Lowndes

The Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes (1913)

A young man looking to rent some rooms shows up at the lodging house of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting. He is well-off but odd. Keeping mostly to himself, he has a habit of going for walks in the dead of night. Meanwhile, a serial killer who calls himself “The Avenger” stalks London. This killer hunts at night, attacking women, and avoiding capture by only minutes. The police are at a total loss.

The Lodger is a psychological thriller that looks at civic responsibility, the boundaries of gratitude, guilt, and the mental anguish of keeping a terrible secret. It asks the question, “How loyal should you be to a person who saves your life?” The Buntings are on the verge of destitution. They own a boarding house but have had no lodgers for some time. As the story begins, they have pawned almost everything they own. Winter is coming. They can barely keep a fire going to keep warm and are almost starving. When the lodger, Mr. Sleuth, shows up on their doorstep, it turns their lives completely around. They suddenly have income and hope again.

The story was inspired by the 1888 Jack the Ripper killings. Those real-life murders were traumatic for all who lived through them. They horrified the public and opened the eyes of many to the deplorable living conditions among the city’s poor. Twenty-five years later, when Lowndes needed a model for her killer, she used the most horrific example she could remember. They share many traits. Just like the Ripper, the Avenger brutally attacks women at night, and both have an uncanny ability to get away. Although it is not known for sure what the Ripper’s motives were, all his victims were prostitutes. The Avenger believes he is punishing evil women. Both (it’s believed) taunt police with handwritten notes and name themselves. The Ripper and Avenger both kill twice in one night. Finally, the public uproar from each spree finally leads to the resignation of the respective Chiefs of Police.

While The Lodger uses the crimes of a serial killer as a major plot driver, that is not what the book is about. Usually in crime novels, the main characters are the criminals and/or the police. The plot is a cat-and-mouse game between the two. This book is about two average people who are thrust into a major event through chance. The murders happen around them and indirectly affect them. They’re curious about the latest news but don’t want to get involved. They just want to live their lives. The reader spends most of the time with Mrs. Bunting. I saw how she developed over the course of the novel, how the stress of a terrible secret affected her actions and relationships.

Lowndes was a good character builder. I like the way she began the story by describing the Buntings and their situation. These are good, practical, sober people whose situation is desperate. Down to their last pennies, they have lost their warmth for each other. They are so destitute that they have turned inward in their misery, seeing their spouse as this other person that simply exists under the same roof. Then Mr. Sleuth’s arrival changes everything. They suddenly are affectionate and hopeful for the future. For the entire first chapter, they almost never speak to each other. In the second, they touch and have conversations. In my opinion, these two chapters are a top-notch example of establishing character motivations. These chapters are so well-written that the Buntings’ dilemma becomes understandable. The first chapter is also so descriptive of poverty and what it does to a person, I wonder if Lowndes wrote from experience.

Lowndes was also a good storyteller. The point-of-view switches several times as the plot develops. In the beginning, we hear the thoughts of both Buntings. After the lodger arrives and for most of the book, we only hear from the wife. Mrs. Bunting is the only one in the story with direct interaction with Mr. Sleuth. The change in point-of-view corresponds with her finding out the secret. I think this change in focus is a neat way of symbolizing the change in the relationship between the couple. At the beginning, their situation was equal. Both were starving and desperate, then both were happy. The secret changes things. No one knows what she knows. She suddenly closes off to everyone around her, and the reader’s inability to hear the husband’s thoughts reflects and enhances that separation. Still later, the focus shifts again when Mr. Bunting discovers the secret. Their status is equal again. He contributes to the plot again, and the reader can hear the thoughts of both again. Finally, when another character realizes the secret is out, we suddenly hear his thoughts too. I thought it was a neat way of building drama in a slow-moving plot.

The Lodger is a slow burn but it’s not boring. The tension is in its moral conflict. The heart of the story is revealed when Mrs. Bunting wrestles with her conscience. (Literally, too — in my edition, it’s almost in the exact middle of the book.) She and her husband have come into some luck and it would be “wrong, very wrong, of her to forget that.” Losing this opportunity “would almost certainly mean ruin”, while keeping it “meant all sorts of good things” including “respectability, and above all, security.” To me, it sounds like she is trying to convince herself that her decision is the right one. Ultimately, The Lodger asks, “What would you do?”