The Shocking Miss Anstey
by Robert Neill
She is certainly shocking. It is September 1815, three months after Waterloo, and Hyde Park is the parade of Fashion, everyone who matters and hundreds who do not, all of them restless after the years of war. Some have been away too long, and Anice Anstey is something they have dreamed about. She bursts upon them suddenly, driving her sleek fast curricle, primrose and lavender, with a spanking pair of greys, and they give her a boisterous welcome. She openly calls herself a Cyprian, but no one is deterred by that!