The Lodger: A Novel (21 page)

“A strong woman will always find a way to do what she wants … we men are no match for a strong woman.”

Dorothy flinched inwardly; she’d heard too many of Benjamin’s neat generalizations. Charming as his stories were, his vision of life seemed to miss some vital element: it was too clear, too one-dimensional to embrace the rich paradoxes and constant fluctuations that made up life.

She wondered what Veronica really thought of him, beneath the amiable mask that was her social manner. Dorothy had told her their history. Did she appreciate his mellow dignity and simplicity, or did she find the stream of anecdotes merely tedious? There was something in his bearing that many people would not like; something heavy and stolid: an absence of mirth.

The occasion was given a poignant duality by the consciousness of what Dorothy and Veronica were to each other. While Veronica flirted with Benjamin and gave every appearance of being charmed and charming, she belonged to Dorothy. While Veronica offered more tea, promising to remember not to put milk in it this time, Benjamin sat within touching distance of the bed on which they lost themselves to passion, night after night. There was undeniably a charge in the air. Veronica placed a cup of tea on Dorothy’s lap, her fingers brushing Dorothy’s thigh, and Dorothy felt her cheeks flush and her underclothes grow warm and damp. She glanced at Benjamin, who was saying “This is delicious. It’s rare to find an Englishwoman who knows how to make tea”; so innocent and oblivious that she was ashamed. She had the strange sense that while the scene was playing out, it had already happened in some distant universe, and was proceeding upon preordained lines to its inevitable conclusion.

After about half an hour, Dorothy could see Benjamin caving in to the fatigue that swept over him during any conversation failing to engage his full interest. His eyelids were growing heavy and his face looked paler than ever. Slumped in his armchair, he gave a sigh that turned involuntarily to a yawn. The white lids were almost closed. “You can probably tell how the story ended,” he said opening his eyes wide, and Dorothy saw in them the desire for escape. “And I think I have talked enough about myself. I’m afraid I have started to tire you.”

He looked at his gold pocket watch and got to his feet, saying gently—and Dorothy thought a little guiltily—“We had better go to dinner now, Dorothy. We are already running late.” Turning to Veronica, he thanked her for the tea, and took his leave formally, bowing over her hand as he raised it to his lips.

Dorothy sent him downstairs to wait for her, shutting the door behind him, so that Veronica could freely vent her opinion of him and of the occasion.

But Veronica was not paying any attention to her. She stood gazing out of the window, showing her clear profile and the curve of her cheek, very upright and slender, lost in thought. Dorothy walked over and stood beside her, looking down at the blazing colors of the autumn trees in the square. A group of young men and women was approaching along the wide pavement, laughing and talking; a blare of lively voices reached them. Veronica’s continuing silence held Benjamin’s presence in the room; it came between them, breaking them up. Dorothy waited, with increasing impatience, for her to speak, conscious of Benjamin standing captive in the hall.

“Dorothy!”

“Yes, what? What did you think of him?”

Veronica fell silent again, as though gathering her thoughts, while Dorothy’s pulse quickened with apprehension. Perhaps she had sacrificed Veronica, forcing her to undergo an unpleasant meeting so that Dorothy might have the gratification of managing a social event.

“Was it an ordeal?” Dorothy asked. “I’m sorry if you hated it. Let’s put it behind us, shall we? We’ll pretend it never happened.”

“It wasn’t an ordeal at all. I was just thinking…” Veronica paused dramatically, drawing herself to her full height. “If you want respectability so badly, why don’t you marry Benjamin? If you should be with any man alive, it’s him. He’ll let you breathe and be yourself. It isn’t too late; I can tell by the way he looks at you.”

Everything wavered and went silent; Dorothy could not feel her feet. She could not believe she was being abandoned by Veronica, who seemed to have crossed sides and was standing in league with Benjamin. But Veronica was right. Veronica saw both Dorothy’s lack of backbone, and the cruelty of pushing Benjamin away to fend for himself in the world. These things were so blindingly evident to her that she was ready to renounce their joined life, at the drop of a hat.

The room stopped heaving and shuddering, but Dorothy was left utterly chilled and depleted. Betrayed. She thought she knew Veronica, but how could she suggest relinquishing their life together so easily? A gulf was opening between them, leaving Dorothy desolate. For the first time, she realized that Veronica was fickle; running through personal relationships, wanting to clear the ground for fresh conquests and excitements. Beside this discovery, Veronica’s failure to understand the impossibility of marrying Benjamin was trivial.

“I’ve never met a man so transparently good,” Veronica was saying, “and so beautiful.”

Her words brought a faint improbable hope, nudging Dorothy out of dejection. As she pondered a future which did not hold any place for her, she found a reply forming in her mind, and she let the words fall hurriedly, without pausing to think about what she was saying: “If you feel like that, why don’t you marry him yourself?”

“I would! In an instant!” exclaimed Veronica. “I’d adore to have children with him. Just think what beautiful children we’d make.”

“Beautiful,” Dorothy repeated. “Yes, they would be beautiful,” and she looked, excited and cut to the quick, at this image from which she was shut out. Veronica, Benjamin, and their children: a family. They gazed back at her with dark inscrutable eyes, lovely and secure.

She said a hasty farewell to Veronica, freshly seen and irrevocably lost. Who would have thought that Veronica, of all people, might rescue Benjamin? Their good-bye was unlike all those that had gone before: it was matter of fact, almost perfunctory. Veronica was too preoccupied to reach out to her for their usual loving and protracted parting.

*   *   *

THE CAFÉ WAS
hot, noisy, and crowded. Dorothy felt overwhelmed by the fug of tobacco fumes and frying meat, the clamor of voices, the clatter of cutlery and dishes being set down on marble-topped tables. They found an empty table at the back, near the kitchen, and she sank onto the red velvet sofa seat gratefully.

Benjamin had difficulty summoning a waiter. Eventually, a tall stooped man in a stained white uniform ambled over.

“We must have service!” Benjamin bellowed, while Dorothy sat shrinking by his side. “Bring me two glasses of red wine at once! And please wipe the table, it is revolting!” He gestured, with the hand that bore the jeweled ring, to the blots of beer and cigarette stubs left by the previous clients.

Dorothy waited until their drinks had arrived before she asked Benjamin what he thought of Veronica.

“She laughs for no reason; it is most annoying.”

“She is still young.”

“That is no excuse. She is not ten years old. But let’s not talk about Veronica. Tell me, rather, what you are thinking. I can see a thought on your face now that is most troubled. It has wiped away your dimples, and brought a pale and worried countenance.”

“I was just thinking … oh, nothing, really.”

“Ah, you must tell me”

His solicitude made her want to confide in him. Glancing at him, she was touched by the concern in the steady dark eyes, as he sat waiting for her to speak.

She told him she was pregnant; the words falling numbly from her lips. She felt as though she was talking about another person entirely; one distantly known, but not particularly relevant to either of them.

For a few moments, he was silent; every fiber of him motionless, brooding on what she had said. His face was a blank mask. Through the hum of conversation and the bustle of meals being served, he began to question her, softly and doggedly. She told him everything about her and Bertie, sparing neither of them. She did not mention Veronica.

When she had finished, he fell back into silence. His usual pallor was heightened. Though his expression was composed, his hands shook as they rested on the table, and his mouth was a hard line. He would not look at her. She could not see his eyes.

What had she done? She wished she could cancel the blundering words. She had lost his good opinion, so dearly valued. She was beyond his help; she had only succeeded in shocking and alienating him.

“Let’s not talk about me anymore,” she said at last, desperate to break the awful silence. “What have you been doing?”

“After your news,” he said, trying to control the unsteadiness of his voice, “what is happening in my life is trivial.” He paused. “Oh Dorothy, now will you marry me? As a friend? Let’s do it quickly.” His voice broke on the last word. He took her hand, still not looking at her. “The child will have father and name.”

For a few moments, she could not speak; touched to the heart by his unexpected proposal. When words came, she thanked him from the depths of her being, and refused as gently as she could. “Dear Benjamin, if marriage to you was impossible before, it’s now doubly so.” He let go of her hand and turned to face her. The hurt and disappointment in his eyes gave her the usual pang.

As though in sympathy with the pain of her guilt, a sudden sharp spasm in her lower stomach took her breath away. It was like an iron claw, crushing tender organs and tissue in a vice. She curled over involuntarily, shutting her eyes; her hands clutching her belly.

“What is it? What’s the matter?”

She couldn’t answer. The contraction was beginning to ease; the sensation of being clenched in an inhuman grip was dwindling. Now, it felt like the baby was dancing in metal-capped boots; as though the tiny being, whose existence she wanted to blot out, insisted on making its presence known.

She straightened up and opened her eyes; her face was beaded with sweat. Benjamin was looking at her, pale and frightened. What had they been talking about?

“We must go now and find a doctor,” he said.

She shook her head, and drained the contents of her wineglass. “No, I’m fine. It has already passed.”

Sixteen

The long procession of women marched in orderly ranks, four abreast. They were festive with flags in the militant tricolor, purple, green, and white, and banners bearing various mottoes: “Votes for Women,” “Deeds, not words,” “Where There’s a Bill There’s a Way.” They sang “The Women’s Marseillaise”; their voices rising into the clear air.

March on, march on

Face to the dawn

The dawn of liberty.

Enormous crowds lined the pavements. Every class was present and every degree of opinion on the suffrage question, from sympathy through incomprehension to furious animosity. Some watchers were simply curious: there for the spectacle, but lacking interest in its purpose. Cheers and catcalls mingled with the suffragettes’ singing.

Dorothy, standing among the spectators, only had eyes for Veronica, who was walking near the front, dressed from head to toe in white. She looked enchanting; fully composed before her immense audience, marching lightly, gracefully down the sunlit streets, apparently unhampered by the enormous banner she carried. Dorothy’s eyes were suddenly cloudy with tears. Veronica seemed a fitting symbol for the entire army of women: serious yet exhilarated, demure yet radiating pride.

Dorothy tried to follow her, pushing her way through the thronging pavements. This was the first time Veronica had asked for her support in the campaign; she wondered, with a sudden pang of jealousy, why Veronica had wanted to keep this part of her life separate. Either she regarded Dorothy as unfitted for any kind of tough political cause, or (and this seemed likelier), there were people in the organization she wanted to keep to herself.

Ahead of her, the crowd was growing restive and unruly, and was being pushed back by the police. A group of young men in drab work-stained clothes, their foreheads bisected by flattened cloth caps in a way that accentuated their puniness, shouted at the suffragettes: “Go ’ome and do your washing!” One of them shook his fist and spat just in front of Dorothy’s shoes. “Go ’ome and mind the baby!”

“Hooray for the women!” cried a soldier, with enthusiasm. “Never give up! Votes for women, I say! Votes for women!” The youths cast angry glances in his direction and seemed to consider challenging him, but thought the better of it. Dorothy passed a man in a soft felt Homburg, who hissed: “Damn the suffragettes! Brazen unwomanly bitches!” A spray of saliva spouted from his lips; Dorothy felt flecks of it fall onto her wrist, and she drew back in disgust. She met the man’s gaze. “What the suffragettes need are husbands, but they’re too busy fucking each other,” he said distinctly. His eyes, peering mistrustfully at her through rimless pince-nez, were the color of liver sausage.

Dorothy hurried away from him without a word, her cheeks flaming and her heart pounding against her rib cage.

Near Westminster Abbey, the marchers found their route blocked by a row of police standing shoulder to shoulder, with mounted officers close behind. In their conical helmets and stiff black tunics, the policemen looked solid and menacing; they towered over the suffragettes. At a curt order from their chief, they began to break through the line of protesters, trying to turn them back. Bravely, the women ignored them and pressed on toward the Houses of Parliament, but the constables seized them around the ribs with both hands, lifted them clean into the air, and threw them back. The policemen’s faces were impassive; they were simply following orders. Suffragettes flung into the thick of the crowd had their fall broken by the wedge of bodies, but others were not so lucky, landing hard on the pavement. Again and again the women picked themselves up and returned, and each time they were hurled back with greater force. The banners were ripped from their hands, torn to pieces and trampled underfoot.