"Is she not a relative of Lady Chillington?" I asked.
"No, not a relative," answered Dance. "You must try to love her a great deal, my dear Miss Janet; for if angels are ever allowed to visit this vile earth, Sister Agnes is one of them. But there goes her ladyship's bell. She is ready to receive you."
I had washed away the stains of travel, and had put on my best frock, and Dance was pleased to say that I looked very nice, "though, perhaps, a trifle more old-fashioned than a girl of your age ought to look." Then she laid down a few rules for my guidance when in the presence of Lady Chillington, and led the way to the Green Saloon, I following with a timorous heart.
Dance flung open the folding-doors of the big room. "Miss Janet Hope to see your ladyship," she called out; and next moment the doors closed behind me, and I was left standing there alone.
"Come nearer—come nearer," said her ladyship's cracked voice, as with a long, lean hand she beckoned me to approach.
I advanced slowly up the room, stopped and curtsied. Lady Chillington pointed out a high footstool about three yards from her chair. I curtsied again, and sat down on it. During the interview that followed my quick eyes had ample opportunity for taking a mental inventory of Lady Chillington and her surroundings.
She had exchanged the black dress in which I first saw her for one of green velvet, trimmed with ermine. This dress was made with short sleeves and low body, so as to leave exposed her ladyship's arms, long, lean and skinny, and her scraggy neck. Her nose was hooked and her chin pointed. Between the two shone a row of large white, even teeth, which long afterwards I knew to be artificial. Equally artificial was the mass of short black, frizzly curls that crowned her head, which was unburdened with cap or covering of any kind. Her eyebrows were dyed to match her hair. Her cheeks, even through the powder with which they were thickly smeared, showed two spots of brilliant red, which no one less ignorant than I would have accepted without question as the last genuine remains of the bloom of youth. But at that first interview I accepted everything au pied de la lettre, without doubt or question of any kind.
Her ladyship wore long earrings of filigree gold. Round her neck was a massive gold chain. On her fingers sparkled several rings of price—diamonds, rubies and opals. In figure her ladyship was tall, and upright as a dart. She was, however, slightly lame of one foot, which necessitated the use of a cane when walking. Lady Chillington's cane was ivory-headed, and had a gold plate let into it, on which was engraved her crest and initials. She was seated in an elaborately-carved high-backed chair, near a table on which were the remains of a dessert for one person.
The Green Saloon was a large gloomy room; at least it looked gloomy as I saw it for the first time, lighted up by four wax candles where twenty were needed. These four candles being placed close by where Lady Chillington was sitting, left the other end of the saloon in comparative darkness. The furniture was heavy, formal and old-fashioned. Gloomy portraits of dead and gone Chillingtons lined the green walls, and this might be the reason why there always seemed to me a slight graveyard flavour—scarcely perceptible, but none the less surely there—about this room which caused me to shudder involuntarily whenever I crossed its threshold.
Lady Chillington's black eyes—large, cold and steady as Juno's own—had been bent upon me all this time, measuring me from head to foot with what I felt to be a slightly contemptuous scrutiny.