And did, in a most original way. All the money she took in from her boarders she regarded as profit, and belonging to her, while the bills, when they grew too pressing, were sent to Mr. Petersen with complicated and aggrieved letters complaining of the troubles of a landlady. Her independence was a heavy drain on him.
He asked Frances if she minded his going East to see her and the children once more.
“It’s ten years,” he said. “Robert’ll be quite a boy now.”
“Of course I don’t mind,” she answered, “I’d half like to see them myself; especially Minnie. I’m curious.”
Her boarding-house, so familiar to him financially, for which he was endlessly buying saucepans and tablecloths and towels, was a dingy old place in the west Twenties. Even from the outside it had the Minnie touch, bedraggled lace curtains and crooked shades.
He rang the bell, and waited with a fast beating heart. To see Minnie again, after all this time!
The door was opened reluctantly by a young girl. (Everything in that house was done reluctantly).
“Mrs. Naylor? I’ll see.... Is it about rooms?”
Surely that voice, that accent ...? He stared at her insistently in the darkness of the hall.
“Why!” he cried, “Isn’t it Sandra? Come into the light, my dear. Do you remember Uncle Chris?”