The Paying Guests

In 1922, Frances Wray and her mother can no longer afford to keep their Camberwell house entirely to themselves. Taking in lodgers brings Leonard and Lilian Barber into rooms once protected by the family's old social position. The new household arrangement is awkward, but Frances and Lilian gradually develop an intimacy that exceeds friendship. Desire offers Frances a way beyond the disappointments and duties that have narrowed her life, while exposing both women to risks they cannot neatly contain. As the boundaries between host, guest and lover shift, the house becomes a setting for secrecy and mounting tension. Private choices begin threatening consequences far beyond the rooms where they were made.