Miss Bell

“ During the next four years Miss Greene was privileged to spend many days in the society of Miss Lily Bell, and the acquaintance between them ripened into a pleasant friendship. To her great satisfaction she found Miss Bell's name one to conjure with in those moments of friction which are unavoidable in the relations of old and young.
"I don't think Lily Bell would like that," she began to say, tentatively, when differences of opinion as to his conduct came up between Raymond and herself. "I think she likes a gentlemanly boy." ”

“ Lady Bell, a little girl, not a “fine figure” any more than a “fine fortune,” to her grand-aunt’s open mortification, was like a budding tuberose from the Chelsea gardens, spangled with a finer kind of dew than falls to the lot of ordinary roses, and invested with a rarer and more irresistible charm.
“Here comes Princess Emily to wait upon her royal niece. Be ready with your curtsey, Bell; she has eyes for every hole and corner and every new-comer. Perhaps she will stop and ask who you are. ”

“ Lady Bell, as her past life faded like a dream—so that London drawing-rooms, public gardens, royal birthdays, Lord Mayors’ shows, satin and spangles, hautboys and French horns, became the merest far-away visions and echoes—adopted ingenious devices, not unlike those of a prisoner, to employ her energies and help her to spend her days. ”

“ Bell is a spare, hard-featured body—not attractive at first sight, though when one comes to know her, and the somewhat stern expression relaxes, as the lines about the mouth soften, and the brown eyes grow kindly, one begins to think that Bell must have been once quite handsome. She is always scrupulously clean whenever I chance to visit her, and is usually arrayed in a white "mutch" cap, spotless apron, and small tartan shawl over her shoulders. Willy and she have reared up a large family, all of them now settled in the world and most of them married. ”

“ At last a stout, red-cheeked country girl, in the extremity of rusticity to the town-bred eyes of Lady Bell, accustomed to a trim waiting-woman, instead of to a girl in a jacket, woollen apron, heavy frilled cap, and clamping clogs, stood arrested in the stranger’s way. ”

“ Bevis’s; Mrs. Die had long retired from her world. The appeal to the quarter sessions remained for months the solitary episode which broke the dreary monotony of Lady Bell’s life.
But the oppression of dulness grew lightened by custom and in time, though not from Lady Bell’s acquiring rapidly country tastes, not even after sloppy mid-winter had given place to the rosy-tipped buds of spring.
Nature, though for the most part accessible to all, requires an introduction to her court, and a suit paid to her after the fashion of sovereigns, before she will bestow her rewards. ”

“ Bell. She could scarcely afford to take a fashionable girl in for nothing, and yet—dared she accept payment? Bell, if he knew, would never forgive her, and, as to the town, it would simply cut her dead.
The tall girl who was watching Mrs. Bell's face seemed, however, to be able to read her through. She spoke in a moment in a very gentle and pleading voice:
"I understand your position; you are a lady, and you don't like to accept money."
"I couldn't do it, my dear. I couldn't really; Bell, he'd take on awful. It isn't the custom in Northbury, Miss—Miss Hart." ”

“ Bell. “Why, you ’aven’t been here a couple of years and your hands are as clean as clean.”
“How are you getting on, ma’am?” he asked civilly. “Still in that little place in Pimlico Walk?”
“Me and mother,” interposed Miss Bell, “think of taking a business now in the Kingsland Road.”
“Ho, ho!” said Bobbie, “mixing with the upper ten, aye?”
“I ’aven’t got reely used to the idea yet,” confessed Mrs. Bell. “I shall miss the smell of the fried fish shop at the end dreadfully. When the wind is in the east it is quite a ’earty meal merely to look out of the doorway and sniff.” ”

“ That same evening, Lady Bell stood in the drawing-room of Earl’s Court. She was richly dressed, more richly than was usual with her; upon her white neck and arms sparkled the diamond set which she wore only on the most special occasions. The room was full. Four or five of the country families had been dining with her, and the buzz of conversation and sound of music rose and fell together confusedly.
Surrounded, as usual, by a little circle of courtiers, she reigned, by the right of her beauty, her birth, and her wealth, a queen of society. ”

“ Young Sally Walsh, brought up under the hardest discipline, in her homespun linen and woollen, and barndoor buxomness, had been considerably dazzled to begin with, by the elegant apparition of Lady Bell, but having been smartly chidden by her mother for her short-sighted worldliness, she fell straightway into the opposite error. ”

“ Bell, but not one of them did she utter. Mr. Bell thought that she was tired, and sent her early to her room, where she sate long hours by the open window, gazing out on the purple dome above, where the stars arose, and twinkled and disappeared behind the great umbrageous trees before she went to bed. All night long too, there burnt a little light on earth; a candle in her old bedroom, which was the nursery with the present inhabitants of the parsonage, until the new one was built. A sense of change, of individual nothingness, of perplexity and disappointment, over-powered Margaret. ”

“ These wayfarers glanced with a little wonder at Lady Bell, even in her ordinary scarlet habit, and her neckcloth, as a lady who ought to be on her horse, with her servant behind her, and who might be on foot and by herself as the result of an accident, or in consequence of keeping a private appointment. But these were worthy people who took their neighbours’ adventures coolly, and did not, when they were not accosted and asked to interfere, see themselves called on to forsake their proper business and pleasure for the sake of a third party, in an adventure which might be sorry enough. ”

“ Looking at Miss Charlotte after she had grown dark, the music ended, her face heavy, Luce thought of the word Anthony, Anthony Bell, the old man, father to Horace Bell who was Miss Charlotte’s husband. Anthony Bell, as words, made a sort of singing in her thought if they came forward as tone, or if they lay quiet they were reminiscent of the faint kindness offered by drama, by enriched being. He was an old man and a scholar, as was said. ”

“ Within twelve hours the rough men walking about the house at their pleasure, in muddy shoes, with hats on their heads, and smelling of beer and gin, stripped from St. Bevis’s, as bailiffs had done more than once already, every article that would lift. They even put profane hands on some of Lady Bell’s fragile performances of fan-handles and card-boxes. ”

“ ROYALTY AGAIN. Arrived at the next market town to Peasmarsh, Lady Bell’s driver took her into the lamp-lit inn-yard; and when she pressed a recompense upon him, looked doubtfully at it, and then, as if he would do more to deserve it, hailed a sleepy chambermaid.
“Here, Dolly, here be a poor madam who has missed the coach, or summat, and I ha’ given her a lift. She be skeared and knocked up. Do you put her up at a reasonable charge, and see her on her way in the morning.” ”

“ Sundon had hope and heart in her youth and beauty as she shared and enjoyed life with her comely and elegant young husband, whose listlessness and haggardness even had a charm, by force of contrast, in Lady Bell’s eyes. ”

“ She would wonder if Squire Trevor had discovered her escape, and whether all Peasmarsh were up after her. She would ask herself what she should do next—what would become of her after she reached London.
But absorbing as such considerations must have been to an older, more experienced woman, Lady Bell continually broke them off to be amused and interested like a child in the novelty of her present position, above all, to be fascinated with the lady who was more grandly beautiful than Mrs. Sundon. ”

“ What a good supper that was, girls! Oh, Bell and Jo, you ought to be overcome with remorse when you think what you might give us to eat, if you were only skillful, energetic, and ingenious!”
“You're the very essence of thanklessness!” answered Bell, in high dudgeon. “It's nothing less than fiery martyrdom to cook for you girls, when you are so ungrateful. Your special seminary will not be so far removed from a zoological garden when you return to it, that is certain!”
“My dear child, I am sorry already for my remark,” said Lilia, in feigned repentance. ”

“ Thus the solitary girl occupied and entertained herself as an imprisoned princess might have sought to improve and beguile the hours, not altogether unhappily, for Lady Bell was clever, her temper was naturally cheerful, and in youth the spirit is elastic, fit to rise again buoyantly after a blow, to build new castles in the air, and to remain uncrushed by mere neglect. ”

“ Sneyd, the butler, in his unencouraged essays at conversation the night before, had made Lady Bell acquainted with the habits of the family. The squire was never down in the morning till it was late, when he was at home, and that was but seldom, as he attended all the races. Lady Bell need not fear to stumble on her uncle, and be frozen to stone by his distant greeting. ”

“ AN OLD FRIEND. The white hoar frost which had given a fairy-like beauty to the old orchard trees of Nutfield had long melted away, and was replaced by the first powdering and fluttering of green on the grey gnarled boughs.
The birds which Lady Bell had fed no longer came hopping to door and windowsill, but, independent of her bounty, and forgetful of past favours, broke off the acquaintance, and gave themselves up to satisfactory poking for worms in the soft earth, to energetic pecking at the first midges and green flies, and to the absorbing delights of pairing. ”

“ I have not yet met the man to whom I could say, ‘I am yours, take me!’ Perhaps I never shall; and until I do, I will remain Lady Bell, though they buzz round my money-bags till I am deaf with their hum.”
The brougham was going at a great pace, simply because the coachman very reasonably desired to get home and to bed; and Lady Bell saw the houses flit past as if they had been part of a panorama got up for her special amusement. ”

“ Sundon,” Lady Bell hurried to deliver her warning, “and to impress upon him to be mindful, and not venture about the town alone, as you have chid me for doing. Believe me, madam, there is greater risk for a gentleman who has many enemies in the place than for a foolish creature—not an angel—with regard to whom you have spoken truly when you called her unfriended.” ”

“ Mrs. Shaw and Captain Lennox, each in their separate way, gave Mr. Bell a kind and sincere welcome, winning him over to like them almost in spite of himself, especially when he saw how naturally Margaret took her place as sister and daughter of the house.
"What a shame that we were not at home to receive you," said Edith. "You, too, Henry! though I don't know that we should have stayed at home for you. And for Mr. Bell! for Margaret's Mr. Bell——"
"There is no knowing what sacrifices you would not have made," said her brother-in-law. Even a dinner-party! ”

“ But she was there tonight; as the next issue of the Morning Post would testify.
Jack had been really too careless and scornful in his indifference. Lady Bell was not only beautiful, she was—what was more rare than beauty—charming. She was rather short than tall; but not too short. She had a beautiful figure; not a wasp waist by any means, but a natural figure, full of power and grace. ”

“ But the elder lady gave way to the younger, before Lady Bell, in her agitation, could think of what she ought to do. “The place is yours, Lady Bell Trevor,” said a sweet, sonorous voice, with a shade of emphasis on the Lady Bell. Then, as if regretting even that slightly ungracious inference, Mrs. Sundon added, “I am happy to yield it to you; ladies need not quarrel though gentlemen contest seats in Parliament;” finally, she remarked with a still franker, more winning cordiality, “I think that you and I should not quarrel, Lady Bell.” ”

“ There was not only none of the prints, medallions, and cabinets of curiosities to which Lady Bell had been accustomed as the approved ornaments of gentlewomen’s parlours, there was neither harpsichord nor spinet, tambour-frame, nor even wheel, nor book,—French or English,—not so much as a cookery-book with recipes written in a fine Italian hand, nor inkstand, nor bird’s cage, nor flower-pot. ”

“ It is saying something for young Lady Bell that she came triumphantly through the ordeal. Youth is irreverent, and “quality” is supercilious, yet Lady Bell was able to reverse the proverb of the hero and his valet. She was so much of the heroine herself in playing the waiting-maid, that she still saw a heroine in her mistress.
Lady Bell was selling her birthright, and considering it well sold in return for beholding the creations of a woman of genius. ”

“ Bell coolly declined to do anything of the kind. He surveyed the two graceful banks of flowers there, the carefully trained creepers trailing so naturally and yet so artistically from the roof to the ground, and the sight pleased him.
"My dear chap," he said, "I am not going to sit here and allow you to destroy the work of so many hours. There is not the slightest reason to disturb anything. Unless I am greatly mistaken, Van Sneck will lay his had upon the ring for us without so much as the sacrifice of a blossom." ”

“ Mrs. Bell, hearing of the stir, had tied a yellow silk square (once Josiah's Sunday-going handkerchief) over her cap, and come out to make one of the throng. It was a very light, hot night, daylight scarcely departed, and the western sky bright with a pale amber. The rugged faces of the miners and the red glow from their pipes, coupled with the commotion that stirred them, made up a strange scene.
"Are you here, Mrs. Bell?" cried Frank, as he discerned her on the outskirts of the crowd. "What is the matter?"
"There's nothing the matter," interposed Blase Pellet. ”