The Paying Guests

Frances goes to Lilian to help fix her hair the next day. Their relationship is strained, and Frances feels she has ruined their friendship. Everyone she encounters now admires her hair, except Lilian. The two speak less and less. Lilian and Leonard’s relationship appears to be stronger than ever. Frances is distraught and feels hopeless and futile. Frances gets her period, which makes her feel oddly better. After staying in bed for a day, she emerges with new vigor: she makes new social engagements and begins to study Esperanto. She agrees to spend an evening with her mother’s friend, Mrs. Playfair.

Mrs. Playfair invites Mr. Crowther to dinner with them. He served in the same battalion as her son in the war. Dinner is pleasant, even though Mrs. Playfair goes on about her dead son’s heroics. They listen to a Shakespeare play on a wireless set, which impresses Frances.

When she is alone with Mr. Crowther, Frances apologizes for Mrs. Playfair’s rehashing of the war. Mr. Crowther faintly misses the days of the war: it gave his life a greater sense of purpose. Frances is struck by the dispassion of his bearing. She misses the war, too, but she reminds him that the great calamity should remind one of the importance of the small things in life. Frances and Mr. Crowther realize that the evening was intended to introduce the two of them. This sours the evening. Frances begins to feel dejection. She fakes a headache in order to go home early.

At home, Mrs. Wray asks about her conversation with Mr. Crowther. Frances rebuffs her and goes off to bed. On the landing, she runs into Leonard, who is eager to boast of a promotion at work. He pressures her into coming into his chambers for a nightcap, forcing an awkward reunion between her and Lilian.

Leonard is in a drunk, merry mood, boasting about his promotion, not sensing the awkwardness. He leaves to make them drinks, taking the life of the room with him. Frances makes small talk. Leonard returns with drinks. He makes fun of Lilian, using a sailor doll as a pretext. Frances feels trapped in the situation.

Lilian teases Leonard about having had his nails done for work, saying it must have been a pretty girl that did them. Leonard fires back that it was a pretty man, with a lisp. Frances grows more and more uncomfortable. She is also growing more and more tipsy. Leonard takes every opportunity to make jabs at Lilian. Leonard accidently calls her Frances, and then insists that they call each other by their first names. This undoes some of the specialness of Frances and Lilian’s friendship. The Barbers scuffle playfully, and Frances thinks it is a show put on for her.

After another drink, Leonard offers Frances an oriental cigarette. He claims to be all for women’s rights, including their right to smoke cigarettes—despite what Lilian says. Lilian looks on disapprovingly. He refuses to give Lilian one until she takes it by force. The three smoke in silence. Frances realizes she is drunk. Leonard goes to refill their drinks again. When he returns, he suggests playing Snakes and Ladders, a game Lilian likes.

Leonard sets up the game, but Lilian does not want to play. Leonard says she is a bad sport who cheats. Lilian protests and joins them. Lilian explains the extra rules they added to the game. When Frances asks what the heart spaces mean, the Barbers fight in earnest. If anyone lands on the heart-shaped spaces, Lilian must remove an article of clothing.

Frances is drunk enough to find this an interesting prospect. They begin the game. The extra spaces represent challenges such as singing or charades. Leonard lands on a heart. Lilian removes a bangle, and Leonard accuses her of cheating. Later, he cheats to land on another heart, and forces her to pick an article of clothing to strip off. After deliberation, she takes a stocking off. Frances cannot look away.

The game continues. Frances lands on a heart. Frances and Lilian object and Frances wants to go to bed. Lilian feels ganged up on. Frances starts to panic, wondering what she is doing there. She manages to extricate herself, realizing that she has been cruel to Lilian. Leonard is suddenly repulsive to Frances.

Frances feels that the hours have been wasted on Leonard, siding against Lilian. Lilian and Frances apologize to each other. Frances returns to her room, drunk and full of regrets about the night. 

The next day, Frances is surprisingly clear-headed, but this gives way to a hangover. The night gradually returns to her. She “remembered leering like a drunken soldier while Lilian stood on a cushion to do a wobbly strip-tease” (136). She is filled with shame. After a terse conversation with her mother, she decides to go back to bed, wondering why Leonard had been so eager to get her so drunk.

Later that afternoon, Lilian taps on her door. Frances invites her in, and they sit together. Lilian apologizes for her and Leonard’s behavior; both of them feel ashamed. The two smoke cigarettes. Seeing Lilian smoke makes Frances feel “disbelief, embarrassment, and something else, a queasy remnant of the excitement of the night before” (141).

Frances inquires again about the state of their marriage. Exasperated, Lilian says that they were expecting a baby. This was the reason for their rushed marriage, but the baby died when it was born. Leonard’s family treated Lilian badly; they blamed her for the child’s death. She does not know if they should try again for another child, but Leonard wants to. Lilian apologizes for being cold toward Frances after Frances told Lilian her secret.

Lilian asks Frances to tell her about her affair. Frances met her first girlfriend in Hyde Park before the draft began in the war. The girl, whom Frances slowly reveals as Christina, was handing out pamphlets at an anti-conscription rally. They quickly fell for each other and soon began planning to move out together; this caused many quarrels between Frances and her parents. Mrs. Wray found a letter Frances wrote to Christina which revealed her secret. Frances remembers “her father’s stillness, his silence, the cold distaste in his expression, worse, infinitely worse and more shaming, than twenty years of bluster” (145). Frances jokes that people treated her like a vampire and metaphorically staked her heart.

Noel died soon after, and the family began to fall apart. Frances gave up Christina in order to help take care of her mother. She regards it as another wartime sacrifice. Christina moved out and met Stevie; Frances cannot help but feel sour about it. Mrs. Wray does not know that Frances and Christina still see each other, as friends.

Lilian thanks Frances for opening up to her. Before she leaves, she turns and pulls an imaginary stake from Frances’s heart. Frances is stunned. Frances feels “a stir of heat, a glow of blood—something, anyhow, that had been brought to the surface by Lilian’s hand” (148).

When Leonard returns, he gives Frances chocolates for an apology. Frances says he should apologize to Lilian. Leonard is embarrassed by his behavior and does not want it to mar their friendship. Watching him in the garden, Frances realizes that he is as unhappy as any of them. Lilian joins her husband as he attempts to fix the lawnmower. Frances is sure that part of Lilian is thinking of her.

Lilian alters Frances’s sage green dress for Netta’s party. Frances is shocked that she is still invited. Frances and Lilian grow awkward with each other in the coming days; yet they seem to always be drawn together. The party begins to take on great importance for Frances, though she is causal about it and even jokes with Christina. Leonard is incredulous that she would even want to go; he does not like Lilian’s family.

The day of the party arrives. Lilian redoes Frances’s hair. She feels awkward in her green dress. Lilian and Leonard compliment Frances’s new look. Leonard, who is going to an assessor’s club dinner, is more stylish than Frances has ever seen him. Leonard is disapproving of his wife going to a party without him; he does not trust Lilian’s Irish cousins. Mrs. Wray makes a great fuss over Frances; she is again pleased that Frances has made herself up.

On the train, a man stares pointedly at Lilian. Frances is annoyed, but also jealous that he gets to look at her. When they are almost at Netta’s house, Frances nearly loses her nerve. She wonders why she is there.

Lilian’s family is lower class; it is much different than Champion Hill. The family seems in awe of Frances. She has the bad feeling that Lilian just brought her to show her off. It is strange to see Lilian at home among strangers. She thinks, “These people all have their claim on her. What’s mine, exactly?” (160). Lilian asks if Frances is all right, and the awkwardness of the past few days falls away.

Ewart, a driver who works for the family business sits by Frances and strikes up conversation. The two discuss going to Henley and rowboats. He is “the type of man who twenty or even ten years before, would never have dreamed of sitting down and chatting so freely with a woman of Frances’s class” (161).

The evening begins to wind down. She goes to the water closet and Ewart watches her drink. She nearly forgets about him. Lilian is dancing; Ewart asks Frances to dance, but they sit down together instead. Frances watches Lilian dance with her cousin. Lilian looks at Frances all the while, laughing; Frances feels the laughter is for her. Ewart tells Frances that he thinks Lilian and Frances are up to something.

Ewart begins to make advances toward Frances. He invites her on a trip to Henley. Something about Ewart is tempting to Frances; she almost has the urge to kiss him. Lilian pressures Frances to dance with her. Their dance is tense and awkward.

Lilian tells Frances that Ewart has taken a shine to her; Frances says, “‘He’s only taken a shine to me because I’ve taken a shine to you. It’s your shine, Lilian’” (167). After a pause, Lilian asks Frances to take her home.

After some struggle, Frances manages to convince Ewart and Vera that she and Lilian can go home unescorted. Ewart is hurt; he feels that Frances has led him on. The journey home is tense. Lilian does not look at Frances, nor does she speak. Frances’s excitement increases as they return home. Mrs. Wray opens the door just as Frances tries to unlock it. She says that Leonard has had an accident.

Leonard was jumped nearby the house. His nose is bleeding badly. Frances struggles to makes sense of the situation. Leonard claims not to know who assaulted him. He supposes it was an ex-serviceman; Mrs. Wray reminds them of the ex-serviceman who accosted Frances. Frances tends to Leonard’s nose. She has never seen him in such bad spirits. She realizes that Lilian is lost to her again, brought back to her husband. Leonard thanks Frances, then goes off to bed with his wife.

Unable to sleep, Frances cleans Leonard’s blood off the floor. When she returns from the garden, she finds Lilian in the kitchen. Lilian kisses Frances. The kiss starts chaste, then moves into an embrace and was “like nothing Frances had ever known” (178). She frantically persuades Lilian to go into the storeroom with her. Door locked, Frances and Lilian make love. Afterward, Lilian is in shock. Frances says, “‘I’m in love with you. I’ve fallen in love with you’” (180).