It seemed that we were to get our way. The woman came towards us again. 'I was to say that it is not usual for ladies to come at this time; Mrs Gower is always very much engaged until two o'clock; but she will see you, if you will step this way.'
We followed her into the house through a great hall, cold and forlorn-looking enough even at this season, divested as it was of everything in the way of furniture, and with its stone floor distressingly whitened. Then she pushed open a swing-door, led the way down a small well-carpeted passage, and ushered us into one of the cosiest of little rooms, luxuriously furnished. I had just a momentary glimpse of a lady lying back in an easy-chair, with her feet upon a hassock, reading a newspaper, a dainty luncheon with wine, &c. on the low table at her elbow, when at the words, 'The committee room, the committee room, of course, Downs,' we were hurriedly hustled out of the room again.
'This way, if you please,' said our conductress, leading us across the forlorn-looking hall again.
But the room we were now ushered into was to my eyes more forlorn still—a long room of noble proportions, with five windows, which had once commanded the view of a beautifully wooded undulating park, but which were now faced by a brick wall only four or five feet distant. The only flowers now to be seen were the marble ones festooned about the high old-fashioned fireplaces at each end of the room. It was now used as a committee room; a long baize-covered table, a dozen or so of heavy chairs, with ink and papers and one book, representing the furniture.
I was busily altering the aspect of things, telling myself that even the committee must feel the depressing effects of such a room as this; pulling down the offending wall, training rose-trees round the windows, and so forth, when the door opened, and Mrs Gower entered. A stout large-boned woman, between fifty and sixty years of age; severe of countenance, and expensively attired—too elaborately, I thought, for a gentlewoman's morning-dress.
'One of our lady patronesses, I presume?' she said, with a little half-bend as she advanced. 'It is not usual for ladies to come at this early hour; but we are always prepared for inspection, and happy to shew the Home, and explain our system, to ladies who may be desirous of co-operating with us.'
'I am very much interested, Mrs Gower. I do not think anything can be of more interest and importance to women than is such work as this. But I came as the friend of one of the inmates—Nancy Dean—to ask your permission for me to see her.'
'Are you a subscriber to the institution, may I ask, madam?'
'No.'