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 of coloured glass still hung from the ceiling, clinking forlornly, in solitary token of the once frivolous purposes of the little alcove.