According to the fashion of the time, though it was only two or three days’ journey to Trevor Court, Squire Trevor and his young wife made it a progress from one friend’s house to another, where the Squire in person announced his marriage, presented his bride, was roasted and toasted, and regaled with the first instalment of his wedding rejoicings by the good-will of his neighbours.
The practice was so far lucky in Lady Bell’s case, it gave her no time to reflect on what had happened in all its importance, so that the reaction which had already set in after the overstrained resignation and meekness of her last moments at St. Bevis’s, was only a silent rebellion.
Lady Bell, even at fifteen, had too much spirit and sense to feel inclined to exhibit to strangers her wrongs and misery, and the extent of the sacrifice which she had just celebrated. She did not dissolve in floods of tears—she controlled herself, and was only thought very pale (but she was a pale, dark-eyed beauty at any time), proud, and shy,—a grand, but not very attractive, young madam for old Squire Trevor.
Nevertheless, it was in a state of chronic rebellion that Lady Bell reached Trevor Court. What good was the rebellion to do then? She never asked herself. Fifteen does not often ask such questions when it but writhes under a sense of betrayal and wretchedness.
Trevor Court was not like St. Bevis’s. It was a fine, well-preserved old place, with noble stacks of warm red-brick chimneys, seen first from amidst coeval dark green yews on a broad green terrace.
It had a stone-seated porch and an oaklined chimney corner, with great delf platters hanging by strings on each side of the richly-carved wood chimney-piece.
It had a best parlour answering to a drawing-room, where the spindle-legged chairs were made of cane, the hangings and chair-covers were lemon colour, and there were Indian ornaments and egg-shell china—altogether so cold, fantastic, and fragile in its details, that nobody would have dreamt of occupying it, except for the reception of company.
There were blue, red, and green bedrooms, each with its enormous bed like a coloured hearse, its square of Persian carpet in the middle of the floor, and its ebony escritoire. Everything was in keeping and in order, and was, next to his sovereign self, the pride of Squire Trevor’s heart and the delight of his eyes.
“Look up, and look out, here is my place, my lady;” so Squire Trevor introduced Trevor Court, its venerable beauties fresh with the perennial freshness of early summer, to Lady Bell.
“Is this Trevor Court?” sighed Lady Bell, scarcely stirring herself in her corner of the chariot.