Part 35 (2/2)

Then they went upstairs with the servant, and Grace was ushered into a bedroom of vast size, with two huge fires burning at each end; each fireplace was flanked with a coal-scuttle full of kennel coal in large lumps, and also with an enormous basket of beech billets. She admired the old-fas.h.i.+oned furniture, and said, ”Oh, what a palace of a bedroom!

This will spoil me for my little poky room. Here one can roam about and have great thoughts. Hillsborough, good-by! I end my days in the country.”

Presently her quick ears caught the rattle of swift wheels upon the hard road: she ran to the window, and peeped behind the curtain. Two brilliant lamps were in sight, and drew nearer and nearer, like great goggling eyes, and soon a neat dog-cart came up to the door. Before it had well-stopped, the hospitable door flew open, and the yule fire shone on Mr. Coventry, and his natty groom, and his dog cart with plated axles; it illumined the silver harness, and the roan horse himself, and the breath that poured into the keen air from his nostrils red inside.

Mr. Coventry dropped from his shoulders, with easy grace, something between a coat and a cloak, lined throughout with foxes' skin; and, alighting, left his groom to do the rest. The fur was reddish, relieved with occasional white; and Grace gloated over it, as it lay glowing in the fire-light. ”Ah,” said she, ”I should never do for a poor man's wife: I'm so fond of soft furs and things, and I don't like poky rooms.”

With that she fell into a reverie, which was only interrupted by the arrival of Jael and her boxes.

Jael helped her unpack, and dress. There was no lack of conversation between these two, but most of it turned upon nothings. One topic, that might have been interesting to the readers of this tale, was avoided by them both. They had now come to have a high opinion of each other's penetration, and it made them rather timid and reserved on that subject.

Grace was dressed, and just going down, when she found she wanted a pin.

She asked Jael for one.

Jael looked aghast. ”Oh, miss, I'd rather you would take one, in spite of me.”

”Well, so I will. There!” And she whipped one away from the bosom of Jael's dress.

”Mind, I never gave it you.”

”No. I took it by brute force.”

”I like you too well to give you a pin.”

”May I venture to inquire what would be the consequence?”

”Ill luck, you may be sure. Heart-trouble, they do say.”

”Well, I'm glad to escape that so easily. Why, this is the temple of superst.i.tion, and you are the high-Priestess. How shall I ever get on at dinner, without you? I know I shall do something to shock Mr. Raby.

Perhaps spill the very salt. I generally do.”

”Ay, miss, at home. But, dear heart, you won't see any of them nasty little salt-cellars here, that some crazy creature have invented to bring down bad luck. You won't spill the salt here, no fear: but don't ye let any body help you to it neither, if he helps you to salt, he helps you to sorrow.”

”Oh, does he? Then it is fortunate n.o.body ever does help anybody to salt. Well, yours is a nice creed. Why, we are all at the mercy of other people, according to you. Say I have a rival: she smiles in my face, and says, 'My sweet friend, accept this tribute of my esteem;' and gives me a pinch of salt, before I know where I am. I wither on the spot; and she sails off with the prize. Or, if there is no salt about, she comes behind me with a pin, and pins it to my skirt, and that pierces my heart. Don't you see what abominable nonsense it all is?”

The argument was cut short by the ringing of a tremendous bell.

Grace gave the last, swift, searching, all-comprehensive look of her s.e.x into the gla.s.s, and went down to the drawing-room. There she found Mr.

Raby and Mr. Coventry, who both greeted her cordially; and the next moment dinner was announced.

”Raby Hall” was a square house, with two large low wings. The left wing contained the kitchen, pantry, scullery, bakehouse, brew-house, etc.; and servants' bedrooms above. The right wing the stables, coach-houses, cattle-sheds, and several bedrooms. The main building of the hall, the best bedrooms, and the double staircase, leading up to them in horse-shoe form from the hall: and, behind the hall, on the ground-floor, there was a morning-room, in which several of the Squire's small tenants were even now preparing for supper by drinking tea, and eating cakes made in rude imitation of the infant Saviour. On the right of the hall were the two drawing-rooms en suite, and on the left was the remarkable room into which the host now handed Miss Carden, and Mr.

Coventry followed. This room had been, originally, the banqueting-hall.

It was about twenty feet high, twenty-eight feet wide, and fifty feet long, and ended in an enormous bay window, that opened upon the lawn.

It was entirely paneled with oak, carved by old Flemish workmen, and adorned here and there with bold devices. The oak, having grown old in a pure atmosphere, and in a district where wood and roots were generally burned in dining-rooms, had acquired a very rich and beautiful color, a pure and healthy reddish brown, with no tinge whatever of black; a mighty different hue from any you can find in Wardour Street. Plaster ceiling there was none, and never had been. The original joists, and beams, and boards, were still there, only not quite so rudely fas.h.i.+oned as of old; for Mr. Raby's grandfather had caused them to be planed and varnished, and gilded a little in serpentine lines. This woodwork above gave n.o.bility to the room, and its gilding, though worn, relieved the eye agreeably.

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