“The Boarding House” is a story about the fallout from an affair between a young woman, Polly, and a man, Mr. Doran, in early 20th-century Dublin. Mr. Doran is a lodger in the boarding house run by Polly’s formidable mother, Mrs. Mooney.
Mrs. Mooney was once married to a drinker who tried to attack her with a meat cleaver one night. After that, Mrs. Mooney got permission from the priest to separate from her husband (since divorce was still not legal in Ireland at the time). With the money she took from the marriage, Mrs. Mooney set up a boarding house, where her lodgers are mostly clerks, as well as touring musical performers who inhabit the fringes of respectable society. Her lodgers refer to her as “The Madam.”
Mrs. Mooney’s two children also live at the boarding house: her son, Jack, a clerk who’s prone to fighting and betting, and her daughter, Polly, a pretty and flirtatious girl of 19. Mrs. Mooney had sent Polly to work as a typist for a corn trader but brought her home again when her father kept bothering her at work. At the boarding house, Mrs. Mooney deliberately turns a blind eye on Polly’s flirtations with the lodgers, even when one flirtation seems to go farther, developing into a secret relationship.
When she’s sure that the relationship has progressed too far for the man to back out, Mrs. Mooney decides to intervene, first by having a frank conversation with Polly to see how far things have gone. The next morning, a sunny Sunday, she sits alone in her breakfast room and contemplates the conversation she plans to have with Mr. Doran. She is determined to secure a marriage proposal for Polly, and she feels confident she’ll succeed. She knows that Mr. Doran has a good salary and some money put aside, and she feels satisfied with herself.
Meanwhile, Mr. Doran is in his bedroom, very anxious at the prospect of this conversation. He is shaking too much to shave, in agony every time he remembers confessing the affair to the priest the night before. He isn’t sure whether he loves or even likes Polly, and he feels his family would look down on her, but he’s terrified by the prospect of losing his job or his reputation if word of the relationship gets out.
While Mr. Doran agonizes, Polly comes to his bedroom door and tells him she has told her mother all about their affair. She seems distraught, and he comforts her, and he remembers the temptations that led him to this point: her waiting up to serve him dinner and punch, and coming to his bedroom door late one night to relight her candle.
The servant, Mary, comes to fetch Mr. Doran to speak to Mrs. Mooney. Mr. Doran leaves Polly crying on the bed, and on the way down the stairs he imagines his disapproving employer again, while also passing Jack Mooney, and remembering how he’d threatened violence upon another lodger for a perceived sexual comment about Polly.
In the bedroom, Polly wipes away her tears and slips into happy daydreams, totally unperturbed. Soon Mrs. Mooney calls her downstairs, saying that Mr. Doran would like to talk to her.
