“Good morning,” he said to Mrs. Renton. “I saw the sign in the window-apartments to let. As it happens, I’m looking for somewhere myself.”
“Single gentleman?”
“Yes.” The bright blue eyes looked over Mrs. Renton’s shoulders and stared at Lydia. “What exactly is available?”
“There’s the attic flat,” Mrs. Renton said. “Bedroom and a sitting room. Share kitchen and bathroom. No meals or laundry.”
“I see. May I see the rooms?”
“The landlord likes to show people round himself.”
“And when’s he due back?”
“Not sure. Maybe tomorrow or Saturday.”
“Thank you. Then I’ll call back tomorrow afternoon. My name’s Wentwood, by the way. Can you tell me what the rent is?”
“You’ll have to discuss that with Mr. Serridge. He does all that side of things.”
“Righto. Well, thank you for your help.” Once again his eyes sought Lydia’s. “I’ll say goodbye then.”
As he turned to go, a postman mounted the steps behind him. Mr. Wentwood stood to one side to allow the man to approach Mrs. Renton. The postman groped inside his bag and produced a small parcel wrapped in brown paper and string. He handed it to Mrs. Renton, who closed the door on the two men and put the parcel on the hall table.
“Who’s it for?” Lydia asked.
“Mr. Serridge.”
“It looks like that other one.”
“None of our business.” Mrs. Renton bent down and sniffed it. “Unless it begins to smell.”
Lydia was reading A Room of One’s Own and feeling increasingly envious of Mrs. Woolf:
My aunt…died by a fall from her horse while she was riding out to take the air in Bombay. The news of my legacy reached me one night about the same time that the act was passed that gave votes to women. A solicitor’s letter fell into the post-box and when I opened it I found that she had left me five hundred pounds a year for ever. Of the two-the vote and the money-the money, I own, seemed infinitely the more important.
Five hundred a year? The money shone like a mirage, a glittering pile of gold, in Lydia’s mind. If a woman had that, she could do almost anything she wanted. She dropped the book on the table, dislodging puffs of dust and tobacco ash.
Her father had gone out, and she had the flat to herself. She wandered from the sitting room to her father’s bedroom, which was larger than her own and looked out on a gloomy little yard surrounded on all sides by high walls of blackened brick. It was sparsely equipped with the sort of furniture Lydia would have considered inadequate for a servant’s bedroom. The air smelled of stale cigar smoke, and there were two empty brandy bottles in the wastepaper basket. She resisted the temptation to look inside the chest of drawers and the wardrobe, partly because she felt it beneath her to pry, but more because she was afraid of what she might find. She pitied her father but pity was perilously close to disgust.
In the sitting room, kitchen and bedrooms, every surface seemed covered with a fine layer of sooty grime, slightly oily. Lydia found a moderately clean dishcloth under the kitchen sink and wiped the woodwork around the sitting-room windows. It was much harder work than she had expected, and much dirtier. Before moving to the mantelpiece, she tied up her hair with a silk headscarf. How did people manage without servants, she wondered for the first time in her life, and indeed how did servants themselves manage?
There were footsteps on the landing and she looked round. The door was open, and Mrs. Renton was staring at Lydia kneeling by the hearth. The old woman sniffed and moved away without speaking. But a few minutes later, she returned with an enamel bucket in her hand and a pinafore over her arm. In the bucket were dusters and rags. She put down the bucket in the doorway and draped the pinafore over the back of the nearest chair.
“The dustbins are out the back in the yard,” Mrs. Renton said. “There’s a door at the end of the hall.”
She nodded at Lydia and marched away. The work seemed a little easier after that, and not just because she was better equipped for it. When she had finished the dusting, she filled the bucket and washed the windows. Even that was harder than it looked because one tended to smear the dirt on the glass rather than remove it.
Lydia worked on until her stomach told her it was lunchtime. There was still no sign of Captain Ingleby-Lewis-she suspected she might find him in the Crozier but she didn’t want to put the theory to the test-and nothing to eat in the flat, except those wretched sardines. She would have to go out again. As she made herself ready, she noticed that there was a sooty line on her skirt. She tried to remove it without success. As for her hands, they looked red and wrinkled, like a washerwoman’s. She had another vivid mental image of Frogmore Place, this time of her bedroom: the dressing table, with its array of silver-backed brushes and pots and jars; her clothes laid out for her, with her stockings rolled ready for her to put on; and Susan, her maid, hovering near the door, hands clasped, eyes down.
She found a shopping basket in the kitchen and went outside. The fog had lifted but the rain had grown heavier, and her feet slithered on the cobbles. She heard singing, faint but dreary, and guessed it came from the chapel. She walked to the Blue Dahlia in Fetter Passage again. Going there had almost become a habit, and a habit of any sort was reassuring in a world where almost everything was strange.
The café was crowded and full of noise and smoke. She found a place at a table laid for two. She was surprised to find herself much hungrier than usual and ordered cutlets and peas, with plum pie and custard to follow. It would cost her half a crown, plus perhaps a tip. In the last forty-eight hours, she had become conscious about money in a way she had never been before. Soon she would have to sell some jewelry.
While she was waiting for her cutlets, she returned to the crossword in The Times. Instead of attempting the clues, however, she jotted down items on a shopping list. Tea. Milk. Bread. As she was wondering whether she should economize and buy margarine rather than butter, somebody brushed her arm.
“Excuse me,” a man said. “Do you mind if I join you? All the other tables are full.”
She looked up and saw the young man who had come to inquire about the vacant flat. She had seen him in the café before, of course, so perhaps he worked nearby. She nodded and went back to her shopping list. He sat down and ordered the cutlets as well. After a moment, he cleared his throat.
“I say, I don’t mean to interrupt, but didn’t I see you earlier today at that house in Bleeding Heart Square?”
She looked up. His face was long and bony, with strongly marked eyebrows arching over the unexpectedly blue eyes. There was a small red scab on his jawbone, as if he had nicked himself while shaving that morning. No one could call him handsome but it was a face you could look at more than once. Should you wish to do so, of course.
“Yes-you came to ask about the flat upstairs.”
He nodded. “What’s it like? Have you seen it?”
“No.” She crumbled her roll and allowed her eyes to drift back to The Times.
“Curious name, isn’t it?”
“Bleeding Heart Square?”
“Yes-do you know where it comes from?”
She shook her head.
“That’s what I like about London,” he went on, showing no sign of discouragement. “These old corners with layers of history attached to them. They seem to exist in more dimensions than most places do.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m not quite sure I know. I suppose I mean it exists in time as well as space. So there’s always more to it than there seems. Only you don’t quite know what.”
She burst out laughing, not so much at what he said, though that was ridiculous enough, but at his face, whose features had realigned themselves into an expression of mock horror. Rather to her relief, the waitress arrived with her cutlets, which gave her the opportunity to break off the conversation. She ate a few mouthfuls and returned to the crossword.