Lady Bell, Volume 1 by Sarah Tytler

"Will you be so good as to tell me the arrangements which you have made / for me? " requested Lady Bell, remembering that as her money was lost, it / was out of her power to undo these arrangements.

"With all my heart, my dear," replied Mrs. Siddons cordially. She was / thankful to have discharged an ungracious task, though she had not for a / moment been uncertain of her obligation, so that her serenity had only / been slightly ruffled. "The lady who wishes a companion at so vastly / opportune a moment, that we ought to be grateful for the chance, and I / see that you have the sense to regard it in that light, is Miss / Kingscote, of Nutfield, three miles from here. She had come in to see / the play on Friday night, and spoke of the opening to Mrs. Bunbury, who / mentioned it to me."

"Do you know anything more? " asked Lady Bell, feigning curiosity to hide / how dispirited she was.

"Yes, sure; I have made every inquiry on your account," said Mrs. / Siddons readily. "I took the opportunity to ride out to Nutfield when / you were engaged with the trimming of the pink train, yesterday. It is a / nice sort of country place, though I must explain that the family were / thrown back in the world by the villany of an uncle, and are only / working their way forward again, which is greatly to their credit. I / thought it better that you should not know of the proposal till it was / all settled, which it is, with your consent."

"I should like to hear what my duties will be."

"Ay, and what your salary will be; don't forget that, and don't begin / blushing at the name, child, not though it were ‘wages. ' It is easy to / see that you have not been so hardened as I. But ‘what's in a name? ' / especially when the price of our hire is for the benefit of the helpless / creatures dearest to us! Oh, I forget, Miss Barlowe, you are not / sixteen, and still a spinster; indeed I don't recommend early marriages, / and you will have plenty opportunities yet to change your name. But a / married woman is apt to measure her neighbour's obligations by her own."

"Is there only one Miss Kingscote? " interposed Lady Bell.

"Yes, sure, and I should say she is a good round dozen of years your / senior. She stays out at Nutfield with a bachelor brother, who is half a / dozen years younger than she is; in short, who stands between her and / you in point of age. I wish the difference had been the other way."

"Why, madam? " demanded Lady Bell, like a little Turk.

"You need not look affronted. " Mrs. Siddons did not mind much having / given the affront. "Try for your own sake, Miss Barlowe, and not be so / thin-skinned; however, neither that defect, nor Mr. Charles Kingscote's / twenty-two years can be mended in a day. I told you that the villany of / an uncle had nearly undone this generation at Nutfield, just as it / happens in the plays; however, this man's waste and fraud were / discovered before it was too late. The Kingscotes have just been able to / keep their place, which their friends have been nursing back to / prosperity till the young man grew up. He is only waiting at home for a / pair of colours, which he is certain to get in these war times, so that / you may not be long troubled with him. An idle young man is a great / trouble and snare. You see I think it right to warn you, Miss / Barlowe"-Mrs. Siddons cleared her conscience-"before sending you to this / situation."

"Mr. Charles Kingscote will not keep me back," asserted Lady Bell, / crossing her hands with an almost comical, youthful arrogance in her / attitude, which expressed, "I shall put the young bumpkin in his proper / place and keep him there, trust me for that. " What she said in words / was, "But you have not told me my duties."

"Nor your salary; I am coming to them. However, I must state to you in / fairness, Miss Barlowe, I also warned Miss Kingscote that her proposed / companion was a very genteel, pretty young girl."

"I am much obliged to you, madam," acknowledged Lady Bell in an accent / of anything save obligation.

"But she would not be warned any more than yourself," protested Mrs. / Siddons bluntly, "for the woman is a born idiot, though I don't mean / that you are similarly afflicted," she broke off, laughing; "at the same / time she is very good-natured, is this Miss Kingscote, as I hear. It / need not be a harder task than another for you to have a little patience / with her, and behave with reserve and prudence, as I do not doubt you / will, to the brother."

"Madam, I am not going to be a companion to the brother," objected Lady / Bell, with solemn impatience; "what am I to do for the lady?"

"You are to teach her all your tambour and knotting stitches, work up / her mess of ‘pretty work,' as she calls it, help her with her plain work / and housekeeping, walk with her, and be company for her in the evening, / since she is lonesome when her brother is abroad. She does not feel dull / in the country during the summer, because since the family fell in the / world, they have been in the habit of giving quarters to friends and / letting the spare rooms in their house; but these are only wanted for / the long days and the fine weather, and Miss Kingscote cannot ‘a-bear' / the thought of a winter all alone with Master Charles, out at Nutfield. / The salary is a guinea a month, with board and washing provided. I can / tell you many a duchess does not give her children's governess a third / more, but I would not take a shilling less for you. Will you engage, / Miss Barlowe?"

"I will, madam, till I can make a better of it," answered Lady Bell, not / very meekly.

Mrs. Siddons did not censure her young friend's peevishness and / ambition; on the contrary, she told Lady Bell seriously that it was the / first duty of every well-disposed, sensible young woman, to do what she / could to better her condition in the world, and even to prove a prop and / ladder by which those belonging to her might stay themselves, and climb / to a higher estate.