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.