The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes Page A

you think Ellen ought to see a doctor, father? He might give
her something that would pull her round."
      "I won't see no doctor!" said Mrs. Bunting with
sudden emphasis. "I saw enough of doctors in my last place.
Thirty-eight doctors in ten months did my poor missis have. Just
determined on having 'em she was! Did they save her? No! She died
just the same! Maybe a bit sooner."
      "She was a freak, was your last mistress, Ellen,"
began Bunting aggressively.
      Ellen had insisted on staying on in that place till
her poor mistress died. They might have been married some months
before they were married but for that fact. Bunting had always
resented it.
      His wife smile wanly. "We won't have no words about
that," she said, and again she spoke in a softer, kindlier tone
than usual. "Daisy? If you won't go down to the kitchen again, then
I must" - she turned to her stepdaughter, and the girl flew out of
the room.
      "I think the child grows prettier every minute,"
said Bunting fondly.
      "Folks are too apt to forget that beauty is but skin
deep," said his wife. She was beginning to feel better. "But still,
I do agree, Bunting, that Daisy's well enough. And she seems more
willing, too."
      "I say, we mustn't forget the lodger's dinner,"
Bunting spoke uneasily. "It's a bit of fish to-day, isn't it?
Hadn't I better just tell Daisy to see to it, and then I can take
it up to him, as you're not feeling quite the thing, Ellen?"
      "I'm quite well enough to take up Mr. Sleuth's
luncheon," she said quickly. It irritated her to hear her husband
speak of the lodger's dinner. They had dinner in the middle of the
day, but Mr. Sleuth had luncheon. However odd he might be, Mrs.
Bunting never forgot her lodger was a gentleman.
      "After all, he likes me to wait on him, doesn't he?
I can manage all right. Don't you worry," she added after a long
pause.

CHAPTER VIII
       P erhaps because
his luncheon was served to him a good deal later than usual, Mr.
Sleuth ate his nice piece of steamed sole upstairs with far
heartier an appetite than his landlady had eaten her nice slice of
roast pork downstairs.
      "I hope you're feeling a little better, sir," Mrs.
Bunting had forced herself to say when she first took in his
tray.
      And he had answered plaintively, querulously, "No, I
can't say I feel well to-day, Mrs. Bunting. I am tired - very
tired. And as I lay in bed I seemed to hear so many sounds - so
much crying and shouting. I trust the Marylebone Road is not going
to become a noisy thoroughfare, Mrs. Bunting?"
      "Oh, no, sir, I don't think that. We're generally
reckoned very quiet indeed, sir."
      She waited a moment - try as she would, she could
not allude to what those unwonted shouts and noises had betokened.
"I expect you've got a chill, sir," she said suddenly. "If I was
you, I shouldn't go out this afternoon; I'd just stay quietly
indoors. There's a lot of rough people about - " Perhaps there was
an undercurrent of warning, of painful pleading, in her toneless
voice which penetrated in some way to the brain of the lodger, for
Mr. Sleuth looked up, and an uneasy, watchful look came into his
luminous grey eyes.
      "I'm sorry to hear that, Mrs. Bunting. But I think
I'll take your advice. That is, I will stay quietly at home, I am
never at a loss to know what to do with myself so long as I can
study the Book of Books."
      "Then you're not afraid about your eyes, sir?" said
Mrs. Bunting curiously. Somehow she was beginning to feel better.
It comforted her to be up here, talking to Mr. Sleuth, instead of
thinking about him downstairs. It seemed to banish the terror which
filled her soul - aye, and her body, too - at other times. When she
was with him Mr. Sleuth was so gentle, so reasonable, so - so
grateful.
      Poor kindly, solitary Mr. Sleuth! This kind of
gentleman surely wouldn't hurt a fly, let alone a human being.
Eccentric - so much must be admitted. But Mrs. Bunting had seen a
good deal of eccentric folk,