Nell, of Shorne Mills Part 44

"Perfectly well and fit, thanks, captain," said Drake. "Will you have a cigar? Wind will just suit us, will it not?"

About the same time Nell's cab arrived at Wolfer House, Egerton Square.

There were several other cabs and carriages standing in a line opposite the house, and Nell's cab had to wait some little time before it could set her down; but at last she was able to alight, and a footman escorted her and her box into a large and rather gloomy hall. He seemed somewhat surprised by her box, and eyed her doubtfully as she inquired for Lady Wolfer.

"Lady Wolfer? Yes, miss. Her ladyship is in the dining room. The meeting is now on. Perhaps you had better walk in."

Sharing the man's hesitation, Nell followed him to the door. As he opened it, the sound of a woman's voice, thin, yet insistent and rasping, came out to meet her. She saw that the room was crowded. Nearly all who were present were women--women of various ages, but all with some peculiarity of manner or dress which struck Nell at the very first moment. But there were some men present--men with fat and rather flabby faces, men small and feeble in appearance, men long-haired and smooth-shaven.

At the end of the room, behind a small table, stood a woman, still young, dressed in a tailor-made suit of masculine pattern and cut. Her hair was pretty in color and texture, but it was cut almost close, and just touched the collar of her covert coat. She wore a bowler hat, her gloves were on the table in front of her--thick, dogskin gloves, like a man's. She held a roll of paper in her hand, which was bare of rings, though feminine enough in size and shape. A pince-nez was balanced on her nose, and her chin--really a pretty chin--was held high in an aggressive manner.

Nell had an idea that this was Lady Wolfer, and she edged as close to the wall as she could, and watched and listened to the speaker with a natural curiosity and anxiety.

"To conclude," the orator was saying, with a wave of the roll of paper and a jerk of the chin, "to conclude, we are banded together to wage a war against our old tyrant--a war of equity and right. Oh, my sisters, do not let us falter, do not let us return the sword to the scabbard until we have cleaved our way to that goal toward which the eyes of suffering womanhood have been drawn since the gospel of equal rights for both s.e.xes sounded its first evangel!"

It was evidently the close, the peroration, of the speech; there was a burst of applause, much clapping of hands, and immediately afterward a kind of stampede to some tables, behind which a couple of footmen were preparing to dispense light refreshments.

Nell, much mystified, and rather shy and frightened, remained where she was; and she was just upon the point of inquiring for Lady Wolfer, when the recent speaker came down the room, talking with one and another of the presumably less hungry mob, and catching sight of Nell's slight and rather shrinking figure, advanced toward her.

"This is a new disciple, I suppose," she said, smiling through her eyegla.s.ses.

"I--I wish to see Lady Wolfer," said Nell, trying not to blush.

"I am Lady Wolfer," said the youngish lady with the short hair and mannish suit; and she spoke in a gentler voice than Nell would have been inclined to credit her with.

"I am--I am Nell Lorton."

Lady Wolfer looked puzzled for a moment; then she laughed and held out her hand.

"Really? Why, how young and----" She was going to say "pretty," but stopped in time. "Did you wire? But of course you did. I must have forgotten. I have such a ma.s.s of correspondence!" She laughed again. "I thought you were a new disciple! Come with me!"

And, with what struck Nell as scant courtesy, her ladyship left the other ladies, took her by the hand, and led her out of the room.

CHAPTER XX.

Lady Wolfer led Nell to her ladyship's own room. It was as unlike a boudoir as it well could be; for the furniture was of the simplest kind, and in place of the elegant trifles with which the fair s.e.x usually delight to surround themselves, the tables, the couch, and even the chairs were littered with solid-looking volumes, blue books, pamphlets, and sheets of ma.n.u.script paper.

There was a piano, it is true; but its top was loaded with handbills and posters announcing meetings, and the dust lay thick on its lid. The writing table was better suited to an office than a lady's "own room,"

and it was strewn with the prevailing litter.

Lady Wolfer cleared a chair by sweeping the books from it, and gently pushed Nell into it.

"Now, you sit down for a moment while I ring for a maid to take you to your room. Heaven only knows where it is, or in what condition you will find it! You see, I quite forgot you were coming. Candid, isn't it? But I'm always candid, and I begin at once with you. By the way, oughtn't you to have come earlier--or later?"

Nell explained that she had had her breakfast at the station, and spent an hour in the waiting room, so as not to present herself too early.

"How thoughtful of you!" said Lady Wolfer. "You don't look--you look so young and--girlish."

"I'm not very old," remarked Nell, with a smile. "Perhaps I'm not old enough to fill the position."

"Oh, for goodness' sake, don't throw a doubt upon your staying!" said her ladyship quickly. "I'm so tired of old, or what I call old, people, and I am sure you will do beautifully. For, though you are so young, you look as if you could manage; and that is what I can't do--I mean manage a house. I can talk--I can talk the hind leg off a donkey, as Archie says"--she stopped, looking slightly embarra.s.sed for a moment, and Nell supposed that her ladyship alluded to Lord Wolfer--"but when it comes to details, fortunately there is always somebody else."

While she had been speaking, Lady Wolfer had taken off her hat and jacket, and flung them onto the book-and-paper-strewn couch.

"I'm just come in from a breakfast meeting to attend this one at home,"

she explained. "And I've got to go out again directly to a committee--the Employment of Women Bureau. Have you ever heard of it?"

Nell shook her head.

"No? I'm half inclined to envy you. No, I'm not! If it weren't for my work, I should go out of my mind."

She put her hand to her head, and for an instant a wearied, melancholy expression flitted across her face, as if some hidden trouble had reared its head and grinned at her.

The door opened, and a maid appeared.

"Burden, this is Miss Lorton," said Lady Wolfer. "Is her room ready?"

Burden looked exceedingly doubtful.

"I expected it! Please have it got ready at once; and send some wine and biscuits, please."

A footman brought them, and Lady Wolfer poured some wine out for Nell.

"Oh, but you must! Heaven knows when we shall have lunch; they'll very likely consider that scramble downstairs as sufficient. But you'll see to all that for the future, won't you?"

"You must tell me, Lady Wolfer----" began Nell, but her ladyship, with a grimace, stopped her.

"My dear girl, I can't tell you anything, excepting that Lord Wolfer takes his breakfast early--not later than nine--is seldom in to lunch, and still less frequently at home to dinner; but when he does dine here, he dines at eight. The cook, who is, I believe, rather a decent sort of man, knows what Lord Wolfer likes, and you can't go very far wrong, I fancy, if you have a joint of roast beef or a leg of mutton on the menu; the rest doesn't matter."

Nell began to feel daunted. There was just a little too much carte blanche about it.

"And as to the other servants, why, there's an old person named Hubbard--Old Mother Hubbard, I call her--who is supposed to look after them."

Nell could not help smiling.

"I don't quite see where I come in," she remarked.

Lady Wolfer laughed.

"Oh, don't you?" she replied, as if she had been explaining most fully.

"You are the figurehead, the G.o.ddess of the machine. You will see that all goes right, and give Lord Wolfer his breakfast, and preside at the dinner when I'm out on the stump----"

"On the what?" asked the mystified Nell.