The Lodger by Louisa Treger

Author:Louisa Treger
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781466852655
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Eleven

Mrs. Baker’s piano smelt musty. The keys were loose and discolored by age, but they were miraculously in tune. The last movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata rang out into the stillness of the drawing room: urgent, stormy, and grand. The crash and vibration of the chords was satisfying; it released the pent-up emotions of the past few days and carried her out of herself. Dorothy hadn’t played since her school days; she was relieved to find her hands still remembered the notes. She resolved to spend more time at the piano.

Through the music, she heard the sound of the door being softly opened. She carried on as someone glided lightly into the room; one of the boarders, or perhaps Carrie, now hidden in a chair. When she came to the end of the piece, they would get to their feet and thank her and say how much they loved the piano.

It was with a sense of inevitability that she recognized Veronica sitting on the floor beside her, with her skirt draped gracefully over her feet and her chin cupped in her hands. Again, she seemed conscious of the impact her beauty made, and also, in clear daylight, presenting it as something to be evaluated, like a painting, impersonally, for its own sake.

The sonata faltered and came to a halt.

“I am interrupting you,” Veronica said, not sounding in the least bit sorry. With a rapid movement, she was on her feet, her face tilted toward the light streaming through the window, standing immobile as Dorothy looked at her.

“I used to be prettier, before Paul and I broke up.” Veronica paused, a little pleat appearing between her eyebrows. “I met him in Paris. It was a coup de foudre; I knew the moment I saw him. Have you ever felt that way? Like you belong to the other person? I gave myself to him, body and soul. But it was doomed from the start … he was engaged to someone else.”

Dorothy hesitated, unsure how to respond to this impossible confession that was also a demand for intimacy. She resented the demand, placed so prematurely on their friendship, while admiring the courage it must have taken to make it.

Veronica said “It wrecks the quality of the skin. It is never again quite as clear and fresh.”

There was another pause.

Veronica said at last, “Does it change your opinion of me? Are you shocked?”

“No,” Dorothy said slowly. “Not in the slightest.”

The story of Veronica’s love affair was perhaps not so different from hers with Bertie. If only Veronica knew. Dorothy fought back a desire to reveal everything.

“Are you sure?” Veronica queried. “You must be a bit shocked. The other women in the house would be. They are virtuous; it builds a brick wall between us. One can’t say these things to an Englishwoman.”

“You’ve said them to me.”

A swift secret amusement shone from Veronica’s face, making her lips quiver. Her expression became inward-turning, as if some private hope or suspicion was being proven.

“Yes, you are English,” she remarked thoughtfully, “yet you are un-English as well.

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