----------------------------------------
As the uncertain knock reverberated through the house, Ellen Bernard’s heart leapt into her throat. She rose, a specter in the darkness, her steps slow and deliberate. The thin line of light under the door mocked her with its warmth, a barrier between her and the dread that the sound inspired. This was not the confident tap of a potential lodger, but the hesitant clamor of despair—a sound she had come to associate with the destitute and desperate, the human detritus that ebbed and flowed through the city’s veins.
Her previous encounters with these nocturnal souls had left her wary. The gaslight in the passage had been extinguished to ward off such creatures of the night. Yet here was the knock again, a harbinger of something, though she knew not what.
Opening the door to the living room, she saw Bernard absorbed in his paper, a fortress of ignorance against the reality outside their walls. His only acknowledgment of the disturbance was a distracted murmur, “Didn’t you hear a knock?”
Without a word, Ellen moved into the hall. Her fingers were slow and deliberate as they turned the knob, bracing for the unknown.
There, silhouetted against the backdrop of night, stood a man. His figure was drawn long by the shadows, an Inverness cape draped over his shoulders, and an anachronistic top hat perched upon his head. He blinked against the sudden onslaught of light, his eyes adjusting to the starkness of the gaslight.
Ellen’s instincts, honed by years of service to the gentry, whispered of this man’s pedigree. Despite his peculiar appearance, he bore the unmistakable air of a gentleman.
“Is it not a fact that you let lodgings?” His voice carried a strange timbre, a note of imbalance, of hesitation that clung to the air.
“Yes, sir,” Ellen replied, the weight of months without a suitable inquiry pressing heavily upon her words.
He moved past her, his presence filling the hall. Ellen noticed the leather bag clutched in his hand—a new, sturdy piece, incongruous with his faded attire.
“I am looking for some quiet rooms,” he stated, his voice trailing off as if he were speaking more to himself than to her. His eyes darted nervously about, taking in the furnishings that spoke of a life they were desperately clinging to.
The hall, with its neat umbrella stand and the soft drugget underfoot, seemed to satisfy him. His gaze lifted from the red richness of the floor to the walls, and a shadow of ease crossed his sallow face.
“You’d find my rooms quite quiet, sir,” Ellen assured him, her tone even and composed. “Currently, the house is empty, save for my husband and me, sir.”
Her voice was devoid of emotion, betraying none of the cautious hope that flickered within her. This stranger, with his courteous demeanor and echoes of a world she once knew, appeared almost too fortuitous. A potential lodger at their doorstep was a stroke of luck that seemed to defy the grim dance they had been leading—a dance choreographed by poverty and shadowed by the Rose Killer’s macabre waltz through London.
The man in the Inverness cape spoke with a deliberation that seemed to hang in the air, thick with contemplation. “That sounds very suitable,” he mused. “Four rooms? Well, perhaps two would suffice, but I am keen to see all four before deciding.”
Ellen’s heart skipped at the thought of such fortune. If not for the bright beacon of the gaslight, this enigmatic gentleman might have vanished into the foggy night, another opportunity dissipated like mist.
She led the way towards the stairs, her mind a whirlwind of hope and anxiety, so much so that she left the front door ajar—a careless mistake in London’s heart. It was the stranger, “the lodger” as she had prematurely anointed him in her thoughts, who briskly secured the door behind them.
“Thank you, sir,” she stammered, chastened by his quick action. “I’m terribly sorry for the oversight.”
Their eyes locked for a fleeting moment. “Leaving a door open in London is an invitation to trouble,” he chided, a sharp edge cutting through his otherwise composed demeanor. “I trust this isn’t a common occurrence.”
Ellen felt a flush of irritation at his implication. “I assure you, sir, it isn’t,” she responded, her voice a mixture of defensiveness and reassurance.
Suddenly, the silence was punctuated by Bernard’s cough—a small, dry sound that sent the stranger into a state of alarm. “What was that?” he demanded, gripping her arm with surprising strength.
“Just my husband, sir,” Ellen replied, her voice soothing. “The chill from stepping out earlier must have caught him.”
“Your husband?” The stranger’s gaze bore into her, a hint of suspicion weaving through his words. “And what does your husband do?”
Ellen bristled at the intrusion but masked her displeasure with a veneer of professionalism. “He’s a server, sir, previously in service to gentlemen. He could also assist as a valet, should you require it.”
With that, she ushered him up the narrow staircase to the drawing-room floor—a sitting room in the front and a bedroom lying in wait behind. Fumbling with the chandelier, she breathed life into the gas flames, illuminating the interior.
The room was a testament to a bygone era of modest opulence, the moss-green carpet underfoot, the stately chiffonnier, the table ringed by four chairs—all suffused with the quiet dignity of the past. The walls boasted a gallery of Victorian belles, their gazes eternally demure from within their frames. To Ellen, these engravings lent the space an air of grace, a whisper of the refinement they so desperately needed to project.
But the room’s splendor was marred by one glaring absence—the lack of white curtains at the windows, a deficiency that pricked at Ellen’s pride. She resolved silently that should this gentleman decide to stay, the windows would not remain bare for long.
The stranger, however, seemed unimpressed by the room’s charms. “This is rather too... ornate for my taste,” he remarked, his voice betraying a hint of discomfort. “May I see the other rooms, Mrs.—?”
“Bernard,” she supplied gently, her heart sinking a touch with his hesitance, yet still fluttering with the potential promise he represented. “Mrs. Bernard, sir.”
With each word she uttered, Ellen felt the oppressive weight of despair settle back onto her shoulders, a familiar burden that seemed always poised to crush her. She dared to hope, yet the gnawing fear that this gentleman might be too poor to afford more than a single room—a meager eight or ten shillings a week—clouded her mind. Such a pittance would barely serve as a bandage over the gaping wound of their financial plight.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“Would you care to see the bedroom, sir?” she ventured, her voice tinged with a note of desperation.
“No,” he replied, his voice distant as his gaze roamed the room. “I am more interested in the upper rooms, Mrs.—” He seemed to struggle for a moment before he could produce her name, as if it were an incantation he could barely remember, “Bernard.”
The climb to the top floor revealed rooms that wore their poverty openly; they were spartan spaces, unadorned and functional, their main features a sink and an outdated gas stove—a relic from the house’s previous tenants. The furniture was clean and sturdy, as was everything touched by Ellen’s diligent hands, but the room lacked warmth, a starkness that now filled her with regret.
However, to her astonishment, the gentleman’s face lit up with an eager glow. “Capital! Capital!” he exclaimed, setting his bag down for the first time. His hands rubbed together with a nervous energy as he paced towards the gas stove.
“This is precisely what I’ve been seeking,” he declared, his eyes alight with a strange fervor. “You see, Mrs.—ah, Bernard, I am a man of science. My work, my experiments, they often necessitate—ah, the presence of great heat.”
His shaky hand reached out, caressing the edge of the stone sink as though it were a precious artifact. The man seemed to wilt then, sinking into a chair with the exhaustion of one who had borne the world on his shoulders. “I’m weary,” he confessed in a hushed tone. “London offers no rest for the tired, no benches for the weary soul. There is a kindness in the streets of the Continent that England lacks.”
“Indeed, sir,” Ellen responded, her civility masking her anxiety. She hesitated, then asked the question upon which her entire world now seemed to hinge, “So, you’ll be taking the rooms, sir?”
“This room, without a doubt,” he affirmed, his gaze sweeping the space. “It is everything I’ve searched for, everything I’ve desired these past days,” he rushed to clarify, “in terms of accommodation, I mean. Mrs. Bernard, you wouldn’t believe how challenging it is to find a place like this. But at last, my search has ended, and that, I must tell you, is a profound relief to me—a very, very great relief indeed.”
The man, now identified as Mr. Basset, rose to his feet, his gaze sweeping the room in a distant, detached manner. There was a dreamlike quality to his movements until, suddenly, his tranquility shattered.
“Where’s my bag?” he demanded, his voice spiked with a sharp, angry fear that cut through the stale air. His eyes, wild and accusing, fixed upon Ellen, and for an instant, a cold finger of dread trailed down her spine. Bernard’s distant presence in the house, so far from this unsettling moment, felt like an absence of security.
Yet, Ellen knew that the eccentric are often those touched by genius, and geniuses, like the scholar before her, are cut from a different cloth. “Surely I had a bag when I came in?” Mr. Basset's voice trembled, a portrait of troubled anxiety.
“Here it is, sir,” she said, her voice a calming balm as she lifted the surprisingly light bag and returned it to his clutch. As he took it, his relief was palpable, his muttered apologies intermingled with explanations of the bag’s precious, perilous contents.
The matter of payment brought a hush between them before he offered, with an odd, sidelong glance, to pay a month in advance, forsaking references for quick settlement. Ellen’s heart surged with a mixture of joy and sheer relief, the prospect of sustenance suddenly within grasp.
“And your charge?” Mr. Basset's voice was now colored with a hint of warmth, an almost friendly inquiry. Ellen’s response, tentative at first, grew firmer as she outlined the terms—twenty-five shillings a week, with the promise of attentive service and careful cooking, Bernard’s valeting skills notwithstanding.
Mr. Basset cut her off sharply, dispelling any notion of personal service. His independence was clear, his aversion to shared lodgings even clearer. Ellen, sensing an opportunity, extended the offer of both floors for private use, emphasizing the suitability of the top floor for his scientific endeavors and the drawing room for his meals.
The negotiation teetered on a fine edge until Mr. Basset proposed an increased sum—two pounds, or two guineas—to secure exclusivity. The assurance of such a sum and the simplicity of serving only him brought a quiet acquiescence from Ellen.
But then came the matter of privacy, of security. “I suppose you have a key to this room?” Mr. Basset's inquiry held an urgency that brooked no delay. It wasn’t merely a request; it was a stipulation, the importance of which was etched on his intense, earnest expression.
“Yes, sir, we have a key,” Ellen confirmed, sensing the weight of his demand.
He repeated the question, pressing for confirmation, “A key to this door, Mrs. Bernard?” The emphasis on the key was a clear sign; whatever secrets Mr. Basset intended to keep within these walls, they were to remain his and his alone.
Ellen reassured the peculiar Mr. Basset with a firm nod. “Oh, yes, sir, there’s a key. A very clever little key.” She moved towards the door, revealing the modern disk lock that had replaced the old mechanism. “The previous tenants had a particular taste for security.”
Mr. Basset observed silently before breaking into his calculations. “Forty-two shillings a week, then? Yes, that is most agreeable.” A rare smile, twisted and enigmatic, played across his lips as he reached into the depths of his cape. “By my count, four weeks will be eight pounds, eight shillings.”
He laid out the gold sovereigns in a neat row upon the weathered tabletop, counting out more than the required amount. “Ten pounds should cover the initial expenses,” he said, dismissing his ‘misfortune’ of lost luggage with an odd nonchalance that seemed to hover between confession and careless remark.
Ellen’s heart hammered against her ribs, a tumultuous symphony of relief and elation. The gold in her hand was a lifeline, a promise of sustenance and survival.
“Your misfortune is grievous indeed, sir,” she replied, her voice a cocktail of sympathy and burgeoning affection for the man who had unwittingly become her savior.
“Yes, a grievous loss indeed,” he echoed, his voice trailing off into a murmur of regret. But then, catching himself, he spoke louder, his gratitude washing over her in a wave of sincerity. “But you have welcomed me, Mrs. Bernard, and for that, I am ever grateful.”
The warmth in Ellen’s chest bloomed like a fire in a hearth. “I believe I can recognize a gentleman,” she said, her voice uncharacteristically wavering.
Mr. Basset's eyes, imploring and earnest, hinted at his next need—a change of clothes. Ellen offered the simple comforts of their home for supper, but his request was modest to a fault—a mere cup of milk and bread-and-butter would suffice.
Tentatively, she suggested the sausage she had procured for Bernard’s meal, but Mr. Basset declined with a peculiar intensity. “I’ve long abstained from flesh,” he explained, and Ellen noted the vehemence with which he held to his convictions.
At her inquiry about alcohol, a storm seemed to gather in his pale eyes, a tempestuous energy that sent a shiver across the room. “I had hoped you too would be abstainers,” he said, his voice a thin veil over brewing anger.
“We are, sir, lifelong,” Ellen assured him, feeling a surge of pride for the pledge she had coaxed Bernard into long ago. In that moment, she was grateful for his sobriety, for it had been the anchor that kept them from being swept too far into despair during the roughest seas of their lives.
Descending the staircase with the soft tread of a cat, Ellen led Mr. Basset to the bedroom adjacent to the drawing-room. It was a mirror of her own chamber below, yet everything here held the sheen of a slightly higher expense, a touch more refinement in its appointments.
The weary traveler surveyed the room with an air of revelation, a profound sense of relief washing over his haggard features. “A haven of rest,” he whispered to himself, the words trailing off into the quiet of the room. Then, turning to Ellen with a spark of something like joy, he recited, “‘He bringeth them to their desired haven.’ Beautiful words, Mrs. Bernard.”
“Yes, sir,” Ellen replied, a thread of surprise weaving through her voice. It was an age since the scriptures had been spoken in these walls, and his reverence for the verse seemed to sanctify his presence within her home.
To Ellen, the prospect of accommodating a single lodger, and a gentleman at that, was a stroke of fortune. She’d weathered the storm of disreputable pairs before, their previous lodgings a revolving door for the most peculiar and unsavory of married couples—those who tread water on the brink of respectability, buoyed by deception and petty trickery.
“I shall fetch you some hot water and fresh towels momentarily, sir,” she declared, already reaching for the door.
But the lodger pivoted sharply, his voice quivering with a hint of urgency. “Mrs. Bernard,” he stammered, “I—I must ask you not to overextend your notion of attendance. I’ve grown quite accustomed to fending for myself.”
The rebuff, though softly spoken, landed heavily upon Ellen, leaving her feeling unexpectedly cast aside, her hospitality rebuked. “Very well, sir,” she responded, masking the sting of rejection with professionalism. “I’ll simply inform you when supper is served.”
“Thank you,” he murmured, a shadow crossing his face as he turned back to the room. “You are most kind.”