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).

Leonard’s presence makes Frances think of her dead brothers, Noel and John Arthur. She is momentarily wracked with sorrow. She meets him on the landing, again struck by the changes the young couple has wrought on the house. Something about Leonard is “vaguely unsettling” (21).

Back in her room that night, Frances undresses and rolls herself a cigarette. Surrounded by her possessions and decorations, she finally feels like herself. In the morning, she attempts to force herself to become accustomed to the sounds of the Barbers going about their morning routine.

Frances starts her morning, mentally calculating how to begin paying off the various debts she and her mother have accrued. By August or September, they will be making a profit off of the Bakers’ rent. Her chores are mostly mundane, except for cooking, at which she is grudgingly good.

Lilian walks in on Frances scrubbing the floors. The sight of “a well-bred woman doing the work of a char” causes Lilian to flush with embarrassment; Frances is used to this sort of reaction. Frances helps her across the wet floor; as she does so, Lilian’s kimono opens slightly, “exposing more of her nightdress, and giving an alarming suggestion of the rounded, mobile, unsupported flesh inside” (27). In the bathroom, they discuss the age and character of the house as Frances lights the pilot light.

In the hall, Frances reflects that the geyser for the bathtub is expensive and that she and her mother rarely lit it, instead taking at most one bath a week. The “unintimate proximity” of having lodgers is unsettling for her (29). She cannot help but picture Lilian in the bathtub.

Leonard returns from work that evening, and Frances is forced into small talk. Leonard is an assessor’s clerk. They speak for a while as Frances cooks, but he eventually gets the hint that she does not want to talk. 

Life begins to fall into a routine, occasionally upset by the movements of the Barbers. A neighbor asks about Frances’ “‘paying guests’ […] too polite to call them lodgers” (34).

Frances goes to town on Friday. Frances enjoys the anonymity of being in a big city; it invigorates her with an almost electric excitement—but only when she is alone. After lunch and a visit to Buckingham Palace, she calls on her friend Christina, whom she finds at work at a typewriter in her apartment. Christina lives in a complex that rents flats to working women. She has a roommate, Stevie, an art teacher. Christina is working for a small, political newspaper.

The two women share a currant cake Frances baked for Christina. Christina tells Frances about working for the newspaper, and Frances tells her about the Barbers. They listen to an organ grinder on the street below; Frances tosses him a sixpence coin.

Stevie returns home. Frances is “struck, as she always was, by the dash of her, her queer panache, the air she had of not caring if the world admired her or thought her an oddity” (43). The three discuss the hypocrisy of the clerk class. As Stevie explains her ceramics projects, Frances reminisces about when she first met Christina seven years ago.

At the station, a ragged soldier asks her for money and is angry when she refuses. Back home, she tells Mrs. Wray, who is sympathetic toward the homeless soldier. Frances is disgruntled. Mrs. Wray wonders whether they can now afford a servant again; Frances loses her patience.

Over dinner, they discuss the coming week. Mrs. Wray apologetically explains that she will have to skip their weekly trip to the cinema. Frances is irrationally disappointed; she cannot think of anyone else to invite.

Leonard returns early from a night out. Again, he corners Frances, making small talk loaded with slight innuendo. When she complains to her mother, Mrs. Wray says that she likes Mr. Barber and that Lilian is not her idea of a good wife. This nearly devolves into an argument until Frances notices how weary her mother looks.

Frances leaves for the kitchen but returns when she hears an alarmed cry from her mother. A mousetrap has caught a mouse by the back legs. Rather than calling for Leonard, Frances drowns the injured mouse in a bucket of water. Lingering outside after taking the dead mouse to the dark garden, she runs into Leonard. His presence startles her: she thought she was alone. Frances manages to calm her anger. The two discuss stargazing.

Leonard puts his hand on Frances’ back in order to direct her gaze at various constellations. She does not know whether the touch was innocent or flirtatious.

Back in her room, Frances eavesdrops on the Barbers. Their conversation holds “the absence of anything like affection” (56). Frances wonders if they actually hate each other. She regrets listening. 

The barbers are back to normal in the morning, easing Frances’s mind. She and Mrs. Wray go to visit Mr. Wray’s grave with a wreath. They clean and tend to the grave, and Frances thinks of the way that her father mismanaged their money and of the time she visited John Arthur’s grave. Noel, who died at sea, has no grave: his body was never recovered, and, for a time, Mrs. Wray clung to the hope he was still alive.

Returning home, they discover the Barbers entertaining guests, including a young boy and girl, whom they frighten up the stairs. They are introduced to Mrs. Viney, Min Lynch, Netta Rawlins, and Vera Grice, who invite them into the Barbers’ quarters. Lilian enters the room and introduces Mrs. Viney as her mother and the other women as her sisters. Mrs. Viney’s lax, Cockney attitude throws off Frances and her mother. Netta has a small baby boy named Siddy.

Vera’s husband was lost in the war, like John Arthur and Noel. Mrs. Viney reminisces over the baby boys she lost in birth. As the family lapses back into normal conversation, Frances notes “the role that had been one by each […] tart Vera, capable Netta, simple-minded, sandy-faced Min” (67). Lilian is conscious of the disruption her family has brought to the Wray’s house. Frances and Mrs. Wray finally make excuses to leave, and Lilian follows them. Lilian apologizes to Frances for taking one of their armchairs for Mrs. Viney to sit on.

Back in the kitchen, Frances and her mother discuss the family. Mrs. Wray was too distracted by Lilian’s decorations to notice much about her mother and sisters. Mrs. Wray wonders “‘why people of that class must reveal so much of themselves?’” (70). Frances, however, likes Mrs. Viney.

Lilian’s family leaves half an hour later. Frances watches their progress from the kitchen window. Frances discovers Lilian attempting to take the armchair back down. Frances rushes to help her. Lilian is still apologetic for having taken the chair. She starts to return to her room. Frances remembers “how curiously appealing she had looked as she squatted at her nephew’s side” (72). Frances invites her to sit down with her. In the kitchen, Frances takes advantage of her mother’s absence to smoke a cigarette. She rolls one for Lilian, who is impressed at her skill.

Lilian relaxes and reflects that men do not like to see women doing things that men enjoy. Frances makes a joke about women’s rights and is pleased to see Lilian genuinely laughing. She tells Lilian that she enjoyed meeting her family. Lilian is relieved: Leonard predicted the Wrays would not like them. Lilian is somewhat ashamed of her mother. She is ashamed that she grew up poor.

Leonard’s parents are nothing like Lilian’s. She tells Frances about living with them and in other wretched locations with her husband, including a house haunted by the spirit of an old, bearded man. Lilian’s candor makes Frances glumly reflect upon her own uptight attitude. Lilian notices Frances’s mood and apologizes, thinking the ghost story made her think of her father.

Frances explains that her father “‘was a nuisance when he was alive, he made a nuisance of himself by dying, and he’s managed to go on being a nuisance ever since’” (77). They would argue about the war; her father bullied John Arthur into enlisting. When Noel died, Mr. Wray became bedridden. He died before Armistice. He left behind debts accrued by bad speculation.

Before Mr. Wray’s death, Frances had dreamed of being a reformer. She had been proposed to. Her current life is not the one she wants. Frances comments on how nice Lilian is; Lilian is taken aback. The two of them have become friends. Leonard’s return ends their time together. Frances invites her to take a walk with her next week; Lilian assents.