"What a big place," she said to her ladyship."What substantial walls! What huge joints must have been roasted before such a fireplace."She drew near to the enormous, antiquated cooking place.
"People were not very practical when this was built," she said."It looks as if it must waste a great deal of coal.Is it----?" she looked at Mrs.Noakes."Do you like it?"There was a practical directness in the question for which Mrs.Noakes was not prepared.Until this moment, it had apparently mattered little whether she liked things or not.
The condition of her implements of trade was one of her grievances--the ancient fireplace and ovens the bitterest.
"It's out of order, miss," she answered."And they don't use 'em like this in these days.""I thought not," said Miss Vanderpoel.
She made other inquiries as direct and significant of the observing eye, and her passage through the lower part of the establishment left Mrs.Noakes and her companions in a strange but not unpleasurable state of ferment.
"Think of a young lady that's never had nothing to do with kitchens, going straight to that shameful old fireplace, and seeing what it meant to the woman that's got to use it.
`Do you like it?' she says.If she'd been a cook herself, she couldn't have put it straighter.She's got eyes.""She's been using them all over the place, said Robert.
"Her and her ladyship's been into rooms that's not been opened for years.""More shame to them that should have opened 'em,"remarked Mrs.Noakes."Her ladyship's a poor, listless thing--but her spirit was broken long ago.
"This one will mend it for her, perhaps," said the man servant."I wonder what's going to happen.""Well, she's got a look with her--the new one--as if where she was things would be likely to happen.You look out.
The place won't seem so dead and alive if we've got something to think of and expect.""Who are the solicitors Sir Nigel employs?" Betty had asked her sister, when their pilgrimage through the house had been completed.
Messrs.Townlinson & Sheppard, a firm which for several generations had transacted the legal business of much more important estates than Stornham, held its affairs in hand.
Lady Anstruthers knew nothing of them, but that they evidently did not approve of the conduct of their client.Nigel was frequently angry when he spoke of them.It could be gathered that they had refused to allow him to do things he wished to do--sell things, or borrow money on them.
"I think we must go to London and see them," Betty suggested.
Rosy was agitated.Why should one see them? What was there to be spoken of? Their going, Betty explained would be a sort of visit of ceremony--in a measure a precaution.
Since Sir Nigel was apparently not to be reached, having given no clue as to where he intended to go, it might be discreet to consult Messrs.Townlinson & Sheppard with regard to the things it might be well to do--the repairs it appeared necessary to make at once.If Messrs.Townlinson &Sheppard approved of the doing of such work, Sir Nigel could not resent their action, and say that in his absence liberties had been taken.Such a course seemed businesslike and dignified.
It was what Betty felt that her father would do.
Nothing could be complained of, which was done with the knowledge and under the sanction of the family solicitors.
"Then there are other things we must do.We must go to shops and theatres.It will be good for you to go to shops and theatres, Rosy.""I have nothing but rags to wear," answered Lady Anstruthers, reddening.
"Then before we go we will have things sent down.
People can be sent from the shops to arrange what we want."The magic of the name, standing for great wealth, could, it was true, bring to them, not only the contents of shops, but the people who showed them, and were ready to carry out any orders.The name of Vanderpoel already stood, in London, for inexhaustible resource.Yes, it was simple enough to send for politely subservient saleswomen to bring what one wanted.
The being reminded in every-day matters of the still real existence of the power of this magic was the first step in the rebuilding of Lady Anstruthers.To realise that the wonderful and yet simple necromancy was gradually encircling her again, had its parallel in the taking of a tonic, whose effect was cumulative.She herself did not realise the working of it.
But Betty regarded it with interest.She saw it was good for her, merely to look on at the unpacking of the New York boxes, which the maid, sent for from London, brought down with her.
As the woman removed, from tray after tray, the tissue-paper-enfolded layers of garments, Lady Anstruthers sat and watched her with normal, simply feminine interest growing in her eyes.The things were made with the absence of any limit in expenditure, the freedom with delicate stuffs and priceless laces which belonged only to her faint memories of a lost past.
Nothing had limited the time spent in the embroidering of this apparently simple linen frock and coat; nothing had restrained the hand holding the scissors which had cut into the lace which adorned in appliques and filmy frills this exquisitely charming ball dress.
"It is looking back so far," she said, waving her hand towards them with an odd gesture."To think that it was once all like--like that."She got up and went to the things, turning them over, and touching them with a softness, almost expressing a caress.
The names of the makers stamped on bands and collars, the names of the streets in which their shops stood, moved her.
She heard again the once familiar rattle of wheels, and the rush and roar of New York traffic.
Betty carried on the whole matter with lightness.She talked easily and casually, giving local colour to what she said.
She described the abnormally rapid growth of the places her sister had known in her teens, the new buildings, new theatres, new shops, new people, the later mode of living, much of it learned from England, through the unceasing weaving of the Shuttle.
