If Nell wanted work that would prevent her dwelling upon her heart's
loss, she had certainly found it at Egerton House. Before a week had
passed she had slipped into her position of presiding genius; and,
marvelous to relate, seeing how young and inexperienced she was, she
filled it very well.
At first she was considerably worried by the condition of domestic
affairs. Meals were prepared for persons who might or might not be
present to eat them. Sometimes she would sit down alone to a lunch
sufficient for half a dozen persons; at others, Lady Wolfer would come
down at the last moment and say:
"Oh, Nell, dear"--it had very quickly come to "Nell"--"ever so many
women are coming to lunch--nine or ten, I forget which. I ought to have
told you, oughtn't I? And I really meant to, but somehow it slipped out
of my head. And they are mostly people with good appetites. Is there
anything in the house? But, there! I know you will manage somehow, won't
you, dear?"
And Nell would summon the long-suffering Mrs. Hubbard, and additions
would hastily be made to the small menu, and Nell would come in looking
as cool and composed as if the guests had run no risk of starvation.
The dinner hour, as Lady Wolfer had said, was eight, but it was often
nine or half-past before she and Lord Wolfer put in an appearance; and
more than once during the week the earl had been accompanied by persons
whom he had brought from the House or some meeting, and expected to have
them provided for.
The cook never knew how many guests to expect; the coachman never knew
when the horses and carriages would be wanted; the footmen were called
upon to leave their proper duties and wait upon a mob of "advanced
women" collected for a meeting--and a scramble feed--in the dining room,
when perhaps a proper lunch should have been in preparation for an
ordinary party.
There was no rest, no cessation of the stir and turmoil in the great
house, and amid it all Nell moved like a kind of good fairy, contriving
to just keep the whole thing from smashing up in chaotic confusion.
Presently everybody began to rely upon her, and came to her for
assistance; and the earl himself was uneasy and dissatisfied if she were
not at the head of the breakfast table, at which he and she very often
made a duet. He seemed to see Lady Wolfer very seldom, and gradually
got into the habit of communicating with her through Nell. It would be:
"May I trouble you so far, Miss Lorton, as to ask Lady Wolfer if she
intends going to the Wrexhold reception to-night?" Or: "Lady Wolfer
wishes for a check for these bills. May I ask you to give it to her?
Thank you very much. I am afraid I am giving you a great deal of
trouble."
Sometimes Nell would say: "Lady Wolfer is in her room. Shall I tell her
you are here?" and he would make haste to reply:
"Oh, no; not at all necessary. She may be very much engaged. Besides, I
am just going out."
Grave and reserved, not to say grim, though he was, Nell got to like
him. His pomposity was on the surface, and his stiffness and hauteur
were but the mannerisms with which some men are cursed. At the end of
the week he startled her by alluding to the salary which he had offered
her in his letter.
"I am afraid you thought it a very small sum, Miss Lorton," he said. "I
myself considered it inadequate; but I asked a friend what he paid in a
similar case, and I was, quite wrongly, I see, guided by him."
"It is quite enough," said Nell, blushing. "I think it would have been
fairer if you had not paid me anything--at any rate, to start with."
"We will, if you please, increase it to one hundred pounds," he said,
ignoring her protest. "I beg you will not refuse; in fact, I shall
regard your acceptance as a favor."
He rose to leave the room before Nell could reply, and Lady Wolfer,
entering with her usual rapidity, nearly ran against him. He begged her
pardon with extreme courtesy, and was passing out, when she stopped him
with a:
"Oh, I'm glad I've seen you. Will the twenty-fourth do for the dinner
party? Are you engaged for that night? I'm not, I think."
The earl's grave eyes rested on her pretty, piquant face as she
consulted her ivory tablets, but his gaze was lowered instantly as she
looked up at him again.
"No," he said. "Is it a large party?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"I'm afraid so. I'm going over the list with Nell, here. Oh, for
goodness' sake, don't run away, dear!" she broke off, as Nell, thinking
herself rather de trop, moved toward an opposite door; and Nell, of
course, remained.
"She's the most awful girl to get hold of!" said her ladyship. "If ever
you want to speak to her, to have a nice, quiet chat with her, she has
always got to go and 'see to something.'"
"I can understand that Miss Lorton's time must be much occupied," said
the earl, with a courteous little inclination of the head to Nell.
"Yes, I know; but she might occupy it with me sometimes," remarked her
ladyship.
"I can give you just five minutes," said Nell, laughing. "This is just
my busiest hour."
The earl waited for a minute, waited as if under compulsion and to see
if Lady Wolfer had anything more to say to him, then passed out. On his
way across the hall he met Sir Archie Walbrooke.
"Mornin', Wolfer," said the young man, in his slow, self-possessed way.
"Lady Wolfer at home? Got to see her about--'pon my honor, forget what
it was now!"
The earl smiled gravely.
"You will find her in the library, Walbrooke," he said, and went on his
way.
Sir Archie was shown into the room where Lady Wolfer and Nell were
conferring over the dinner party, and Lady Wolfer looked up with an
easy:
"Oh, it's you, is it? What brings you here? Oh, never mind, if you can't
remember; I dare say I shall presently. Meanwhile, you can help us make
out this list."
"Always glad to make myself useful," he drawled, seating himself on the
settee beside Lady Wolfer, and taking hold of one side of the piece of
paper which she held.
They were soon so deeply engaged that Nell, eager to get to Mrs.
Hubbard, left them for a while.
When she came in again, the list was lying on the floor, Lady Wolfer was
leaning forward, with her hands clasped tightly in her lap, her pretty
face lined and eloquent of some deep emotion, and Sir Archie was talking
in a low, and, for him, eager tone.
As Nell entered, Lady Wolfer rose quickly, and Sir Archie, fumbling at
his eyeglass, looked for the moment somewhat disconcerted.
"If we're goin' to this place, hadn't we better go?" he said, with his
usual drawl; and Lady Wolfer, murmuring an assent, left the room. Nell,
following her to her room to ask a question about the dinner party, was
surprised and rather alarmed at finding her pale and trembling.
"Oh, what is the matter?" Nell asked. "Are you ill?"
"No, oh, no! It is nothing," Lady Wolfer replied hastily. "Where is my
hat? No, don't ring for my maid. Help me--you help me----"
She let her hand rest for a moment on Nell's arm, and looked into her
grave eyes wistfully.
"Were you--were you ever in trouble, Nell?" she asked. "I mean a great
trouble, which threatened to overshadow your life--not a death; that is
hard enough to fight, but--how foolishly I am talking! And how white you
have gone! Why, child, you can't know anything of such trouble as I
mean! What is it?" she broke off, as the maid knocked at the door and
entered.
"The phaeton is ready, my lady; and Sir Archie says are you going to
drive, or is he? because, if so, he will change his gloves, so as not to
keep your ladyship waiting."
"I don't care--oh, he can drive," said Lady Wolfer. She spoke as if the
message, acting as a kind of reminder, had helped her to recover her
usual half-careless, half-defiant mood. "About this dinner, Nell; will
you ask Lord Wolfer if there is any one he would like asked, and add
them to the list? Where did I leave it? Oh, it's in the library."
Nell went down for it, and, as she opened the door, Sir Archie came
forward with an eager and anxious expression on his handsome face--an
expression which changed to one of slight embarrassment as he saw that
it was Nell.
"The list? Ah, yes; here it is. I'm afraid it's not fully made out; but
there's plenty of time. Is Lady Wolfer nearly ready?"
Nell went away with a vague feeling of uneasiness. Had Lady Wolfer been
telling Sir Archie of her "trouble"? If so, why did she not tell her
husband? But perhaps she had.
Nell had no time to dwell upon Lady Wolfer's incoherent speech, for the
coming dinner party provided her with plenty to think about. She had
hoped that she herself would not be expected to be present, but when on
the following evening she expressed this hope, Lady Wolfer had laughed
at her.
"My dear child," she said, "don't expect that you are going to be let
off. Of course, you don't want to be present; neither do I, nor any of
the guests. Everybody hates and loathes dinner parties; but so they do
the influenza and taxes; but most of us have to have the influenza and
pay the taxes, all the same."
"But I haven't a dress," said Nell.
"Then get one made. Send to Cerise and tell her that I say she is to
build you one immediately. Anyway, dress or no dress, you will have to
be present. Why, I shouldn't be at all surprised if my husband refused
to eat his dinner if you were not."
Nell laughed.
"And I know that Lord Wolfer would not notice my presence or my
absence," she said.
Lady Wolfer looked at her rather curiously, certainly not jealously, but
gravely and wistfully.
"My dear Nell, don't you know that he thinks very highly of you, and
that he considers you a marvel of wisdom and cleverness?"
"I should be a marvel of conceit and vanity if I were foolish enough to
believe that you meant some of the pretty things you say to me,"
remarked Nell. "And have I got the complete list of all the guests? I
asked Lord Wolfer, and he said that he should like Lord and Lady
Angleford invited."
Lady Wolfer nodded.
"All right. You will find their address in the _Court Guide_. But I think
he has the gout, and Lady Angleford never goes anywhere without him.
Did--did my husband say anything more about the party--or--anything?" she
asked, bending over the proofs of a speech she was correcting.
"No," said Nell. "Only that he left everything to you, of course."
"Of course," said her ladyship. "He is, as usual, utterly indifferent
about everything concerning me. Don't look so scared, my child," she
added, with a bitter little laugh. "That is the usual attitude of the
husband, especially when he is a public man, and needs a figure to sit
at the head of his table and ride in his carriages instead of a wife!
There! you are going to run away, I see. And you look as if I had talked
high treason. My dear Nell, when you know as much of the world as you
know of your prayer book----Bah! why should I open those innocent eyes
of yours? Run away--and play, I was going to say; but I'm afraid you
don't get much play. Archie was saying only yesterday that we were
working you too hard, and that we ought to be ashamed of ourselves."
Nell flushed rather resentfully.
"I am much obliged to Sir Archie's expression of sympathy," she began.
"Yes! You sound like it!" said Lady Wolfer, laughing. "My dear, why
don't you get angry oftener? It suits you. Your face just wants that
dash of color; and I'd no idea your eyes were so violety! You can give
me a kiss if you like--mind the ink! Ah, Nell, some day some man will go
mad over that same face and eyes of yours. Well, don't marry a
politician, or a man who thinks it undignified to care for his wife!
There, do go!"
As Nell went away, puzzled by Lady Wolfer's words and manner, her
ladyship let her head fall upon her hand, and, sighing deeply, gazed at
the "proof" as if she had forgotten it.
Nell did not send for Madame Cerise, but purchased a skirt of black lace,
and set to work to make up the bodice. She was engaged on this one evening
two nights before the dinner, when Burden came in with:
"A gentleman to see you, miss. He's in the library. It's Mr. Lorton,
your brother, I think----"
Nell was on the stairs before the maid had finished, and running into
the library, had got Dick in her arms--and his brand-new hat on the
floor.
"Dick! Oh, Dick! Is it really you?"
"Yes; but there won't be much left of me if you continue garroting me;
and would you mind my picking up my hat? It is the only one I've got,
and we don't grow 'em at Shorne Mills! Why, Nell, how--yes, how thin
you've got! And, I say, what a swagger house! I'd always looked upon
mamma's swell relations as a kind of 'Mrs. Harrises,' until now."
He nodded, as he endeavored to smooth the roughened silk of his hat.
"Mamma--tell me; she is all right, Dick?"
"Oh, yes. I've got no end of messages. She's had your letters, all of
'em; and she hopes that you are taking advantage of your splendid
position. Is it a splendid position, Nell? They seemed to think me of
some consequence when I mentioned, dissembling my pride in the
connection, that I was your brother."
Nell nodded.
"Yes, yes; it is all right, and I am quite--happy. And Shorne Mills,
Dick, are they all well?"
"And kicking. I've got a hundred messages which you can sum up in 'love
from all.' And, Nell, I've only time to say how are you, for I'm going
to catch the Irish mail. Fact! Bardsley & Bardsley are sending me to
some engineering work there. How's that for high? Ah, would you!"
gingerly whisking his hat behind him. "Keep off; and, Nell, how's
Drake?"
The abrupt question sent the blood rushing through Nell's face, and then
as suddenly from it, leaving it stone white.
"Drake--Mr. Vernon?" she said, almost inaudibly. "I--I do not know. I--I
have not seen--heard."
"No? That's rum! I should have thought that tiff was over by this time.
Can't make it out! What have you been doing, Miss Lorton?"
Nell bravely tried to smile.
"You--you have seen him? You never wrote and told me, Dick! You--you
gave him my note?"
Dick nodded rather gravely.
"Yes."
"And--and----" She could not speak.
"Oh, yes; I gave it him, and he said----Well, he looked broken up over
it; quite broken up. He said--let me see; I didn't pay very much
attention because I thought he'd write to you and see you. They
generally wind up that way, after a quarrel, don't they?"
"It does not matter. No, I have not seen or heard," said Nell.
"Well, he said: 'Tell her that it's quite true.' Dashed if I know what
he meant! And that he wouldn't worry you, but would obey you and not
write or see you. I think that was all."
It was enough. If the faintest spark of hope had been left to glow in
Nell's bosom, Drake's message extinguished it.
Her head dropped for a moment, then she looked up bravely.
"It was what I expected, Dick. It--was like him. No, no; don't speak;
don't say any more about it. And you'll stay, Dick? Lady Wolfer will be
glad to see you. They are all so kind to me, and----"
"I'm so glad to hear that," said Dick; "because if they hadn't been I
should have insisted upon your going home. But I suppose they really are
kind, and don't starve you, though you are so thin."
"It's the London air, or want of air," said Nell. "And mamma, does
she"--she faltered wistfully--"miss me?"
"We all miss you--especially the butcher and the baker," replied Dick
diplomatically. "And now I'm off. And, Nell--oh, do mind my hat!--if you
know Drake's address, I should like to write to him."
She shook her head.
"Strange," said Dick. "I wrote to the address in London to which I
posted the letters when he was ill, and it came back 'Not known.' I--I
think he must have gone abroad. Well, there, I won't say any more;
but--'he was werry good to me,' as poor Joe says in the novel, you know,
Nell."
Yes, it was well for Nell that she had no time to dwell upon her heart's
loss; and yet she found some minutes for that "Sorrow's crown of
sorrow," the remembrance of happier days, as she leaned over her black
lace bodice that night when the great house was silent, and the quiet
room was filled with visions of Shorne Mills--visions in which Drake,
the lover who had left her for Lady Luce, was the principal figure.
On the night of the big dinner party, she, having had the last
consultation with Mrs. Hubbard and the butler, went downstairs. The vast
drawing-room was empty, and she was standing by the fire and looking at
the clock rather anxiously--for it was quite on the cards that Lady
Wolfer would be late, and that some of the guests would arrive before
the hostess was ready to receive them--when the door opened and her
ladyship entered. She was handsomely dressed, and wore the family
diamonds, and Nell, who had not before seen her so richly attired and
bejeweled, was about to express her admiration, when Lady Wolfer stopped
short and surveyed the slim figure of her "housekeeper companion" with
widely opened eyes and a smile of surprise and friendly approval.
"My dear child, how--how----Ahem! no, it's no use; I must speak my mind!
My dear Nell, if I were as vain as some women, and, like most, had a
strong objection to being cut out in my own house by my own cousin, I
should send you to bed! Where did you get that dress, and who made it?"
Nell laughed and blushed.
"I bought it in Regent Street--half of it--and made the rest; and please
don't pretend that you like it."
"I won't," said Lady Wolfer succinctly. "My dear, you are too pretty for
anything, and the dress is charming! Oh, mine! Mine is commonplace
compared beside it, and smacks the modiste and the Louvre; while
yours----Archie is right; you have more taste than Cerise herself----"
She broke off as the earl entered. "Don't you admire Nell's dress?" she
said, but with her eyes fixed on one of her bracelets, which appeared to
have come unfastened.
The earl looked at Nell--blushing furiously now--with grave attention.
"I always admire Miss Lorton's dresses," he said, with a little bow.
Then his eyes wandered to the white arm and the open bracelet, and he
made a step toward his wife; then he hesitated, and, before he could
make up his mind to fasten it, she had snapped to the clasp.
"I tell her she will cause a sensation to-night," she said, moving away.
He looked at his wife gravely.
"Indeed, yes," he said absently. "Is it not time some of them arrived?"
As he spoke, the footman announced Lady Angleford.
She came forward, her train sweeping behind her, a pleasant smile on her
mignonne face.
"Am I the first, Lady Wolfer? That is the punishment for American
punctuality!"
"So good of you!" murmured Lady Wolfer. "And where is Lord Angleford?"
"I'm sorry, but he has the gout!"
Lady Wolfer expressed her regret.
"And Lord Selbie?" she asked. "Shall we see him?"
"Did you ask him?" asked Lady Angleford, her brow wrinkling eagerly. "Is
he in England? Have you heard that he has returned?"
Another woman would have been embarrassed, but Lady Wolfer was too
accustomed to getting into scrapes of this kind not to find a way out of
them.
"Isn't that like me? Nell, dear--this is my cousin and our guardian
angel, Miss Lorton--Lady Angleford! Did we ask Lord Selbie?"
Nell smiled and shook her head.
"N-o," she said; "his name was not on the list, I think."
Lady Angleford, who had been looking at her with interest, went up to
her.
"It wouldn't have been any use," she said. "He is abroad--somewhere."
She stifled a sigh as she spoke.
"Then there is no need for us to feel overwhelmed with guilt, Nell,"
said Lady Wolfer. "Come and warm yourself, my dear. Oh, that gout! No
wonder you won't join the 'Advance Movement!' You've quite enough to try
you. Nell, come and tell Lady Angleford how hard I work."
Nell came forward to join in the conversation; but all the time they
were talking she was wondering where she had heard Lord Selbie's name!