Before Margaret could reply, the deep bass “Ding-dong!” of the great dinner-bell rang through the Castle, and Levina made her appearance at the door.
“My Lady has given me charge concerning thee, Belasez,” she said, rather coldly addressing the Jewess. “Thou wilt come with me.”
With a graceful reverence to Margaret, Belasez turned, and followed Levina.
At that date, no titles except those of nobility or office were usual in England. Any woman below a peer’s daughter, was addressed by her Christian name or by that of her husband. That is to say, the unmarried woman was simply “Joan;” the married one was “John’s Wife.”
Belasez was gifted by nature with a large amount of that kind of intuition which has been defined as feeling the pressure of other people’s atmosphere. It may be a gift which augurs delicacy and refinement, but it always brings discomfort to its possessor. She knew instinctively, and in a moment, that Levina was likely to be her enemy.
It was true. Levina was a prey to that green-eyed monster which sports itself with the miseries of humanity. She had been the best broideress in the Castle until that day. And now she felt herself suddenly supplanted by a young thing of barely more than half her age and experience, who was called in, forsooth, to do something which it was imagined that Levina could not do. What business had the Countess to suppose there was any thing she could not do?—or, to want something out of her power to provide? Was there the slightest likelihood, thought Levina, flaring up, that this scrap of a creature could work better than herself?—a mere chit of a child (Levina was past thirty), with a complexion like the fire-bricks (Levina’s resembled putty), and hair the colour of nasty sloes (Levina’s was nearer that of a tiger-lily), and great staring eyes like horn lanterns! The Countess was the most unreasonable, and Levina the most cruelly-outraged, of all the women that had ever held a needle since those useful instruments were originally invented.
Levina did not put her unparalleled wrongs into words. It would have been easier for Belasez to get on with her if she had done so. She held her head up, and snorted like an impatient horse, as she stalked through the door into the ante-chamber.
“This is where thou art to be,” she snapped in a staccato tone.
Any amount of personal slight and scorn was merely what Belasez had been accustomed to receive from Christians ever since she had left her cradle. The disdain of Levina, therefore, though she could hardly enjoy it, made far less impression on her than the unaccountable kindliness of the royal ladies.
“The Lady bade me ask what thou wouldst eat?” demanded Levina in the same tone as before.