The Hours Before Dawn Read Online Free Page A

haven’t quite got the shelves cleared yet,’ she explained nervously. ‘Those are my mother-in-law’s books, she’s fetching them at the week-end. And of course the dolls’ pram will be gone, too, and that – that—’ Louise sought for the right word to indicate the swaying structure of cardboard grocery boxes in which Harriet had spent a happy afternoon last week being a Tiger in its Den. Mark had been quite right, of course. He had always said that she shouldn’t let the children come up here and play while there was no tenant. They’d only get into the habit of it, he’d said, and there’d be an awful job keeping them out after the room was let. But it was such a temptation, especially at week-ends, when Mark himself wanted some peaceand quiet in the sitting-room. And she’d been so sure that she would remember to clear everything away before anyone came to look at the room. She would have remembered, too, if only it hadn’t been for Mark dashing home unexpectedly for lunch, today of all days, just when she had to be at the clinic by half past one. And then Christine this evening…. Oh, well, it couldn’t be helped now; and if this woman didn’t like it, there were plenty of other people looking for rooms nowadays.
    But Miss Brandon didn’t seem to care at all; nor did she show any dismay at learning that there was only a gas ring to cook on, and that she would have to do all her washing-up at the minute hand-basin on the landing. Louise was a little surprised . Miss Brandon, in both voice and appearance, gave the impression of being a successful woman of the world, both critical and self-assured; not at all the sort of person whom one would expect to choose for her home an inconvenient, ill-equipped attic in someone else’s house. Louise felt suddenly ill at ease. She had expected a different kind of applicant altogether – a young art student, perhaps, who would giggle happily about her hardships, and boast to her friends that she was starving in a garret. Or one of those silent young men whom you never see on the stairs, who never have any washing, and who have all their meals out. Or maybe someone elderly – this was what Louise had visualised when this woman had spoken to her on the phone, and told her that she was a schoolteacher. Someone past middle-age, Louise had thought, perhaps on the verge of retiring. Someone who had learned slowly and painfully – or maybe proudly, and with undefeated courage – to accept without complaint all the numerous small discomforts that life brought her way.
    But Miss Brandon did not fit this picture at all. As to her age, it was difficult to tell. She could hardly be much past forty, Louise thought, watching her visitor glancing round the roomwith an odd sort of impatience; not so much as if she thought the room was inadequate, but rather as if she was completely indifferent to it, and was irritated only by the necessity for making a decision.
    ‘I’ll take it,’ she said brusquely, without either prodding the bed for broken springs or peering under it for spider-webs – actions which Louise had always understood tenants to perform before they rented rooms. ‘When can I come in?’
    ‘Well – that is – of course—’ Louise stammered a little under Miss Brandon’s clear, commanding gaze – ‘just as soon as you like. Except that my mother-in-law won’t be fetching her books till the week-end, and so—’
    ‘Never mind about that,’ said Miss Brandon, still with this air of restrained impatience. ‘I shan’t need those shelves. I haven’t a lot of books of my own just now. Tell your mother-in-law she can fetch them whenever it suits her. I shall have no objection.’
    The remark, still more the manner of it, struck Louise as a trifle arrogant – rather like the mistress of the house giving instructions to her housekeeper. Then she remembered that Miss Brandon was, after all, a schoolteacher, and the giving of instructions probably occupied