CHAPTER III.

MRS. KITTY.

The sound sleep of youth did much for Lady Bell. She awoke, comforted and refreshed in her closet,—furnished, Spartan-like, with checked linen and hard wood, the window looking across at the turrets crumbling down before they had been all built, with yawning slits for their windows and rotting boards between the different levels, which might have accommodated a score of robbers as well as owls and cats.

She was sad, but no longer in despair; she even felt inquisitive as well as hungry, and disposed to venture on a voyage of discovery in search of her aunt’s parlour and breakfast.

Sneyd, the butler, in his unencouraged essays at conversation the night before, had made Lady Bell acquainted with the habits of the family. The squire was never down in the morning till it was late, when he was at home, and that was but seldom, as he attended all the races. Lady Bell need not fear to stumble on her uncle, and be frozen to stone by his distant greeting. Neither did Mrs. Die show face at an early hour, according to Sneyd; she lay a-bed half the day always, the whole day often.

Indeed it appeared as if Sneyd’s caution against early rising, the reverse of the rule which the old fine lady, Lady Lucie, had imposed, was to be illustrated by the practice of the whole household, including Sneyd himself. Lady Bell wandered doubtfully about the staircase—vast to her after her grand-aunt’s London lodging, and with its weather-stains and cobwebs more conspicuous by broad daylight—and about the wide corridors. She peeped into half-open doors of what seemed always empty rooms. She was startled by the striking of the clock over the entrance-door, and scared by the growling of a dog, but she did not meet a living creature. The fact was that such servants as were astir were in the stables and cow-house.

At last a stout, red-cheeked country girl, in the extremity of rusticity to the town-bred eyes of Lady Bell, accustomed to a trim waiting-woman, instead of to a girl in a jacket, woollen apron, heavy frilled cap, and clamping clogs, stood arrested in the stranger’s way.

The country girl bobbed curtseys, and stared with round eyes, which had more admiration in them than the squire’s eyes had been able to hold, at the other girl,—lily-faced, in a black tabby gown, black gloves, black silk stockings with clocks, the dress finished off by black shoes with high heels, a white apron and neckerchief, and a little white cap of her own poised on the top of the dark curls. She was taken altogether aback when Lady Bell asked the direction of Mrs. Die’s parlour.

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.

“I shall want my bread and milk in future as soon as I come down; be so good as to see to it,” she commanded with great dignity.

Mrs. Kitty stopped in preparing to heat a cup of chocolate in a chafing dish, and gave a sharp glance at Lady Bell, as much as to say, “You have soon begun; you mean to take the upper hand of me, Lady Bell, but you must have my consent first. I should just think I have more to do here than you.”

Mrs. Kitty replied aloud with deliberation, “You shall have your bread and milk when it is ready for you, and that is when I am ready to serve it; for I don’t choose that a slut like Sukey shall meddle with my spoons, or bowls, or napkins; in fact, with aught save pewter-ware and kitchen towelling. If you choose to eat your breakfast with such help, Lady Bell, eat it then and welcome.”

It may be recorded here, that Mrs. Kitty wronged Lady Bell by a common process of wrong. Mrs. Kitty supposed that all which could be understood of the miserable mystery of her relations with St. Bevis’s, was known to the girl Lady Bell, through Lady Lucie Penruddock, as well as it was known to Mrs. Kitty herself, and that Lady Bell must have come forewarned not to interfere with Mrs. Kitty.

For it was as Mrs. Kitty had said to herself, she had more to do with St. Bevis’s than the child of a daughter of the house, who had married and left it never to return. Mrs. Kitty had been born at St. Bevis’s as Lady Bell’s mother and Mrs. Die had been born. Mrs. Kitty had never quitted St. Bevis’s, though her position had not been, and could not be recognised; and, in lieu of such recognition, she had slipped into the place of an all-powerful, almost irresponsible servant, to whom the Squire never spoke, but to whom he hardly ever dictated.

It was not wise or well to affront Mrs. Kitty, only, as it happened, Lady Bell had been left ignorant.

Lady Bell and Mrs. Kitty sat and exchanged silent hostilities over Lady Bell’s basin of bread and milk, and Mrs. Kitty’s basin of coffee and plate of bacon.

Lady Bell made a more minute inspection of Mrs. Kitty in her tidy and substantial dress. She was a square, solidly built, comely woman, with a short neck, large cheeks, low forehead, almost concealed by her head-gear, and with small twinkling eyes.

Mrs. Kitty took no further notice of Lady Bell, since Mrs. Kitty’s cunning was the cunning of power.

Lady Bell declined to condone the housekeeper’s offence, so far as to take the initiative in commencing a conversation, notwithstanding that her tongue ached to be wagging, and her nature craved some kind of sympathy. But Lady Bell would wait till she saw Mrs. Die; it could not be long till that great event took place. This trust was summarily disposed of.

“Since you have brought no maid with you that I have heard tell of, Lady Bell,” stated Mrs. Kitty, with covert but evident depreciation, “you had as lief see to your own unpacking,” she suggested nonchalantly. “The fool of a woman who came with you is gone back with the man and the chaise. Bless us! what a fuss and cost,” protested Mrs. Kitty scornfully, “as if our pockets were lined with silver pennies, when the stage-coach comes once a week as nigh as within six miles, and the cross road is none so bad for a seat on a pillion. I had best tell you at once, that I can’t lend you a hand with your unpacking, neither can I let you have one of the girls. There is a deal to do in this house, and few enough to do it, if beds are to be made, and meals cooked, not to say floors scrubbed, and clothes scoured. We want no additional peck of troubles—of that I can assure you.”

“I did not suppose anybody wanted troubles,” corrected Lady Bell, a little impertinently.

“You mayn’t have seen so fine a place before,” continued Mrs. Kitty, looking Lady Bell hard in the face, “or such a heap of servants; but the last is mostly for the horses and dogs which the Squire keeps to race and run with. The family coach is not out once in three months, so you had as well not pine for an airing; and you had need to walk precious seldom, if anybody is to be spared to walk with you.”

Mrs. Kitty now felt she had gone some way in distancing and discomfiting an interloper like Lady Bell.

Lady Bell clung to her single refuge; she did not attempt to put down Mrs. Kitty this time; she took no further notice of her challenge, she only asked—

“When am I to be taken to my aunt, Mrs. Die?”

“When she sends for you, Lady Bell; and that may not be to-day nor to-morrow neither.”

At the very moment that Mrs. Kitty ended, the door opened, and Mrs. Die gave a flat contradiction to her subordinate’s words by walking into the room.