“Shut your pipes, you rude rascals; it is the young lady, the squire’s niece,” protested a more civilised voice than those of the others; while a bloated, pursy man in slovenly black, who might be either butler or chaplain to Squire Godwin, stepped forward, opened the door, and helped the cramped, shivering girl out, amidst a slight cessation of the rough clamour. “Your servant, Lady Bell Etheredge; follow me.”
He conducted her into a dreary unfurnished hall on a vast scale, paused a moment, laid a flabby finger on his forehead, scratched his head under his wig, spoke to himself, but yet as it sounded in confidence to Lady Bell. “Curse me if I know where I had better take her first. Mrs. Die is not to be seen at this hour, or it will be the worse for the person who sees her. Mrs. Kitty won’t leave Mrs. Die’s room to do the honours; I think I had better take his niece to the squire himself, though we do interrupt his game.”
They proceeded up a spacious staircase with the walls in a grimy edition of the original whitewash,—oak balustrades, but the space between filled with hempen rope, and the wide steps as innocent of the application of water as ever were the steps of stairs in any Hotel de Polignac of Paris, or Strozzi House of Florence. They traversed gusty unmatted corridors until they reached a room which bore some traces of habitableness and use.
It was a moderately sized room, panelled and hung with portraits, as Lady Bell saw when her usher threw open the door after he had knocked. It was supplied with a carpet, table, and chairs, and had a fire blazing behind the dogs. Two gentlemen were in the room, sitting at the table engaged at cards, with wax candles, bottles and glasses at their elbows. The one who faced Lady Bell as she entered was a facsimile of her conductor, except that the last was shaggier and dirtier, but not so bloated and pursy as his fellow. He looked up on the interruption, and, turning his head a little, so that his side-face could not be seen by his companion at table, winked warningly to the new-comers. The other man, whose back was to Lady Bell, wore a velvet coat and had his hair in powder. He grumbled resentfully before he looked round. “What the plague do you mean by bringing any one here at this hour, Sneyd?”
“It is your niece, Lady Bell Etheredge, squire. I thought you would like to see her at once, as Mrs. Die is not to be disturbed after supper,” answered the squire’s butler, as if he were delivering a carefully considered speech.
The squire with a little “humph!” possibly meant to be inaudible, got up and turned round. “My dear niece, I beg to welcome you to St. Bevis’s,” he said, in a voice cultivated and agreeable in spite of its slight hoarseness. He took Lady Bell by the hand, saluted her, sat down opposite to her and looked at her, giving her the opportunity of glancing with a gleam of hopefulness at him. He was a handsome, nay, an elegant man in middle life, though his face was haggard with hard living and devouring anxiety. Notwithstanding the evident dilapidation of his house and the disorder of his household, his dress was costly and fashionable,—in every particular that of a well-endowed gentleman somewhat foppish for his years. His spotless ruffles were of Mechlin, the ring on his finger was worth many diamonds, and as it was a delicately cut antique, it required the taste of a scholarly fine gentleman to appreciate it.
Lady Bell experienced a feeling of relief. In Mr. Godwin’s presence she was restored to the element in which she had been reared. From her first dismal glimpse of her future home she did not know what churlish boor she had expected her uncle to be.
Unfortunately, that feeling of relief came too late to be of service to Lady Bell. If she had known it, her first interview with her uncle had been critical, and one moment had rendered it a failure. He was a man liable to excessive partialities or aversions where women were concerned. Had Lady Bell caught his fancy at first, and struck him as having the making of a charming young woman, though he might have borne a grudge at her father’s memory and been annoyed at her becoming dependent on him, he might also have felt pride in her, and been as kind an uncle as circumstances and character would have permitted. He might have gone so far as to make a pet of her, and thus have had a strange thread of gentleness introduced into the web of his life. How far the result would have been to Lady Bell’s advantage is a different matter.
As it was, Squire Godwin saw Lady Bell first in her tumbled habit and bent hat, her face blue with cold, her eyes red with crying, her mouth relaxed with fasting, Lady Lucie’s excellent lessons as to holding herself up, walking and sitting, for the moment forgotten. Mr. Godwin set down Lady Bell, without hesitation, as a plain, unformed, weak-minded girl, of whose breeding Lady Lucie had made a mess, whose title sounded still more incongruously than poverty alone could have made it sound, who would be nothing save “an infernal plague” to him who had plagues enough without her. And Squire Godwin was a man who rarely departed from a conclusion.
The next words which her uncle addressed to Lady Bell were spoken with courtesy in their reserve, but they fell on her spirits, now beginning to rise, like so many bolts of ice.