“It is about the purchase of that little corner of your Staffordshire property which is next to mine,” explained Squire Trevor brusquely. “As for the service to Lady Bell,” he added in an undertone, looking after the girl while she withdrew to the other side of Mrs. Die and Mrs. Kitty, “I make bold to hope I may establish a right to serve her before we have done with our business, Squire Godwin.”
“With all my heart,” responded Squire Godwin, with a bow of imperturbable acquiescence.
CHAPTER VII.
AN OLD SQUIRE’S WOOING.
Squire Trevor wanted a wife. He had been long of setting about to supply the want; he was the keener in his search when he began it. His latent determination to exercise his prerogative and marry like other men whenever the fit took him, had been lately fanned into a flame by the supposed insolence of the heir-presumptive in counting prematurely on Squire Trevor, of Trevor Court, dying a bachelor.
He had not thought of coming to St. Bevis’s to find the wife whom he had in his mind, for he had only learnt accidentally from Lady Bell herself that there was a marriageable young lady at St. Bevis’s. But stumbling, as he had chanced to stumble, on Lady Bell in her strait with an untoward guest at Brooklands, and having helped her, he was drawn, by her rank, youth, and high-bred April charms, while he was not repelled by her presumed absence of fortune.
Squire Trevor actually resolved—and with him to resolve was to perform—before he came up to Squire Godwin, and ascertained that the uncle would be consenting to the sale and sacrifice of the niece, that Squire Trevor’s wife should be Lady Bell Etheredge.
When gentlemen like Squires Trevor and Godwin made up their minds to a match, a century or more ago, they did not let grass grow on their intentions, or stand on ceremony, and mince matters in bringing them to pass.
Squire Godwin’s party, on its return that May night from Brooklands to St. Bevis’s, had the benefit of Squire Trevor’s company and that of his two servants.
Mr. Trevor stayed ten days at St. Bevis’s, busy every morning during the first part of his stay, over accounts and papers with Mr. Godwin and a scrivener summoned for the purpose. Every afternoon, the guest would saunter about, ride, course, or take a turn at bowls or skittles, unwieldy as he was, to stretch his limbs. Then he would take a dish of tea in Mrs. Die’s parlour, before he sat down to play cards with his host and the chaplain.
Long before the ten days were at an end, it was an established fact, plain to the whole household, that Squire Trevor, who in these days of early marriages might have been Lady Bell Etheredge’s grandfather, was paying court to Lady Bell, and that he was only tarrying so long to have the connection settled. Nay, possibly, as the affairs of the family were in a desperate condition, the family might dispense with ceremony. Mr. Trevor might propose to marry Lady Bell off hand, since he had no time to lose, and in order to relieve himself from the trouble of another journey of several days, when he was just getting in his hay crop. In that case Mr. Trevor might carry away Lady Bell with him, and leave her to fix upon and lay in her marriage suits, by his generosity, at Trevor Court. Such marriages were arranged by old cronies, fathers and guardians, and run up in a trice, without time being granted to make mouths at them. Young lads were sent for from college, girls were called from their tambour-frames, even from their dolls, and barely informed before they went into the presence of the parson, who was always at hand, that it was to decide summarily their fate they were thus brought on the scene of action.