"Will you come this way?" she said coldly, holding the lamp in front of
her, and opening a door.
At the same moment another door opened at the far end of the hall; there
was a heavy footstep; a great hand and arm showed, and then Edwin had a
glimpse of a man's head and shoulders emerging from an oblong flickering
firelight.
Hilda paused. "All right," she called to the man, who at once
disappeared, shutting the door and leaving darkness where he had been.
The large shadows cast by Hilda's lamp now had the gaunt hall to
themselves again.
"Don't be alarmed," she laughed harshly. "It's only the broker's man."
Edwin was tongue-tied. If Hilda were joking, what answer could be made
to such a pleasantry in such a situation? And if she were speaking the
truth, if the bailiffs really were in possession...! His life seemed to
him once again astoundingly romantic. He had loved this woman,
conquered her. And now she was a mere acquaintance, and he was
following her stiffly into the recesses of a strange and sinister abode
peopled by mysterious men. Was this a Brighton boarding-house? It
resembled nothing reputable in his experience. All was
incomprehensible.
The room into which she led him was evidently the dining-room. Not
spacious, perhaps not quite so large as his own dining-room, it was
nearly filled by one long bare table. Eight or ten monotonous chairs
were ranged round the grey walls. In the embrasure of the window was a
wicker stand with a withered plant on its summit, and at the other end
of the room a walnut sideboard in the most horrible taste. The
mantelpiece was draped with dark knotted and rosetted cloth; within the
fender stood a small paper screen. The walls were hung with ancient and
with fairly modern engravings, some big, others little, some coloured,
others in black-and-white, but all distressing in their fatuous
ugliness. The ceiling seemed black. The whole room fulfilled pretty
accurately the scornful scrupulous housewife's notion of a lodging-house
interior. It was suspect. And in Edwin there was a good deal of the
housewife. He was appalled. Obviously the house was small--he had
known that from the outside--and the entire enterprise insignificant.
This establishment was not in the King's Road, nor on the Marine Parade,
nor at Hove; no doubt hundreds of such little places existed
precariously in a vast town like Brighton. Widows, of course, were
often in straits. And Janet had told him... Nevertheless he was
appalled, and completely at a loss to reconcile Hilda with her
environment. And then--"the broker's man!"
At her bidding he sat down, in his overcoat, with his hat insecure on
his knee, and observed, under the lamp, the dust on the surface of the
long table. Hilda seated herself opposite, so that the lamp was between
them, hiding him from her by its circle of light. He wondered what
Maggie would have thought, and what Clara would have said, could they
have seen him in that obscurity.
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