The Prize Lodger by George Gissing of Stories of Troubled Marriages

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section six of Stories of Troubled Marriages. This is a
LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
Recording by Betty b. Stories of Troubled Marriages, Section six.

(00:23):
The Prize Lodger by George Gissing, Human Odds and Ends,
Stories and Sketches, London, Lawrence and Bullen, Limited, eighteen ninety eight.
The ordinary West End Londoner, who is the citizen of
no city at all, but dwells amid a mere conglomerate
of houses at a certain distance from Charing Cross, has

(00:46):
known a fleeting surprise when, by rare chance, his eye
fell upon the name of some such newspaper as the
Battersea Times, the Camberwell Mercury, or the Islington Gazette. To him,
these and the like districts are nothing more than compass
points of the huge metropolis. He may be, in practice

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acquainted with them, if historically inclined, he may think of
them as old time villages swallowed up by insatiable London.
But he has never grasped the fact that in Battersea,
camber Well, Islington there are people living who name these
places as their home, who are born, subsist, and die there,

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as though in a distinct town, and practically without consciousness
of its obliteration in the map of a world capital.
The stable element of this population consists of more or
less old fashioned people round about them in the ceaseless
coming and going, of nomads who keep abreast with the time,

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who take their lodgings by the week, their houses by
the month, who camp indifferently in regions old and new,
learning their geography in train and tramcar. Abiding parishioners who
want to be either very poor or established in a
moderate prosperity. They lack enterprise, either for good or ill.

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If comfortably off, they owe it as a rule to
some predecessor's exertion, and for the most part, though little
enough endowed with the civic spirit, they abundantly pride themselves
on their local permanence. Representative of this class was mister
Archibald Jordan, a native of Islington, and at the age

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of five and forty, still faithful to the streets which
he had trodden as a child. His father started a
small grocery business in Upper Street. Archibald succeeded to the shop,
advanced soberly, and at length admitted a partner, by whose
capital and energy the business was much increased. After his
thirtieth year, mister Jordan ceased to stand behind the counter

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of no very action, active disposition, and but moderately set
on gain. He found it pleasant to spend a few
hours daily over the books and the correspondents, and for
the rest of his time to enjoy a gossipy leisure,
straying among the acquaintances of a lifetime, or making new
in the decorous bar parlors, billiard rooms, and other such

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retreats which allured his bachelor liberty. His dress and bearing
were unpretentious, but impressively respectable. He never allowed his garments,
made by an Islington taylor, an old schoolfellow, to exhibit
the least sign of wear, but fashion affected their style
as little as possible. Of middle height and tending to portliness,

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he walked at an unvarying pace, as a man who
had never known undignified hurry. In his familiar thoroughfares. He
glanced about him with a good humored air of proprietorship,
or with a look of thoughtful criticism. For any changes
that might be going forward. No one had ever spoken

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flatteringly of his visage. He knew himself a very homely
featured man, and accepted the fact as something that had
neither favored nor hindered him in life. But it was
his conviction that no man's eye had a greater power
of solemn and overwhelming rebuke, and this gift he took
a pleasure in exercising, however trivial the occasion. For five

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and twenty years he had lived in lodgings, always within
the narrow range of Islington respectability, yet never for more
than a twelve month under the same roof. This peculiar
feature of mister Jordan's life had made him a subject
of continual interest to local landladies, among whom were several

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lifelong residents on friendly terms of old time with the
Jordan family. To them, it seemed an astonishing thing that
a man in such circumstance had not yet married. Granting
this eccentricity, they could not imagine what made him change
his abode so often. Not a landlady in Islington but

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would welcome mister Jordan in her rooms, and having got
him to her utmost to prolong the connection. He had
been known to quit a house on the paltriest excuse,
removing to another in which he could not expect equally
good treatment. There was no accounting for it. It must
be taken as an ultimate mystery of life, and made

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the most of as a perennial topic of neighborly conversation.
As to the desirability of having mister Jordan for a lodger,
there could be no difference of opinion among rational womankind.
Missus Wiggins indeed, had taken his sudden departure from her
house so ill that she always spoke of him abusively.

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But who heeded Missus Wiggins, even in the sadness of hope,
deferred those ladies who had entertained him once and speculated
on his possible return, declared mister Jordan a thorough gentleman.
Lodgers as a class do not recommend themselves in Islington.
Mister Jordan shone against the dusky background with almost dazzling splendor.

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To speak of lodgers as of cattle, he was a
prize creature a certain degree of comfort. He firmly exacted.
He might be a trifle fastidious about cooking. He stood
upon his dignity, but no one could say that he
grudged reward for service rendered. It was his practice to
pay more than the landlady asked twenty five shillings a week.

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You say, I shall give you twenty eight. But and
with raised forefinger, he went through the catalog of his demands.
Everything must be done precisely as he directed. Even in
the laying of his table. He insisted upon certain minute
p qutculiarities, and to forget one of them was to
earn that gaze of awful reprimand, which mister Jordan found

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or thought more efficacious than any spoken word. Against this
precision might be set his strange indulgence. In the matter
of bills, he merely regarded the total. Was never known
to dispute an item. Only twice in his long experience
had he quitted a lodging because of exorbitant charges, and

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on these occasions he sternly refused to discuss the matter.
Missus hawker, I am paying your account with the addition
of one week's rent. Your rooms will be vacant at
eleven o'clock tomorrow morning and until the hour of departure.
No entreaty. No prostration could induce him to utter a syllable.

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It was on the first of June eighteen eighty nine,
his forty fifth birthday, that mister Jordan removed from quarters
he had occupied for ten months once and became a
lodger in the house of Missus Elderfield. Missus Elderfield, a
widow aged three and thirty with one little girl, was
but a casual resident in Islington. She knew nothing of

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mister Jordan and made no inquiries about him. Strongly impressed,
as every woman must needs be, by his air and
tone of mild authority, she congratulated herself on the arrival
of such an inmate, but no subservience appeared in her demeanor.
She behaved with studious civility. Her words were few and

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well chosen, always neatly dressed, yet always busy. She moved
about the house with quick, silent step, and cleanliness marked
her path. The meals were well cooked, well served. Mister Jordan,
being her only lodger, she could devote to him an
undivided attention. At the end of his first week, the
critical gentleman felt greater satisfaction than he had ever known.

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The bill lay upon his table. At breakfast time, he
perused the items, and, much against his habit, reflected upon them.
Having breakfasted, he rang the bell Missus Elderfield. He paused
and looked gravely at the widow. She had a plain, honest,
healthy face, with resolute lips and an eye that brightened

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when she spoke. Her well knit figure, motionless in its
respectful attitude, declared a thoroughly sound condition of the nerves.
Missus Elderfield. Your bill is so very moderate that I
think you must have forgotten something. Have you looked it over? Sir?
I never trouble with the details. Please examine it. There

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is no need, sir. I never make a mistake, I said,
Missus Elderfield. Please examine it. She seemed to hesitate, but obeyed.
The bill is quite correct, sir. Thank you. He paid
it at once and said no more. The weeks went on.
To mister Jordan's surprise, his Landlady zeal And efficiency showed

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no diminution, a thing unprecedented in his long and varying experience.
After the first day or two, he had found nothing
to correct. Every smallest instruction was faithfully carried out. Moreover,
he knew for the first time in his life the
comfort of absolutely clean rooms. The best of his landladies

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hitherto had not risen above that conception of cleanliness which
is relative to London soot and fog. His palate to
was receiving an education. Probably he had never eaten of
a joint rightly cooked, or tasted a potato boiled as
it should be. More often than not, the food set

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before him had undergone a process which left it masticable, indeed,
but void of savor and nourishment. Many little attentions of
which he had never dreamed, kept him in a wondering cheerfulness,
And at length he said to himself, here I shall stay.
Not that his constant removals had been solely due to

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discomfort and a hope of better things. The secret, perhaps
not entirely revealed even to himself, lay in mister Jordan's
sense of his own importance and his uneasiness. Whenever he
felt that in the eyes of a landlady he was
becoming a mere everyday person, an ordinary lodger. No sooner

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did he detect a sign of this than he made
up his mind to move. It gave him the keenest
pleasure of which he was capable when, on abruptly announcing
his immediate departure, he perceived the landlady's profound mortification to
make the blow heavier. He had even resorted to artifice,

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seeming to express a most lively contentment during the very
days when he had decided to leave and was asking
himself where he should next. One of his delights was
to return to a house which he had quitted years ago,
to behold the excitement and bustle occasioned by his appearance,
and play the good natured autocrat over groveling dependence. In

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every case save the two already mentioned, he had parted
with his landlady on terms of friendliness, never vouchsafing a
reason for his going away, genially alluding every attempt to
obtain an explanation, and at the last abounding in graceful
recognition of all that had been done for him. Mister

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Jordan shrank from dispute, hated every sort of contention. This
characteristic gave a certain refinement to his otherwise commonplace existence.
Vulgar vanity would have displayed itself in precisely the acts
and words from which his self esteem nervously shrank, and
of late he had been thinking over the list of

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landladies with a half formed desire to settle down, to
make himself a permanent home. Doubtless as a result of
this state of mind, he betook himself to a strange house.
Where As from neutral ground he might reflect upon the
lodgings he knew and judge between their merits, he could

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not foresee what awaited him under Missus Elderfield's roof the
event impressed him as providential. He felt with singular emotion
that choice was taken out of his hands. Lodgings could
not be more than perfect, and such he had found.
It was not his habit to chat with landladies. At times,

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he held forth to them on some topic of interest,
suavely instructively. If he gave in to their ordinary talk,
it was with a half absent smile of condescension. Missus Elderfield,
seeming as little disposed to gossip as himself. A month
elapsed before before I knew anything of her history. But

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one evening the reserve on both sides was broken. His
landlady modestly inquired whether she was giving satisfaction, and mister
Jordan replied with altogether unwonted fervor. In the dialogue that ensued,
they exchanged personal confidences. The widow had lost her husband
four years ago. She came from the Midlands, but had

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long dwelt in London. Then fell from her lips a
casual remark which made the hearer uneasy. I don't think
I shall always stay here. The neighborhood is too crowded.
I should like to have a house somewhere further out.
Mister Jordan did not comment on this, but had kept
a place in his daily thoughts, and became at length

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so much of an anxiety that he invited a renewal
of the subject. You have no intention of moving just yet,
missus Elderfield. I was going to tell you, sir, replied
the landlady, with her respectful calm, that I have decided
to make a change. Next spring. Some friends of mine
have gone to live at wood Green, and I shall

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look for a house in the same neighborhood. Mister Jordan
was in private gravely disturbed. He who had flitted from
house to house for many years, distressing the souls of landladies,
now lamented the prospect of a forced removal. It was
open to him to accompany Missus Elderfield, but he shrank

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from the thought of living in so remote a district
wood Green. The very name appalled him, for he had
never been able to endure the country. He betook himself
one dreary autumn afternoon to that northern suburb, and what
he saw did not at all reassure him. On his
way back, he began once more to review the list

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of old lodgings. But from that day his conversations with
Missus Elderfield grew more frequent, more intimate. In the evening,
he occasionally made an excuse for knocking at her parlor
door and lingered for a talk, which ended only at
supper time. He spoke of his own affairs, and grew

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more ready to do so as his hearer manifested a
genuine interest without impertinent curiosity. Little by little he imparted
to Missus Elderfield a complete knowledge of his commercial history,
of his pecuniary standing, matters of which he had never
before spoken to a mere acquaintance. A change was coming

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over him. The foundations of habit crumbled beneath his feet.
He lost his look of complaisance, his self confident and
superior tone, bar parlors and billiard rooms saw him, but
rarely and flittingly. He seemed to have lost his pleasure
in the streets of Islington, and spent all his spare
time by the fireside, perpetually musing. On a day in March,

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one of his old ladies, Missus Higden, sped to the
house of another, Missus Evans, panting under a burden of
strange news. Could it be believed mister Jordan was going
to marry to marry that woman in whose house he
was living. Missus Higden had it on the very best authority,
that of mister Jordan's partner, who spoke of the affair

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without reserve. A new house had already been taken at
wood Green Well, after all these years, after so many
excellent opportunities to marry a mere stranger, and forsake Islington.
In a moment, mister Jordan's character was gone. Had he
figured in the police court under some disgraceful charge, these

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landladies could hardly have felt more shocked and professed themselves
more disgusted. The intelligence spread, women went out of their
way to have a sight of Missus Elderfield's house. They
hung about for a glimpse of that sinister person herself.
She had robbed them, every one of a possible share

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in Islington's prize lodger. Had it been one of themselves,
they could have borne the chagrin. But a woman whom
not one of them knew an alien what base arts
had she practiced? Ah, it was better not to inquire
too closely into the secrets of that lodging house. Though

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every effort was made to learn the time and place
of the ceremony, mister Jordan's landladies had the mortification to
hear of his wedding only when it was over. Of course,
this showed that he felt the disgracefulness of his behavior.
He was not utterly lost to shame. It could only
be hoped that he would not know the bitterness of repentance.

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Not till he found himself actually living in the house
at wood Green did mister Jordan realize how little his
own will had had to do with the recent course
of events. Certainly, he had made love to the widow
and had asked her to marry him, But from that
point onward he seemed to have put himself entirely in

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missus Elderfield's hands, granting every request, meeting half way every
suggestion she offered, becoming, in short, quite a different kind
of man from his former self. He had not been
sensible of a moment's reluctance. He enjoyed the novel sense
of yielding himself to affectionate guidance. His wits had gone

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wool gathering. They returned to him only after the short
honeymoon at Brighton, when he stood upon his own hearth
rug and looked round at the new furniture and ornaments
which symbolized a new beginning of life. The admirable Landlady
had shown herself energetic, clear headed, and full of resource.

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It was she who chose the house and transacted all
the business in connection with it. Mister Jordan had merely
run about it in her company, from place to place,
smiling approval and signing checks. No one could have gone
to work more prudently, or obtained what she wanted at
smaller outlay. For all that, mister Jordan, having recovered something

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like his normal frame of mind, viewed the results with consternation.
Left to himself, he would have taken a very small
house and furnished it much in the style of Islington
lodgings as it was. He occupied a ten roomed villa
with appointments which seemed to him luxurious aristocratic. True, the

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expenditure was of no moment to a man in his position,
and there was no fear that Missus Jordan would involve
him in dangerous extravagance. But he had always lived with
such excessive economy that the sudden change to a life
correspondent with his income could not but make him uncomfortable.

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Missus Jordan had, of course seen to it that her
personal appearance harmonized with the new surroundings. She dressed herself
and her young daughter with careful appropriateness. There was no display,
no purchase of gegauz, merely garments of good quality, such
as became people and easy circumstances. She impressed upon her

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husband that this was nothing more than a return to
the habits of her earlier life. Her first marriage had
been a sad mistake. It had brought her down in
the world. Now she felt restored to her natural position.
After a week of restlessness, mister Jordan resumed his daily
visits to the shop in Upper Street, where he sat

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as usual among the books and the correspondence, and tried
to assure himself that all would henceforth be well with him,
no more changing from house to house, a really comfortable
home in which to spend the rest of his days,
a kind and most capable wife to look after her
all his needs, to humor all his little habits. He

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could not have taken a wiser step, for all that
he had lost something, though he did not yet understand
what it was, the first perception of a change not
for the better, flashed upon him one evening in the
second week, when he came home an hour later than
his wont Missus Jordan, who always stood waiting for him

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at the window, had no smile as he entered. Why
are you late, she asked in her clear, restrained voice. Oh,
something or other kept me. This would not do. Missus
Jordan quietly insisted on a full explanation of the delay,
and it seemed to her unsatisfactory. I hope you won't

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be irregular in your habits, Archibald, said his wife, with
gentle admonition. What I always liked in you was your
methodical way of living. I shall be very uncomfortable if
I never know when to expect you yes, my dear,
but business you see, but you have explained that you
could have been back at the usual time. Yes, that's true,

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But well, well you won't let it happen again. Oh really, Archibald,
she suddenly exclaimed. The idea of you coming into the
room with muddy boots. Why look, there's a patch of
mud on the carpet. It was my hurry to speak
to you, murmured mister Jordan in confusion. Please go at
once and take your boots off. And you left your

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slippers in the bedroom this morning. You must always bring
them down and put them in the dining room cupboard.
Then they're ready for you when you come into the house.
Mister Jordan had but a moderate appetite for his dinner,
and he did not talk so pleasantly as usual. This
was but the beginning of trouble, such as he had
not for a moment foreseen his wife, having since their

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engagement taken on the upper hand, began to show her
determination to keep it, and day by day her rule
were more galling to the ex bachelor. He himself, in
the old days, had plagued his landladies by insisting upon
method and routine. By his fattish attention to domestic minutia.

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He now learned what it was to be subjected to
the same kind of despotism exercised with much more exasperating persistence.
Whereas Missus Elderfield had scrupulously obeyed every direction given by
her lodger, Missus Jordan was evidently resolved that her husband
should live, move, and have his being in the strictest

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accordance with their own ideal, not in any spirit of
nagging or ill tempered unreasonableness. It was merely that she
had her favorite way of doing every conceivable thing, and
felt so sure it was the best of all possible ways,
that she could not endure any other. The first serious
disagreement between them had reference to conduct at the breakfast

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table after a broken night. Feeling headachy and worried, mister
Jordan took up his newspaper, folded it conveniently, and set
it against the bread so that he could read while
eating without a word. His wife gently removed it and
laid it aside on a chair. What are you doing,

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he asked gruffly. You mustn't read at meals, Archibald. It's
bad manners and bad for your digestion. I've read the
news at breakfast all my life, and I shall do so, still,
exclaimed the husband, starting up and recovering his paper. Then
you will have breakfast by yourself, Nellie. We must go
into the other room till Papa has finished. Mister Jordan

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ate mechanically and stared at the newspaper with just as
little consciousness, Prompted by the underlying weakness of his character
to yield for the sake of peace. Wrath made him dogged,
and the more steadily he regarded his position, the more
was he the outlook. Why this meant downright slavery. He

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had married a woman so horribly like himself in several
points that his only hope lay in overcoming her by
sheer violence. A thoroughly good and well meaning woman, an
excellent housekeeper, the kind of wife to do him credit
and improve his social position, but self willed, pertinacious, and

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probably thinking herself his superior in every respect. He had
nothing to fear but subjection, the one thing he had
never anticipated, the one thing he could never endure. He
went off to business without seeing his wife again, and
passed a lamentable day at his ordinary hour of return. Instead,

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of setting off homeward, he strayed about the by streets
of Islington and Pentonville. Not till this moment had he
felt how dear they were to him. The familiar streets,
their very odors fell sweet upon his mind nostrils. Never
again could he go hither and thither among the old friends,
the old places, to his heart's content. What had possessed

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him to abandon this precious liberty? The thought of wood
Green revolted him. Lived there as long as he might.
He would never be at home. He thought of his wife,
now waiting for him with fear, and then, with a
reaction of rage, let her wait, he Archibald Jordan, before
whom women had bowed and trembled for five and twenty years,

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was he to come and go at a wife's bidding? And?
At length? The thought seemed so utterly preposterous that he
sped northward as fast as possible, determined to right himself.
This very evening, Missus Jordan sat alone. He marched into
the room with muddy boots, flung his hat and overcoat
into a chair, and poked the fire violently. His wife's

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eye was fixed on him, and she first spoke in
the quiet voice that he d what do you mean
by carrying on like this, Archibald, I shall carry on
as I like in my own house. Hear that I do.
Hear it, and I am very sorry too. It gives
me a very bad opinion of you. You will not
do as you like in your own house. Rage as

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you please. You will not do as you like in
your own house. There was a contemptuous anger in her
eye which the man could not face. He lost all
control of himself, uttered coarse oaths, and stood quivering. Then
the woman began to lecture him. She talked steadily, acrimoniously
for more than an hour, regardless of his interruptions. Nervously exhausted,

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he fled at length from the room. A couple of
hours later they met again in the nuptial chamber, and
again missus Jordan began to talk. Her point, as before,
was that he had begun married life about as badly
as possible. Why had he married her at all? What
fault had she committed to incur such outrageous usage? But

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thank goodness she had a will of her own and
a proper self respect. Behave as he might, she would
still persevere in the path of womanly duty. If he
thought to make her life unbearable, he would find his mistake.
She simply should not heed him. Perhaps he would return
to his senses before long. And in this vein, Missus

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Jordan continued until night was at oddsworth, mourning, only becoming
silent when her partner had sunk into the oblivion of
uttermost fatigue. The next day, mister Jordan's demeanor showed him,
for the moment at all events defeated. He made no
attempt to read. At breakfast, he moved about very quietly,

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and in the afternoon he came home at the regulation hour.
Missus Jordan had friends in the neighborhood, but she saw
little of them. She was not a woman of ordinary tastes.
Everything proved that, to her mind, the possession of a
nice house with the prospects of a comfortable life was
an end in itself. She had no desire to exhibit

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her well furnished rooms or to gad about talking of
her advantages. Every moment of her day was taken up
in the superintendence of servants, the discharge of an infinitude
of housewifely tasks. She had no assistance from her daughter.
The girl went to school and was encouraged to study
with the utmost application. The husband's presence in the house

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seemed a mere accident, save in the still nocturnal season,
when missus Jordan bestowed upon him her counsel and her admonition.
After the lapse of a few days, mister Jordan again
offered combat and threw himself into it with a frenzy.
Look here, he shouted at length. Either you or I

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are going to leave this house. I can't live with you, understand.
I hate the side of you. Go on, retorted the other.
With my bitterness. Abuse me as much as you like.
I can bear it. I shall continue to do my duty,
and unless you have recourse to personal violence here I remain.
If you go too far, of course, the law must

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defend me. This was precisely what mister Jordan knew and dreaded.
The law was on his wife's side, and by applying
at a police court for protection, she could overwhelm him
with shame and ridicule, which would make life intolerable. Impossible
to argue with this woman, say what he might, the
thought always seemed his His wife was simply doing her

(31:36):
duty in a spirit of admirable thoroughness, he, in the
eyes of a third person, would appear an unreasonable and
violent curmudgeon, had it not all sprung out of his
obstinacy with regard to reading at breakfast, how explained to
any one what he suffered in his nerves, in his pride,
in the outraged habitudes of a lifetime. That evening he

(32:01):
did not return to wood Green, afraid of questions if
he showed himself in the old resorts. He spent some
hours in a billiard room near King's Cross, and towards
midnight took a bed room under the same roof. On
going to business next day, he waited with tremors either
a telegram or a visit from his wife. But the

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whole day passed and he heard nothing. After dark, he
walked once more about the beloved streets, pausing now and
then to look up at the windows of this or
that well remembered house. Ah, if he durts but enter
and engage a lodging impossible for ever impossible. He slept

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in the same place as on the night before, and
again a day passed without any sort of inquiry from
wood Green. When evening came, he went home missus Jordan
behaved as though he had returned from business in the
usual way. Is it raining, she asked with a half smile,
and her husband replied in as matter of fact a

(33:03):
tone as he could command, No, it isn't. There was
no mention between them of his absence. That night. Missus
Jordan talked for an hour or two of his bad
habit of stepping on the paint when he went up
and down stairs, then fell calmly asleep. But mister Jordan
did not sleep for a long time. What was he,

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after all, to be allowed his liberty out of doors
provided he relinquished it within. Was it really the case
that his wife, satisfied with her house and furniture and income,
did not care a jount whether he stayed away or
came home There indeed gleamed a hope. When mister Jordan slept,

(33:44):
he dreamed that he was back again in lodgings at Islington,
tasting in extraordinary bliss. Day dissipated the vision, But still
Missus Jordan spoke not a word of his absence, and
with trembling still he hoped. End of section six, end
of Stories of Troubled Marriages by Ella Dorcy at all,