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.