But of all the sad and unhappy squares in Bloomsbury the saddest is Bennett Square. It is shut in by all the other Bloomsbury Squares and is further than any of them from the lights and traffic of popular streets. There are only four lamp posts there—one at each corner—and between these patches of light everything is darkness and desolation.
Every house in Bennett Square is a boarding-house, and No. 72 is Brockett's.
“Mrs. Brockett is a very terrifying but lovable woman,” said the Signor darkly, and Peter, whose spirits had sunk lower and ever lower as he stumbled through the dark streets, felt, at the sound of this threatening prophecy, entirely miserable.
No. 72 is certainly the grimiest of the houses in Bennett Square. It is tall and built of that grey stone that takes the mind of the observer back to those school precincts of his youth. It is a thin house, not broad and fat and comfortably bulging, but rather flinging a spiteful glance at the house that squeezed it in on either side. It is like a soured, elderly caustic old maid, unhappy in its own experiences and determined to make every one else unhappy in theirs. Peter, of course, did not see these things, because it was very dark, but he wished he had not come.
The Signor had a key of his own and Peter was soon inside a hall that smelt of oilcloth and the cooking of beef; the gas was burning, but the only things that really benefited from its light were a long row of mournful black coats that hung against the wall.
Peter sneezed, and was suddenly conscious of an enormous woman whom he knew by instinct to be Mrs. Brockett. She was truly enormous—she stood facing him like some avenging Fate. She had the body of a man—flat, straight, broad. Her black hair, carefully parted down the middle, was brushed back and bound into hard black coils low down over the neck. She stood there, looking down on them, her arms akimbo, her legs apart. Her eyes were black and deep set, her cheek bones very prominent, her nose thin and sharp; her black dress caught in a little at the waist, fell otherwise in straight folds to her feet. There was a faint moustache on her upper lip, her hands, with long white slender fingers, were beautiful, lying straight by her side, against the stuff of her dress.
“Well?” she said—and her voice was deep like a man's. “Good evening, Signor.”
“Good evening, Madame.” He took off his hat and gave her a deep bow. “This is the young gentleman, Mr. Westcott, of whom I spoke to you this morning.”
“Well—how are you, Mr. Westcott?” Her words were sharply clipped and had the resonance of coins as they rang in the air.
“Quite well, thank you,” said Peter, and he noticed, in spite of his dismay at her appearance, that the clasp of her hand was strong and friendly.