CHAPTER V.
AN IMPRISONED PRINCESS.
The family did not meet at dinner, the only meal at which they professed to gather, the day after Lady Bell came to St. Bevis’s. But on the following day she had again an opportunity of seeing her uncle. She was summoned into the dining-room, where she had seen him on the evening of her arrival, in order to sit down to table with the rest.
The Squire, standing near the foot of the table, made her a little mocking bow. “May I flatter myself country air does not——” he left the sentence unfinished, as if he had forgotten her existence before he could conclude his speech. He began carving the meat in the middle of Mr. Greenwood’s saying grace. “The odds are upon Skyflyer,” he observed presently in a low tone to the chaplain, and a little later in the meal he made an investigation of the same authority with regard to a certain horse-ball. He spoke to no one else, neither did Mrs. Die directly address her brother, though she kept growling audibly at him from her end of the table, like a dog that will give tongue and show its teeth, though it knows that the protest will pass unheeded, nay, that perhaps the protester will have punishment dealt to it for its pains.
“Nothing but mutton and fowls, Kitty,” exclaimed Mrs. Die; “we’ll be at the boards themselves soon. No, I know that you can’t help it. Burgundy? Don’t we wash our hands in Burgundy, it goes so fast, Sneyd? Short of wet and dry fruits for kickshaws, and no more to be had from Cleveburgh till we’ve cleared our scores; that will be long enough, not till after our tricks with stable-boys and gambling-house keepers beat cleverer knaves’ tricks.”
That dinner was a fair sample of following dinners.
Lady Bell lived on at St. Bevis’s. She had no other resource, and found that her fate, piteous as it was, did not prove so unbearable as she had feared. It is the experience of most of us, particularly at the plastic age of fourteen.
The Squire, who had spent the greater part of his youth in London, though he had deserted the town or found it too hot for him, was hardly ever at home: Newmarket, Epsom, Ascot, races of local celebrity, local gaming clubs, and card matches, pretty much divided his time. On the occasions when he was at home, his treatment of Lady Bell was to ignore her presence.
If a sister of Mr. Godwin’s had happened to marry a spendthrift nobleman, and husband and wife had died, leaving a puny, vapid girl, it was no fault of his, and he was not called upon to cumber himself with considerations regarding her welfare.
Squire Godwin succeeded in impressing Lady Bell more deeply than all the fine gentlemen whom she had seen at her grand-aunt’s, and in striking her with awe; but she could not complain greatly of his overlooking her, since she, poor child, felt tempted to shrink out of his sight.
Mrs. Die was a woman half crazy with wrongs, utterly wanting in principle and self-restraint, and using strong stimulants; but, as she had said of her hate, she had too much to do brooding over her fate and fighting with her enemies, to trouble herself by tormenting Lady Bell.