VII
“Well, Lyddie, I hope you’ll find enjoyment in trimming bonnets for fine ladies,” said Grandpapa caustically.
“She’s to keep the accounts, Grandpapa,” Aunt Beryl repeated in loud, displeased accents. “Nothing to do with the millinery, naturally.”
“I’m not so sure of that—not so sure of that. What did the old party say about helping in the shop?”
“Madame Ribeiro only asked if Lydia would be willing to give a hand at sale-time, or anything like that, and of course she agreed. It’s her book-keeping they want.”
“And who is Madame Ribeiro?”
“Oh, Grandpapa!” cried Lydia reproachfully, “you know very well that Aunt Beryl and I went up to town this morning on purpose to see her. She’s the old lady who owns the shop, and wants to run it on new lines. Why, she’s a sort of lady, isn’t she, Aunt Beryl?”
“It’s a foreign name,” was the indirect, but distrustful, reply of Aunt Beryl. “I didn’t like to ask her what country she belonged to, quite. Is it a French name?”
“Portuguese,” said Grandpapa unexpectedly. “There are Ribeiros all over the Dutch East Indies.”
“She seemed a nice person enough—older than I expected, and dressed very quietly in black, like a widow. She certainly had a moustache, but then some of those very dark foreignersarelike that, and I’m sureit’s her misfortune, and not her fault, poor thing—like her stoutness.”
“She talked very, very slowly, and with an accent,” Lydia said. “She never smiled once, either—I never saw such a solemn face, and enormous black eyes. But I think I should like her.”
“But it’s she that’s got to like you,” Grandpapa pointed out. “You’ve got to work at the bonnets under her, haven’t you, Lyddie?”
“Not exactly under her. She doesn’t come to the shop herself, much—someone she calls Madame Elena is in charge there. Madame Ribeiro lives in her own house, in St. John’s Wood. But the shop is hers, and she engages all the helpers herself. She sees them all personally.”
“And is this precious shop in St. John’s Wood, too?”
“Certainly not. It’s in the West End,” said Aunt Beryl with dignity.
“Then I suppose Lyddie would like a little house in Park Lane, so as to be near it?” Grandpapa inquired with an air of simplicity.
“I thought I told you that Lydia was going to Maria Nettleship’s,” said Aunt Beryl stiffly.
“I wish we’d had time to go and see Miss Nettleship,” cried Lydia, hastily turning the conversation.
She did not in the least mind Grandpapa’s sarcasms herself—in fact, she was rather amused by them—but they always greatly discomposed Aunt Beryl.
But when a definite offer had been made by letter and accepted, and it was decided that Lydia was to go, much sooner than they had expected, to London, and work at the accountancy in the shop that oldMadame Ribeiro called “Elena’s,” she determined to have some sort of an explanation with Grandpapa.
It worried her very much to see that he regarded this first step in her career as a mere wilful, childish freak, and something of a personal injury to himself.
The spirit of Uncle George and Aunt Beryl was a very different one. They praised her courage and determination in starting out into the world by herself, and were full of pride in the letters so willingly supplied by Miss Glover and Dr. Young, and the clergyman who had prepared Lydia for confirmation, all setting forth her cleverness, and her steady ways and the achievements that lay to her credit in scholarship. They were proud of her for having obtained so quickly a post at a salary of a pound a week to begin with, and her midday dinner and tea five times a week—which practically brought it up to twenty-five shillings a week, Uncle George pointed out. They would only allow her to pay half of the weekly salary to Miss Nettleship. The rest—an additional ten shillings—Uncle George insisted that he should remit to Lydia by postal order every Friday.
“That will leave you something for ’bus fares, and dress expenses,” he said. “And I shouldn’t like you to touch your own income, child. Let that accumulate for a rainy day.”
“You can’t hope to save much at first, you know,” said Aunt Beryl. “But you’re well off for clothes, and won’t want anything new except the black dress they said you’d need, and I can make over the oldbrocheeasily enough. It’s beautiful stuff—you’ll only have to get the cambric for the neck and sleeves. It’s a great help to a girl when she can do her own dressmaking.”
They could think of nothing but Lydia.
Mr. Monteagle Almond himself, who had procured this fine chance for her, was hardly given any credit by Lydia’s uncle and aunt. They ascribed it all to her own merits.
Lydia quite longed to justify all this faith in her, and to repay Uncle George and Aunt Beryl for their sacrifice. But she did not really feel much doubt of being able to do so eventually.
This made Grandpapa’s attitude the more vexatious.
“I shall be able to come home for Christmas, you know, Grandpapa,” she said one day.
“Where are we now—August? And they want you to begin at the end of this month?”
“That’s so that I shall get used to the work before the rush begins. The end of August is the slackest time in London,” Lydia explained, and the next minute was vexed with herself, as Grandpapa remarked meekly: “Is it indeed, now? Thank’ee, my dear, for telling me that.”
“I hope I’m going to make a success of it, and make you all proud of me,” said Lydia with determination. “You know, Grandpapa, in the evenings I am going to begin writing. Do you remember that when I was quite a little girl I told you that I wanted to write books?”
“I do. You were a nice little girl, Lyddie—a sensible, well-behaved, little child. Not like those hoydens of girls at Wimbledon. If you write anything worth the postage, you may send it to me—though I’m sure I don’t know who’ll read it to me.”
This was the nearest that Grandpapa could be induced to go towards anyrapprochementon the eve of Lydia’s departure.
She said good-bye to him as affectionately as she dared, and he replied calmly:
“Good-bye to you, my dear. Your Aunt Beryl wants me to give you a Bible or some parting advice, but I shall do nothing of the sort. If you’re a good girl, you’ll know how to look after yourself, and if you’re a bad girl, then all the advice in the world won’t keep you straight.”
Lydia could not help thinking rather resentfully that Grandpapa’s tones sounded just as though either contingency would leave him equally unmoved.
“Good-bye, Grandpapa—good-bye, Uncle George—down, Shamrock—good little dog!”
But Shamrock pursued Lydia and Aunt Beryl all the way to the station, and Lydia’s last sight of them showed her Aunt Beryl and the station-master uniting their efforts to prevent Shamrock from taking a flying leap on to the rails.
She felt a little lonely, a very little bit frightened, as the train rushed away with her towards London.
Eighteen, which had been a really mature age while one was still at Miss Glover’s, no longer seemed quite so grown up. The other people in the railway carriage all looked much older than that.
Lydia’s habitual self-confidence began slightly to fail her.
What if she proved not clever enough for the work at “Elena’s,” and they sent her home again? Never! She would take up teaching or dressmaking in London, sooner than admit defeat. Besides, there was her writing. She thought of various fragments that she had already put on to paper, and which honestly seemed to her to be good.
The day would come, Lydia was inwardly convinced, when these would work into some not unworthy whole.
In the meanwhile, she reminded herself, in an endeavour to regain her poise of mind, that Uncle George, Aunt Beryl, Mr. Almond, the Jacksons, Miss Glover herself, had all thought her very brave and high-spirited to go away to London by herself, and had made no doubt that her courage and capabilities alike would carry her on to triumph.
She remembered also that Nathalie Palmer had written to her, in reply to her own long letter announcing her plan. She drew the envelope from her pocket, and read Nathalie’s warm-hearted inquiries once more, feeling all the comfort of being so regarded by her friend.
“Lydia, I do think you’re splendid,” wrote Nathalie from Devonshire. “It sounds frightfully brave to be going off to live in London by yourself, and work at the accounts in a big new place like your Madame Elena’s. I hope you won’t be very lonely, but, of course you’re sure to make friends. I do quite agree with you that it will be a tremendousexperience, and, of course, I know experience is what you’ve always wanted. I wonder how soon you’ll write a book. How proud I shall be when you’re a famous authoress, and all your books are in rows in my bookshelf.“Father is very interested about you. He asked what sort of boarding-house you were going to, and I said of course Miss Raymond was frightfully particular, and it was a friend of her own. He said he was glad to hear it, and from what he remembered, you were too good-looking to be let stay just anywhere! I suppose he meantmen!“Remember you promised faithfully to tell me ifanyone fell in love with you. I’m sure they will! No one has with me, but I hardly ever see anyone. This is the way my days are spent, mostly——”
“Lydia, I do think you’re splendid,” wrote Nathalie from Devonshire. “It sounds frightfully brave to be going off to live in London by yourself, and work at the accounts in a big new place like your Madame Elena’s. I hope you won’t be very lonely, but, of course you’re sure to make friends. I do quite agree with you that it will be a tremendousexperience, and, of course, I know experience is what you’ve always wanted. I wonder how soon you’ll write a book. How proud I shall be when you’re a famous authoress, and all your books are in rows in my bookshelf.
“Father is very interested about you. He asked what sort of boarding-house you were going to, and I said of course Miss Raymond was frightfully particular, and it was a friend of her own. He said he was glad to hear it, and from what he remembered, you were too good-looking to be let stay just anywhere! I suppose he meantmen!
“Remember you promised faithfully to tell me ifanyone fell in love with you. I’m sure they will! No one has with me, but I hardly ever see anyone. This is the way my days are spent, mostly——”
The rest of Nathalie’s letter was not so interesting, and Lydia put it away without reading further.
Her mind dwelt upon the first part of the letter, and she smiled to herself.
Even though Mr. Palmer had not seen her since she was fifteen years old, it was pleasant to know that he had thought her good-looking, and Lydia was almost certain that her appearance had improved very much since then, especially now that her dark hair was knotted up at the back of her head, with a high, Spanish-looking comb thrust into one side of the thick, outstanding twist.
“I suppose he meant men!”
That phrase in Nathalie’s letter kept coming to her mind, and she smiled to herself a little.
It was quite time, Lydia considered, that she should learn something about men.
Grandpapa was old and didn’t count—apart from the fact that, as Lydia shrewdly surmised, he was quite unlike any other man, and could never be looked upon as the representative of a type. Uncle George and Uncle Robert didn’t count, either—uncles never did. Bob Senthoven Lydia dismissed with a shrug. She had not seen him since her visit to Wimbledon nearly three years ago, when he had made no favourable impression upon the young candidate for examination honours.
The only other male acquaintance to which Lydia felt that she could fairly lay claim was Mr. Monteagle Almond. She remembered her conversation with him on the subject of her departure from Regency Terrace,and the ease with which she had contrived to shift his point of view until it agreed with her own.
Judging by that solitary experience, men were not so very difficult to manage.
Lydia boldly admitted to herself that she hoped there would be men at Miss Nettleship’s boarding-house.
The hope was realized.
The Bloomsbury boarding-house was large and dark, and Miss Nettleship could accommodate an almost incredible number of boarders there.
She was a brown-eyed, plaintive-looking woman, inclined to stoutness, and concealing, as Lydia afterwards discovered, considerable efficiency under a permanently distressed voice and manner.
“I hoped your auntie might have come with you,” she greeted Lydia. “I could easily have put her up—we’re not so very full just now, and there’s always a corner. I’m so glad to see you, dear, for her sake, and I do hope you’ll be happy. You must be sure and tell me if there’s anything——”
The eye of the manageress was roving even as she spoke.
“Excuse me, dear—but you know what it is—one has to be on the look-out the whole time—that’s the drawing-room bell, and no one answering it. I think I’ll have to go myself. I know you quite understand how it is——”
Miss Nettleship hurried away, and Lydia looked round her curiously.
She was in the manageress’ own office, a glass-enclosed alcove halfway up the stairs, probably originally designed for a flowery recess, in the palmy days of the old house. It was now boarded in halfway up with light-coloured grained deal, but a few sorry splinters ofcoloured glass still hung from the ceiling, clinking forlornly, in solitary token of the once frivolous purposes of the little alcove.
When Miss Nettleship returned, tired and apologetic, but more plaintive than ever, she showed Lydia the rest of the house.
It was built with a total disregard for domestic convenience, that Miss Nettleship assured Lydia was characteristic of old-fashioned London houses, but which she could not sufficiently deplore.
“So difficult ever to get a servant to come here, let alonestayhere,” said Miss Nettleship, sighing.
Lydia did not altogether wonder at it, when she saw the basement, occupied by kitchen, pantry, and scullery, a gas-jet permanently burning in the two latter divisions—and the only outlook of the former, rising area steps, iron railings with cracked paint, and the feet of the passers-by on the pavement.
The kitchen stairs, which led to the narrow hall, were stone, very steep, and perfectly dark.
“However they do, with the trays and all, is more than I can guess. Not that I don’t carry them myself, often enough—but my heart’s in my mouth the whole time. And girls are so careless, too! We had one broke her ankle, running down these stairs, not a year ago. Luckily she wasn’t carrying anything but an empty tray at the time, but you never heard such a noise and a rattling in all your life! It’s wicked not having the serving on the same floor as the dining-room, is what I say.”
The dining-room was on the ground floor. It was a large room, with a long table already laid for dinner, running down the middle of it, and dusty aspidistras in pots stood in the bay windows, looking out, throughyellowing Nottingham lace curtains, at the grimy dignity of the London plane trees on the far side of the Square railings.
Opposite the dining-room was a smoking-room, Miss Nettleship told Lydia.
“Better not look in now, perhaps,” she said. “Some of the gentlemen may be in there.”
“How many boarders are here now?”
“It’s always varying,” Miss Nettleship declared. “But I make rather a specialty, in a way, of permanent lets. There’s old Miss Lillicrap—she’s always here—and Mrs. Clarence, a widow, and in rather poor health—awfully badly off. And the Bulteels—husband and wife—with a boy who goes to Gower Street University. They’re always here, more or less. And there’s a very nice maiden lady has been here six months now, and she’s said nothing about giving up her room. Miss Forster—I’m sure you’ll like her, dear. She’s a great card-player, and goes out a good deal. Between ourselves, she’s one of the best boarders I have—very regular in settling up, and always likes the best of everything, and doesn’t mind paying for it. She’s always sending in fruit, and the like. It gives quite a tone to the house to see the boy leaving those baskets of fruit two or three times a week.”
“Are there any girls who are going to work every day?” Lydia asked, half hoping that the reply would be in the negative.
“Not girls, no. Generally it’s cheaper for girls at work to go to a woman’s hostel or into rooms,” said Miss Nettleship candidly. “Of course, there are one or two gentlemen. Mr. Bulteel himself has retired from business, I understand, but there’s his son, Mr. Hector, that I was telling you about, and there’s aGreek gentleman just now, who’s only been here a week. He goes to the City every day. I’ll introduce you to everyone at supper to-night, dear. It’ll be strange for you at first.”
Lydia was more exhilarated than alarmed. She was not shy, and it rather pleased her to think that she would be unique in her position of worker, at least amongst all the other women.
“You’d like to peep into the drawing-room,” suggested Miss Nettleship, on the way up to Lydia’s bedroom, and from the tone in which she spoke, Lydia guessed that this was the room of which she was proudest.
It was certainly very large and very lofty, with double folding doors in the middle, a marble fireplace at either end, and the dingy remains of much gilding still evident in the decorations.
A solitary little figure sat listlessly at one end of the room, turning over the leaves of a battered picture paper.
“Oh, good evening, Mrs. Clarence,” said Miss Nettleship apologetically. “You’ll excuse me disturbing you, I know. I’m just showing this young lady round. Miss Lydia Raymond—Mrs. Clarence.”
The little lady stood up in an uncertain sort of way, and put out a very tiny hand to Lydia, saying nervously:
“How do you do, Miss—er—er.... I hope you’re quite well.”
“Quite well, thank you,” said Lydia, as Aunt Beryl had taught her to say.
She despised Mrs. Clarence at sight.
The widow was very small and slight, and might have been any age between twenty-eight and thirty-nine.Her hair was of that damp, disastrous yellow, that always looks as though it had been unsuccessfully dyed, her tiny, sallow face was puckered into fretful lines, and Lydia felt convinced that she always wore just such an untidy black silk skirt, showing a sagging at the back, where it failed to meet the dingy, net blouse.
They looked at each other in silence, and Miss Nettleship said at last:
“It’s quite all right, Mrs. Clarence—I knew you’d quite understand—you mustn’t let us disturb you——”
She covered Lydia’s retreat and her own with her usual harassed, good-natured apologies.
“Mrs. Bulteel, and Miss Forster and Mr. Hector are much more lively people than poor Mrs. Clarence,” she told Lydia in a consolatory tone, on the way upstairs.
They did not pause until the top landing of all had been reached.
“This is bedroom number seventeen,” optimistically declared Miss Nettleship, throwing open a door painted liver-colour, and bearing that number on it in black figures.
It looked more like a cupboard than a bedroom to Lydia, unaccustomed to London, although faint memories of lodging-hunting in her mother’s days came back to her as she gazed round.
There was a combined dressing-table and chest of drawers in the room, an iron tripod for washing purposes, with enamel basin and jug, a couple of cane-seated chairs and a low iron bedstead. A print curtain, concealing a row of attenuated iron hooks and wooden pegs, hung against the wall. The only window was a fair-sized skylight.
“I’m going to send you up an easy-chair,” almost whispered Miss Nettleship, looking guiltily round her, as though afraid of being overheard. “There’s one in Mr. Hector Bulteel’s room, and really he doesn’t want it—a boy like him. There’s a rocker broken, so I can get it away to have it mended, and then I’ll bring it up here. This room doesn’t have a rocking-chair by rights, but I know myself the comfort they are when one’s been on one’s feet all day. I’m determined you shall have it, and I only wish it could have been here to-day, dear—but one has to be a bit careful, and Mrs. Bulteel is so sharp, too. But it’ll be quite all right—and I know you quite understand, dear.”
Miss Nettleship seemed to find comfort in this assurance, which she repeated almost automatically every few moments.
Presently she left Lydia to unpack, telling her that the bell would ring for dinner at seven o’clock.
“I’ve put you next me at table, dear, for to-night, but of course I can’t keep you there. I wish I could, but I know you understand how it is—people are so particular. So you’ll understand if you’re down at the end for breakfast to-morrow, won’t you? Everyone takes their seat according to the time they’ve been here—and the latest comers down at the bottom, so you’ll be next to the Greek gentleman. Shall you find your way, dear? I’d come and fetch you, but I must overlook the waitress a bit—you know how it is—one can’t trust those girls a minute.”
“Shall I come straight to the dining-room?”
“They generally wait for the bell in the smoking-room, but they’re very prompt in. And you’d better be prompt, too, dear. That old Miss Lillicrap’sawfulfor taking half of every vegetable dish that’s handed,and I simply can’t let them have more than enough to go once the way round.”
Miss Nettleship went away, sighing.
Lydia thought that she was very kind, but talked too much.
She wondered whether Aunt Beryl had told Miss Nettleship all about her school triumphs, and the post that they had obtained for her. The thought of Aunt Beryl almost made her jump. Regency Terrace seemed such a very long way off already! She could hardly believe that she had been with them all—Grandpapa and Uncle George and Aunt Beryl, and Shamrock—at breakfast-time that very morning.
After she had taken off her hat and scrutinized herself carefully in the looking-glass, Lydia wrote to Aunt Beryl a postcard, to tell her of her safe arrival and of Miss Nettleship’s kindness.
Then she went downstairs.
She could not make up her mind to open the door of the smoking-room, from behind which came the sound of feminine voices, but hung about in the narrow hall, under pretext of seeking a box in which to deposit her postcard.
Suddenly the sound of a deferential voice in her ear made her turn round.
“Did you want to post a letter?”
Lydia faced a slim, dark man, with glistening, black eyes and a clean-shaven, swarthy face. She guessed, from some indefinable intonation that hardly amounted to an accent, in his quiet, silky tones, that this was the Greek gentleman alluded to by the manageress.
“Is there a letter-box?” she asked.
“I hardly advise you to make use of it, if your card is urgent. I have seen it remain uncleared for days.The servant is very careless. But there is a pillar box just outside. Allow me!”
Lydia hesitated, but the Greek put out a slim finger and thumb, and neatly twitched the card out of her hand.
“A pleasure,” said he, opening the front door.
As he left it ajar behind him, Lydia supposed that he had only a few steps to go, and remained in the hall.
In a moment he reappeared.
“That should be delivered by the first post to-morrow morning, Miss Raymond.”
Lydia wondered how he knew her name, but the next minute she received enlightenment.
“I do not know the East Coast personally, but your home must be in a pleasant spot. The seaside is always attractive,” conversationally observed the Greek gentleman, apparently unaware of anything obnoxious in his method of acquiring information as to his neighbour’s concerns.
The reverberation of a gong saved Lydia from making any reply, although the Greek’s manner was so much that of ordinary social intercourse that she almost found herself wondering whether her annoyance at his indiscretion were justified or not.
Before the sound of the gong had died away the smoking-room door was opened, and half a dozen people had filed past Lydia into the dining-room, each one of them giving her a curious glance, sometimes accompanied by a slight bow, as they passed.
She went into the room last, and was relieved to see Miss Nettleship’s broad figure and coils of untidy brown hair surmounting her pleasant, anxious-looking face, at the head of the table.
When Lydia was beside her, Miss Nettleship said aloud:
“I must introduce Miss Raymond to you. I hope she’s going to be here some time. Miss Lydia Raymond, I should say. Miss Lillicrap—Mrs. Bulteel—Mr. Bulteel—Mr. Hector Bulteel—you’ve met Mrs. Clarence already——”
Lydia exchanged bows rather nervously right and left. Mr. Bulteel, who had a melancholy yellow face with prominent eyes, and wore an alpaca coat, and trousers that bagged at the knees, was the only person to smile at her—a doubtful, sallow sort of smile.
Lydia noticed that the Greek, although he had not been named by the manageress, also bowed, much more elaborately than anybody else, and sought her eye with a meaning look, as though some understanding already existed between them.
The meal was a very silent one.
“We quite miss Miss Forster; she’s always so bright,” Miss Nettleship remarked in a general sort of way. “I expect she’s gone to those friends of hers again, for Bridge.”
Miss Nettleship did not visibly partake of the entirety of dinner. When the tepid soup had been handed round by a particularly heavy-footed, loud-breathing servant, who never seemed to have quite enough space to move round the table without slightly lurching against the back of each chair in turn, Miss Nettleship rose and hurried away to the basement.
“I always do the carving downstairs,” she told Lydia in a whisper. “Then there’s no question of favouring.”
Equally Miss Nettleship disappeared again after the meat course, presumably to perform the same office by the pudding.
“I’m so sorry, dear—but you know what it is—one can’t trust those girls to themselves for a moment. Irene’s such a feather-head, and poor old Agnes——”
Miss Nettleship squeezed past the chairs, and hurried away without particularizing the deficiencies of poor old Agnes. Nor did they require pointing out, Lydia reflected drily, if Agnes was, as she supposed, the cook.
After Miss Nettleship had left the room, the conversation, such as it was, mostly came from Mrs. Clarence and Mrs. Bulteel, a pinched, anæmic-looking little Cockney with frizzy, colourless hair.
Hector Bulteel, a yet more pallid edition of his mother, with an upstanding crest of hair that made him look like a cockatoo, said no word throughout the meal, and the Greek gentleman was equally silent.
Old Miss Lillicrap, who had her place at the right hand of the manageress, only spoke in a shrill, quavering old voice, in order to abuse the quality of her food.
Lydia looked furtively round at them all, and felt rather dismayed.
She wondered whether they would ever take on the similitude of real people to her, or if they would continue to appear as mere grotesque figures that could bear no serious relation to her new life.