The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

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СКАЧАТЬ odd as he looked, was a gentleman, belonging by birth to the class with whom her former employment had brought her in contact.

      “Is it not a fact that you let lodgings?” he asked, and there was something shrill, unbalanced, hesitating, in his voice.

      “Yes, sir,” she said uncertainly—it was a long, long time since anyone had come after their lodgings, anyone, that is, that they could think of taking into their respectable house.

      Instinctively she stepped a little to one side, and the stranger walked past her, and so into the hall.

      And then, for the first time, Mrs. Bunting noticed that he held a narrow bag in his left hand. It was quite a new bag, made of strong brown leather.

      “I am looking for some quiet rooms,” he said; then he repeated the words, “quiet rooms,” in a dreamy, absent way, and as he uttered them he looked nervously round him.

      Then his sallow face brightened, for the hall had been carefully furnished, and was very clean.

      There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger’s weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

      A very superior lodging-house this, and evidently a superior lodging-house keeper.

      “You’d find my rooms quite quiet, sir,” she said gently. “And just now I have four to let. The house is empty, save for my husband and me, sir.”

      Mrs. Bunting spoke in a civil, passionless voice. It seemed too good to be true, this sudden coming of a possible lodger, and of a lodger who spoke in the pleasant, courteous way and voice which recalled to the poor woman her happy, far-off days of youth and of security.

      “That sounds very suitable,” he said. “Four rooms? Well, perhaps I ought only to take two rooms, but, still, I should like to see all four before I make my choice.”

      How fortunate, how very fortunate it was that Bunting had lit the gas! But for that circumstance this gentleman would have passed them by.

      She turned towards the staircase, quite forgetting in her agitation that the front door was still open; and it was the stranger whom she already in her mind described as “the lodger,” who turned and rather quickly walked down the passage and shut it.

      “Oh, thank you, sir!” she exclaimed. “I’m sorry you should have had the trouble.”

      For a moment their eyes met. “It’s not safe to leave a front door open in London,” he said, rather sharply. “I hope you do not often do that. It would be so easy for anyone to slip in.”

      Mrs. Bunting felt rather upset. The stranger had still spoken courteously, but he was evidently very much put out.

      “I assure you, sir, I never leave my front door open,” she answered hastily. “You needn’t be at all afraid of that!”

      And then, through the closed door of the sitting-room, came the sound of Bunting coughing—it was just a little, hard cough, but Mrs. Bunting’s future lodger started violently.

      “Who’s that?” he said, putting out a hand and clutching her arm. “Whatever was that?”

      “Only my husband, sir. He went out to buy a paper a few minutes ago, and the cold just caught him, I suppose.”

      “Your husband—?” he looked at her intently, suspiciously. “What —what, may I ask, is your husband’s occupation?”

      Mrs. Bunting drew herself up. The question as to Bunting’s occupation was no one’s business but theirs. Still, it wouldn’t do for her to show offence. “He goes out waiting,” she said stiffly. “He was a gentleman’s servant, sir. He could, of course, valet you should you require him to do so.”

      And then she turned and led the way up the steep, narrow staircase.

      At the top of the first flight of stairs was what Mrs. Bunting, to herself, called the drawing-room floor. It consisted of a sitting-room in front, and a bedroom behind. She opened the door of the sitting-room and quickly lit the chandelier.

      This front room was pleasant enough, though perhaps a little over-encumbered with furniture. Covering the floor was a green carpet simulating moss; four chairs were placed round the table which occupied the exact middle of the apartment, and in the corner, opposite the door giving on to the landing, was a roomy, old-fashioned chiffonnier.

      On the dark-green walls hung a series of eight engravings, portraits of early Victorian belles, clad in lace and tarletan ball dresses, clipped from an old Book of Beauty. Mrs. Bunting was very fond of these pictures; she thought they gave the drawing-room a note of elegance and refinement.

      As she hurriedly turned up the gas she was glad, glad indeed, that she had summoned up sufficient energy, two days ago, to give the room a thorough turn-out.

      It had remained for a long time in the state in which it had been left by its last dishonest, dirty occupants when they had been scared into going away by Bunting’s rough threats of the police. But now it was in apple-pie order, with one paramount exception, of which Mrs. Bunting was painfully aware. There were no white curtains to the windows, but that omission could soon be remedied if this gentleman really took the lodgings.

      But what was this—? The stranger was looking round him rather dubiously. “This is rather—rather too grand for me,” he said at last “I should like to see your other rooms, Mrs. er—”

      “—Bunting,” she said softly. “Bunting, sir.”

      And as she spoke the dark, heavy load of care again came down and settled on her sad, burdened heart. Perhaps she had been mistaken, after all—or rather, she had not been mistaken in one sense, but perhaps this gentleman was a poor gentleman—too poor, that is, to afford the rent of more than one room, say eight or ten shillings a week; eight or ten shillings a week would be very little use to her and Bunting, though better than nothing at all.

      “Will you just look at the bedroom, sir?”

      “No,” he said, “no. I think I should like to see what you have farther up the house, Mrs.—,” and then, as if making a prodigious mental effort, he brought out her name, “Bunting,” with a kind of gasp.

      The two top rooms were, of course, immediately above the drawing-room floor. But they looked poor and mean, owing to the fact that they were bare of any kind of ornament. Very little trouble had been taken over their arrangement; in fact, they had been left in much the same condition as that in which the Buntings had found them.

      For the matter of that, it is difficult to make a nice, genteel sitting-room out of an apartment of which the principal features are a sink and a big gas stove. The gas stove, of an obsolete pattern, was fed by a tiresome, shilling-inthe-slot arrangement. It had been the property of the people from whom the Buntings had taken over the lease of the house, who, knowing it to be of no monetary value, had thrown it in among the humble fittings they had left behind.

      What furniture there was in the room was substantial and clean, as everything belonging to Mrs. Bunting was bound to be, but it was a bare, uncomfortable-looking place, and the landlady now felt sorry that she had done nothing to make it appear more attractive.

      To her surprise, however, her companion’s dark, sensitive, hatchet-shaped СКАЧАТЬ