Lady Bell, Volume 1 by Sarah Tytler

"Miss Kingscote," said Lady Bell, very soberly and sadly, the next time / that she sat netting a cherry net by the firelight, while her companion / was dozing at her side. Neither of them had to fear interruption, since / Master Charles was gone for that day and the next, to be present at an / inspection of the county fencibles.

"What is your will, miss? " returned Miss Kingscote curtly, not / propitiated by having her sleep broken in upon.

"I have to say to you, that I shall take it as a favour if you will call / me Mrs. Barlowe in future. Indeed, madam, I have, and had long before I / came here, a right to the superior title, which I take blame to myself / for not having confided to you. But I am one of those unfortunate / creatures who, with such a ring as this"-and Lady Bell held up the third / finger of her left hand, on which she had resumed the wearing of her / marriage ring-"have wed slavery and desolation, instead of honour and / bounty."

Miss Kingscote had been still in sheer wonder and consternation far / greater than those with which she herself had lately filled Lady Bell.

"Lord ha' mercy! You don't go for to say it," she exclaimed at last, / "that you are a lost woman already, and you a mere chit of a girl? Why / did Madam Siddons take me in vilely? -though it might have been looked / for from a play-actress. What company for Master Charles to have been / tricked into!"

Lady Bell sprang to her feet.

"Miss Kingscote, you are not thinking of what you are saying, else you / would not dare to speak-you would not have the heart to speak such cruel / words; yes, they are cruel, cruel," she cried again, and sobbed in her / pain and distress. "Have you no pity on a poor girl's misery, which she / was confiding to you solely to re-assure you and guard you against a / foolish fancy which was troubling your peace? You have been poor / yourself, and put upon by a wicked uncle, as you've often told me, and I / thought you were good-natured and kind-hearted, but you are as bad to me / as the rest. I am as good a woman as you are, Miss Kingscote. I defy my / worst enemy to prove me otherwise. I shall rid you of my presence this / very night. Yes, I shall sooner face the howling, dark night, and go on / foot to Lumley, weak girl that I am, than stay and receive another / hour's shelter from a woman who suspects me of being the basest of my / kind."

"Hoity-toity," muttered Miss Kingscote, fanning herself, in her / agitation, with a bunch of peacock's feathers, which she had snatched / from the chimney-piece.

"But I must free Mrs. Siddons from your aspersions," said Lady Bell more / calmly, "she knew nothing of what I have told you, madam; she never / sought to know. Her natural nobility and candour believed in me and / trusted in me from the moment that we chanced to travel together. That / was the beginning and end of our acquaintance."

"Ay, like draws to like," commented Miss Kingscote, with a smothered / groan, for she was cowardly as well as slow, and Lady Bell's combined / volubility and fire swept away and consumed Miss Kingscote's halting / indignation.

"I can guess," continued Lady Bell, paying no heed to the interruption, / "that she told you as much-that she had not been acquainted with my / friends; that she had taken me on credit, and had not been disappointed / in me, an orphan striving to earn her bread."

Lady Bell had raged on without interruption, till the flame was spent.

"What's all this to do, miss? " questioned Miss Kingscote. "Do you expect / me to be mightily pleased with your queer story? Bless the girl! even if / it were true, it wants looking into, that it do; wait till Master / Charles comes back."

In reality Miss Kingscote's forces were already beginning to hang fire. / Her dense stupidity and softness of temper, however goaded, were not / equal to the occasion.

"If it were true! " flounced and fumed the young delinquent, who was not / brought to contriteness just then, "when did I lie to you? As for Master / Charles," Lady Bell stamped her small foot, "how dare you bring a modest / and honourable young gentleman, so far as I know him, into such a / discussion?"

"Lud! lud! " Miss Kingscote rose and retreated, perfectly in earnest in / her alarm, "you mun be in a frenzy, girl, you'll fright me clean out of / my wits, though the maids are in the kitchen; what would you have me to / say or do? I never thought you were such a right-down vixen, or I / wouldn't have had the pluck to live with you so long."

"I am not a vixen, Miss Kingscote," denied Lady Bell, beginning to laugh / excitedly, as she caught a glimpse of the absurdity of the altercation. / "I'm only a poor oppressed soul, as I told you, to whom no one will / afford a harbour, who must seek one in the grave," and overcome by her / own hyperbole, which she fully believed at the moment, Lady Bell sank / down, sighing and moaning over her forlorn youth.

"Oh, deary me! " lamented poor Miss Kingscote in turn, "them dismals are / worser than tantrums; sure, child, you may have a harbour for me, though / you do be a married woman. I have no dislike to married women, though I / beant matched myself. When I come to think of it," added Miss Kingscote, / recollecting herself, and speaking with reviving spirit, "them's the / best news, if so be they're right square, which I've heard for many a / day; your good man beant dead, be he now? " she inquired, insinuatingly.

"No, madam; and though he has been no good man to me, I dare not, as I / am a sinner, wish him sent to his account," said Lady Bell wearily.

"No! The Lord be thanked he is to the fore," commented Miss Kingscote / devoutly, "and I ask your pardon, miss-madam, if I spoke like a / crosspatch when you went to break your marriage to me. It struck me all / of a heap, and put me in such a stew, my heart do go pit-a-pat still. / But when I've got over it, I should not wonder though you and me were / better friends than ever. " Miss Kingscote ended by smirking and nodding.