And now the house in Mayfair was given over to the charge of caretakers.
All the other servants had been despatched by coach to her ladyship's
favourite retreat in Westmoreland, within a few miles of the Laureate's
home at Rydal Mount, and James Steadman was charged with the whole
responsibility of her ladyship's travelling arrangements.
Penelope had come to Southampton to wait for Ulysses, whose ship had
been due for more than a week, and whose white sails might be expected
above the horizon at any moment. James Steadman spent a good deal of his
time waiting about at the docks for the earliest news of Greene's ship,
the _Hypermnestra_; while Lady Maulevrier waited patiently in her
sitting-room at the Dolphin, whose three long French windows commanded a
full view of the High Street, with all those various distractions
afforded by the chief thoroughfare of a provincial town. Her ladyship
was provided with a large box of books, from Ebers' in Bond Street, a
basket of fancy work, and her favourite Blenheim spaniel, Lalla Rookh;
but even these sources of amusement did not prevent the involuntary
expression of weariness in occasional yawns, and frequent pacings up and
down the room, where the formal hotel furniture had a comfortless and
chilly look.
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