Lady Bell, Volume 1 by Sarah Tytler

Squire Trevor wanted a wife. He had been long of setting about to supply / the want; he was the keener in his search when he began it. His latent / determination to exercise his prerogative and marry like other men / whenever the fit took him, had been lately fanned into a flame by the / supposed insolence of the heir-presumptive in counting prematurely on / Squire Trevor, of Trevor Court, dying a bachelor.

He had not thought of coming to St. Bevis's to find the wife whom he had / in his mind, for he had only learnt accidentally from Lady Bell herself / that there was a marriageable young lady at St. Bevis's. But stumbling, / as he had chanced to stumble, on Lady Bell in her strait with an / untoward guest at Brooklands, and having helped her, he was drawn, by / her rank, youth, and high-bred April charms, while he was not repelled / by her presumed absence of fortune.

Squire Trevor actually resolved-and with him to resolve was to / perform-before he came up to Squire Godwin, and ascertained that the / uncle would be consenting to the sale and sacrifice of the niece, that / Squire Trevor's wife should be Lady Bell Etheredge.

When gentlemen like Squires Trevor and Godwin made up their minds to a / match, a century or more ago, they did not let grass grow on their / intentions, or stand on ceremony, and mince matters in bringing them to / pass.

Squire Godwin's party, on its return that May night from Brooklands to / St. Bevis's, had the benefit of Squire Trevor's company and that of his / two servants.

Mr. Trevor stayed ten days at St. Bevis's, busy every morning during the / first part of his stay, over accounts and papers with Mr. Godwin and a / scrivener summoned for the purpose. Every afternoon, the guest would / saunter about, ride, course, or take a turn at bowls or skittles, / unwieldy as he was, to stretch his limbs. Then he would take a dish of / tea in Mrs. Die's parlour, before he sat down to play cards with his / host and the chaplain.

Long before the ten days were at an end, it was an established fact, / plain to the whole household, that Squire Trevor, who in these days of / early marriages might have been Lady Bell Etheredge's grandfather, was / paying court to Lady Bell, and that he was only tarrying so long to have / the connection settled. Nay, possibly, as the affairs of the family were / in a desperate condition, the family might dispense with ceremony. Mr. / Trevor might propose to marry Lady Bell off hand, since he had no time / to lose, and in order to relieve himself from the trouble of another / journey of several days, when he was just getting in his hay crop. In / that case Mr. Trevor might carry away Lady Bell with him, and leave her / to fix upon and lay in her marriage suits, by his generosity, at Trevor / Court. Such marriages were arranged by old cronies, fathers and / guardians, and run up in a trice, without time being granted to make / mouths at them. Young lads were sent for from college, girls were called / from their tambour-frames, even from their dolls, and barely informed / before they went into the presence of the parson, who was always at / hand, that it was to decide summarily their fate they were thus brought / on the scene of action.

Lady Bell was the last person in the household at St. Bevis's to learn / what was in store for her. By the time she learned it, every preliminary / had been agreed upon, the marriage contract was drawn out, the day all / but named. Mr. Godwin had answered in the affirmative for his niece, / Mrs. Die was perfectly indifferent.

Mrs. Kitty was indifferent and malicious at the same time, because this / poor upstart fiddle-faddle Lady Bell was to pass beyond Mrs. Kitty's / authority, quitting St. Bevis's with a bride's honours-such as they / were, of which Mrs. Kitty's Amazon queen, Mrs. Die, had been monstrously / defrauded in her day.

Even Mr. Sneyd and Mr. Greenwood looked on the marriage of Squire Trevor / with Lady Bell, for the most part, favourably. What little rue the men / felt was chiefly on their own account; for her sake they were inclined, / on due reflection, to welcome the match as not altogether out of course, / and perhaps the best thing that could be hoped for Lady Bell.

St. Bevis's had not so fair a reputation, or such a promise of dowries / for young ladies that it should draw wooers to Lady Bell. Of such wooers / as would risk an association with Squire Godwin-a partnership in bets, / an opposite book at Newmarket, or a night with him at cards-how many / even of the likeliest young fellows would present characters half so / honest for husbands as that of Squire Trevor, and rent-rolls by many / degrees so unencumbered as that of Trevor Court?

Finally, as a compensation and triumphant conclusion of the matter, / these gentlemen-Lady Bell's most considerate and indulgent friends-were / guilty of proposing in their own minds, for the innocent girl's comfort, / that she would in all probability be left a young widow,-if she played / her cards well, a rich young widow,-while she had still plenty of time / and opportunity to please her taste in a second husband.

But Lady Bell was utterly incredulous, dumb-foundered, adverse, / obdurate, only too vehemently so to begin with.

Certainly, she had often heard of such marriages as that which she was / required to make. Ay, and she had heard them insisted on as a / portionless girl's simple, solemn duty. While, on the other hand, she / had known all marriages contracted rashly, impudently and in defiance of / friends, characterized by no less an authority than Lady Lucie / Penruddock as acts of gross impropriety and disgraceful insubordination, / which ought to compromise, and did compromise, a young woman fatally, / and bring upon her punishment in proportion to the offence.