Consequences

"Then if I was you, Miss, I'd try No. 252 Malden Road – just beyond the Gipsy Queen, that is, or else two doors further up. I saw cards up in both windows with 'apartments' inside the last week."

"Thank you," said Alex.

She wished that Malden Road had looked more like Downshire Hill, which had trees and little tiny gardens in front of the houses, which almost all resembled country cottages. But no doubt houses in Downshire Hill did not let rooms, or if so they must be too expensive. Besides, Alex felt almost sure that Barbara would not want her as a very near neighbour.

She was very tired when she reached No. 252, and almost felt that she would take the rooms, whatever they were like, to save herself further search. After all, she could change later on, if she did not like them.

Like all weak people, Alex felt the urgent necessity of acting as quickly as possible on her own impulses.

She looked distastefully at the dingy house, with its paint cracking into hard flakes, and raised the knocker slowly. A jagged end of protruding wire at the side of the door proclaimed that the bell was broken.

Her timid knock was answered by a slatternly-looking young woman wearing an apron, whom Alex took to be the servant.

"Can I see the – the landlady?"

"Is it about a room? I'm Mrs. 'Oxton." She spoke in the harshest possible Cockney, but quite pleasantly.

"Oh," said Alex, still uncertain. "Yes, I want rooms, please."

The woman looked her swiftly up and down. "Only one bed-sittin'-room vacant, Miss, and that's at the top of the 'ouse. Would you care to see that?"

"Yes, please."

Mrs. Hoxton slammed the door and preceded Alex up a narrow staircase, carpeted with oil-cloth. On the third floor she threw open the door of a room considerably smaller than the bath-room at Clevedon Square, containing a low iron bed, and an iron tripod bearing an enamel basin, a chipped pitcher and a very small towel-rail. A looking-glass framed in mottled yellow plush was hung crookedly on the wall, and beneath it stood a wooden kitchen chair. There was a little table with two drawers in it behind the door.

Alex looked round her with bewilderment. A convent cell was no smaller than this, and presented a greater aspect of space from its bareness.

"Is there a sitting-room?" she inquired.

"Not separate to this – no, Miss. Bed-sitting-room, this is called. Small, but then I suppose you'd be out all day."

For a moment Alex wondered why.

"But meals?" she asked feebly.

"Would it be more than just the breakfast and supper, and three meals on Sunday?"

Alex did not know what to answer, and Mrs. Hoxton surveyed her.

"Where are you working, Miss? Anywhere near?"

"I'm not working anywhere – yet."

Mrs. Hoxton's manner changed a little.

"If you want two rooms, Miss, and full board, I could accommodate you downstairs. The price is according, of course – a week in advance, and pay by the week."

Alex followed the woman downstairs again. She was sure that this was not the kind of place where she wanted to live.

Mrs. Hoxton showed her into a larger bedroom on the first floor, just opening the door and giving Alex a glimpse of extreme untidiness and an unmade bed.

"My gentleman got up late today – he don't go to 'is job Saturdays, so I 'aven't put the room to rights yet. But it's a nice room, Miss, and will be vacant on Monday. It goes with the downstairs sitting-room in the front, as a rule, but that's 'ad to be turned into a bedroom just lately. I've been so crowded."

"Will that be empty on Monday, too?" asked Alex, for the sake of answering something.

"Tonight, Miss. I let a coloured gentleman 'ave it – a student, you know; a thing I've never done before, either. Other people don't like it, and it gives a name, like, for not being particular who one takes. So he's going, and I shan't be sorry. I don't 'old with making talk, and it isn't as though the room wouldn't let easy. It's a beautiful room, Miss."

The coloured gentleman's room was tidier than the one upstairs, but a haze of stale tobacco fumes hung round it and obscured Alex' view of a short leather sofa with horsehair breaking from it in patches, a small round table in the middle of the room, and a tightly-closed window looking on to the traffic of Malden Road.

"About terms, Miss," Mrs. Hoxton began suggestively in the passage.

"Oh, I couldn't afford much," Alex began, thinking that it was more difficult than she had supposed to walk out again saying that she did not, after all, want the rooms.

"I'd let you 'ave those two rooms, and full board, for two-ten a week!" cried the landlady.

"Oh, I don't think – "

Mrs. Hoxton shrugged her shoulders, looked at the ceiling and said resignedly:

"Then I suppose we must call it two guineas, though I ought to ask double. But you can come in right away on Monday, Miss, and I think you'll find it all comfortable."

"But – " said Alex faintly.

She felt very tired, and the thought of a further search for lodgings wearied her and almost frightened her. Besides, the policeman had told her that this was a cheap neighbourhood. Perhaps anywhere else they would charge much more. Finally she temporized feebly with the reflection that it need only be for a week – once the step of leaving Clevedon Square had been definitely taken, she could feel herself free to find a more congenial habitation at her leisure, and when she might feel less desperately tired. She sighed, as she followed the line of least resistance.

"Well, I'll come on Monday, then."

"Yes, Miss," the landlady answered promptly. "May I have your name, Miss? – and the first week in advance my rule, as I think I mentioned."

"My name is Miss Clare."

Alex took two sovereigns and two shillings, fumbling, out of her purse and handed them to the woman. It did not occur to her to ask for any form of receipt.

"Will you be wanting anything on Monday, Miss?"

Alex looked uncomprehending, and the woman eyed her with scarcely veiled contempt and added, "Supper, or anything?"

"Oh – yes. I'd better come in time for dinner – for supper, I mean."

"Yes, Miss. Seven o'clock will do you, I suppose?"

Alex thought it sounded very early, but she did not feel that she cared at all, and said that seven would do quite well.

She wondered if there were any questions which she ought to ask, but could think of none, and she was rather afraid of the strident-voiced, hard-faced woman.

But Mrs. Hoxton seemed to be quite satisfied, and pulled open the door as though it was obvious that the interview had come to an end.

"Good afternoon," said Alex.