CHAPTER XII
A MORNING CALL
The Dowager was being created for the day. Created seems the only term applicable to the process, for Lily, Marchioness of Port Arthur, as finished by her Maker and her maid, were two entirely distinct and separate articles. Stimson alone was initiated in these mysteries. Even Lady Isabelle had never been allowed to see her mother as she really was, and no one exactly knew how she was put together, though several tradesmen in Bond Street might have been able to make shrewd guesses at her component parts.
The Dowager never appeared in public until lunch time. She had, she told her friends, earned the right to this little luxury now that the struggle of life was nearly over. Doubtless her Ladyship knew best what she had done to deserve such an indulgence. But, be that as it may, her daily retirement gave her a much coveted opportunity for attending to matters in the private life of other people, and one of these affairs claimed her attention after the Secretary's arrival at Roberts' Hall.
Stimson had finished her morning's budget; that is, she had retailed to her Ladyship all those things about which the Dowager declared pathetically she had not the slightest desire to know, but which, had the maid omitted to mention them, would have cost her her place.
"And so, as I was saying, my Lady," Stimson concluded her recital, "Mr. Stalbridge, the butler, he tells me as there was a strange lady come to Coombe Farm yesterday, a foreigner like."
"I do not know, Stimson, why you worry me with these trivialities," said the Dowager, "in which I can have no possible interest. You say she was a foreigner?"
"Yes, my lady. A Spaniard, Mr. Stalbridge thought, and her name——"
"You needn't trouble me to tell me her name, Stimson."