Sukey speedily recovered herself, and showed Lady Bell into a low-roofed room belonging to the older part of the house, which, like the squire’s room, was so far prepared for occupants, that it was matted, furnished with rush-bottomed chairs, had a table laid for breakfast, and a fire, lately kindled, smoking in the grate. But except that there were both antique china and plate—alike so valuable that they were heirlooms—on the breakfast-table, this was all that could be said for Mrs. Die’s parlour.
There was not a single article implying work, study, recreation, or gentle accomplishments. There was not only none of the prints, medallions, and cabinets of curiosities to which Lady Bell had been accustomed as the approved ornaments of gentlewomen’s parlours, there was neither harpsichord nor spinet, tambour-frame, nor even wheel, nor book,—French or English,—not so much as a cookery-book with recipes written in a fine Italian hand, nor inkstand, nor bird’s cage, nor flower-pot.
The high square windows, to look from which compelled Lady Bell to stand on her tiptoes, commanded what had once been a garden-court, but it was now a veritable wilderness of rank vegetation and rotting weeds.
Lady Bell was too thankful to turn from the prospect to await an approaching footstep, and to find that it belonged to a respectable-looking middle-aged woman, Lady Bell thought a superior upper servant, possibly the wife of Sneyd the butler, undoubtedly the housekeeper in her own person, as she carried a bunch of keys.
The new-comer’s well-preserved quilted gown was protected from soil and stain by an ample apron and cuffs. Her head in its morning cap was farther fenced from the keenness of the air, and from draughts by a hood hanging round her shoulders. “Good morning to you, Lady Bell; you arrived after supper, I hear, and you have not let the grass grow on your steps this morning. But your bread and milk is not ready yet; you must wait till your betters be served. I have Mrs. Die’s chocolate to send up.”
Lady Bell was offended by this speech. It was not exactly unfriendly, but it was brusque, with more than a suspicion of carping in the tone, and it was spoken with much of the coolness and freedom of an equal.
Lady Bell was not naturally proud and passionate. Mr. Sneyd had misread the girl’s heart, ready to burst at her cold reception. She had been docile and affectionate to Lady Lucie—a strict disciplinarian, like most old ladies of her régime.
Lady Bell had no more than the generous spirit which every true and uncrushed young nature asserts. But she had been brought up rigidly in this as in some other articles of faith, that it was her duty as a young lady of quality in the state of life to which she was called, both for her own sake and that of her neighbours, to keep servants in their proper place, and, while behaving to them with consideration, and if possible with affability, to be quick to check in them all encroachment and usurpation.
When young ladies of fourteen adhere to precedents, they are not apt to make exceptions to the rule, and it is a very wonderful young lady who does not blunder even in carrying out instructions.
Lady Bell, if she had been shrewd beyond her years and knowledge of the world, might have suspected that there was something anomalous in the presence of so superior an upper servant in a house like Squire Godwin’s. Lady Bell might even have been observant enough to detect that Mrs. Kitty’s accent on the whole was that of an educated woman habitually in better society than even an upper servant could then boast. But Lady Bell did not pause to make these deductions.