker blonde, but it suits you, and you’ve still got your lovely complexion. You’re looking a bit tired and thin, though. A weekend of sea air and home cooking will do you no end of good. Let’s go straight upstairs; I’ll show you to your room before dinner.”

She led Dorothy up a wide green staircase to an airy high-ceilinged room that had an unobstructed view of the sea. A stream of golden light blazed through the open lattice windows, and shone in patches on the ceiling and walls. The room was dominated by a canopied four-poster bed, its counterpane embellished with brick-red flowers. A Primus stove stood inside the fireplace with a polished brass kettle on it. A little table nearby, covered with a brightly patterned cloth, held a teapot, a lemon, and a glass. Amy Catherine opened another door to reveal an adjoining bathroom. “See, you can live as though you’re in your own home,” she said gleefully. “Everything’s bang up to date. You’re one of our first visitors.”

“It’s perfectly lovely, Catherine; I’m dumb with admiration. Just look at you, a married woman, running a grown-up house.” As she said it, she remembered how even in their school days, Amy Catherine seemed to possess a cryptic knowledge of how things worked, and exactly what needed to be done to get on in the world. Dorothy had half envied her without really wanting to be like her, because even the contemplation of such efficiency stripped the world of its beauty and mystery.

“You dear old thing!” Amy Catherine walked over and hugged her. “I heard about your mother, Dora … I’m so sorry.”

Dorothy broke free and sank onto the bed. She couldn’t reply; this was what she had dreaded. How much had Catherine been told? Was she thinking what everyone else thought, but no one had dared say to her:
If you hadn’t left her alone, she would still be alive …

“My father…” Amy Catherine hesitated. “He went the same way.”

Dorothy managed to find her voice. “Yes, I heard.”

Amy Catherine sat down beside her. For a time, neither of them moved nor spoke. But there was relief in having faced the same horror: each knew the brush of its dank webbed fingers. For once, Dorothy didn’t feel blighted, removed from humanity.

“I’m glad to see you,” Amy Catherine said at last. “We’ve heaps of time to talk and catch up.”

“I’m glad to see you, too, Cath.”

She was taken aback to find the name sitting awkwardly on her tongue. The thoroughness with which Bertie had transformed her old friend into Jane was astonishing.

*   *   *

DINNER WAS PRESIDED
over by two cheerful women servants. As they carved and opened bottles, Bertie turned to Dorothy. “So, you were at school with Jane.”

She nodded.

“What was Jane like at school?”

“Well,” she began, “she’s still the same. People are themselves; they don’t change much, do they?”

For a few moments, there was nothing but the sound of the fire flickering in the mild air. He was confounded by her banality. The maids began to hand around plates piled high with rich-smelling meat and vegetables.

“Did you see the sunset?” Bertie asked, at last. “It was extraordinary this evening; a pink effulgence basted all over the sky … God evidently ate raspberry custard for supper.”

“Don’t be provocative,” Jane said mildly. “I sold my soul to the devil a long time ago, but for all you know, Dora’s a believer.”

“What does selling your soul feel like?” Dorothy asked, trying for light-heartedness.

“Quite exhilarating, really.”

Bertie drained his glass of wine. “I hope you aren’t offended by our lack of piety, Miss Richardson?”

She shook her head.

“Good,” he said. “You see, personally, I think God was invented by man. Primitive man looked at the cosmos and couldn’t bear the idea of being alone; it was too isolating, too downright depressing. So he created ‘Mr. G’ as I like to call him, out of his fear of natural phenomena and his unquenchable need for reassurance.” He paused for breath, making little grunts in the back of his nose, as if he was trying to stave off rejoinders or interruptions before he’d had a chance to marshal his thoughts. “Most people don’t want to admit that there’s nothing but man, or—dreadful thought—that we’re descended from the ape … but the picture’s not entirely bleak. We’ve made some marvelous discoveries as we’ve evolved, like science. We should all be looking to science for salvation, not religion. Religion has had its day.”

His way of seeing things made life unbearable. No God. No creation. Everyone fighting for existence, like animals … the strong clawing their way over the weak. Dorothy could feel astonishment and belligerence spilling out of her and—despite herself—admiration. She tried to rein in all her tangled emotions behind a relaxed enthusiastic smile, but they streamed from the pores of her skin and obstructed her limbs, making her ham-fisted with her cutlery. What made him so infuriatingly sure of everything? He was like a volcano, continually bubbling over with urgent thoughts and incandescent ideas.

He was still going on about scientific imagination, scientific invention. “It’s our mission … imposing scientific method on primordial mayhem; we are winning against mayhem … nothing that came before science was worth contemplating…”

“I don’t care a button for science,” Dorothy burst out, unable to restrain herself. “It’s just speculation; tittle-tattle about the cosmos.”

“My word! What an extraordinary view!”

“It’s true. Darwin chattered about apes and when he got old he exactly resembled one, and felt sorry that he hadn’t given more time to other interests, like art and music. One day, someone will find out that his conclusions were mistaken, that he omitted or miscalculated some vital piece of the puzzle, and his hypothesis, which has given thousands of people sleepless nights, will be discredited.”

“Darwin was a great man. His theories aren’t a matter of speculation, they are fundamental truths; the cornerstone of biology … I can’t see your difficulty with him, not even with the strongest of magnifying glasses.”

Bertie proclaimed facts, not opinions. Dorothy disagreed with nearly everything he said, and was beginning to resent the way he monopolized the conversation.

She wanted to talk to Jane. “What do you remember about Miss Sandell’s school?” she wanted to ask. “Do you remember our English teacher, who was Browning’s pupil? What about Fräulein Schneider—she was so hot tempered, her lessons were a series of emotional scenes. Do you realize how lucky we were to be given classes in logic and psychology instead of household skills, to be taught to think for ourselves and form opinions? I didn’t then, though I’m starting to now…”

But Bertie’s lively monologue prevented her from finding out what Jane thought or felt.

As the meal progressed, Dorothy sensed uneasiness in Jane. She seemed to be chronically fearful lest a misunderstanding, an argument, a failure of good humor should occur. She was a jumble of anxiety and confidence. Her manner was bright, yet her voice was soft and unprepossessing. Her conversation consisted mainly of introducing subjects for the others to take up and develop, trying to keep things going. During pauses in the talk, she looked uneasy, almost scared. Once dessert was served, however, she seemed to relax visibly, as though a great weight had rolled off her.

“Tell us about your life, Dora,” she said at this stage. “It’s so long since I’ve seen you properly.” The reflections from the many candles on the table illuminated Jane’s pretty bare arms and glowed in her eyes.