Lady Bell, Volume 1 by Sarah Tytler

"It is an ill wind which blows nobody good," Lady Bell thought, rising / with the alacrity of her years to join the pleasure-seekers.

She ransacked her trunks, and went into high dress-the extremely high / dress of Lady Lucie's order and era. Once more Lady Bell put on a / peach-blossom coloured paduasoy, a muslin neckerchief drawn through the / straps of her white silk stays, and a Rubens hat above her powdered / curls, and started abroad to flutter like her companion butterflies in / the sunshine and splendour of high life and its holiday.

Mrs. Die, sitting opposite Lady Bell in the family coach, so seldom in / use, was not so inappropriate in costume as in physiognomy. The fabric / of ladies' gowns possessed in those days the advantage of lasting for / generations; country fashions were not expected to change above once or / twice in a lifetime. Mrs. Die's dead-leaf coloured cut velvet, her lace, / and the few jewels which, as heirlooms of the Godwins, had not been / confiscated, were not amiss for an unhappy, haunted lady of quality.

Mrs. Kitty in her mode cloak and bonnet, and black satin muff, formed a / creditable waiting gentlewoman.

But the group, however stared at and commented upon, remained isolated / and apart after they had entered the great gateway, and joined the rest / of the Warwickshire world, high and low.

The guests were meant to mix in the sports, and to promenade among the / refreshment tents, and about the spaces allotted for games and dancing, / and to sit on a green terrace listening to a band of music, and / witnessing a little wedding-drama, "writ" for the occasion, in which the / real bride and bridegroom, with a master of the ceremonies, and several / nymphs to serve as the indispensable chorus, were the actors.

But Lady Bell wearied of the spectacle, and began to fret secretly at / her strict spectatorship of the play, though the May weather was fine, / and the scene in the gay young green of the season, and the lively / colours of the holiday company, was very effective.

After Lady Bell had decided hastily that the bride-a great / fortune-however languishing and abounding in airs, and however / bejewelled, was far behind the court ladies whom Lady Bell had seen; / that the bridegroom looked not quite sober at that moment; that the / company were in keeping with the king and queen of the feast, she ceased / to mind them exclusively.

She admired idly the red cloaks of the country girls, seen among the / shrubbery like poppies in corn. She turned to watch a fleet of swans on / an artificial lake beyond the turf stage on which the chief show had / been held.

At last, neglected as Lady Bell was by Mrs. Die and Mrs. Kitty, who / snarled and made their own observations, and forgotten by Mr. Greenwood, / who was with the Squire betting in the centre of a shooting-match, Lady / Bell rashly ventured to stroll away from the others, trusting to find / them where she had left them. She fancied she would like to inspect the / swans more narrowly, to see if there were any of the silver pheasants of / which she had heard, in the bushes, to look at, and smell at her leisure / the fragrant flowering lilacs and thorns.

Lady Bell was punished for her enterprise. There was a mixed company at / Brooklands that day, as there was wont to be at similar entertainments. / Such gatherings were more dangerous even than public assemblies like / ridottos or Ranelagh, because, in the latter case, the rules of / admission placed a check on the guests. There a disguised highwayman, / flush of money, might, if he were inclined for mild amusement, impose / upon a master of the assembly, and dance cotillons and drink negus with / honest folk; but he must be in disguise, and act up to his character. / Here a desperate penniless vagabond could intrude with the wild hope of / mending his broken fortunes. Not only were simple boors from far and / near, in their clean smocks and knots of ribbons, collected and regaled / free from charge at Brooklands, but with them came disreputable / hangers-on at the country houses and the wayside inns, servants out of / place, discharged soldiers, scamps of every description, attracted by a / day's rough junketing, and possible profit.

Lady Bell learnt, in her painful experience, that a handsome young lady / of fifteen years of age, richly dressed, and separated from her party, / was in perilous circumstances in such a scene.

She had discerned that she had gone farther than she had intended in an / unfrequented direction, and had turned to retrace her steps along a path / between high hazel bushes, when a man, in a horseman's cloak, still worn / off the stage, rounded a corner, and intercepted her by stopping short / and standing directly in her way.

Though to Lady Bell horsemen's cloaks were not uncommon accoutrements / for travellers, and men whose changes of suit were not numerous, yet / this great, hideous, hide-all of a cloak-exactly such a cloak as may be / worn by the Stranger in Kotzebue's drama, to this day-was attended with / the result of investing its wearer with mystery. The air of that cloak / alone sent a thrill through poor Lady Bell, while she had an instinctive / consciousness that the riding-boots seen beneath the cloak were filthy / and tattered. Above it, set in the unshorn Ishmaelite face over which / the three-cornered hat was cocked, and which she had never seen before, / were two bloodshot eyes, that, in their tendency to leer, inspected her / sharply.

Lady Bell tried to pass without speaking, and when that was in vain, she / assumed her grandest air, and said, with the tremor in her voice running / through its imperativeness-

"Pray, sir, let me pass."

"Not so fast, young lady," replied the man, in a thick harsh voice, but / with the accent of a man of education; "I want speech with one of your / sort-perhaps with you in particular. Ain't you young Lady Bell / Etheredge?"