A day or two afterwards Lady Phayre appeared upon the scene. She was coming on business—not pleasure, she had informed her friends, and accordingly laid house, carriages, and servants under requisition. Mr. Christopher Wentworth, her host, was the leading member of the Progressive League in the neighbourhood, and a humble vassal of Lady Phayre. His wife’s interests in life extended from her husband’s throat, which was delicate, to his digestive organs, which were dainty.
“So long as you don’t take Christopher to open-air meetings, Rhodanthe,” she said to Lady Phayre, “and give him bronchitis, or make him late for dinner, you can do exactly what you like.”
“Oh, I don’t want Christopher. He would be sadly in the way,” said Lady Phayre, reassuringly. “I’ll make him stay at home and write letters and collect funds.”
She summoned Goddard to wait upon her. He had already received two or three daintily penned letters from London, and had been eagerly looking forward to this one from Ecclesby itself.
He found her alone in the bright morning-room, radiant as Romney’s Bacchante head of Lady Hamilton that hung on the wall, and wearing the simplest of elegantly-cut blue serge costumes. Her sunniness almost dazed his eyes, accustomed lately to the gloom of sordid homes and pinched faces. She was eager to hear all the details of the situation; drew from him an exhaustive report. Her presence lifted him into a sanguine mood, filled him with a vague sweet sense of the triumph of life.
“Now let me tell you something,” she said when he had finished. “Don’t say I am not a woman of character. I have been bursting with it since you came into the room, and I have waited patiently. I have arranged a surprise for you. I am going to institute at once a children’s halfpenny tea-house. Haven’t you heard anything about it?”
“Not a word.”
“I am so glad.” She laughed, and clapped her hands. “It has all been going on under your very nose. My own idea. It is the children that suffer so. They don’t know why they should bear with hunger. So I am going to give them a great breakfast or tea, with as much bread and butter as they can eat, for a halfpenny.”
“But the funds?” asked Goddard.
“That is the greatest stroke of all,” replied Lady Phayre enthusiastically. “I have inveigled a grant out of the League, and the Evening Chronicle has promised me to start a subscription list to-night. I am negotiating for the use of the Salvation Army Barracks, and Evans and Williams are going to contract for the meals. Haven’t I been industrious?”