Frances Wray and her mother own a large house in Champion Hill, South London. In the wake of World War I and the loss of Frances’s brothers and father, the two women are obliged to rent rooms to Lilian and Leonard Barber, a young couple around Frances’s age. As the Barbers move in, their possessions in the yard cause a spectacle. Giving Lilian keys makes Frances feel “oddly redundant—as if she had become her own ghost” (12). Receiving the first two weeks of rent provides instant relief for Frances.

Frances and her mother agree to limit niceties toward the Barbers—including having tea with them—in order to avoid setting a precedent. However, the two women are uncertain about what is socially expected of their new position as landladies.

That night, Francis visits her mother’s room, the former dining room, which Frances remodeled into a bedroom. They discuss the Barbers. Though they are young, they have been married for three years, directly after the war. Mrs. Wray is ashamed of having to resort to being a landlady. Frances avoids the topic of her father, four years deceased. Thinking of him makes her want “to grind her teeth, or swear, or leap up and smash something” (19).