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Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume

by Charlotte M. Yonge · English · Gutenberg #5700 · 601,598 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume

Author: Charlotte M. Yonge


        
Release date: May 1, 2004 [eBook #5700]
                Most recently updated: October 12, 2016

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5700

Credits: Produced by Doug Levy, and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOVE AND LIFE: AN OLD STORY IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY COSTUME ***




Produced by Doug Levy





LOVE AND LIFE

An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume


By Charlotte M. Yonge



Transcriber’s note: There are numerous examples throughout this text
of words appearing in alternate spellings: madame/madam, practise/
practice, Ladyship/ladyship, &c. We can only wonder what the publisher
had in mind. I have left them unchanged.--D.L.




PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.


The first edition of this tale was put forth without explaining the
old fable on which it was founded--a fable recurring again and again in
fairy myths, though not traceable in the classic world till a very late
period, when it appeared among the tales of Apuleius, of the province
of Africa, sometimes called the earliest novelist. There are, however,
fragments of the same story in the popular tales of all countries, so
that it is probable that Apuleius availed himself of an early form of
one of these. They are to be found from India to Scandinavia, adapted to
the manners and fancy of every country in turn, _Beauty and the Beast_
and the _Black Bull of Norroway_ are the most familiar forms of the
tale, and it seemed to me one of those legends of such universal
property that it was quite fair to put it into 18th century English
costume.

Some have seen in it a remnant of the custom of some barbarous tribes,
that the wife should not behold her husband for a year after marriage,
and to this the Indian versions lend themselves; but Apuleius himself
either found it, or adapted it to the idea of the Soul (the Life)
awakened by Love, grasping too soon and impatiently, then losing it,
and, unable to rest, struggling on through severe toils and labours till
her hopes are crowned even at the gates of death. Psyche, the soul or
life, whose emblem is the butterfly, thus even in heathen philosophy
strained towards the higher Love, just glimpsed at for a while.

Christians gave a higher meaning to the fable, and saw in it the Soul,
or the Church, to whom her Bridegroom has been for a while made known,
striving after Him through many trials, to be made one with Him after
passing through Death. The Spanish poet Calderon made it the theme of
two sacred dramas, in which the lesson of Faith, not Sight, was taught,
with special reference to the Holy Eucharist.

English poetry has, however, only taken up its simple classical aspect.
In the early part of the century, Mrs. Tighe wrote a poem in Spenserian
stanza, called _Psyche_, which was much admired at the time; and Mr.
Morris has more lately sung the story in his _Earthly Paradise_. This
must be my excuse for supposing the outline of the tale to be familiar
to most readers.

The fable is briefly thus:--

Venus was jealous of the beauty of a maiden named Psyche, the youngest
of three daughters of a king. She sent misery on the land and family,
and caused an oracle to declare that the only remedy was to deck his
youngest daughter as a bride, and leave her in a lonely place to become
the prey of a monster. Cupid was commissioned by his mother to destroy
her. He is here represented not as a child, but as a youth, who on
seeing Psyche’s charms, became enamoured of her, and resolved to save
her from his mother and make her his own. He therefore caused Zephyr to
transport her to a palace where everything delightful and valuable was
at her service, feasts spread, music playing, all her wishes fulfilled,
but all by invisible hands. At night in the dark, she was conscious of
a presence who called himself her husband, showed the fondest affection
for her, and promised her all sorts of glory and bliss, if she would be
patient and obedient for a time.

This lasted till yearnings awoke to see her family. She obtained consent
with much difficulty and many warnings. Then the splendour in which she
lived excited the jealousy of her sisters, and they persuaded her that
her visitor was really the monster who would deceive her and devour her.
They thus induced her to accept a lamp with which to gaze on him when
asleep. She obeyed them, then beholding the exquisite beauty of the
sleeping god of love, she hung over him in rapture till a drop of the
hot oil fell on his shoulder and awoke him. He sprang up, sorrowfully
reproached her with having ruined herself and him, and flew away,
letting her fall as she clung to him.

The palace was broken up, the wrath of Venus pursued her; Ceres and all
the other deities chased her from their temples; even when she would
have drowned herself, the river god took her in his arms, and laid her
on the bank. Only Pan had pity on her, and counselled her to submit to
Venus, and do her bidding implicitly as the only hope of regaining her
lost husband.

Venus spurned her at first, and then made her a slave, setting her first
to sort a huge heap of every kind of grain in a single day. The ants,
secretly commanded by Cupid, did this for her. Next, she was to get
a lock of golden wool from a ram feeding in a valley closed in by
inaccessible rocks; but this was procured for her by an eagle; and
lastly, Venus, declaring that her own beauty had been impaired by
attendance on her injured son, commanded Psyche to visit the Infernal
Regions and obtain from Proserpine a closed box of cosmetic which was on
no account to be opened. Psyche thought death alone could bring her to
these realms, and was about to throw herself from a tower, when a voice
instructed her how to enter a cavern, and propitiate Cerberus with cakes
after the approved fashion.

She thus reached Proserpine’s throne, and obtained the casket, but when
she had again reached the earth, she reflected that if Venus’s beauty
were impaired by anxiety, her own must have suffered far more; and
the prohibition having of course been only intended to stimulate her
curiosity, she opened the casket, out of which came the baneful fumes of
Death! Just, however, as she fell down overpowered, her husband, who had
been shut up by Venus, came to the rescue, and finding himself unable
to restore her, cried aloud to Jupiter, who heard his prayer, reanimated
Psyche, and gave her a place among the gods.


CHAPTERS.


       I.   A SYLLABUB PARTY.
      II.   THE HOUSE OF DELAVIE.
     III.   AMONG THE COWSLIPS.
      IV.   MY LADY’S MISSIVE.
       V.   THE SUMMONS.
      VI.   DISAPPOINTED LOVE.
     VII.   ALL ALONE.
    VIII.   THE ENCHANTED CASTLE.
      IX.   THE TRIAD.
       X.   THE DARK CHAMBER.
      XI.   A VOICE FROM THE GRAVE.
     XII.   THE SHAFTS OF PHOEBE.
    XIII.   THE FLUTTER OF HIS WINGS.
     XIV.   THE CANON OF WINDSOR.
      XV.   THE QUEEN OF BEAUTY.
     XVI.   AUGURIES.
    XVII.   THE VICTIM DEMANDED.
   XVIII.   THE PROPOSAL.
     XIX.   WOOING IN THE DARK.
      XX.   THE MUFFLED BRIDEGROOM.
     XXI.   THE SISTER’S MEETING
    XXII.   A FATAL SPARK.
   XXIII.   WRATH AND DESOLATION.
    XXIV.   THE WANDERER.
     XXV.   VANISHED.
    XXVI.   THE TRACES.
   XXVII.   CYTHEREA’S BOWER.
  XXVIII.   THE ROUT.
    XXIX.   A BLACK BLONDEL.
     XXX.   THE FIRST TASK.
    XXXI.   THE SECOND TASK.
   XXXII.   LIONS.
  XXXIII.   THE COSMETIC.
   XXXIV.   DOWN THE RIVER.
    XXXV.   THE RETURN.
   XXXVI.   WAKING.
  XXXVII.   MAKING THE BEST OF IT.




LOVE AND LIFE.



CHAPTER I. A SYLLABUB PARTY.


    Oft had I shadowed such a group
      Of beauties that were born
    In teacup times of hood and hoop,
      And when the patch was worn;
    And legs and arms with love-knots gay.
      About me leaped and laughed
    The modish Cupid of the day,
      And shrilled his tinselled shaft.--Tennyson.


If times differ, human nature and national character vary but little;
and thus, in looking back on former times, we are by turns startled
by what is curiously like, and curiously unlike, our own sayings and
doings.

The feelings of a retired officer of the nineteenth century expecting
the return of his daughters from the first gaiety of the youngest
darling, are probably not dissimilar to those of Major Delavie, in the
earlier half of the seventeen hundreds, as he sat in the deep bay window
of his bed-room; though he wore a green velvet nightcap; and his whole
provision of mental food consisted of half a dozen worn numbers of the
_Tatler_, and a _Gazette_ a fortnight old. The chair on which he sat was
elbowed, and made easy with cushions and pillows, but that on which
his lame foot rested was stiff and angular. The cushion was exquisitely
worked in chain-stich, as were the quilt and curtains of the great
four-post bed, and the only carpeting consisted of three or four narrow
strips of wool-work. The walls were plain plaster, white-washed, and
wholly undecorated, except that the mantelpiece was carved with the
hideous caryatides of the early Stewart days, and over it were suspended
a long cavalry sabre, and the accompanying spurs and pistols; above them
the miniature of an exquisitely lovely woman, with a white rose in her
hair and a white favour on her breast.

The window was a deep one projecting far into the narrow garden below,
for in truth the place was one of those old manor houses which their
wealthy owners were fast deserting in favour of new specimens of
classical architecture as understood by Louis XIV., and the room in
which the Major sat was one of the few kept in habitable repair. The
garden was rich with white pinks, peonies, lilies of the valley, and
early roses, and there was a flagged path down the centre, between the
front door and a wicket-gate into a long lane bordered with hawthorn
hedges, the blossoms beginning to blush with the advance of the season.
Beyond, rose dimly the spires and towers of a cathedral town, one of
those county capitals to which the provincial magnates were wont to
resort during the winter, keeping a mansion there for the purpose, and
providing entertainment for the gentry of the place and neighbourhood.

Twilight was setting in when the Major began to catch glimpses of the
laced hats of coachman and footmen over the hedges, a lumbering made
itself heard, and by and by the vehicle halted at the gate. Such
a coach! It was only the second best, and the glories of its
landscape--painted sides were somewhat dimmed, the green and silver of
the fittings a little tarnished to a critical eye; yet it was a splendid
article, commodious and capacious, though ill-provided with air and
light. However, nobody cared for stuffiness, certainly not the three
young ladies, who, fan in hand, came tripping down the steps that
were unrolled for them. The eldest paused to administer a fee to their
entertainer’s servants who had brought them home, and the coach rolled
on to dispose of the remainder of the freight.

The father waved greetings from one window, a rosy little audacious
figure in a night-dress peeped out furtively from another, and the
house-door was opened by a tall old soldier-servant, stiff as a ramrod,
with hair tightly tied and plastered up into a queue, and a blue and
brown livery which sat like a uniform.

“Well, young ladies,” he said, “I hope you enjoyed yourselves.”

“Vastly, thank you, Corporal Palmer. And how has it been with my father
in our absence?”

“Purely, Miss Harriet. He relished the Friar’s chicken that Miss Delavie
left for him, and he amused himself for an hour with Master Eugene,
after which he did me the honour to play two plays at backgammon.”

“I hope,” said the eldest sister, coming up, “that the little rogue whom
I saw peeping from the window has not been troublesome.”

“He has been as good as gold, madam. He played in master’s room till
Nannerl called him to his bed, when he went at once, ‘true to his
orders,’ says the master. ‘A fine soldier he will make,’ says I to my
master.”

Therewith the sisters mounted the uncarpeted but well-polished oak
stair, knocked at the father’s door, and entered one by one, each
dropping her curtsey, and, though the eldest was five-and-twenty,
neither speaking nor sitting till they were greeted with a hearty,
“Come, my young maids, sit you down and tell your old father your gay
doings.”

The eldest took the only unoccupied chair, while the other two placed
themselves on the window-seat, all bolt upright, with both little high
heels on the floor, in none of the easy attitudes of damsels of later
date, talking over a party. All three were complete gentlewomen in air
and manners, though Betty had high cheek-bones, a large nose, rough
complexion, and red hair, and her countenance was more loveable and
trustworthy than symmetrical. The dainty decorations of youth looked
grotesque upon her, and she was so well aware of the fact as to put on
no more than was absolutely essential to a lady of birth and breeding.
Harriet (pronounced Hawyot), the next in age, had a small well-set head,
a pretty neck, and fine dark eyes, but the small-pox had made havoc
of her bloom, and left its traces on cheek and brow. The wreck of her
beauty had given her a discontented, fretful expression, which rendered
her far less pleasing than honest, homely Betty, though she employed
all the devices of the toilette to conceal the ravages of the malady and
enhance her remaining advantages of shape and carriage.

There was an air of vexation about her as her father asked, “Well, how
many conquests has my little Aurelia made?” She could not but recollect
how triumphantly she had listened to the same inquiry after her own
first appearance, scarcely three short years ago. Yet she grudged
nothing to Aurelia, her junior by five years, who was for the first
time arrayed as a full-grown belle, in a pale blue, tight-sleeved,
long-waisted silk, open and looped up over a primrose skirt, embroidered
by her own hands with tiny blue butterflies hovering over harebells.
There were blue silk shoes, likewise home-made, with silver buckles, and
the long mittens and deep lace ruffles were of Betty’s fabrication.
Even the dress itself had been cut by Harriet from old wedding hoards
of their mother’s, and made up after the last mode imported by Madam
Churchill at the Deanery.

The only part of the equipment not of domestic handiwork was the
structure on the head. The Carminster hairdresser had been making his
rounds since daylight, taking his most distinguished customers last; and
as the Misses Delavie were not high on the roll, Harriet and Aurelia had
been under his hands at nine A.M. From that time till three, when the
coach called for them, they had sat captive on low stools under a tent
of table-cloth over tall chair-backs to keep the dust out of the frosted
edifice constructed out of their rich dark hair, of the peculiar tint
then called mouse-colour. Betty had refused to submit to this durance.
“What sort of dinner would be on my father’s table-cloth if I were to
sit under one all day?” said she in answer to Harriet’s representation
of the fitness of things. “La, my dear, what matters it what an old
scarecrow like me puts on?”

Old maidenhood set in much earlier in those days than at present; the
sisters acquiesced, and Betty had run about as usual all the morning in
her mob-cap, and chintz gown tucked through her pocket-holes, and only
at the last submitted her head to the manipulations of Corporal Palmer,
who daily powdered his master’s wig.

Strange and unnatural as was the whitening of the hair, it was effective
in enhancing the beauty of Aurelia’s dark arched brows, the soft
brilliance of her large velvety brown eyes, and the exquisite carnation
and white of her colouring. Her features were delicately chiselled, and
her face had that peculiar fresh, innocent, soft, untouched bloom and
undisturbed repose which form the special charm and glory of the first
dawn of womanhood. Her little head was well poised on a slender neck,
just now curving a little to one side with the fatigue of the hours
during which it had sustained her headgear. This consisted of a
tiny flat hat, fastened on by long pins, and adorned by a cluster of
campanulas like those on her dress, with a similar blue butterfly on an
invisible wire above them, the dainty handiwork of Harriet.

The inquiry about conquests was a matter of course after a young lady’s
first party, but Aurelia looked too childish for it, and Betty made
haste to reply.

“Aurelia was a very good girl. No one could have curtsied or bridled
more prettily when we paid our respects to my Lady Herries and Mrs.
Churchill, and the Dean highly commended her dancing.”

“You danced? Fine doings! I thought you were merely invited to look on
at the game at bowls. Who had the best of the match?”

“The first game was won by Canon Boltby, the second by the Dean,” said
Betty; “but when they would have played the conqueror, Lady Herries
interfered and said the gentlemen had kept the field long enough, and
now it was our turn. So a cow was driven on the bowling-green, with a
bell round her neck and pink ribbons on her horns.”

“A cow! What will they have next?”

“They say ‘tis all the mode in London,” interposed Harriet.

“Pray was the cow to instruct you in dancing?” continued the Major.

“No, sir,” said Aurelia, whom he had addressed; “she was to be milked
into the bowl of syllabub.”

This was received with a great “Ho! ho!” and a demand who was to act as
milker.

“That was the best of it,” said Aurelia. “Soon came Miss Herries in
a straw hat, and the prettiest green petticoat under a white gown and
apron, as a dairy-maid, but the cow would not stand still, for all the
man who led her kept scolding her and saying ‘Coop! coop!’ No sooner had
Miss Herries seated herself on the stool than Moolly swerved away, and
it was a mercy that the fine china bowl escaped. Every one was laughing,
and poor Miss Herries was ready to cry, when forth steps my sister,
coaxes the cow, bids the man lend his apron, sits down on the stool, and
has the bowl frothing in a moment.”

“I would not have done so for worlds,” said Harriet; “I dreaded every
moment to be asked where Miss Delavie learnt to be a milk-maid.”

“You were welcome to reply, in her own yard,” said Betty. “You may thank
me for your syllabub.”

“Which, after all, you forbade poor Aura to taste!”

“Assuredly. I was not going to have her turn sick on my hands. She may
think herself beholden to me for her dance with that fine young beau.
Who was he, Aura?”

“How now!” said the Major, in a tone of banter, while Harriet indulged
in a suppressed giggle. “You let Aura dance with a stranger! Where was
your circumspection, Mrs. Betty?” Aurelia coloured to the roots of her
hair and faltered, “It was Lady Herries who presented him.”

“Yes, the child is not to blame,” said Betty; “I left her in charge
of Mrs. Churchill while I went to wash my hands after milking the cow,
which these fine folk seemed to suppose could be done without soiling a
finger.”

“That’s the way with Chloe and Phyllida in Arcadia,” said her father.

“But not here,” said Betty. “In the house, I was detained a little
while, for the housekeeper wanted me to explain my recipe for taking out
the grease spots.”

“A little while, sister?” said Harriet. “It was through the dancing of
three minuets, and the country dance had long been begun.”

“I was too busy to heed the time,” said Betty, “for I obtained the
recipe for those delicious almond-cakes, and showed Mrs. Waldron the
Vienna mode of clearing coffee. When I came back the fiddles were
playing, and Aurelia going down the middle with a young gentleman in a
scarlet coat. Poor little Robert Rowe was too bashful to find a partner,
though he longed to dance; so I made another couple with him, and thus
missed further speech, save that as we took our leave, both Sir George
and the Dean complimented me, and said what there is no occasion to
repeat just now, sir, when I ought to be fetching your supper.”

“Ha! Is it too flattering for little Aura?” asked her father. “Come,
never spare. She will hear worse than that in her day, I’ll warrant.”

“It was merely,” said Betty, reluctantly, “that the Dean called her the
star of the evening, and declared that her dancing equalled her face.”

“Well said of his reverence! And his honour the baronet, what said he?”

“He said, sir, that so comely and debonnaire a couple had not been seen
in these parts since you came home from Flanders and led off the assize
ball with Mistress Urania Delavie.”

“There, Aura, ‘tis my turn to blush!” cried the Major, comically hiding
his face behind Betty’s fan. “But all this time you have never told me
who was this young spark.”

“That I cannot tell, sir,” returned Betty. “We were sent home in
the coach with Mistress Duckworth and her daughters, who talked so
incessantly that we could not open our lips. Who was he, Aura?”

“My Lady Herries only presented him as Sir Amyas, sister,” replied
Aurelia.

“Sir Amyas!” cried her auditors, all together.

“Nothing more,” said Aurelia. “Indeed she made as though he and I must
be acquainted, and I suppose that she took me for Harriet, but I knew
not how to explain.”

“No doubt,” said Harriet. “I was sick of the music and folly, and had
retired to the summerhouse with Peggy Duckworth, who had brought a sweet
sonnet of Mr. Ambrose Phillips, ‘Defying Cupid.’”

Her father burst into a chuckling laugh, much to her mortification,
though she would not seem to understand it, and Betty took up the moral.

“Sir Amyas! Are you positive that you caught the name, child?”

“I thought so, sister,” said Aurelia, with the insecurity produced by
such cross-questioning; “but I may have been mistaken, since, of course,
the true Sir Amyas Belamour would never be here without my father’s
knowledge.”

“Nor is there any other of the name,” said her father, “except that
melancholic uncle of his who never leaves his dark chamber.”

“Depend upon it,” said Harriet, “Lady Herries said Sir Ambrose. No doubt
it was Sir Ambrose Watford.”

“Nay, Harriet, I demur to that,” said her father drolly. “I flatter
myself I was a more personable youth than to be likened to Watford with
his swollen nose. What like was your cavalier, Aura?”

“Indeed, sir, I cannot describe him. I was so much terrified lest he
should speak to me that I had much ado to mind my steps. I know he had
white gloves and diamond shoe-buckles, and that his feet moved by no
means like those of Sir Ambrose.”

“Aura is a modest child, and does credit to her breeding,” said Betty.
“Thus much I saw, that the young gentleman was tall and personable
enough to bear comparison even to you, sir, not more than nineteen or
twenty years of age, in a laced scarlet uniform, as I think, of the
Dragoon Guards, and with a little powder, but not enough to disguise
that his hair was entire gold.”

“That all points to his being indeed young Belamour,” said her father;
“age, military appearance, and all--I wonder what this portends!”

“What a disaster!” exclaimed Harriet, “that my sister and I should have
been out of the way, and only a chit like Aura be there to be presented
to him.”

“If young ladies _will_ defy Cupid,” began her father;--but at that
moment Corporal Palmer knocked at the door, bringing a basin of soup for
his master, and announcing “Supper is served, young ladies.”

Each of the three bent her knee to receive her father’s blessing and
kiss, then curtseying at the door, departed, Betty lingering behind her
two juniors to see her father taste his soup and to make sure that he
relished it.




CHAPTER II. THE HOUSE OF DELAVIE.


    All his Paphian mother fear;
    Empress! all thy sway revere!
                            EURIPEDES (Anstice).


The parlour where the supper was laid was oak panelled, but painted
white. Like a little island in the vast polished slippery floor lay a
square much-worn carpet, just big enough to accommodate a moderate-sized
table and the surrounding high-backed chairs. There was a tent-stitch
rug before the Dutch-tiled fireplace, and on the walls hung two framed
prints,--one representing the stately and graceful Duke of Marlborough;
the other, the small, dark, pinched, but fiery Prince Eugene. On the
spotless white cloth was spread a frugal meal of bread, butter, cheese,
and lettuce; a jug of milk, another of water, and a bottle of cowslip
wine; for the habits of the family were more than usually frugal and
abstemious.

Frugality and health alike obliged Major Delavie to observe a careful
regimen. He had served in all Marlborough’s campaigns, and had
afterwards entered the Austrian army, and fought in the Turkish war,
until he had been disabled before Belgrade by a terrible wound, of which
he still felt the effects. Returning home with his wife, the daughter of
a Jacobite exile, he had become a kind of agent in managing the family
estate for his cousin the heiress, Lady Belamour, who allowed him
to live rent-free in this ruinous old Manor-house, the cradle of the
family.

This was all that Harriet and Aurelia knew. The latter had been born
at the Manor, and young girls, if not brought extremely forward, were
treated like children; but Elizabeth, the eldest of the family, who
could remember Vienna, was so much the companion and confidante of her
father, that she was more on the level of a mother than a sister to her
juniors.

“Then you think Aurelia’s beau was really Sir Amyas Belamour,” said
Harriet, as they sat down to supper.

“So it appears,” said Betty, gravely.

“Do you think he will come hither, sister? I would give the world to see
him,” continued Harriet.

“He said something of hoping for better acquaintance,” softly put in
Aurelia.

“Oh, did he so?” cried Harriet. “For demure as you are, Miss Aura, I
fancy you looked a little above the diamond shoe-buckles!”

“Fie, Harriet!” exclaimed Betty; “I will not have the child tormented.
He ought to come and pay his respects to my father.”

“Have you ever seen my Lady?” asked Aurelia.

“That have I, Miss Aurelia,” interposed Corporal Palmer, “and a rare
piece of beauty she would be, if one could forget the saying ‘handsome
is as handsome does.’”

“I never knew what she has done,” said Aurelia.

“‘Tis a long story,” hastily said Betty, “too long to tell at table. I
must make haste to prepare the poultice for my father.”

She quickly broke up the supper party, and the two younger sisters
repaired to their chamber, both conscious of having been repressed; the
one feeling injured, the other rebuked for forwardness and curiosity.
The three sisters shared one long low room with a large light closet
at each end. One of these was sacred to powder, the other was Betty’s
private property. Harriet had a little white bed to herself, Betty and
Aurelia nightly climbed into a lofty and solemn structure curtained with
ancient figured damask. Each had her own toilette-table and a press for
her clothes, where she contrived to stow them in a wonderfully small
space.

Harriet and Aurelia had divested themselves of their finery before
Betty came in, and they assisted her operations, Harriet preferring a
complaint that she never would tell them anything.

“I have no objection to tell you at fitting times,” said Betty, “but not
with Palmer putting in his word. You should have discretion, Harriet.”

“The Dean’s servants never speak when they are waiting at table,” said
Harriet with a pout.

“But I’ll warrant them to hear!” retorted Betty.

“And I had rather have our dear old honest corporal than a dozen of
those fine lackeys,” said Aurelia. “But you will tell us the story like
a good sister, while we brush the powder out of our hair.”

They put on powdering gowns, after releasing themselves from the armour
of their stays, and were at last at ease, each seated on a wooden chair
in the powdering closet, brush in hand, with a cloud of white dust
flying round, and the true colour of the hair beginning to appear.

“Then it is indeed true that My Lady is one of the greatest beauties of
Queen Caroline’s Court, if not the greatest?” said Harriet.

“Truly she is,” said Betty, “and though in full maturity, she preserves
the splendour of her prime.”

“Tell us more particularly,” said Aurelia; “can she be more lovely than
our dear mamma?”

“No, indeed! lovely was never the word for her, to my mind,” said
Betty; “her face always seemed to me more like that of one of the marble
statues I remember at Vienna; perfect, but clear, cold, and hard. But
I am no judge, for I did not love her, and in a child, admiration
accompanies affection.”

“What did Palmer mean by ‘handsome is that handsome does’? Surely my
father never was ill-treated by Lady Belamour?”

“Let me explain,” said the elder sister. “The ancient custom and
precedent of our family have always transmitted the estates to the male
heir. But when Charles II. granted the patent of nobility to the first
Baron Delavie, the barony was limited to the heirs male of his body, and
out grandfather was only his brother. The last Lord had three sons, and
one daughter, Urania, who alone survived him.”

“I know all that from the monument,” said Aurelia; “one was drowned
while bathing, one died of spotted fever, and one was killed at the
battle of Ramillies. How dreadful for the poor old father!”

“And there is no Lord Delavie now,” said Harriet. “Why, since my Lady
could not have the title, did it not come to our papa?”

“Because his father was not in the patent,” said Betty. “However, it
was thought that if he were married to Mistress Urania, there would be
a fresh creation in their favour. So as soon as the last campaign was
over, our father, who had always been a favourite at the great house,
was sent for from the army, and given to understand that he was to
conduct his courtship, with the cousin he had petted as a little child,
as speedily as was decorous. However, in winter quarters at Tournai he
had already pledged his faith to the daughter of a Scottish gentleman
in the Austrian service. This engagement was viewed by the old Lord as
a trifling folly, which might be set aside by the head of the family.
He hinted that the proposed match was by no means disagreeable to his
daughter, and scarcely credited his ears when his young kinsman declared
his honour forbade him to break with Miss Murray.”

“Dear father,” ejaculated Aurelia, “so he gave up everything for her
sake?”

“And never repented it!” said Betty.

“Now,” said Harriet, “I understand why he entered the army.”

“It was all he had to depend on,” said Betty, “and he had been
favourably noticed by Prince Eugene at the siege of Lisle, so that he
easily obtained a commission. He believed that though it was in the
power of the old Lord to dispose of part of his estates by will, yet
that some of the land was entailed in the male line, so that there need
not be many years of campaigning or poverty for his bride, even if her
father never were restored to his Scottish property. As you know, our
grandfather, Sir Archibald Murray, died for his loyalty in the rising of
‘15, and two years later our father received at Belgrade that terrible
wound which closed his military career. Meantime, Urania had married Sir
Jovian Belamour, and Lord Delavie seemed to have forgotten my father’s
offence, and gave him the management of the estate, with this old house
to live in, showing himself glad of the neighbourhood of a kinsman whom
he could thoroughly trust. All went well till my Lady came to visit her
father. Then all old offences were renewed. Lady Belamour treated my
mother as a poor dependant. She, daughter to a noble line of pedigree
far higher than that of the Delavies, might well return her haughty
looks, and would not yield an inch, nor join in the general adulation.
There were disputes about us children. Poor Archie was a most beautiful
boy, and though you might not suppose it, I was a very pretty little
girl, this nose of mine being then much more shapely than the little
buttons which grow to fair proportions. On the other hand, the little
Belamours were puny and sickly; indeed, as you know, this young Sir
Amyas, who was not then born, is the only one of the whole family who
has been reared. Then we had been carefully bred, could chatter French,
recite poetry, make our bow and curtsey, bridle, and said Sir and Madam,
while the poor little cousins who had been put out to nurse had no more
manners than the calves and pigs. People were the more flattering to us
because they expected soon to see my father in his Lordship’s place; and
on the other hand, officious tongues were not wanting to tell my Lady
how Mrs. Delavie contrasted the two sets of children. Very bitter
offence was taken; nor has my Lady ever truly forgiven, whatever our
dear good father may believe. When the old Lord died, a will was found,
bequeathing all his unentailed estates to his daughter, and this was of
course strong presumption that he believed in the existence of a deed of
entail; but none could ever be found, and the precedents were not held
to establish the right.”

“Did he leave my father nothing?” asked Harriet.

“He left him three hundred pounds and made him joint executor with Sir
Jovian. There was no mention of this house, which was the original house
of the family, the first Lord having built the Great House; and both my
father and Sir Jovian were sure the Lord Delavie believed it would come
to him; but no proofs were extant, and my Lady would only consent to his
occupying it, as before, as her agent.”

“I always knew we were victims to an injustice,” said Harriet, “though I
never understood the matter exactly.”

“You were a mere child, and my father does not love to talk of it. He
ceased to care much about the loss after our dear Archie died.”

“Not for Eugene’s sake?”

“Eugene was not born for two years after Archie’s death. My dear mother
had drooped from the time of the disappointment, blaming herself for
having ruined my father, and scarce accepting comfort when he vowed that
all was well lost for her sake. She reproached herself with having
been proud and unconciliatory, though I doubt whether it made much
difference. Then her spirit was altogether crushed by the loss of
Archie, she never had another day’s health. Eugene came to her like
Ichabod to Phinehas’ wife, and she was soon gone from us,” said Betty,
wiping away a tear.

“Leaving us a dear sister to be a mother to us,” said Aurelia, raising
her sweet face for a kiss.

Harriet pondered a little, and said, “My Lady is not at enmity with us,
since my father keeps the house and agency.”

“We should be reduced to poverty indeed without them,” said Betty; “and
Sir Jovian, an upright honourable man, the only person whom my Lady
truly respected, insisted on his continuance. As long as my Lady regards
his memory we are safe, but no one can trust to her caprice.”

“She never comes here, nor disturbs my father.”

“No, but she makes heavy calls on the estate, and is displeased if he
refuses to overpress the tenants or hesitates to cut the timber.”

“I have heard say,” added Harriet, “that her debts in town and her
losses at play drove her to accept her present husband, Mr. Wayland, a
hideous old fellow, who had become vastly rich through some discovery
about cannon.”

“He is an honourable and upright man,” said Betty. “I should have
fewer anxieties if he had not been sent out to Gibraltar and Minorca to
superintend the fortifications.”

“Meantime my Lady makes the money fly, by the help of the gallant
Colonel Mar,” said Harriet lightly.

“Fie! Harriet!” returned the elder sister; “I have allowed you too far.
My father calls Lady Belamour his commanding officer, and permits no
scandal to be spoken of her.”

“Any more than of Prince Eugene?” said Harriet, laughing.

“But oh! sister!” cried Aurelia, “let us stay a little longer. I have
not half braided my hair, and I long to hear who is the gentleman of
whom my father spoke as living in the dark.”

“Mr. Amyas Belamour! Sir Jovian’s brother! Ah! that is a sad story,”
 replied Betty, “though I am not certain that I have it correctly,
having only heard it discussed between my father and mother when I was a
growing girl, sitting at my sampler. I think he was a barrister; I know
he was a very fine gentleman and a man of parts, who had made the Grand
Tour; for when he was staying at the Great House, he said my mother was
the only person he met who could converse with him on the Old Masters,
or any other subject of _virtu_, and that, being reported to my Lady,
increased her bitterness all the more because Mr. Belamour was a friend
of Mr. Addison and Sir Richard Steele, and had contributed some papers
to the _Spectator_. He was making a good fortune in his profession, and
had formed an engagement with a young lady in Hertfordshire, of a good
old family, but one which had always been disliked by Lady Belamour. It
is said, too, that Miss Sedhurst had been thought to have attracted one
of my Lady’s many admirers, and that the latter was determined not
to see her rival become her sister-in-law, and probably with the same
title, since Mr. Belamour was on the verge of obtaining knighthood. So,
if she be not greatly belied, Lady Belamour plied all parties with her
confidences, till she contrived to breed suspicion and jealousy on all
sides, until finally Miss Sedhurst’s brother, a crack-brained youth,
offered such an insult to Mr. Belamour, that honour required a
challenge. It was thought that as Mr. Belamour was the superior in age
and position, the matter might have been composed, but the young man was
fiery and hot tempered, and would neither retract nor apologise; and
Mr. Belamour had been stung in his tenderest feeling. They fought with
pistols, an innovation that, as you know, my father hates, as far more
deadly and unskilful than the noble practice of fencing; and the result
was that Mr. Sedhurst was shot dead, and Mr. Belamour received a severe
wound in the head. The poor young lady, being always of a delicate
constitution, fell into fits on hearing the news, an died in a few
weeks. The unfortunate Mr. Belamour survives, but whether from injury to
the brain, or from grief and remorse, he has never been able to endure
either light or company, but has remained ever since in utter darkness
and seclusion.”

“Utter darkness! How dreadful!” cried Aurelia, shuddering.

“How long has this been, sister?” inquired Harriet.

“About nine years,” said Betty. “The lamentable affair took place just
before Sir Jovian’s death, and the shock may have hastened it, for he
had long been in a languishing state. It was the more unfortunate, since
he had made Mr. Belamour sole personal guardian to his only surviving
son, and appointed him, together with my father and another gentleman,
trustee for the Belamour property; and there has been much difficulty
in consequence of his being unable to act, or to do more than give his
signature.”

“Ah! sister, I wish you had not told me,” said Aurelia. “I shall dream
of the unfortunate gentleman all night. Nine years of utter darkness!”

“We know who is still child enough to hate darkness,” said Harriet.

“Take care,” said Betty. “You must make haste, or I shall leave you to
it.”




CHAPTER III. AMONG THE COWSLIPS.


    The insect youth are on the wing,
    Eager to taste the honeyed spring,
        And float amid the liquid noon,
    Some lightly on the torrent skim,
    Some show their gaily gilded trim,
        Quick glancing to the sun.--GRAY


Though hours were early, the morning meal was not served till so late as
really to deserve the title of breakfast.

When the three sisters sat down at nine-o’clock, in mob caps, and
the two younger in white dresses, all had been up at least two hours.
Aurelia led forward little Eugene in a tailed red coat, long-breasted
buff waistcoat, buff tights and knitted stockings, with a deep frilled
collar under the flowing locks on his shoulders, in curls which
emulated a wig. She had been helping him to prepare “his tasks” from
the well-thumbed but strongly-bound books which had served poor Archie
before him. They were deposited on the window-seat to wait till the
bowls of bread and milk were discussed, since tea and coffee were only
a special afternoon treat not considered as wholesome for children; so
that Aurelia had only just been promoted to them, along with powder and
fan.

Harriet wore her favourite pistachio ribbon round her cap and as a
breast-knot, and her cheeks bore token of one of the various washes
with which she was always striving to regain the smoothness of her
complexion. Knowing what this betokened, an elder-sisterly instinct of
caution actuated Betty to remind her juniors of an engagement made with
Dame Jewel of the upland farm for the exchange of a setting of white
duck’s eggs for one of five-toed fowls, and to request them to carry the
basket.

Eugene danced on his chair and begged to be of the party; but Harriet
pouted, and asked why the “odd boy” could not be sent.

“Because, as you very well know, if he did not break, he would addle,
every egg in the basket.

“There can be no need to go to-day.”

“The speckled hen is clocking to brood, and she is the best mother in
the yard. Besides, it is time that the cowslip wine were made, and I
will give you some bread and cheese and gingerbread for noonchin, so
that you may fill your baskets in the meadows before they are laid up
for grass. Mrs. Jewel will give you a drink of milk.”

“O let me go, sister!” pleaded Eugene. “She gives us bread and honey!
And I want to hear the lapwings in the meadows cry pee-wit.”

“We shall have you falling into the river,” said Harriet, rather
fretfully.

“No, indeed! If you fall in, I will pull you out. Young maids should not
run about the country without a gentleman to take care of them. Should
they, sister?” cried the doughty seven years’ old champion.

“Who taught you that, sir?” asked Betty, trying to keep her countenance.

“I heard Mrs. Churchill say so to my papa,” returned the boy. “So now,
there’s a good sister. Do pray let me go!”

“If you say your tasks well, and will promise to be obedient to Harriet
and to keep away from the river, and not touch the basket of eggs.”

Eugene was ready for any number of promises; and Harriet, seeing there
was no escape for her, went off with Aurelia to put on their little
three-cornered muslin handkerchiefs and broad-brimmed straw hats, while
Eugene repeated his tasks, namely, a fragment of the catechism, half
a column of spelling from the _Universal Spelling-Book_, and (Betty’s
special pride) his portion of the _Orbis Sensualium Pictus_ of Johannes
Amos Comenius, the wonderful vocabulary, with still more wonderful
“cuts,” that was then the small boys path to Latinity.

The Eagle, _Aquila_, the King of Birds, _Rex Avium_, looketh at the Sun,
_intuetur Solem_, as indeed he could hardly avoid doing, since in the
“cut” the sun was within a hairsbreath of his beak, while his claws were
almost touching a crow (_Corvus_) perched on a dead horse, to exemplify
how _Aves Raptores_ fed on carrion.

Thanks to Aurelia’s private assistance, Eugene knew his lessons well
enough for his excitement not to make him stumble so often as to prevent
Betty’s pronouncing him a good boy, and dispensing with his copy,
sum, piece, and reading, until the evening. These last were very tough
affairs, the recitation being from Shakespeare, and the reading from the
_Spectator_. There were no children’s books, properly so called,
except the ballads, chap-books brought round by pedlers, often far from
edifying, and the plunge from the horn-book into general literature was,
to say the least of it, bracing.

The Delavie family was cultivated for the time. French had been brought
home as a familiar tongue, though _Telemaque_, Racine, and _Le Grand
Cyrus_ were the whole library in that language; and there was not
another within thirty miles. On two days in the week the sisters became
Mesdemoiselles Elisabeth, Henriette, and Aurelie, and conversed in
French over their spinning, seams, lace, or embroidery; nor was Aurelia
yet emancipated from reciting Racine on alternate days with Milton and
Shakespeare.

Betty could likewise talk German with the old Austrian maid, Nannerl,
who had followed the family from Vienna; but the accomplishment was not
esteemed, and the dialect was barbarous. From the time of her mother’s
death, Betty had been a strict and careful, though kind, ruler to her
sisters; and the long walk was a greater holiday to Aurelia than to
Eugene, releasing her from her book and work, whereas he would soon
have been trundling his hoop, and haunting the steps of Palmer, who was
gardener as well as valet, butler, and a good deal besides, and moreover
drilled his young master. Thus Eugene carried his head as erect as
any Grenadier in the service, and was a thorough little gentleman in
miniature; a perfect little beau, as his sisters loved to call the
darling of their hearts and hopes.

Even Harriet could not be cross to him, though she made Aurelia carry
the eggs, and indulged in sundry petulant whisks of the fan which she
carried by way of parasol. “Now, why does Betty do this?” she exclaimed,
as soon as they were out of hearing. “Is it to secure to herself the
whole enjoyment of your beau?”

“You forget,” said Aurelia. “You promised to fetch the eggs, when we met
Mrs. Jewel jogging home from market on her old blind white horse last
Saturday, because you said no eggs so shaken could ever be hatched.”

“You demure chit!” exclaimed Harriet; “would you make me believe that
you have no regrets for so charming a young gentleman, my Lady’s son and
our kinsman.”

“If he spoke to me I should not know how to answer. And then you would
blame my rudeness. Besides,” she added, with childish sagacity, “he can
be nothing but a fine London macaroni. Only think of the cowslips! A
whole morning to make cowslip balls,” she added with a little frisk. “I
would not give one for all the macaronies in England, with their powder
and their snuff-boxes. Faugh!”

“Ah, child, you will sing another note perhaps when it is too late,”
 said her sister, with a sigh between envy and compassion.

It floated past Aurelia unheeded, as she danced up one side of a stile,
and sprang clear down into a green park, jumped Eugene down after her by
both hands, and exclaimed, “Harriet is in her vapours; come, let us have
a race!”

She was instantly careering along like a white butterfly in the
sunshine, flitting on as the child tried to catch her, among the snowy
hawthorn bushes, or sinking down for very joy and delight among the bank
of wild hyacinths. Life and free motion were joy and delight enough for
that happy being with her childish heart, and the serious business of
the day was all delight. There lay the rich meadows basking in the sun,
and covered with short grass just beginning its summer growth, but with
the cowslips standing high above it; hanging down their rich clusters of
soft, pure, delicately-scented bells, from their pinky stems over their
pale crinkled leaves, interspersed here and there with the deep purple
of the fool’s orchis, and the pale brown quiver-grass shaking out its
trembling awns on their invisible stems. No flower is more delightful
to gather than the cowslip, fragrant as the breath of a cow. And
Aurelia darted about, piling the golden heap in her basket with untiring
enjoyment; then, producing a tape, called on Harriet, who had been
working in a more leisurely fashion, to join her in making a cowslip
ball, and charged Eugene not to nip off the heads too short.

The sweet, soft, golden globe was made, and even Harriet felt the
delicious intoxication. The young things tossed it aloft, flung from
one to the other, caught it, caressed it, buried their faces in it, and
threw it back with shrieks of glee.

Suddenly Harriet checked her sister with a peremptory sign. She heard
horse-hoofs in the lane, divided from the field by a hedge of pollard
willows, so high that she had never thought of being overlooked, till
the cessation of the trotting sound struck her; and looking round she
saw that a horseman had halted at the gate, and was gazing at their
sports. It was from the distance of a field, but this was enough to
fill Harriet with dismay. She drew herself up in a moment, signing
peremptorily to Aurelia, who was flying about, her hat off, her one long
curl streaming behind as she darted hither and thither, evading Eugene
who was pursuing her.

As she paused, and Eugene clutched her dress with a shout of ecstasy,
Harriet came up, glancing severely toward the gate, and saying, as she
handed her sister the hat, “This comes of childishness! That we should
be seen thus! What a hoyden he will think you!” as the hoofs went on and
the red coat vanished.

“He! Who? Not the farmer?” said Aurelia. “This is not laid up for hay.”

“No indeed. I believe it is he,” said Harriet, mysteriously.

“He?” repeated Aurelia. “Not Mr. Arden, for he would be in black,” and
at Harriet’s disgusted gesture, “I beg your pardon, but I did not
know you had a new _he_. Oh! surely you are not thinking of the young
baronet?”

“I am sure it was his figure.”

“You did not see him yesterday?”

“No, but his air had too much distinction for any one from these parts.”

“Could you see what his air was from this distance? I should never have
guessed it, but you have more experience, being older. Come, Eugene,
another race!”

“No, I will have no more folly. I was too good-natured to allow it. I am
vexed beyond measure that he should have seen such rusticity.”

“Never mind, dear Harriet. Most likely it was no such person, for it
was not well-bred to sit staring at us; and if it were he, you were not
known to him.”

“You were.”

“Then he must have eyes as sharp as yours are for an air of distinction.
Having only seen me in my blue and primrose suit, how should he know me
in my present trim? Besides, I believe it was only young Dick Jewel in a
cast coat of Squire Humphrey’s.”

The charm of the cowslip gathering was broken. Eugene found himself
very hungry, and the noonchin was produced, after which the walk was
continued to the farm-house, where the young people were made very
welcome.

Farmers were, as a rule, more rustic than the present labourer, but they
lived a life of far less care, if of more toil, than their successors,
having ample means for their simple needs, and enjoying jocund plenty.
The clean kitchen, with the stone floor, the beaupot of maythorn on the
empty hearth, the shining walnut-wood table, the spinning-wheel, wooden
chairs, and forms, all looked cool and inviting, and the visitors were
regaled with home-made brown bread, delicious butter and honey, and a
choice of new milk, mead, and currant wine.

Dame Jewel, in a white frill under a black silken hood, a buff turnover
kerchief, stout stuff gown and white apron, was delighted to wait
on them; and Eugene’s bliss was complete among the young kittens and
puppies in baskets on opposite sides of the window, the chickens before
their coops, the ducklings like yellow balls on the grass, and the huge
family of little spotted piglings which, to the scandal of his sisters,
he declared the most delightful of all.

Their hostess knew nothing of the young baronet being in the
neighbourhood, and was by no means gratified by the intelligence.

“Lack-a-day! Miss Harriet, you don’t mean that the family is coming down
here! I don’t want none of them. ‘Tis bad times for the farmer when
any of that sort is nigh. They make nothing of galloping their horses a
hunting right through the crops, ay, and horsewhipping the farmer if he
do but say a word for the sweat of his brow.”

“O Mrs. Jewel!” cried Aurelia, in whose ear lingered the courteous
accents of her partner, “they would never behave themselves so.”

“Bless you, Miss Orreely, I’ll tell you what I’ve seen with my own eyes.
My own good man, the master here, with the horsewhip laid about his
shoulders at that very thornbush, by one of the fine gentlefolks,
just because he had mended the gap in the hedge they was used to ride
through, and my Lady sitting by in her laced scarlet habit on her fine
horse, smiling like a painted picture, and saying, ‘Thank you, sir,
the rascals need to learn not to interfere with our sport,’ all in that
gentle sounding low voice of hers, enough to drive one mad.”

“I thought Sir Jovian had been a kind master,” said Harriet.

“This was not Sir Jovian. Poor gentleman, he was not often out
a-hunting. This was one of the fine young rakish fellows from Lunnun
as were always swarming about my Lady, like bees over that maybush. Sir
Thomas Donne, I think they called him. They said he got killed by a wild
boar, hunting in foreign parts, afterwards, and serve him right! But
there! They would all do her bidding, whether for bad or good, so maybe
it was less his fault than hers. She is a bitter one, is my Lady, for
all she looks so sweet. And this her young barrowknight will be his own
mother’s son, and I don’t want none of ‘em down here. ‘Tis a good job we
have your good papa, the Major, to stand between her and us; I only wish
he had his own, for a rare good landlord he would be.”

The Dame’s vain wishes were cut short by shrieks from the poultry-yard,
where Eugene was discovered up to his ankles in the black ooze of the
horse-pond, waving a little stick in defiance of an angry gander, who
with white outspread wings, snake-like neck, bent and protruded, and
frightful screams and hisses, was no bad representation of his namesake
the dragon, especially to a child not much exceeding him in height.

The monster was put to rout, the champion dragged out of the pond,
breathlessly explaining that he only wanted to look at the goslings when
the stupid geese cackled and the gander wanted to fly at his eyes. “And
I didn’t see where I was going, for I had to keep him off, so I got into
the mud. Will sister be angry?” he concluded, ruefully surveying the
dainty little stockings and shoes coated with black mud.

But before the buckled shoon had been scraped, or the hosen washed and
dried, the cheerful memory of boyhood had convinced itself that the
enemy had been put to flight by his manful resistance; and he turned a
deaf ear to Aurelia’s suggestion that the affair had been retribution
for his constant oblivion of Comenius’ assertion that _auser gingrit,_
“the goose gagleth.”

They went home more soberly, having been directed by Mrs. Jewel to a
field bordered by a copse, where grew the most magnificent of Titania’s
pensioners tall, wearing splendid rubies in their coats; and in due
time the trio presented themselves at home, weary, but glowing with
the innocent excitement of their adventures. Harriet was the first
to proclaim that they had seen a horseman who must be Sir Amyas. “Had
sister seen him?”

“Only through the window of the kitchen where I was making puff paste.”

“He called then! Did my papa see him?”

“My father was in no condition to see any one, being under the hands and
razor of Palmer.”

“La! what a sad pity. Did he leave no message?”

“He left his compliments, and hoped his late partner was not fatigued.”

“Is he at the Great House? Will he call again?”

“He is on his way to make a visit in Monmouthshire, together with a
brother office, who is related to my Lady Herries, and finding that
their road led them within twenty miles of our town, the decided on
making a diversion to see her. It was only from her that Sir Amyas
understood how close he was to his mother’s property, for my Lady is
extremely jealous of her prerogative.”

“How did you hear all this, sister?”

“Sir George Herries rode over this afternoon and sat an hour with my
father, delighting him by averring that the young gentleman has his
mother’s charms of person, together with his father’s solidity of
principle and character, and that he will do honour to his name.”

“O, I hope he will come back by this route!” cried Harriet.

“Of that there is small likelihood,” said Betty. “His mother is nearly
certain to prevent it since she is sure to take umbrage at his having
visited the Great House without her permission.”




CHAPTER IV. MY LADY’S MISSIVE.


    To the next coffee-house he speeds,
    Takes up the news, some scraps he reads.--GAY.


Though Carminster was a cathedral city, the Special General Post only
came in once a week, and was liable to delay through storms, snows, mire
and highwaymen, so that its arrival was as great an event as is now
the coming in of a mail steamer to a colonial harbour. The “post” was
a stout countryman, with a red coat, tall jackboots and a huge hat.
He rode a strong horse, which carried, _en croupe_, an immense pack,
covered with oiled canvas, rising high enough to support his back, while
he blew a long horn to announce his arrival.

Letters were rare and very expensive articles unless franked by a Member
of Parliament, but gazettes and newsletters formed a large portion of
his freight. No private gentleman except the Dean and Sir George Herries
went to the extravagance of taking in a newspaper on his own account,
but there was a club who subscribed for the _Daily Gazetteer_, the
_Tatler_, and one or two other infant forms of periodical literature.
These were hastily skimmed on their first arrival at the club-room at
the White Dragon, lay on the table to be more deliberately conned for
a week, and finally were divided among the members to be handed about
among the families and dependants as long as they would hold together.

Major Delavie never willingly missed the coming of the mail, for his
foreign experiences gave him keen interest in the war between France and
Austria, and he watched the campaigns of his beloved Prince Eugene with
untiring enthusiasm, being, moreover, in the flattering position of
general interpreter and guide to his neighbours through the scanty
articles on foreign intelligence.

It was about ten days after the syllabub party, when he had quite
recovered his ordinary health, that he mounted his stout pony in his
military undress, his cocked hat perched on his well-powdered bob-wig,
with a queue half-way down his dark green gold-laced coat, and with
his long jack-boots carefully settle by Palmer over the knee that would
never cease to give him trouble.

Thus he slowly ambled into the town, catching on his way distant toots
of the postman’s horn. In due time he made his way into the High
Street, broad and unpaved, with rows of lime or poplar trees before the
principal houses, the most modern of which were of red brick, with heavy
sash-windows, large stone quoins, and steps up to the doors.

The White Dragon, dating from the times of the Mortimer badge, was built
of creamy stone, and had an archway conducting the traveller into a
courtyard worthy of Chaucer, with ranges of galleries running round
it, the balustrades of dark carved oak suiting with the timbers of the
latticed window and gables, and with the noble outside stair at one
angle, by which they communicated with one another. To these beauties
the good Major was entirely insensible. He only sighed at the trouble it
gave his lame knee to mount the stair to the first storey, and desired
the execution of the landlord’s barbarous design of knocking down the
street front to replace it with a plain, oblong assembly room, red brick
outside, and within, blue plaster, adorned with wreaths and bullocks’
faces in stucco.

Such were the sentiments of most of the burly squires who had ridden
in on the same errand, and throwing the reins to their grooms, likewise
climbed the stair to the club-room with its oriel looking over the
street. There too were several of the cathedral clergy, the rubicund
double-chinned face of the Canon in residence set off by a white,
cauliflower wig under a shovel hat, while the humbler minor canons (who
served likewise as curates to all the country round) only powdered their
own hair, and wore gowns and cassocks of quality very inferior to that
which adorned the portly person of their superior. His white bands were
of fine cambric, theirs of coarser linen; his stockings were of ribbed
silk, theirs of black worsted; his buckles of silver, theirs of steel;
and the line of demarcation was as strongly marked as that between the
neat, deferential tradesman, and the lawyer in his spruce snuff-coloured
coat, or the doctor, as black in hue as the clergy, though with a
secular cut, a smaller wig, and a gold-headed cane. Each had, as in duty
bound, ordered his pint of port or claret for the good of the house, and
it was well if these were not in the end greatly exceeded; and some had
lighted long clay pipes; but these were mostly of the secondary rank,
who sat at the table farthest from the window, and whose drink was a
measure of ale.

The letters had not yet been sorted, but the newspaper had been
brought in, and the Canon Boltby had possessed himself of it, and was
proclaiming scraps of intelligence about the King, Queen, and Sir
Robert Walpole, the character of Marshal Berwick, recently slain at
Philipsburg, an account of Spanish outrages at sea, or mayhap the story
of a marvelous beast, half-tiger, half-wolf, reported to be running wild
in France. The other gentlemen, waiting till the mail-bags were opened,
listened and commented; while one or two of the squires, and a shabby,
disreputable-looking minor canon made each notable name the occasion of
a toast, whether of health to his majesty’s friends or confusion to his
foes. A squabble, as to whether the gallant Berwick should be reckoned
as an honest Frenchman or as a traitor Englishman, was interrupted by
the Major’s entrance, and the congratulations on his recovery.

One of the squires inquired after his daughters, and pronounced the
little one with the outlandish name was becoming a belle, and would be
the toast of the neighbourhood, a hint of which the topers were not slow
to take advantage, while one of the guests at the recent party observed,
“Young Belamour seemed to be of that opinion.”

“May it be so,” said the Canon, “that were a step to the undoing of a
great wrong.”

“Mr. Scrivener will tell you, sir, that there was no justice in the eye
of the law,” said the Major.

“_Summum jus, summa injuria_,” quoted, _sotto voce_, Mr. Arden, a minor
canon who, being well born, scholarly, scientific and gentlemanly,
occupied a middle place between his colleagues and the grandees. He was
not listened to. Each knot of speakers was becoming louder in debate,
and Dr. Boltby’s voice was hardly heard when he announced that a rain of
blood had fallen on the Macgillicuddy mountains in Ireland, testified to
by numerous respectable Protestant witnesses, and attributable, either
to the late comet, or to the Pretender.

At that moment the letters were brought in by the postman, and each
recipient had--not without murmurs--to produce his purse and pay heavily
for them. There were not many. The Doctor had two, Mr. Arden one, Mr.
Scrivener no less than five, but of them two were franked, and a
franked letter was likewise handed over to Major DeLavie, with the word
“Aresfield” written in the corner.

“From my Lady,” said an unoccupied neighbour.

“Aye, aye,” said the Major, putting it into his pocket, being by no
means inclined to submit the letter to the general gaze.

“A good omen,” said Canon Boltby, looking up from his paper. And
the Major smiled in return, put a word or two into the discussion on
affairs, and then, as soon as he thought he could take leave without
betraying anxiety, he limped down stairs, and called for his horse. Lady
Belamour’s letters were wont to be calls for money, not easily answered,
and were never welcome sights, and this hung heavy in the laced pocket
of his coat.

Palmer met him at the back gate, and took his horse, but judged it
advisable to put no questions about the news, while his master made
his way in by the kitchen entrance of the rambling old manor house,
and entered a stone-paved low room, a sort of office or study, where he
received, and paid, money for my Lady, and smoked his pipe. Here he sat
down in his wooden armchair, spread forth his legs, and took out the
letter, opening it with careful avoidance of defacing the large red
seal, covered with many quarterings, and the Delavie escutcheon of
pretence reigning over all.

It opened, as he expected, with replies to some matters about leases and
repairs; and then followed:--

“I am informed that you have a large Family, and Daughters growing up
whom it is desirable to put in the way of making a good Match, or else
an honourable Livelihood; I am therefore willing, for the Sake of our
Family Connection, to charge myself with your youngest Girl, whose Name
I understand to be Aurelia. I will cause her to be trained in useful
Works in my Household, expecting her, in Return, to assist in the Care
and Instruction of my young Children; and if she please me and prove
herself worthy and attentive, I will bestow her Marriage upon some
suitable Person. This is the more proper and convenient for you, because
your Age and Health are such that I may not long be able to retain you
in the Charge of my Estate--in which indeed you are continued only
out of Consideration of an extremely distant Relationship, although a
younger and more active Man, bred to the Profession, would serve me far
more profitably.”

When Betty came into the room a few minutes later to pull off her
father’s boots she found him sitting like one transfixed. He held out
the letter, saying, “Read that, child.”

Betty stood by the window and read, only giving one start, and muttering
between her teeth, “Insolent woman!” but not speaking the words aloud,
for she knew her father would treat them as treason. He always had a
certain tender deference for his cousin Urania, mixed with something
akin to compunction, as if his loyalty to his betrothed had been
disloyalty to his family. Thus, he exceeded the rest of his sex in
blindness to the defects that had been so evident to his wife and
daughter; and whatever provocation might make him say of my Lady
himself, he never permitted a word against her from any one else. He
looked wistfully at Betty and said, “My little Aura! It is a kindly
thought. Her son must have writ of the child. But I had liefer she had
asked me for the sight of my old eyes.”

“The question is,” said Betty, in clear, incisive tones, “whether we
surrender Aurelia or your situation?”

“Nay, nay, Betty, you always do my cousin less than justice. She means
well by the child and by us all. Come, come say what is in your mind,”
 he add testily.

“Am I at liberty to express myself, sir?”

“Of course you are. I had rather hear the whole discharge of your
battery than see you looking constrained and satirical.”

“Then, sir, my conclusion is this. The young baronet has shown himself
smitten with out pretty Aurelia, and has spoken of tarrying on his
return to make farther acquaintance. My Lady is afraid of his going to
greater lengths, and therefore wishes to have her at her disposal.”

“She proposes to take her into her own family; that is not taking her
out of his way.”

“I am sure of that.”

“You are prejudiced, like your poor dear mother--the best of women, if
only she could ever have done justice to her Ladyship! Don’t you see,
child, Aurelia would not be gone before his return, supposing he should
come this way.”

“His visit was to be for six weeks. Did you not see the postscript?”

“No, the letter was enough for one while.”

“Here it is: ‘I shall send Dove in the Space of about a Fortnight or
three Weeks to bring to Town the young Coach Horses you mentioned. His
Wife is to return with him, as I have Occasion for her in Town, and your
Daughter must be ready to come up with them.’”

“Bless me! That is prompt! But it is thoughtful. Mrs. Dove is a good
soul. It seems to me as if my Lady, though she may not choose to say so,
wishes to see the child, and if she approve of her, breed her up in the
accomplishments needed for such an elevation.”

“If you hold that opinion, dear sir, it is well.”

“If I thought she meant other than kindness toward the dear maid, I had
rather we all pinched together than risk the little one in her hands. I
had rather-if it comes to that--live on a crust a day than part with
my sweet child; but if it were for good, Betty! It is hard for you all
three to be cooped up together here, with no means of improving your
condition; and this may be an opening that I ought not to reject. What
say you, Betty?”

“If I were to send her out into the world, I had rather bind her
apprentice to the Misses Rigby to learn mantua-making.”

“Nay, nay, my dear; so long as I live there is no need for my children
to come to such straits.”

“As long as you retain your situation, sir; but you perceive how my Lady
concludes her letter.”

“An old song, Betty, which she sings whenever the coin does not come
in fast enough to content her. She does not mean what she says; I know
Urania of old. No; I will write back to her, thanking her for her good
offices, but telling her my little girl is too young to be launched
into the world as yet. Though if it were Harriet, she might not be
unwilling.”

“Harriet would be transported at the idea; but it is not she whom the
Lady wants. And indeed I had rather trust little Aurelia to take care of
herself than poor Harriet.”

“We shall see! We shall see! Meantime, do not broach the subject to your
sisters.”

Betty assented, and departed with a heavy heart, feeling that, whatever
her father might believe, the choice would be between the sacrifice of
Aurelia or of her father’s agency, which would involve the loss of
home, of competence, and of the power of breeding up her darling Eugene
according to his birth. She did not even know what her father had
written, and could only go about her daily occupations like one under a
weight, listening to her sisters’ prattle about their little plans with
a strange sense that everything was coming to an end, and constantly
weighing the comparative evils of yielding or refusing Aurelia.

No one would have more valiantly faced poverty than Elizabeth Delavie,
had she alone been concerned. Cavalier and Jacobite blood was in her
veins, and her unselfish character had been trained by a staunch and
self-devoted mother. But her father’s age and Eugene’s youth made her
waver. She might work her fingers to the bone, and live on oatmeal, to
give her father the comforts he required; but to have Eugene brought
down from his natural station was more than she could endure. His
welfare must be secured at the cost not only of Aurelia’s sweet
presence, but of her happiness; and Betty durst not ask herself what
more she dreaded, knowing too that she would probably be quite incapable
of altering her father’s determination whatever it might be, and that he
was inclined to trust Lady Belamour. The only chance of his refusal was
that he should take alarm at the manner of requiring his daughter from
him.




CHAPTER V. THE SUMMONS.


    But when the King knew that the thing must be,
    And that no help there was in this distress,
    He bade them have all things in readiness
    To take the maiden out.--MORRIS.


The second Sunday of suspense had come. The Sundays of good young ladies
little resembled those of a century later, though they were not devoid
of a calm peacefulness, worthy of the “sweet day, so cool, so calm, so
bright.” The inhabited rooms of the old house looked bright and festal;
there were fresh flowers in the pots, honey as well as butter on
the breakfast table. The Major and Palmer were both in full uniform,
wonderfully preserved. Eugene, a marvel of prettiness, with his curled
hair and little velvet coat, contrived by his sisters out of some
ancestral hoard. Betty wore thick silk brocade from the same store;
Harriet a fresh gay chintz over a crimson skirt, and Aurelia was in
spotless white, with a broad blue sash and blue ribbons in her hat, for
her father liked to see her still a child; so her hair was only tied
with blue, while that of her sisters was rolled over a cushion, and
slightly powdered.

The church was so near that the Major could walk thither, leaning on
his stout crutch-handled stick, and aided by his daughter’s arm, as
he proceeded down the hawthorn lane, sweet with the breath of May,
exchanging greetings with whole families of the poor, the fathers in
smock frocks wrought with curious needlework on the breast and back,
the mothers in high-crowned hats and stout dark blue woollen gowns, the
children, either patched or ragged, and generally barefooted, but by no
means ill-fed.

No Sunday school had been invented. The dame who hobbled along in
spectacles, dropping a low curtsey to the “quality,” taught the hornbook
and the primer to a select few of the progeny of the farmers and
artisans, and the young ladies would no more have thought of assisting
her labours than the blacksmith’s. They only clubbed their pocket money
to clothe and pay the schooling of one little orphan, who acknowledged
them by a succession of the lowest bobs as she trotted past, proud as
Margery Twoshoes herself of the distinction of being substantially shod.

The church was small, and with few pretensions to architecture at
the best. It had been nearly a ruin, when, stirred by the Major, the
church-wardens had taken it in hand, so that, owing to Richard Stokes
and John Ball, as they permanently declared in yellow letters on a blue
ground, the congregation were no longer in danger of the roof admitting
the rain or coming down on the congregation. They had further beautified
the place with a huge board of the royal arms, and with Moses and Aaron
in white cauliflower wigs presiding over the tables of the Commandments.
Four long dark, timber pews and numerous benches, ruthlessly constructed
out of old carvings, occupied the aisle, and the chancel was more than
half filled with the lofty “closet” of the Great House family. Hither
the Delavie family betook themselves, and on her way Betty was startled
by the recognition, in the seat reserved for the servants, of a broad
back and curled wig that could belong to no one but Jonah Dove. She did
her utmost to keep her mind from dwelling on what this might portend,
though she followed the universal custom by exchanging nods and curtsies
with the Duckworth family as she sailed up the aisle at the head of the
little procession.

There was always a little doubt as to who would serve the church. One
of the Canons was the incumbent, and the curate was Mr. Arden, the
scientific minor canon, but when his services were required at the
cathedral, one of his colleagues would supply his place, usually in a
sadly perfunctory manner. However, he was there in person, as his voice,
a clear and pleasant one, showed the denizens of the “closet,” for they
could not see out of it, except where Eugene had furtively enlarged
a moth-eaten hole in the curtain, through which, when standing on the
seat, he could enjoy an oblique view of the back of an iron-moulded
surplice and a very ill-powdered wig. This was a comfort to him. It
would have been more satisfactory to have been able to make out whence
came the stentorian A-men, that responded to the parson, totally
unaccompanied save by the good Major, who always read his part almost as
loud as the clerk, from a great octavo prayer-book, bearing on the lid
the Delavie arms with coronet, supporters, and motto, “_Ma Vie et ma
Mie_.” It would have been thought unladylike, if not unscriptural,
to open the lips in church; yet, for all her silence, good Betty was
striving to be devout and attentive, praying earnestly for her little
sister’s safety, and hailing as a kind of hopeful augury this verse from
the singers--


                 “At home, abroad, in peace, in war
                    Thy God shall thee defend,
                  Conduct thee through life’s pilgrimage
                    Safe to the journey’s end.”


Much cannot be said for the five voices that sang, nor for the two
fiddles that accompanied them. Eugene had scarcely outgrown his terror
at the strains, and still required Aurelia to hold his hand, under
pretext of helping him to follow the words, not an easy thing, since the
last lines were always repeated three or four times.

Somehow the repetition brought them the more home to Betty’s heart, and
they rang consolingly in her ears, all through the sermon, of which
she took in so little that she never found out that it was an elaborate
exposition of the Newtonian philosophy, including Mr. Arden’s views of
the miracle at the battle Beth-horon, in the Lesson for the day.

The red face and Belamour livery looked doubly ominous when she came
out of church, but she had to give her arm to her father till they were
overtaken by Mr. Arden, who always shared the Sunday roast beef and plum
pudding. Betty feared it was the best meal he had in the week, for he
lived in lodgings, and his landlady was not too careful of his comforts,
while he was wrapped up in his books and experiments. There was a hole
singed in the corner of his black gown, which Eugene pointed out with
great awe to Aurelia as they walked behind him.

“See there, Aura. Don’t you think he has been raising spirits, like
Friar Bacon?”

“What do you know about Friar Bacon?” asked Harriet.

“He is in a little book that I bought of the pedlar. He had a brazen
head that said--

                        ‘Time is,
                         Time was,
                         Time will be.’

I wonder if Mr. Arden would show me one like it.”

“You ridiculous little fellow to believe such trash!” said Harriet.

“But, Hatty, he can really light a candle without a tinder-box,” said
Eugene. “His landlady told Palmer so; and Palmer says the Devil flew
away with Friar Bacon; but my book says he burnt all his books and gave
himself to the study of divinity, and dug his grave with his own nails.”

“Little boys should not talk of such things on Sundays,” said Harriet,
severely.

“One does talk of the Devil on Sunday, for he is in the catechism,”
 returned Eugene. “If he carries Mr. Arden off, do you think there will
be a great smoke, and that folk will see it?”

Aurelia’s silvery peal of laughter fell sadly upon Betty’s ears in
front, and her father and Mr. Arden turned to ask what made them so
merry. Aurelia blushed in embarrassment, but Harriet was ready.

“You will think us very rude, Sir, but my little brother has been
reading the life of Friar Bacon, and he thinks you an equally great
philosopher.”

“Indeed, my little master, you do me too much honour. You will soon be a
philosopher yourself. I did not expect so much attention in so young an
auditor,” said mr. Arden, thinking this the effect of his sermon on the
solar system.

Whereupon Eugene begged to inspect the grave he was digging with his own
nails.

They were at home by this time, and Betty was aware that they had been
followed at a respectful distance by Palmer and the coachman. Anxious as
she was, she could not bear that her father’s dinner should be spoilt,
or that he, in his open-hearted way, should broach the matter with Mr.
Arden; so she repaired to the garden gate, and on being told that Mr.
Dove had a packet from my Lady for the Major, she politely invited him
to dinner with the servants, and promised that her father should see him
afterwards.

This gave a long respite, since the servants had the reversion of the
beef, so the Mr. Arden had taken leave, and gone to see a bedridden
pauper, and the Major had time for his forty winks, while Betty, though
her heart throbbed hard beneath her tightly-laced boddice, composed
herself to hear Eugene’s catechism, and the two sisters, each with a
good book, slipped out to the honeysuckle arbour in the garden behind
the house. Harriet had _Sherlock in Death_, her regular Sunday study,
though she never got any further than the apparition of Mrs. Veal, over
which she gloated in a dreamy state; Aurelia’s study was a dark-covered,
pale-lettered copy of the _Ikon Basilike_, with the strange attraction
that youth has to pain and sorrow, and sat musing over the resigned
outpourings of the perplexed and persecuted king, with her bright eyes
fixed on the deep blue sky, and the honeysuckle blossoms gently waving
against it, now and then visited by bee or butterfly, while through the
silence came the throbbing notes of the nightingale, followed by its
jubilant burst of glee, and the sweet distant chime of the cathedral
bells rose and fell upon the wind. What peace and repose there was in
all the air, even in the gentle breeze, and the floating motions of the
swallows skimming past.

The stillness was first broken by the jangle of their own little church
bell, for Mr. Arden was a more than usually diligent minister, and
always gave two services when he was not in course at the cathedral. The
young ladies always attended both, but as Harriet and Aurelia crossed
the lawn, their brother ran to meet them, saying, “We are not to wait
for sister.”

“I hope my papa is well,” said Aurelia.

“Oh yes,” said Eugene, “but the man in the gold-laced hat has been
speaking with him. Palmer says it is Mrs. Dove’s husband, and he is
going to take Lively Tom and Brown Bet and the two other colts to
London. He asked if I should like to ride a-cockhorse there with him.
‘Dearly,’ I said, and then he laughed and said it was not my turn, but
he should take Miss Aurelia instead.”

Aurelia laughed, and Harriet said, “Extremely impudent.”

Little she guessed what Betty was at that moment reading.

“I am astonished,” wrote Lady Belamour to her cousin, “that you should
decline so highly advantageous an Offer for your Daughter. I can only
understand it as a Token that you desire no further Connection with,
nor Favour from me; and I shall therefore require of you to give up the
Accounts, and vacate the House by Michaelmas next ensuing. However, as I
am willing to allow some excuse for the Weakness of parental Affection,
if you change your Mind within the next Week and send up your Daughter
with Dove and his Wife, I will overlook your first hasty and foolish
Refusal, ungrateful as it was, and will receive your Daughter and give
her all the Advantages I promised. Otherwise your Employment is at
an end, and you had better prepare your Accounts for Hargrave’s
Inspection.”

“There is no help for it then,” said Betty.

“And if it be for the child’s advantage, we need not make our moan,”
 said her father. “‘Tis like losing the daylight out of our house, but we
must not stand in the way of her good.”

“If I were only sure it is for her good!”

“Why, child, there’s scarce a wench in the county who would not go down
on her knees for such a chance. See what Madam Duckworth would say to it
for Miss Peggy!”

Betty said no more. The result of her cogitations had been that since
Aurelia must be yielded for the sake of her father and Eugene, it was
better not to disturb him with fears, which would only anger him at the
moment and disquiet him afterwards. She was likewise reassured by Mrs.
Dove’s going with her, since that good woman had been nurse to the
little Belamour cousins now deceased, and was well known as an excellent
and trustworthy person, so that, if she were going to act in the same
capacity to my Lady’s second family, Aurelia would have a friend at
hand. So the Major cheated his grief by greeting the church-goers with
the hilarious announcement--

“Here’s great news! What says my little Aura to going London to my
Lady’s house.”

“O Sir! are you about to take us.”

“Not I! My Lady wants pretty young maidens, not battered old soldiers.”

“Nor my sisters? O then, if you please, Sir, I would rather not go!”

“Silly children cannot choose! No, no, Aura, you must go out and see the
world, and come back to us such a belle that your poor old father will
scarce know you.”

“I do not wish to be a belle,” said the girl. “O Sir, let me stay with
you and sister.”

“Do not be so foolish, Aura,” put in Harriet. “It will be the making of
you. I wish I had the offer.”

“O Harriet, could not you go instead?”

“No, Aurelia,” said Betty. “There is no choice, and you must be a good
girl and not vex my father.”

The gravity of her eldest sister convinced Aurelia that entreaties would
be vain, and there was soon a general outburst of assurances that she
would see all that was delightful in London, the lions in the Tower, the
new St. Paul’s, the monuments, Ranelagh, the court ladies, may be,
the King and Queen themselves; until she began to feel exhilarated and
pleased at the prospect and the distinction.

Then came Monday and the bustle of preparing her wardrobe. The main body
of it was to be sent in the carrier’s waggon, for she was to ride on
a pillion behind Mr. Dove, and could only take a valise upon a groom’s
horse. There was no small excitement in the arrangement, and in
the farewells to the neighbours, who all agreed with Harriet in
congratulating the girl on her promotion. Betty did her part with all
her might, washed lace, and trimmed sleeves, and made tuckers, giving
little toilette counsels, while her heart ached sorely all the time.

When she could speak to Mrs. Dove alone, she earnestly besought that old
friend to look after the child, her health, her dress, and above all to
supply here lack of experience and give her kind counsel and advice.

“I will indeed, ma’am, as though she were my own,” promised Mrs. Dove.

“O nurse, I give my sweet jewel to your care; you know what a great
house in London is better than I do. You will warn her of any danger.”

“I will do my endeavour, ma’am. We servants see and hear much, and if
any harm should come nigh the sweet young miss, I’ll do my best for
her.”

“Thank you, nurse, I shall never, never see her more in her free artless
childishness,” said Betty, sobbing as if her heart would break; “but oh,
nurse, I can bear the thought better since I have known that you would
be near her.”

And at night, when her darling nestled for the last time in her arms,
the elder sister whispered her warnings. Her knowledge of the great
world was limited, but she believed it to be a very wicked place, and
she profoundly distrusted her brilliant kinswoman; yet her warnings took
no shape more definite than--“My dearest sister will never forget her
prayers nor her Bible.” There was a soft response and fresh embrace at
each pause. “Nor play cards of a Sunday, nor ever play high. And my Aura
must be deaf to rakish young beaux and their compliments. They never
mean well by poor pretty maids. If you believe them, they will only
mock, flout, and jeer you in the end. And if the young baronet should
seek converse with you, promise me, oh, promise me, Aurelia, to grant
him no favour, no, not so much as to hand him a flower, or stand
chatting with him unknown to his mother. Promise me again, child, for
naught save evil can come of any trifling between you. And, Aurelia, go
to Nurse Dove in all your difficulties. She can advise you where your
poor sister cannot. It will ease my heart if I know that my child will
attend to her. You will not let yourself be puffed up with flattery,
nor be offended if she be open and round with you. Think that your poor
sister Betty speaks in her. Pray our old prayers, go to church, and
read your Psalms and Lessons daily, and oh! never, never cheat your
conscience. O may God, in His mercy, keep my darling!”

So Aurelia cried herself to sleep, while Betty lay awake till the early
hour in the morning when all had to be prepared for the start. There was
to be a ride of an hour and a half before breakfast so as to give the
horses a rest. It was a terrible separation, in many respects more
complete than if Aurelia had been going, in these days, to America;
for communication by letter was almost as slow, and infinitely more
expensive.

No doubt the full import of what he had done had dawned even on Major
Delavie during the watches of that last sorrowful night, for he came out
a pale, haggard man, looking as if his age had doubled since he went to
bed, wrapped in his dressing gown, his head covered with his night-cap,
and leaning heavily on his staff. He came charged with one of the long
solemn discourses which parents were wont to bestow on their children
as valedictions, but when Aurelia, in her camlet riding cloak and hood,
brought her tear-stained face to crave his blessing, he could only utter
broken fragments. “Bless thee my child! Take heed to yourself and your
ways. It is a bad world, beset with temptations. Oh! heaven forgive me
for sending my innocent lamb out into it. Oh! what would your blessed
mother say?”

“Dear sir,” said Betty, who had wept out her tears, and was steadily
composed now, “this is no time to think of that. We must only cheer up
our darling, and give her good counsel. If she keep to what her Bible,
her catechism and her conscience tell her, she will be a good girl, and
God will protect her.”

“True, true, your sister is right; Aura, my little sweetheart, I had
much to say to you, but it is all driven out of my poor old head.”

“Aura! Aura! the horses are coming! Ten of them!” shouted Eugene. “Come
along! Oh! if I were but going! How silly of you to cry; _I_ don’t.”

“There! there! Go my child, and God in His mercy protect you!”

Aurelia in speechless grief passed from the arms of one sister to the
embrace of the other, hugged Eugene, was kissed by Nannerl, who forced
a great piece of cake into her little bag, and finally was lifted to her
pillion cushion by Palmer, who stole a kiss of her hand before Dove put
his horse in motion, while Betty was still commending her sister to his
wife’s care, and receiving reiterated promises of care.




CHAPTER VI. DISAPPOINTED LOVE.


    I know thee well, thy songs and sighs,
       A wicked god thou art;
    And yet, most pleasing to the eyes,
       And witching to the heart.
                             W. MACKWORTH PRAED.


The house was dull when Aurelia was gone. Her father was ill at ease
and therefore testy, Betty too sore at heart to endure as cheerfully
as usual his unwonted ill-humour. Harriet was petulant, and Eugene
troublesome, and the two were constantly jarring against one another,
since the one missed her companion, the other his playmate; and they
were all more sensible than ever how precious and charming an element
was lost to the family circle.

On the next ensuing Sunday, Eugene had made himself extremely obnoxious
to Harriet, by persisting in kicking up the dust, and Betty, who had
gone on before with her father, was availing herself of the shelter of
the great pew to brush with a sharp hand the dust from the little
legs, when, even in the depths of their seclusion, the whole party were
conscious of a sort of breathless sound of surprise and admiration, a
sweep of bows and curtsies, and the measured tread of boots and clank of
sword and spurs coming nearer--yes, to the very chancel. Their very door
was opened by the old clerk with the most obsequious of reverences, and
there entered a gorgeous vision of scarlet and gold, bowing gracefully
with a wave of a cocked and plumed hat!

The Major started, and was moving out of his corner--the seat of
honour--but the stranger forbade this by another gesture, and took his
place, after standing for a moment with his face hidden in his hat. Then
he took an anxious survey, not without an almost imperceptible
elevation of eyebrow and shoulder, as if disappointed, and accepted the
Prayer-book, which the Major offered him.

Betty kept her eyes glued to her book, and when that was not in
use, upon the mittened hands crossed before her, resolute against
distraction, and every prayer turning into a petition for her sister’s
welfare; but Eugene gazed, open-eyed and open-mouthed, oblivious of his
beloved hole, and Harriet, though keeping her lids down, and her book
open, contrived to make a full inspection of the splendid apparition.

It was tall and slight, youthfully undeveloped, yet with the grace of
personal symmetry, high breeding, and military training, upright without
stiffness, with a command and dexterity of movement which prevented the
sword and spurs from being the annoyance to his pew-mates that country
awkwardness usually made these appendages. The spurs were on cavalry
boots, guarding the knee, and met by white buckskins, both so little
dusty that there could have been no journey that morning. The bright
gold-laced scarlet coat of the Household troops entirely effaced the
Major’s old Austrian uniform; and over it, the hair, of a light golden
brown, was brushed back, tied with black ribbon, and hung down far
behind in a queue, only leaving little gold rings curling on the brow
and temples. The face was modelled like a cameo, faultless in the
outlines, with a round peach-like fresh contour and bloom on the fair
cheek, which had much of the child, though with a firmness in the lip,
and strength in the brow, that promised manliness. Indeed there was
a wonderful blending of the beauty of manhood and childhood about the
youth; and his demeanour was perfectly decorous and reverent, no small
merit in a young officer and London beau. Indeed Betty could almost have
forgotten his presence, if gleams from his glittering equipments had
not kept glancing before her eyes, turn them where she would, and if Mr.
Arden’s sermon had not been of Solomon’s extent of natural philosophy,
and so full of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin that she could not follow it at
all.

After the blessing, the young gentleman, with a bow, the pink of
courtesy, offered a hand to lead her out, nor could she refuse, though,
to use her own expression, she hated the absurdity of mincing down the
aisle with a fine young spark looking like her grandson; while her poor
father had to put up with Harriet’s arm. Outside came the greetings, the
flourish of the hat, the “I may venture to introduce myself, and to beg
of you, sir, and of my fair cousins to excuse my sudden intrusion.”

“No apology can be needed for your appearance in your own pew, Sir
Amyas,” said the Major with outstretched hand; “it did my heart good to
see you there!”

“I would not have taken you thus by surprise,” continued the youth, “but
one of my horses lost a shoe yesterday, and we were constrained to halt
at Portkiln for the night, and ride on this morning. Herries went on to
the Deanery, and I hoped to have seen you before church, but found you
had already entered.”

Portkiln was so near, that this Sabbath day’s journey did not scandalise
Betty, and her father eagerly welcomed his kinsman, and insisted that he
should go no farther. Sir Amyas accepted the invitation, nothing loth,
only asking, with a little courtly diffidence, if it might not be
convenient for him to sleep at the Great House, and begging the ladies
to excuse his riding dress.

His eyes wandered anxiously as though in search of something in the
midst of all his civility, and while the Major was sending Eugene to
bring Mr. Arden--who was hanging back at the churchyard gate, unwilling
to thrust himself forward--the faltering question was put, while the
cheeks coloured like a girl’s, “I hope my fair partner, my youngest
cousin, Miss Aurelia Delavie, is in good health?”

“We hope so, sir, thank you,” returned Betty; “but she left us six days
ago.”

“Left you!” he repeated, in consternation that overpowered his
courtliness.

“Yes, sir,” said Harriet, “my Lady, your mother, has been good enough to
send for her to London.”

“My Lady!” he murmured to himself; “I never thought of that! How and
when did she go?”

The answer was interrupted by the Major coming up “Sir Amyas Belamour,
permit me to present to you the Reverend Richard Arden, the admirable
divine to whom we are beholden for the excellent and learned
discourse of this morning. You’ll not find such another scholar in all
Carminster.”

“I am highly honoured,” returned the baronet, with a bow in return for
Mr. Arden’s best obeisance, such as it was; and Harriet, seeing Peggy
Duckworth in the distance, plumed herself on her probable envy.

Before dinner was served Sir Amyas had obtained the information as to
Aurelia’s departure, and even as to the road she had taken, and he had
confessed that, “Of course he had write to his mother that he had danced
with the most exquisitely beautiful creature he had ever seen, and that
he longed to know his cousins better.” No doubt his mother, having been
thus reminded of her connections, had taken the opportunity of summoning
Aurelia to London to give her the advantages of living in her household
and acquiring accomplishments. The lad was so much delighted at the
prospect of enjoying her society that he was almost consoled for not
finding her at the Manor House; and his elaborate courtesy became every
moment less artificial and more affectionate, as the friendly atmosphere
revealed that the frankness and simplicity of the boy had not been lost,
captain in the dragoon guards as he was, thanks to interest, though
he had scarcely yet joined his troop. He had been with a tutor in the
country, until two years ago, when his stepfather, Mr. Wayland, had
taken him, still with his tutor, on the expedition to the Mediterranean.
He had come home from Gibraltar, and joined his regiment only a few
weeks before setting out with his friend Captain Herries, to visit
Battlefield, Lady Aresfield’s estate in Monmouthshire. He was quartered
in the Whitehall barracks, but could spend as much time as he pleased at
his mother’s house in Hanover Square.

Betty’s mind misgave her as she saw the brightening eye with which he
said it; but she could not but like the youth himself, he was so bright,
unspoilt, and engaging that she could not think him capable of doing
wilful wrong to her darling. Yet how soon would the young soldier,
plunged into the midst of fashionable society, learn to look on the fair
girl with the dissipated eyes of his associates? There was some comfort
in finding that Mr. Wayland was expected to return in less than a year,
and that his stepson seemed to regard him with unbounded respect, as
a good, just, and wise man, capable of everything! Indeed Sir Amyas
enlightened Mr. Arden on the scientific construction of some of Mr.
Wayland’s inventions so as to convince both the clergyman and the
soldier that the lad himself was no fool, and had profited by his
opportunities.

Major Delavie produced his choice Tokay, a present from an old Hungarian
brother-officer, and looked happier than since Aurelia’s departure. He
was no match-maker, and speculated on no improbable contingencies for
his daughter, but he beheld good hopes for the Delavie property and
tenants in an heir such as this, and made over his simple loyal heart
to the young man. Presently he inquired whether the unfortunate Mr.
Belamour still maintained his seclusion.

“Yes, sir,” was the reply. “He still lives in two dark rooms with
shutters and curtains excluding every ray of light. He keeps his bed for
the greater part of the day, but sometimes, on a very dark night, will
take a turn on the terrace.”

“Poor gentleman!” said Betty. “Has he no employment or occupation?”

“Mr. Wayland contrived a raised chess and draught board, and persuaded
him to try a few games before we went abroad, but I do not know whether
he has since continued it.”

“Does he admit any visits?”

“Oh no. He has been entirely shut up, except from the lawyer, Hargrave,
on business. Mr. Wayland, indeed, strove to rouse him from his
despondency, but without success, except that latterly he became willing
to receive him.”

“Have you ever conversed with him?”

There was an ingenuous blush as the young man replied. “I fear I must
confess myself remiss. Mr. Wayland has sometimes carried me with him to
see my uncle, but not with my good will, and my mother objected lest it
should break my spirits. However, when I left Gibraltar, my good
father charged me to endeavour from time to time to enliven my uncle’s
solitude, but there were impediments to my going to him, and I take
shame to myself for not having striven to overcome them.”

“Rightly spoken, my young kinsman,” cried the Major. “There are no such
impediments as a man’s own distaste.”

“And pity will remove that,” said Betty.

Soon after the removal of the cloth the ladies withdrew, and Eugene was
called to his catechism, but he was soon released, for the Tokay had
made her father sleepy, while it seemed to have emboldened Mr. Arden,
since he came forth with direct intent to engross Harriet; and Sir Amyas
wandered towards Betty, apologising for the interruption.

“It is a rare occasion,” said she as her pupil scampered away.

“Happy child, to be taught by so good a sister,” said the young baronet,
regretfully.

“Your young half-brothers and sisters must be of about the same age,”
 said Betty.

“My little brother, Archer, is somewhat younger. He is with my mother in
London, the darling of the ladies, who think him a perfect beauty, and
laugh at all his mischievous pranks. As to my little sisters, you will
be surprised to hear that I have only seen them once, when I rode with
their father to see them at the farm houses at which they are nursed.”

“No doubt they are to be fetched home, since Mrs. Dove is gone to wait
on them, and my Lady said something of intending my sister to be with
her young children.”

“Nay, she must have no such troublesome charge. My mother cannot intend
anything of the kind. I shall see that she is treated as---”

Betty, beginning to perceive that he knew as little of his own mother as
did the rest of his sex, here interrupted him. “Excuse me, sir, I doubt
not of your kind intentions, but let me speak, for Aurelia is a very
precious child to me, and I am afraid that any such attempt on your part
might do her harm rather than good. She must be content with the lot of
a poor dependant.”

“Never!” he exclaimed. “She is a Delavie; and besides, no other ever
shall be my wife.”

“Hush, hush!” Betty had been saying before the words were out of his
“You are but a silly boy, begging your Honour’s pardon, though you
speak, I know, with all your heart. What would your Lady mother say or
do to my poor little sister if she heard you?”

“She could but send her home, and then flood and fire could not hold me
from her.”

“I wish that were the worst she could do. No, Sir Amyas Belamour, if you
have any kindness for the poor helpless girl under your mother’s roof,
you will make no advance to excite alarm or anger against her. Remember
it is she who will be the sufferer and not yourself. The woman, however
guiltless, is sure to fall under suspicion and bear the whole penalty.
And oh! what would become of her, defenceless, simple, unprotected as
she is?”

“Yet you sent her!” said he.

“Yes,” said Betty, sadly, “because there was no other choice between
breaking with my Lady altogether.”

He made an ejaculation under his breath, half sad, half violent, and
exclaimed, “Would that I were of age, or my father were returned.”

“But now you know all, you will leave my child in peace,” said Betty.

“What, you would give me no hope!”

“Only such as you yourself have held out,” said Betty. “When you are
your own master, if you keep in the same mind till then, and remain
truly worthy, I cannot tell what my father would answer.”

“I am going to speak to him this very day. I came with that intent.”

“Do no such thing, I entreat,” cried Betty. “He would immediately think
it his duty to inform my Lady. Then no protestation would persuade her
that we had not entrapped your youth and innocence. His grey head would
be driven out without shelter, and what might not be the consequence to
my sister? You could not help us, and could only make it worse. No,
do nothing rash, incautious, or above all, disobedient. It would be
self-love, not true love that would risk bringing her into peril and
trouble when she is far out of reach of all protection.”

“Trust me, trust me, Cousin Betty,” cried the youth. “Only let me hope,
and I’ll be caution itself; but oh! what an endless eternity is two
years to wait without a sign!”

But here appeared the Major, accompanied by Captain Herries and Dean
Churchill, who had ordered out his coach, Sunday though it were, to pay
his respects to my Lady’s son, and carry him and his hosts back to sup
at the Deanery. It was an age of adulation, but Betty was thankful that
perilous conversations were staved off.




CHAPTER VII. ALL ALONE.


    By the simplicity of Venus’ doves.
                                 _Merchant of Venice_.


That Sunday was spent by Aurelia at the Bear Inn, at Reading. Her
journey had been made by very short stages, one before breakfast,
another lasting till noon, when there was a long halt for dinner and
rest for horse and rider, and then another ride, never even in these
longest summer days prolonged beyond six or seven o’clock at latest,
such was the danger of highwaymen being attracted by the valuable
horses, although the grooms in charge were so well armed that they might
almost as well have been troopers.

The roads, at that time of year, were at their best, and Aurelia and
Mrs. Dove were mounted on steady old nags, accustomed to pillions.
Aurelia could have ridden single, but this would not have been thought
fitting on a journey with no escort of her own rank, and when she
mounted she was far too miserable to care for anything but hiding her
tearful face behind Mr. Dove’s broad shoulders. Mrs. Dove was perched
behind a wiry, light-weighted old groom, whom she kept in great order,
much to his disgust.

After the first wretchedness, Aurelia’s youthful spirits had begun to
revive, and the novel scenes to awaken interest. The Glastonbury thorn
was the first thing she really looked at. The Abbey was to her only an
old Gothic melancholy ruin, not worthy of a glance, but the breezy
air of the Cheddar Hills, the lovely cliffs, and the charm of the open
country, with its strange islands of hills dotted about, raised her
spirits, as she rode through the meadows where hay was being tossed, and
the scent came fragrant on the breeze. Mr. Dove would tell her over his
shoulder the names of places and their owners when they came to parks
bordering the road, and castles “bosomed high in the tufted trees.” Or
he would regale her with legends of robberies and point to the frightful
gibbets, one so near to the road that she shut her eyes and crouched low
behind him to avoid seeing the terrible burthen. She had noted the
White Horse, and shuddered at the monument at Devizes commemorating the
judgment on the lying woman, and a night had been spent at Marlborough
that “Miss” might see a strolling company of actors perform in a barn;
but as the piece was the _Yorksire Tragedy_, the ghastly performance
overcame her so completely that Mrs. Dove had to take her away,
declaring that no inducement should ever take her to a theatre again.

Mr. Dove was too experienced a traveller not to choose well his quarters
for the night, and Aurelia slept in the guest chambers shining with
cleanliness and scented with lavender, Mrs. Dove always sharing her
room. “Miss” was treated with no small regard, as a lady of the good old
blood, and though the coachman and his wife talked freely with her,
they paid her all observance, never ate at the same table, and provided
assiduously for her comfort and pleasure. Once they halted a whole
day because even Mr. Dove was not proof against the allurements of
a bull-baiting, though he carefully explained that he only made a
concession to the grooms to prevent them from getting discontented,
and went himself to the spectacle to hinder them from getting drunk, in
which, be it observed, he did not succeed.

So much time was spent on thus creeping from stage to stage that Aurelia
had begun to feel as if the journey had been going on for ages, and as
if worlds divided her from her home, when on Sunday she timidly preceded
Mrs. Dove into Reading Abbey Church, and afterwards was shown where
rolled Father Thames. The travellers took early morning with them for
Maidenhead Thicket, and breakfasted on broiled trout at the King’s Arms
at Maidenhead Bridge, while Aurelia felt her eye filled with the beauty
of the broad glassy river, and the wooded banks, and then rose onwards,
looking with loyal awe at majestic Windsor, where the flag was flying.
They slept at a poor little inn a Longford, rather than cross Hounslow
Heath in the evening, and there heard all the last achievements of the
thieves, so that Aurelia, in crossing the next day, looked to see a
masked highwayman start out of every bush; but they came safely to the
broad archway of the inn at Knightsbridge, their last stage. Mrs.
Dove took her charge up stairs at once to refresh her toilette, before
entering London and being presented to my Lady.

But a clattering and stamping were heard in the yard, and Aurelia,
looking from the window, called Mrs. Dove to see four horses being
harnessed to a coach that was standing there.

“Lawk-a-day?” cried the good woman, “if it be not our own old coach, as
was the best in poor Sir Jovian’s time! Ay, there be our colours, you
see, blue and gold, and my Lady’s quartering. Why, ‘twas atop of that
very blue hammercloth that I first set eyes on my Dove! So my Lady has
sent to meet you, Missie. Well, I do take it kind of her. Now you will
not come in your riding hood, all frowsed and dusty, but can put on your
pretty striped sacque and blue hood that you wore on Sunday, and look
the sweet pretty lady you are.”

Mrs. Dove’s intentions were frustrated, for the maid of the inn knocked
at the door with a message that the coach had orders not to wait, but
that Miss was to come down immediately.

“Dear, dear!” sighed Mrs. DOve. “Tell the jackanapes not to be so
hasty. He must give the young lady time to change her dress, and eat a
mouthful.”

This brought Dove up to the door. “Never mind dressing and fallals,” he
said; “this is a strange fellow that says he is hired for the job, and
his orders are precise. Miss must take a bit of cake in her hand. Come,
dame, you have not lived so long in my Lady’s service as to forget what
it is to cross her will, or keep her waiting.”

Therewith he hurried Aurelia down stairs, his wife being in such a state
of _deshabille_ that she could not follow. He handed the young lady
into the carriage, gave her a parcel of slices of bread and meat, with a
piece of cake, shut the door, and said, “Be of good heart, Missie, we’ll
catch you up by the time you are in the square. All right!”

Off went Aurelia in solitude, within a large carriage, once gaily fitted
though now somewhat faded and tarnished. She was sorry to be parted from
the Doves, whom she wanted to give her courage for the introduction to
my Lady, and to explain to her the wonders of the streets of London,
which she did not _quite_ expect to see paved with gold! She ate her
extemporised meal, gazing from the window, and expecting to see houses
and churches thicken on her, and hurrying to brush away her crumbs, and
put on her gloves lest she should arrive unawares, for she had counted
half-a-dozen houses close together. No! here was another field! More
fields and houses. The signs of habitation were, so far from increasing,
growing more scanty, and looked strangely like what she had before
passed. Could this be the right road! How foolish to doubt, when this
was my Lady’s own coach. But oh, that it had waited for Mrs. Dove! She
would beg her to get in when the riders overtook her. When would they?
No sign of them could be seen from the windows, and here were more
houses. Surely this was Turnham Green again, or there must be another
village green exactly like it in the heart of London. How many times did
not poor Aurelia go through all these impressions in the course of the
drive. She was absolutely certain that she was taken through Brentford
again, this time without a halt; but after this the country became
unknown to her, and the road much worse. It was in fact for the most
part a mere ditch or cart track, so rough that the four horses came to
a walk. Aurelia had read no novels but _Telemaque_ and _Le Grand Cyrus_,
so her imagination was not terrified by tales of abduction, but alarm
began to grow upon her. She much longed to ask the coachman whither
he was taking her, but the check string had been either worn out or
removed; she could not open the door from within, nor make him hear, and
indeed she was a little afraid of him.

Twilight began to come on; it was much later than Mr. Dove had ever
ventured to be out, but here at last there was a pause, and the swing of
a gate, the road was smoother and she seemed to be in a wood, probably
private ground. On and on, for an apparently interminable time, went the
coach with the wearied and affrighted girl, through the dark thicket,
until at last she emerged, into a park, where she could again see the
pale after-glow of the sunset, and presently she found herself before a
tall house, perfectly dark, with strange fantastic gables and chimneys,
ascending far above against the sky.

All was still as death, except the murmuring caws of the rooks in their
nests, and the chattering shriek of a startled blackbird. The servant
from behind ran up the steps and thundered at the door; it was opened,
a broad line of light shone out, some figures appeared, and a man
in livery came forward to open the carriage door, but to Aurelia’s
inexpressible horror, his face was perfectly black, with negro features,
rolling eyes, and great white teeth!

She hardly knew what she did, the dark carriage was formidable on one
side, the apparition on the other! The only ray of comfort was in the
face of a stout, comely, rosy maid-servant, who was holding the candle
on the threshold, and with one bound the poor traveller dashed past the
black hand held out to help her, and rushing up to the girl, caught hold
of her, and gasped out, “Oh! What is that? Where am I? Where have they
taken me?”

“Lawk, ma’am,” said the girl, with a broad grin, “that ‘ere bees only
Mr. Jumbo. A’ won’t hurt’ee. See, here’s Mistress Aylward.”

A tall, white-capped, black-gowned elderly woman turned on the new-comer
a pale, grave, unsmiling face, saying, “Your servant--Miss Aurelia
Delavie, as I understand.”

Bending her head, and scarcely able to steady herself, for she was
shaking from head to foot, Aurelia managed to utter the query,

“Where am I?”

“At Bowstead Park, madam, by order of my Lady.”

Much relieved, and knowing this was the Belamour estate, Aurelia said,
“Please let me wait till Mrs. Dove comes before I am presented to my
Lady.”

“My Lady is not here, madam,” said Mrs. Aylward. “Allow me--” and she
led the way across a great empty hall, that seemed the vaster for its
obscurity, then along a matted passage, and down some steps into a room
surrounded with presses and cupboards, evidently belonging to the to the
housekeeper. She set a chair for the trembling girl, saying, “You will
excuse the having supper here to-night, madam; the south parlour will be
ready for you to-morrow.”

“Is not Mrs. Dove coming?” faintly asked Aurelia.

“Mrs. Dove is gone to London to attend on little Master Wayland. You are
to be here with the young ladies, ma’am.”

“What young ladies?” asked the bewildered maiden.

“My Lady’s little daughters--the Misses Wayland. I thought she had sent
you her instructions; but I see you are over wearied and daunted,” she
added, more kindly; “you will be better when you have taken some food.
Molly, I say, you sluggard of a wench, bring the lady’s supper, and
don’t stand gaping there.”

Mrs. Aylward hurried away to hasten operations, and Aurelia began
somewhat to recover her senses, though she was still so much dismayed
that she dreaded to look up lest she should see something frightful, and
started at the first approach of steps.

A dainty little supper was placed before her, but she was too faint and
sick at heart for appetite, and would have excused herself. However,
Mrs. Aylward severely said she would have no such folly, filled a glass
of wine, and sternly administered it; then setting her down in a large
chair, helped her to a delicate cutlet. She ate for very fright, but
her cheeks and eyes were brightened, the mists of terror and exhaustion
began to clear away, and when she accepted a second help, she had felt
herself reassured that she had not fallen into unkindly hands. If she
could only have met a smile she would have been easier, but Mrs. Aylward
was a woman of sedate countenance and few words, and the straight set
line of lips encouraged no questioning, so she merely uttered thanks for
each act of hospitality.

“There! You will take no more roll? You are better, now, but you will
not be sorry to go to your bed,” said Mrs. Aylward, taking up a candle,
and guiding her along the passage up a long stair to a pretty room
wainscoted and curtained with fresh white dimity, and the window showing
the young moon pale in the light of the western sky.

Bedrooms were little furnished, and this was more luxurious than the
dear old chamber at home, but the girl had never before slept alone, and
she felt unspeakably lonely in the dreariness, longing more than ever
for Betty’s kiss--even for Betty’s blame--or for a whine from Harriet;
and she positively hungered for a hug from Eugene, as she gazed timidly
at the corners beyond the influence of her candle; and instead of
unpacking the little riding mail she kissed it, and laid her cheek on
it as the only thing that came from home, and burst into a flood of
despairing tears.

In the midst, there fell on her ears a low strain of melancholy music
rising and falling like the wailing of mournful spirits. She sprang to
her feet and stood listening with dilated eyes; then, as a louder note
reached her, in terror uncontrollable, she caught up her candle, rushed
down the stairs like a wild bird, and stood panting before Mrs. Aylward,
who had a big Bible open on the table before her.

“Oh, ma’am,” she cried, between her panting sobs, “I can’t stay there! I
shall die!”

“What means this, madam?” said Mrs. Aylward, stiffly, making the word
sound much like “foolish child.”

“The--the music!” she managed faintly to utter, falling again into the
friendly chair.

“The music?” said Mrs. Aylward, considering; then with a shade of polite
contempt, “O! Jumbo’s fiddle! I did not know it could be heard in your
room, but no doubt the windows below are open.”

“Is Jumbo that black man?” asked Aurelia, shuddering; for negro
servants, though the fashion in town, had not penetrated into the west.

“Mr. Belamour’s blackamoor. He often plays to him half the night.”

“Oh!” with another quivering sound of alarm; “is Mr. Belamour the
gentleman in the dark?”

“Even so, madam, but you need have no fears. He keeps his room and
admits no one, though he sometimes walks out by night. You will only
have to keep the children from a noise making near his apartments. Good
night, madam.”

“Oh, pray, if I do not disturb you, would you be pleased to let me stay
till you have finished your chapter; I might not be so frightened then.”

In common humanity Mrs. Aylward could not refuse, and Aurelia sat
silently grasping the arms of her chair, and trying to derive all the
comfort she could from the presence of a Bible and a good woman. Her
nerves were, in fact, calmed by the interval, and when Mrs. Aylward
took off her spectacles and shut up her book, it had become possible to
endure the terrors of the lonely chamber.




CHAPTER VIII. THE ENCHANTED CASTLE.


    A little she began to lose her fear.--MORRIS.


Aurelia slept till she was wakened by a bounce at the door, and the
rattling of the lock, but it was a little child’s voice that was crying,
“I will! I will! I will go in and seem by cousin!”

Then came Mrs. Aylward’s severe voice: “No, miss, you are not to waken
your cousin. Come away. Where is that slut, Jenny?”

Then there was a scuffle and a howl, as if the child were being forcibly
carried away. Aurelia sprang out of bed, for sunshine was flooding the
room, and she felt accountable for tardiness. She had made some progress
in dressing, when again little hands were on the lock, little feet
kicking the door, and little voices calling, “Let me in.”

She opened the door, and white nightgowns, all tumbled back one over the
other.

“My little cousins,” she said, “come and kiss me.”

One came forward and lifted up a sweet little pale face, but the other
two stood, each with a finger in the mouth, right across the threshold,
in a manner highly inconvenient to Aurelia, who was only in her stiff
stays and dimity petticoat, with a mass of hair hanging down below her
waist. She turned to them with arms out-stretched, but this put them
instantly to the rout, and they ran off as fast as their bare pink feet
could carry them, till one stumbled, and lay with her face down and her
plump legs kicking in the air. Aurelia caught her up, but the capture
produced a powerful yell, and out, all at once hurried into
the corridor, Mrs. Aylward, a tidy maid servant, a stout, buxom
countrywoman, and a rough girl, scarcely out of bed, but awake enough
to snatch the child out of the young lady’s arms, and carry her off.
The housekeeper began scolding vigorously all round, and Aurelia escaped
into her room, where she completed her toilette, looking out into a
garden below, laid out in the formal Dutch fashion, with walks and beds
centring in a fountain, the grass plats as sharply defined as possible,
and stiff yews and cypresses dotted at regular intervals or forming
straight alleys. She felt strange and shy, but the sunshine, the
cheerfulness, and the sight of the children, had reassured her, and when
she had said her morning prayer, she had lost the last night’s sense of
hopeless dreariness and unprotectedness. When another knock came,
she opened the door cheerfully, but there was a chill in meeting Mrs.
Aylward’s grave, cold face, and stiff salutation. “If you are ready,
madam,” she said, “I will show you to the south parlour, where the
children will eat with you.”

Aurelia ventured to ask about her baggage, and was told that it would be
forwarded from Brentford. Mrs. Aylward then led the way to a wide stone
staircase, with handsome carved balusters, leading down into the great
hall, with doors opening from all sides. All was perfectly empty, and so
still, that the sweep of the dresses, and the tap of the heels made an
echo; and the sunshine, streaming in at the large window, marked out
every one upon the floor, in light and shadow, and exactly repeated
the brown-shaded, yellow-framed medallions of painted glass upon the
pavement. There was something awful and oppressive in the entire absence
of all tokens of habitation, among those many closed doors.

One, however, at the foot of the stairs was opened by Mrs. Aylward. It
led to a sort of narrow lobby, with a sashed window above a low door,
opening on stone steps down to the terrace and garden. To the right was
an open door, giving admittance to a room hung with tapestry, with a
small carpet in the centre of the floor, and a table prepared for the
morning meal. There was a certain cheerfulness about it, though it was
bare of furniture; but there was an easy chair, a settee, a long
couch, a spinnet, and an embroidery frame, so that altogether it had
capabilities of being lived in.

“Here you will sit, madam, with the young ladies,” said Mrs. Aylward.
“They have a maid-servant who will wait on you, and if you require
anything, you will be pleased to speak to me. My Lady wishes you to take
charge of them, and likewise to execute the piece of embroidery you will
find in that frame, with the materials. This will be your apartment,
and you can take the young ladies into the garden and park, wherever you
please, except that they must not make a noise before the windows of the
other wing, which you will see closed with shutters, for those are Mr.
Belamour’s rooms.”

With these words Mrs. Aylward curtsied as if about to retire, Aurelia
held out her hand in entreaty. “Oh, cannot you stay with me?”

“No, madam, my office is the housekeeper’s,” was the stiff response.
“Molly will call me if you require my services. I think you said you
preferred bread and milk for breakfast. Dinner will be served at one.”

Mrs. Aylward retreated, leaving a chill on the heart of the lonely girl.

She was a clergyman’s widow, though with no pretensions to gentility,
and was a plain, conscientious, godly woman, but with the narrow
self-concentrated piety of the time, which seemed to ignore all the
active part of the duty to our neighbour. She had lived many years as
a faithful retainer to the Belamour family, and avoided perplexity by
minding no one’s business but her own, and that thoroughly. Naturally
reserved, and disapproving much that she saw around her, she had never
held it to be needful to do more than preserve her own integrity, and
the interests of her employers, and she made it a principle to be in
no wise concerned in family affairs, and to hold aloof from perilous
confidences.

Thus Aurelia was left to herself, till three bowls of milk were borne in
by Molly, who was by no means loth to speak.

“The little misses will be down directly, ma’am,” she said, “that is,
two on ‘em. The little one, she won’t leave Jenny Bowles, but Dame
Wheatfield, she’ll bring down the other two. You see, ma’am, they
be only just taken home from being out at nurse, and don’t know one
another, nor the place, and a pretty handful we shall have of ‘em.”

Here came a call for Molly, and the girl with a petulant exclamation,
sped away, leaving Aurelia to the society of the tapestry. It was of
that set of Gobelin work which represents the four elements personified
by their goddesses, and Aurelia’s mythology, founded on Fenelon, was
just sufficient to enable her to recognise the forge of Vulcan and the
car [chariot--D.L.] of Venus. Then she looked at the work prepared for
her, a creamy piece of white satin, and a most elaborate pattern of
knots of roses, lilacs, hyacinths, and laburnums, at which her heart
sank within her. However, at that moment the stout woman she had seen in
the morning appeared at the open door with a little girl in each hand,
both in little round muslin caps, long white frocks, and blue sashes.

One went up readily to Aurelia and allowed herself to be kissed, and
lifted to a chair; the other clung to Dame Wheatfield, in spite of
coaxing entreaties. “Speak pretty, my dear; speak to the pretty lady.
Don’t ye see how good your sister is? It won’t do, miss,” to Aurelia;
“she’s daunted, is my pretty lamb. If I might just give her her
breakwist--for it is the last time I shall do it--then she might get
used to you before my good man comes for me.”

Aurelia was only too glad to instal Dame Wheatfield in a chair with her
charge in her lap. The other child was feeding herself very tidily and
independently, and Aurelia asked her if she were the eldest.

“Yes,” she said.

“And what shall I call you, my dear?”

“I’m Missy.”

“No, Missy, me--me eldest,” cried the other.

“Bless the poor children!” exclaimed Mrs. Wheatfield, laughing, “they be
both of ‘em eldest, as one may say.”

“They are twins, then?” said Aurelia.

“More than that--all three of them came together! I’ve heard tell of
such a thing once or twice, but never of all living and thriving. Folk
said it was a judgment on my Lady that she spoke sharp and hard to a
poor beggar woman with a child on each arm. It was not a week out before
my Lady herself was down, quite unexpected, as I may say, for she was
staying here for a week, with a lot of company, when these three was
born. They do say she was nigh beside herself that the like of that
should have happened to her. Mr. Wayland, he was not so ill pleased, but
the poor little things had to be got out of the house any way, for she
could not abear to hear of them. Mrs. Rolfe, as was an old servant of
the family, took that one, and I was right glad to have you, my pretty
one, for I had just lost my babe at a fortnight old, and the third was
sent to Goody Bowles, for want of a better. They says as how my Lady
means to bring them out one by one, and to make as this here is bigger,
and the other up stairs is lesser, and never let on that they are all of
an age.”

The good gossip must have presumed greatly on the children’s want of
comprehension if she did not suppose that they understood her at least
as well as the young lady to whom her dialect was strange.

“And has she not seen them?”

“Never till last Monday, if you’ll believe me miss, when she drove down
in her coach, and the children were all brought home. I thought she
might have said something handsome, considering the poor little babe
as my Missy here was when I had her--not so long as my hand--and scarce
able to cry enough to show she was alive. The work I and my good man had
with her! He would walk up and down half the night with her. Not as we
grudged it. He is as fond of the child as myself; and Mr. Wayland, he
knew it. ‘She has a good nurse, dame,’ says he to me, with the water in
his eyes, before he went to foreign parts. But my Lady! When the little
one as had been with Goody Bowles--an ignorant woman, you see--cried and
clung to her, and kicked, ‘Little savages all,’ says my Lady. There was
thanks to them that had had more work to rear her children than ever
with one of her own! ‘Perfect little rustics!’ she said, even when you
made your curtsey as pretty as could be, didn’t you, my little lammie?”

“Mammy Rolfe taught me to make my curtsey like a London lady,” said the
other child, the most advanced in manners.

“Aha! little pitchers have long ears; but, bless you, they don’t know
what it means,” said Dame Wheatfield, too glad to talk to check herself
on any account; “Not so much as a kiss for them, poor little darlings!
Folks say she does not let even Master Wayland kiss aught but her hands
for fear of her fine colours. A plague on such colours, I say.”

“Poor little things!” whispered Aurelia.

“You’ll be good to them, won’t you miss?”

“Indeed I hope so! I am only just come from home, and they will be all I
have to care for here.”

“Ay, you must be lonesome in this big place; but I’m right glad to have
seen you, miss; I can part with the little dear with a better heart, for
Mrs. Aylward don’t care for children, and Jenny Bowles is a rough wench,
wrapped up in her own child, and won’t be no good to the others. Go to
the lady, my precious,” she added, trying to put the little girl into
her cousin’s lap, but this was met with struggles, and vehement cries
of--

“No; stay with mammy!”

The little sister, who had not brought her nurse, was, however, well
contented to be lifted to Aurelia’s knee, and returned her caresses.

“And have you not a name, my dear? We can’t call you all missie.”

“Fay,” the child lisped; “Fayfiddly Wayland.”

“Lawk-a-daisy!” and Mrs. Wheatfield fell back laughing. “I’ll tell you
how it was, ma’am. When no one thought they would live an hour, Squire
Wayland he sent for parson and had ‘em half baptised Faith, Hope, and
Charity. They says his own mother’s was called Faith, and the other two
came natural after it, and would do as well to be buried by as aught. So
that’s what she means by Fay, and this here is Miss Charity.”

“She said something besides Faith.”

“Well, when my lady got about again, they say if she was mad at their
coming all on a heap, she was madder still at their name. Bible wasn’t
grand enough for her! I did hear tell that she throwed her slipper at
her husband’s head, and was like to go into fits. So to content her he
came down, and took each one to Church, and had a fine London name of my
Lady’s choosing tacked on in parson’s register for them to go by; but
to my mind it ain’t like their christened name. Mine here got called for
her share Amoretta.”

“A little Love,” cried Aurelia. “Oh, that is pretty. And what can your
name be, my dear little Fay? Will you tell me again?”

When repeated, it was plainly Fidelia, and it appeared that Hope had
been also called Letitia. As to age, Mrs. Wheatfield knew it was five
years last Michaelmas since the child had been brought to her from whom
she was so loth to part that she knew not how to go when her husband
came for her in his cart. He was a farmer, comfortably off, though very
homely, and there were plenty of children at home, so that she had been
ill spared to remain at the Park till Aurelia’s arrival. Thus she took
the opportunity of going away while the little one was asleep.

Aurelia asked where she lived now. At Sedhurst, in the next parish, she
was told; but she would not accept a promise that her charge should soon
be brought to visit her. “Better not, ma’am, thank you all the same,
not till she’s broke in. She’ll pine the less if she don’t see nor hear
nothing about the old place, nor Daddy and Sally and Davie. If you
bring her soon, you’ll never get her away again. That’s the worst of a
nurse-child. I was warned. It just breaks your heart!”

So away went the good foster-mother sobbing; and Aurelia’s charge began.
Fay claimed her instantly to explore the garden and house. The child had
been sent home alone on the sudden illness of her nurse, and had been
very forlorn, so that her cousin’s attention was a great boon to her.
Hope was incited to come out; but Jenny Bowles kept a jealous watch over
her, and treated every one else as an enemy; and before Aurelia’s
hat was on, came the terrible woe of Amoret’s awakening. Her sobs and
wailings for her mammy were entirely beyond the reach of Aurelia’s
soothings and caresses, and were only silenced by Molly’s asseveration
that the black man was at the door ready to take her into the dark room.
That this was no phantom was known to the poor child, and was a lurking
horror to Aurelia herself. No wonder that the little thing clung to her
convulsively, and would not let her hand go for the rest of the day,
every now and then moaning out entreaties to go home to mammy.

With the sad little being hanging to her hand, Aurelia was led by Fay
round their new abiding place. The house was of brick, shaped like the
letter H, Dutch, and with a tall wing, at each end of the main body,
projecting, and finishing in fantastic gables edged with stone. One
of these square wings was appropriated to Aurelia and her charges, the
other to the recluse Mr. Belamour. The space that lay between the two
wings, on the garden front, was roofed over, and paved with stone,
descending in several broad shallow steps at the centre and ends,
guarded at each angle by huge carved eagles, the crest of the builder,
of the most regular patchwork, and kept, in spite of the owner’s
non-residence, in perfect order. The strange thing was that this fair
and stately place, basking in the sunshine of early June, should be left
in complete solitude save for the hermit in the opposite wing, the three
children, and the girl, who felt as though in a kind of prison.

The sun was too hot for Aurelia to go out of doors till late in the day,
when the shadow of the house came over the steps. She was sitting on
one, with Amoret nestled in her lap, and was crooning an old German
lullaby of Nannerl’s, which seemed to have a wonderful effect in calming
the child, who at last fell into a doze. Aurelia had let her voice die
away, and had begun to think over her strange situation, when she was
startled by a laugh behind her, and looking round, hardly repressed
a start or scream, at the sight of Fay enjoying a game at bo-peep,
with--yes--it actually was--the negro--over the low-sashed door.

“I beg pardon, ma’am,” said Jumbo, twitching his somewhat grizzled wool;
“I heard singing, and little missy--”

Unfortunately Amoret here awoke, and with a shriek of horror cowered in
her arms.

“I am so sorry,” said Aurelia, anxious not to hurt his feelings. “She
knows no better.”

Jumbo grinned, bowed, and withdrew, Fay running after him, for she had
made friends with him during her days of solitude, being a fearless
child, and not having been taught to make a bugbear of him. “The soot
won’t come off,” she said.

Aurelia had not a moment to herself till Fay had said the Lord’s prayer
at her knee, and Amoret, with much persuasion, had been induced to lisp
out--

                  “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
                   Bless the bed I sleep upon;
                   Four corners to by bed,
                   Four angles round my head,
                   One to read and one to write,
                   And two to guard my soul at night.”

Another agony for mammy ensued, nor could Aurelia leave the child till
sleep had hushed the wailings. Then only could she take her little
writing-case to begin her letter to Betty. It would be an expensive
luxury to her family, but she knew how it would be longed for; and
though she cried a good deal over her writing, she felt as if she ought
to make the best of her position, for had not Betty said it was for her
father’s sake? No, her tears must not blot the paper, to distress
those loving hearts. Yet how the drops _would_ come, gathering fast and
blinding her! Presently, through the window, came the sweet mysterious
strains of the violin, not terrifying her as before, but filling her
with an inexpressible sense of peace and calmness. She sat listening
almost as one in a dream, with her pen suspended, and when the spell was
broken by Molly’s entrance with her supper, she went on in a much more
cheerful strain than she had begun. It was dull, and it was a pity that
her grand wardrobe, to say nothing of Betty’s good advice, should be
wasted, but her sister would rejoice in her seclusion from the grand,
fashionable world, and her heart went out to the poor little neglected
children, whose mother could not bear the sight of them.




CHAPTER IX. THE TRIAD.


    “I know sisters, sisters three.”


Ere many days had passed Aurelia had drifted into what would now be
regarded as the duties of a nursery governess to her little companions.

Fay and Amoret were always with her, and depended on her for everything.
Jenny Bowles, with a sort of animal jealousy, tried to monopolise her
charge, Letitia. The child was attracted by the sounds of her sister’s
sports, and there was no keeping her from them, or from their cousin.
Then the rude untaught Jenny became cross, moped, showed spite to the
other children, and insolence to the young lady, and was fortunately
overheard by Mrs. Aylward, and dismissed. Letty did not seem to mind the
loss as Amoret had felt that of her foster-mother, for indeed Jenny had
been almost as disagreeable to her as to the others during these days of
jealousy.

The triad were not much alike: Amoret was the largest of the three,
plump, blue-eyed, golden-haired, rosy-cheeked, a picture of the
cherub-type of child; Letitia had the delicate Delavie features and
complexion; and Fidelia, the least pretty, was pale, and rather sallow,
with deep blue eyes set under a broad forehead and dark brows, with hair
also dark. Though the smallest, she was the most advanced, and showed
signs of good training. She had some notion of good manners, and knew
as much of her hornbook [a child’s primer consisting of a sheet of
parchment or paper protected by a sheet of transparent horn--D.L.] and
catechism as little girls of five were wont to know. The other two were
perfectly ignorant, but Mrs. Aylward procured hornbooks, primers, and
slates, and Aurelia began their education in a small way.

It was a curious life. There was the great empty house, through whose
long corridors and vacant rooms the children might wander at will,
peeping at the swathed curtains of velvet pile, the rolls of carpet, and
the tapestry pictures on the walls, running and shouting in the empty
passages, or sometimes, in a fit of nameless fright, taking refuge in
Aurelia’s arms. Or they might play in the stately garden, provided they
trod on no borders, and meddled with neither flower nor fruit. The old
gardener began by viewing them as his natural enemies, but soon relaxed
in amusement at their pretty sportive ways, gave them many precious
spoils, and forgave more than one naughty little inroad, which greatly
alarmed their guardian.

Or if the little party felt enterprising, there lay beyond, the park,
its slopes covered with wild strawberries, and with woods where they
could gather flowers unchecked. Further, there was no going, except on
alternate Sundays, when there was service in the tumble-down Church at
the park gate. It was in far worse condition than the Church at home,
and was served by a poor forlorn-looking curate, who lived at Brentford,
and divided his services between four parishes, each of which was
content to put up with a fortnightly alternate morning and evening
service. The Belamour seat was a square one, without the comfortable
appliances of the Delavie closet, and thus permitting a much fuller
view, but there was nothing to be seen except a row of extremely gaudy
Belamour hatchments, displaying to the full, the saltir-wise sheafs of
arrows on the shields or lozenges, supported by grinning skulls. The
men’s shields preserved their eagle crest, the women had only lozenges,
and the family motto, _Amo et Amabo_, was exchanged for the more pious
“_Resurgam_.”

Aurelia found that the family seat, whither she was marshalled by Mrs.
Aylward, was already occupied by two ladies, who rose up, and made her
stately curtsies with a decidedly disgusted air, although there was
ample space for her and Fidelia, the only one of her charges whom
she had ventured to take with her. They wore the black hoods, laced
boddices, long rolls of towering curl and open upper skirts, of Queen
Anne’s day, and in the eyes of thirty years’ later, looked so ridiculous
that Fay could not but stare at them the whole time, and whenever
Aurelia turned her glances from her book to see whether her little
companion was behaving herself, the big blue considering eyes were
always levelled full upon the two forms before her.

The ladies were in keeping with their dress, thin, stiff and angular,
with worn and lined faces, highly rouged, and enormous long-handled
fans, and Aurelia was almost as much astonished as the child.

There was a low curtseying again, and much ceremony before it was
possible to get out of the pew, and the two ladies mounted at the door
on lofty pattens which added considerably to their height, and, attended
by a loutish-looking man in livery, who carried their books, stalked of
into the village.

Aurelia found from the communicative Molly that they were Mistress
Phoebe and Mistress Delia Treforth, kinswomen of the Belamour family,
who had in consequence a life residence rent-free in a tall thin red
square house near the churchyard, where a very gay parrot was always
to be seen in the windows. They no doubt regarded Miss Delavie and the
little Waylands as interlopers at Bowstead, and their withering glances
made Church-going a trying affair--indeed the first time that Aurelia
took little Amoret, they actually drove the sensitive child into a
sobbing fit, so that she had to be carried out, begging to know why
those ladies looked so cross at her.

The life, on the whole, was not unhappy, except for fits of homesickness
and longing for letters. The arrival of the boxes from the carrier
was the first comfort, and then at last came a thick letter from
home, franked by Sir George Herries, and containing letters from
everybody--even a few roundhand lines from Eugene.

Her father wrote at length all the excellent moral and religious essay
which had stuck in his throat at the parting; neither was Betty’s letter
deficient in good advice, though she let it appear that the family were
much amused at Lady Belamour’s affliction in her triad of daughters, the
secret having been hitherto so carefully kept that they supposed her to
have only one.

“It will be your Charge,” wrote Betty, “so far as in you lies, to render
them not merely the Graces, as my Father terms them, but the true and
faithful Guardian to these Infant Spirits. Though their Mother has shown
no Care or heed in entrusting them to you, yet remember that it is truly
the good Providence of their Heavenly Father that has put these little
Children of His in your Charge, to receive from you the first Principles
of Religion and Morals which may mould their whole Lives; and I trust
that you will do the Work faithfully and successfully. It may be dull
and tedious at Bowstead, but I had much rather hear of you thus than
exposed to the Glare of My Lady’s Saloon in London. No doubt Harriet
has write to you of the Visit of young Sir Amyas, the Sunday after your
departure. We have since heard that his expedition to Monmouthshire was
with a View to his marriage to Lady Aresfield’s Daughter, and this may
well be, so that if he fall in your way, you will be warned against
putting any misconstruction on any Civil Attentions he may pay to you.
Ever since your Departure Mr. Arden has redoubled his Assiduities in
a certain Quarter, and as it is thought the Dean and Chapter are not
unlikely to present him to a good Vicarage in Buckinghamshire, it is not
unlikely that ere long you may hear of a Wedding in the Family, although
Harriet would be extremely angry with me for daring to give such a
Hint.”

Certainly Aurelia would not have gathered the hint from Harriet’s
letter, which was very sentimental about her own loneliness and lack of
opportunity, in contrast with Aurelia, who was seeing the world. That
elegant beau, Sir Amyas, had just given a sample to tantalise their
rusticity, and then had vanished; and here was that oddity, Mr. Arden,
more wearisome and pertinacious than ever. So tiresome!




CHAPTER X. THE DARK CHAMBER.


    Or singst thou rather under force
       Of some Divine command,
    Commissioned to presage a course
       Of happier days at hand?
                              COWPER.


Aurelia was coming down stairs in the twilight after singing her charges
to sleep about three weeks after her arrival, when she saw Jumbo waiting
at the bottom of the stairs.

She had long ceased to be afraid of him. Indeed he had quite amazed her
by his good-nature in helping to lift down naughty little Letitia, who
was clambering up to the window of his master’s chamber to look through
the crevices of the shutters. He had given the children a gaily dressed
rag doll, and was as delighted as they were when he played his fiddle to
them and set them dancing.

Still, the whites of his eyes, his shining teeth, and the gold lace of
his livery had a startling effect in the darkness, and Aurelia wished he
would move away; but he was evidently waiting for her, and when she
came near he addressed her thus, “Mis’r Belamour present compliment, and
would Miss Delavie be good enough to honour him with her company for a
short visit?”

The girl started, dismayed, alarmed, yet unwilling to be unkind to the
poor recluse, while she hoped that decorum and propriety would put the
visit out of the question. She replied that she would ask Mrs. Aylward
whether she might, and Jumbo followed her to the still-room, saying on
the way, “Mas’r heard Miss Delavie sing. He always has the window opened
to hear her. It makes him hum the air--be merry. He has not asked to
speak with lady since he heard the bad news--long, long, ago.”

Then Aurelia felt that nothing short of absolute impropriety ought to
make her gratify her shrinking reluctance. Mrs. Aylward seemed to think
her doubts uncalled for, and attributed her hesitation to fear of the
dark room.

“Oh, no I am not so childish,” said the young lady with nervous dignity;
“but would it be proper?”

“Bless me, madam, he is as old as your father, and as civil a gentleman
as lives. I would come in with you but that I am expecting Mr. Potts
with the tallies. You need have no scruples.”

There was no excuse nor escape, and Aurelia followed the negro in
trepidation. Crossing the hall, he opened for her the door of the lobby
corresponding to her own, and saying, “Allow me, ma’am,” passed before
her, and she heard another door unclosed, and a curtain withdrawn.
Beyond she only saw a gulf of darkness, but out of it came a deep manly
voice, subdued and melancholy, but gentlemanlike and deferential.

“The young lady is so kind as to come and cheer the old hermit. A
thousand thanks, madam. Permit me.”

Aurelia’s hand was taken by one soft for want of use, and she was led
forward on a deep piled carpet, and carefully placed on a chair in the
midst of the intense black darkness. There was a little movement and
then the voice said, “I am most sensible of your goodness, madam.”

“I--I am glad. You are very good, sir,” murmured Aurelia, oppressed by
the gloom and the peculiar atmosphere, cool--for the windows were open
behind the shutters--but strangely fragrant.

“How does my excellent friend, Major Delavie?”

“I thank you, sir, he is well, though his wound troubles him from time
to time.”

“Commend me to him when you write, if you are good enough to remember
it.”

“I thank you, sir. He will be rejoiced to hear of you.”

“He does me too much honour.”

These conventionalities being exhausted, a formidable pause ensued,
first broken by Mr. Belamour, “May I ask how my fair visitor likes
Bowstead?”

“It is a fine place, sir.”

“But somewhat lonely for so youthful a lady?”

“I have the children, sir.”

“I often hear their cheerful voices.”

“I hope we do not disturb you, sir, I strive to restrain them, but I
fear we are all thoughtless.”

“Nay, the innocent sounds of mirth ring sweetly on my ears, like the
notes of birds. And when I have heard a charming voice singing to the
little ones, I have listened with delight. Would it be too presumptuous
to beg the air songstress to repeat her song for the old recluse?”

“O, sir, I have only nursery ditties, caught from our old German maid,”
 cried Aurelia, in dismay.

“That might not diminish the charm to me,” he said. “In especial there
was one song whose notes Jumbo caught as you accompanied yourself on the
spinnet.”

And Jumbo, who seemed able to see in the dark, played a bar on his
violin, while Aurelia trembled with shyness.

“The Nightingale Song,” she said. “My dear mother learnt the tune
abroad. And I believe that she herself made the English words, when she
was asked what the nightingales say.”

“May I hear it? Nightingales can sing in the dark.” Refusal was
impossible, and Jumbo’s violin was a far more effective accompaniment
than her own very moderate performance on the spinnet; so in a sweet,
soft, pure, untrained and trembling voice, she sang--


 “O Life and Light are sweet, my dear,   O life and Light are sweet;
  But sweeter still the hope and cheer
    When Love and Life shall meet.
  Oh! then it is most sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.

 “But Love puts on the yoke, my dear,   But Love puts on the yoke;
  The dart of Love calls forth the tear,
    As though the heart were broke.
  The very heart were broke, broke, broke, broke, broke, broke.

 “And Love can quench Life’s Light, my dear,   Drear, dark, and melancholy;
  Seek Light and Life and jocund cheer,
    And mirth and pleasing folly.
  Be thine, light-hearted folly, folly, folly, folly, folly, folly.

 “‘Nay, nay,’ she sang. ‘yoke, pain, and tear,
    For Love I gladly greet;
  Light, Life, and Mirth are nothing here,
    Without Love’s bitter sweet.
  Give me Love’s bitter sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.’”


“Accept my fervent thanks, kind songstress. So that is the nightingale’s
song, and your honoured mother’s?”

“Yes, sir. My father often makes us sing it because it reminds him of
her.”

“Philomel could not have found a better interpreter,” said the grave
voice, sounding so sad that Aurelia wished she could have sung something
less affecting to his spirits.

“I gather from what you said that you are no longer blessed with the
presence of the excellent lady, your mother,” presently added Mr.
Belamour.

“No, sir. We lost her seven years ago.”

“And her husband mourns her still. Well he may. She was a rare creature.
So she is gone! I have been so long in seclusion that no doubt time has
made no small havoc, and my friends have had many griefs to bewail.”

Aurelia knew not what answer to make, and was relieved when he collected
himself and said:--

“I will trespass no longer on my fair visitor’s complaisance, but if she
have not found the gloom of this apartment insupportable, it would be a
charitable action to brighten it once more with her presence.”

“O sir, I will come whenever you are pleased to send for me,” she
exclaimed, all her doubts, fears, and scruples vanishing at his tone of
entreaty. “My father would be so glad. I will practise my best song to
sing to you to-morrow.”

“My best thanks are yours,” and her hand was taken, she was carefully
conducted to the door and dismissed with a gentle pressure of her
fingers, and a courteous: “Goodnight, madam; _Au revoir_, if I may
venture to say so.”

By contrast, the hall looked almost light, and Aurelia could see the
skip of joy with which Jumbo hurried to fetch a candle. As he gave it to
her, he made his teeth flash from ear to ear, as he exclaimed: “Pretty
missy bring new life to mas’r!”

Thus did a new element come into Aurelia’s life. She carefully prepared
Harriet’s favourite song, a French _romance_, but Mr. Belamour did not
like it equally well with the Nightingale, which he made her repeat,
rewarding her by telling her of the charming looks and manners of her
mother, so that she positively enjoyed her visit. The next night he made
inquiries into her walks at Bowstead, asking after the favourite nooks
of his childhood, and directing her to the glades where grew the largest
dewberries and sweetest blackberries. This led to her recital of a
portion of _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, for he drew her on with thanks at
every pause: “I have enjoyed no such treat for many years,” he said.

“There are other pieces that I can recite another time,” said Aurelia
timidly.

“You will confer a great favour on me,” he answered.

So she refreshed her memory by a mental review of _Paradise Lost_ over
her embroidery frame, and was ready with Adam’s morning hymn, which was
much relished. Compliments on her elocution soon were turned by her into
the praise of “sister,” and as she became more at ease, the strange man
in the dark listened with evident delight to her pretty fresh prattle
about sister and brother, and father and home. Thus it had become a
daily custom that she should spend the time between half past seven and
nine in the company of the prisoner of darkness, and she was beginning
to look forward to it as the event of the day. She scarcely expected
to be sent for on Sunday evening, but Jumbo came as usual with the
invitation, and she was far from sorry to quit a worm-eaten Baxter’s
_Saints’ Rest_ which she had dutifully borrowed from Mrs. Aylward.

“Well, my fair visitor,” said the voice which had acquired a tone of
pleased anticipation, “what mental repast has your goodness provided?”

“It is Sunday, sir.”

“Ah!” as if it had not occurred to him, and with some disappointment.

“I could say the Psalms by heart, sir, if you would like it, for it is
the 20th day of the month.”

“Thank you. Your voice can make anything sweet.”

Aurelia was shocked, and knew that Betty would be more so, but she was
too shy to do anything except to begin: “Praise thou the Lord, O my
soul.”

It was a fortunate thing that it was a Psalm of such evident beauty, for
it fell less familiarly on his ear than her passages from the poets. At
the end he said: “Yes, that is true poetry. Praise fits well with happy
young lips. You have been to church?”

“No, sir, Mr. Greaves does not come to-day.”

“Then how did the gentle saint perform her orisons?”

“Please do not so call me, sir! I tried to read the service, but I could
not get the children to be still, so I had to tell them about Joseph,
and I found a beautiful Bible full of pictures, like our Dutch one at
home.”

“You found the old Bible? My mother used to show it to my brother and
me--my poor mother!”

He mentioned one or two of the engravings, which he had never forgotten,
but the evening was less of a success than usual, and Aurelia doubted
whether we would wish for her that day se’nnight. All her dread of him
was gone; she knew she had brought a ray of brightness into his solitary
broken life, and her mind was much occupied with the means of affording
him pleasure. Indeed she might have wearied of the lack of all
companionship save that of the young children; and converse with a
clever highly cultivated mind was stimulating and expanding all her
faculties. When the stores or her memory were becoming exhausted, Jumbo
was bidden to open a case of books which had lain untouched since they
were sent sown from Mr. Belamour’s chambers at the Temple, and they were
placed at her disposal. Here was Mr. Alexander Pope’s translation of the
_Iliad_ of Homer, which had appeared shortly before the fatal duel,
and Aurelia eagerly learnt whole pages of it by heart for the evening’s
amusement, enjoying extremely the elucidations and criticisms of her
auditor, who would dwell on a passage all day, beg to have it repeated
a second time in the evening, and then tell her what his memory or
his reflection had suggested about it. Moreover, having heard some
inexplicable report, through Jumbo, of the Porteous mob, Mr. Belamour
became curious to learn the truth, and this led to his causing the
newspapers to be sent weekly to be read and reported to him by Aurelia.
It seemed incredible that a man of much ability should have been content
to spend all these years in the negro’s sole society, but no doubt the
injury done to the brain had been aggravated by grief and remorse, so
that he had long lain, with suspended faculties, in a species of living
death; whence he had only gradually, and as it were unconsciously,
advanced to his present condition. Perhaps Mr. Wayland’s endeavours to
rouse him had come too soon, or in a less simple and attractive
form, for they had been reluctantly received and had proved entirely
unsuccessful; while the child-like efforts of the girl, following his
lead instead of leading him, were certainly awakening him, and renewing
his spirits and interest in the world at large in an unlooked-for
manner.




CHAPTER XI. A VOICE FROM THE GRAVE.


    He hath a word for thee to speak.
                                  KEBLE.


No difference was made to Aurelia’s visits to Mr. Belamour on Sunday
evenings, but he respected her scruples against indulgence in profane
literature, and encouraged her to repeat passages of Scripture,
beginning to taste the beauty of the grand cadences falling from her
soft measured voice. Thus had she come to the Sermon on the Mount, and
found herself repeating the expansion of the Sixth Commandment ending
with, “And thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, thou shalt
not come out thence until thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.”

A groan startled her. Then came the passage and the unhappy man’s
history with a sudden stab. A horror of the darkness fell on her. She
felt as if he were in the prison and she reproaching him, and cried
out--“O sir, forgive me. I forgot; I did not say it on purpose.”

“No, my child, it was Mary speaking by your voice. No, Mary, I shall
never come out. It will never be paid.”

She shook with fright as Jumbo touched her, saying, “Missee, go; mas’r
bear no more;” but, as she rose to go away, a sweet impulse made her
pause and say, “It is paid, _He_ paid. You know Who did--in his own
Blood.”

Jumbo drew her away almost by force, and when outside, exclaimed,
“Missee never speak of blood or kill to mas’r--he not bear it. Head turn
again--see shapes as bad as ever.”

The poor child cried bitterly, calling herself cruel, thoughtless,
presumptuous; and for the next few days Jumbo’s eyes glared at her as he
reported his master to be very ill; but, on the third day, he came
for her as usual. She thought Mr. Belamour’s tones unwontedly low and
depressed, but no reference was made to the Sunday, and she was glad
enough to plunge into the council of Olympus.

A day or two later, Dame Wheatfield sent her husband with an urgent
invitation to Miss Amoret with her sisters and cousin to be present at
her harvest home. Mrs. Aylward, with a certain tone of contempt, gave
her sanction to their going with Molly, by the help of the little pony
cart used about the gardens. Aurelia, in high glee, told Mr. Belamour,
who encouraged her to describe all her small adventures, and was her
oracle in all the difficult questions that Fidelia’s childish wisdom was
wont to start.

“To Wheatfield’s farm, did you say? That is in Sedhurst. There are but
three fields between it and the church.”

Presently he added: “I am tempted to ask a great kindness, though I know
not whether it will be possible to you.”

“Indeed, sir, I will do my utmost.”

“There are two graves in Sedhurst Church, I have never dared to inquire
about them. Would it be asking too much from my gentle friend to beg of
her to visit them, and let me hear of them.”

“I will, I will, sir, with all my heart.”

By eight o’clock the next evening she was again with him, apologizing
for being late.

“I scarcely expected this pleasure to-night. These rural festivities are
often protracted.”

“O sir, I was heartily glad to escape and to get the children away. The
people were becoming so rude and riotous that I was frightened. I never
would have gone, had I known what it would be like, but at home the
people are fond of asking us to their harvest feasts, and they always
behave well whilst we are there.”

“No doubt they hold your father in respect.”

“Yes,” said Aurelia, unwilling to tell him how much alarmed and offended
she had been, though quite unintentionally. Dame Wheatfield only
intended hospitality; but in her eyes “Miss” was merely a poor
governess, and that to the little Waylands--mere interlopers in the eyes
of the Belamour tenantry. So the good woman had no idea that the rough
gallantry of the young farmer guests was inappropriate, viewing it as
the natural tribute to her guest’s beauty, and mistaking genuine offence
for mere coyness, until, finding it was real earnest, considerable
affront was taken at “young madam’s fine airs, and she only a poor
kinswoman of my Lady’s!” Quite as ill was it received that the young
lady had remonstrated against the indigestible cakes and strange
beverages administered to all her charges, and above all to Amoret. She
had made her escape on the plea of early hours for the children, leaving
Molly behind her, just as the boisterous song was beginning in which
Jack kisses Bet, Joe kisses Sue, Tom kisses Nan, &c. down to poor
Dorothy Draggletail, who is left in the lurch. The farewell had been
huffy. “A good evening to you, madam; I am sorry our entertainment
was not more to your taste.” She had felt guilty and miserable at the
accusation of pride, and she could not imagine how Mrs. Aylward could
have let her go without a warning; the truth being that Mrs. Aylward
despised her taste, but thought she knew what a harvest supper was like.

All this was passed over in silence by Aurelia’s pride and delicacy. She
only described the scene when the last waggon came in with its load, the
horses decked with flowers and ribbons, and the farmer’s youngest girl
enthroned on the top of the shocks, upholding the harvest doll. This was
a little sheaf, curiously constructed and bound with straw plaits
and ribbons. The farmer, on the arrival in the yard, stood on the
horse-block, and held it high over the heads of all the harvesters, and
the chorus was raised:

                 “A knack, a knack, a knack,
                    Well cut, well bound,
                    Well shocked, well saved from the ground,
                  Whoop! whoop! whoop!”

After which the harvest doll displaced her last year’s predecessor over
the hearth, where she was to hang till next year.

All this Aurelia described, comparing the customs with those of her own
county, her heart beating all the time under the doubt how to venture on
describing the fulfilment of her commission. At last Mr. Belamour said,

“In such a scene of gaiety, no doubt the recollection of sorrow had no
place.”

“O sir, you could not think I should forget.”

“I thought I might have asked more than was possible to you.”

“It was the only part of the day that I enjoyed. I took little Fay with
me, for no one seemed to care for her, while Amy was queening it with
all the Wheatfields, and Letty was equally happy with her foster mother.
I could see the church spire, so I needed not to ask the way, and we
crossed the stubble fields, while the sun sent a beautiful slanting
light through the tall elm trees that closed in the churchyard, but
let one window glitter between them like a great diamond. It looked so
peaceful after all the noise we left behind, even little Fay felt it,
and said she loved the quiet walk along the green baulks [An unplowed
strip of land--D.L.]. The churchyard has a wooden rail with steps to
cross it on either side, and close under the church wall is a tomb, a
great square simple block, surmounted by an urn.”

“Yes, let me hear,” said the voice, eager, though stifled.

“I thought it might be what you wished me to see and went up to read the
names.”

“Do not spare. Never fear. Let me hear the very words.”

“On one face of the block there was a name--


                   ‘WILLIAM SEDHURST,
                        _AGED_ 27,
                    DIED MAY 13, 1729.’


On the other side was this inscription:--


                        ‘MARY,
        ONLY DAUGHTER OF GEORGE SEDHURST, ESQUIRE,
                       _AGED_ 19,
                 DIED AUGUST 1st, 1729.

                _Love is strong as Death.
         Sorrow not as others that have no Hope_.’


In smaller letters down below, ‘This epitaph is at her own special
request.’

“Sir,” continued Aurelia, “it was very curious. I should not have
observed those words if it had not been that a large beautiful
butterfly, with rainbow eyes on its wings, sat sunning itself on the
white marble, and Fay called me to look at it.”

“Her message! May I ask you to repeat it again?”

“The texts? ‘Love is strong as death. Sorrow not as others that have no
hope.’”

“Did you call them Scripture texts?”

“Yes, sir; I know the last is in one of the Epistles, and I will look
for the other.”

“It matters not. She intended them for a message to me who lay in utter
darkness and imbecility well befitting her destroyer.”

“Nay, they have come to you at last,” said Aurelia gently. “You really
never knew of them before?”

“No, I durst not ask, nor did any one dare to speak to me. My brother,
who alone would have done so, died, I scarcely know when; but ere the
very consciousness of my own wretched existence had come back to me.
Once again repeat the words, gentle messenger of mercy.”

She obeyed, but this time he mournfully murmured, “Hope! What hope for
their destroyer?”

“They are God’s words, as well as hers,” the girl answered, with
diffident earnestness, but in reply she only heard tightened breaths,
which made her say, “You cannot bear more, sir. Let me call Jumbo, and
bid you good night.”

Jumbo came at the mention of his name. Somehow he was so unlike other
human beings, and so wholly devoted to his master, that it never seemed
to be a greater shock to find that he had been present than if he had
been a faithful dog.

A few days later he told Aurelia that Mas’r was not well enough to see
her. He had set forth as soon as the moon had set, and walked with his
trusty servant to Sedhurst, where he had traced with his finger the
whole inscription, lingering so long that the sun was above the horizon
before he could get home; and he was still lying on the bed where he
had thrown himself on first coming in, having neither spoken nor eaten
since. Jumbo could not but grumble out that Mas’r was better left to
himself.

Yet when Aurelia on the third evening was recalled, there was a ring of
refreshment in the voice. It was still melancholy, but the dejection
was lessened, and though it was only of Achilles and Patroclus that
they talked, she was convinced that the pressure of the heavy burthen of
grief and remorse was in some degree lightened.




CHAPTER XII. THE SHAFTS OF PHOEBE.


                  Her golden bow she bends,
    Her deadly arrows sending forth.
                         _Greek Hymn_ (KEIGHTLEY).


On coming in from a walk, Aurelia was surprised by the tidings that
Mistress Phoebe Treforth had come to call on her, and had left a
billet. The said billet was secured with floss silk sealed down in the
antiquated fashion, and was written on full-sized quarto paper. These
were the contents:--


“Madam,

   “My Sister and Myself are desirous of the Honour of your
    Acquaintance, and shall be happy if you will do use the
    Pleasure of coming to partake of Dinner at Three o’Clock
    on Tuesday, the 13th instant.

                         “I remain,
                              “Yours to command,
                                  “DELIA TREFORTH.”


Aurelia carried the invitation to her oracle.

“My cousins are willing to make your acquaintance?” said he. “That is
well. Jumbo shall escort you home in the evening.”

“Thank you, sir, but must I accept the invitation?”

“It could not be declined without incivility. Moreover, the Mistresses
Treforth are highly respected, and your father and sister will certainly
think it well for you to have female friends.”

“Do you think those ladies could ever be my friends, sir?” she asked,
with an intonation that made him reply, with a sound of amusement.

“I am no judge in such matters, but they are ladies connected and
esteemed, who might befriend and counsel you in case of need, and at any
rate, it is much more suitable that you should be on terms of friendly
intercourse with them. I am heartily glad they have shown you this
attention.”

“I do not mean to be ungrateful, sir.”

“And I think you have disproved that

                      Crabbed age and youth
                        Cannot live together.”

“If they were only like you, sir!”

“What would they say to that?” he said with the slight laugh that had
begun to enliven his voice. “I suppose your charges are not included in
the invitation?”

“No; but Molly can take care of them, if my Lady will not object to my
leaving them.”

“She cannot reasonably do so.”

“And, sir, shall I be permitted to come home in time for you to receive
me?”

“I fear I must forego that pleasure. The ladies will insist on cards and
supper. Jumbo shall come for you at nine o’clock.”

Aurelia submitted, and tripped down arrayed in the dress that recalled
the fete at Carminster, except that only a little powder was sprinkled
on her temples. The little girls jumped round her in admiring ecstasy,
and, under Molly’s charge, escorted her to the garden gate, and hovered
outside to see her admitted, while she knocked timidly at the door, in
the bashful alarm of making her first independent visit.

The loutish man ushered her into a small close room, containing a cat,
a little spaniel, a green parrot, a spinning-wheel, and an embroidery
frame. There were also the two old ladies, dressed with old-fashioned
richness, a little faded, and a third, in a crimson, gold-laced joseph
[A long riding coat with a small cape, worn by women in the 18th
century.--D.L.], stout, rubicund, and hearty, to whom Aurelia was
introduced thus--

“Mrs. Hunter, allow me to present to you Miss Delavie, a relative of my
Lady Belamour. Miss Delavie, Mrs. Hunter of Brentford.”

“I am most happy to make your acquaintance, Miss,” said the lady, in a
jovial voice, and Aurelia made her curtsey, but at that moment the
man announced that dinner was served, whereupon Mrs. Delia handed Mrs.
Hunter in, and Mrs. Phoebe took the younger guest.

The ladies’ faces both bore token of their recent attention to the
preparation of the meal, and the curious dishes would have been highly
interesting to Betty, but there was no large quantity of any, and a
single chicken was the _piece de resistance_, whence very tiny helps
were dealt out, and there was much unnecessary pressing to take a little
more, both of that and of the brace of partridges which succeeded it. As
to conversation, there was room for none, except hospitable invitations
from the hostesses to take the morsels that they cut for their guests,
praises of the viands from Mrs. Hunter, and endeavours to fish at the
recipes, which the owners guarded jealously as precious secrets. Aurelia
sat perfectly silent, as was then reckoned as proper in a young lady of
her age, except when addressed. A good deal of time was also expended in
directing John Stiggins, the ladies’ own man, and George Brown, who had
ridden with Mrs. Hunter from Brentford, in the disposal of the dishes,
and the handing of the plates. George Brown was the more skilled
waiter, and as the man who was at home did not brook interference, their
disputes were rude and audible, and kept the ladies in agonies lest they
should result in ruin to the best china.

At last, however, the cloth was removed, walnuts, apples, pears, and
biscuits were placed on the table, a glass of wine poured out for each
lady, and the quartette, with the cat and dog, drew near the sunny
window, where there was a little warmth. It was a chilly day, but no one
ever lighted a fire before the 5th of November, Old Style.

Then began one of those catechisms which fortunately are less unpleasant
to youth and simplicity than they are to persons of an age to resent
inquiry, and who have more resources of conversation. In truth, Aurelia
was in the eyes of the Treforth sisters, descendants of a former Sir
Jovian, only my Lady’s poor kinswoman sent down to act _gouvernante_ to
the Wayland brats, who had been impertinently quartered in the Belamour
household. She would have received no further notice, had it not been
reported through the servants that “young Miss” spent the evenings
with their own cousin, from whom they had been excluded ever since his
illness.

The subject was approached through interrogations on Miss Delavie’s home
and breeding, how she had travelled, and what were her accomplishments,
also whether she were quite sure that none of the triad was either
imbecile nor deformed. Mrs. Hunter seemed to have heard wonderful
rumours about the poor children.

“Has their lady mother seen them?”

“Yes, madam. She had been there with them shortly before my arrival.”

“Only once in their lives!” There was a groan of censure such as would
have fired the loyal Major in defence.

“No wonder, Sister Phoebe, my Lady Belamour does not lead the life of a
tender mother.”

“She has the little boy, Archer, with her in London,” Aurelia ventured
to say.

“And a perfect puppet she makes of the poor child,” said Mrs. Hunter.
“My sister Chetwynd saw him with his mother at a masquerade, my Lady
Belamour flaunting as Venus, and he, when he ought to have been in his
bed, dressed in rose-colour and silver, with a bow and arrows, and gauze
wings on his shoulders!”

“What will that child come to?”

“Remember, Sister Delia, he is no kin of ours. He is only a Wayland!”
 returned Mrs. Phoebe, in an accent as if the Waylands were the most
contemptible of vermin.

“I hope,” added Mrs. Delia, “that these children are never permitted to
incommode our unfortunate cousin, Mr. Belamour.”

“I trust not, madam,” said Aurelia. “Their rooms are at a distance from
his; they are good children, and he says he likes to hear young voices
in the gardens.”

“You have, then, seen Mr. Belamour?”

“I cannot say that I have seen him,” said Aurelia, modestly; “but I have
conversed with him.”

“Indeed! Alone with him?”

“Jumbo was there.”

The two old ladies drew themselves up, while Mrs. Hunter chuckled and
giggled. “Indeed!” said Mrs. Phoebe; “we should never see a gentleman in
private without each other’s company, or that of some female companion.”

“I consulted Mrs. Aylward,” returned Aurelia, “and she said he was old
enough to be my father.”

“Mrs. Aylward may be a respectable housekeeper, though far too lavish of
butcher’s meat, but I should never have recourse to her on a matter of
decorum,” said Mrs. Phoebe.

Aurelia’s cheeks burnt, but she still defended herself. “I have heard
from my father and my sister,” she said, “and they make no objection.”

“Hoity-toity! What means this heat, miss?” exclaimed Mrs. Phoebe; “I am
only telling you, as a kindness, what we should have thought becoming
with regard even to a blood relation of our own.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said Aurelia; “but, you see, you are so much nearer
his age, that the cases are not alike.”

She said it in all simplicity, and did not perceive, at first, why the
two sisters drew themselves up in so much offence, or why Mrs. Hunter
cried, “Oh, fie, for shame, you saucy chit! Bless me!” she continued,
more good-naturedly, “Cousin Phoebe, times are changed since we were
young, and poor Sir Jovian and his brother were the county beaux. The
child is right enough when one comes to think of it; and for my part, I
should be glad that poor Mr. Amyas had some one young and cheerful about
him. It is only a pity his nephew, the young baronet, never comes down
to see him.”

“Like mother like son,” said Mrs. Phoebe; “I grieve to think what the
old place will come to.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Hunter, “I do not hear the young gentleman ill spoken
of; though, more’s the pity, he is in a bad school with Colonel Mar for
his commanding officer, the fine gallant who is making his mother the
talk of the town!”

The gossip and scandal then waxed fast and furious on the authority of
Mrs. Hunter’s sister, but no one paid any more attention to Aurelia,
except that when there was an adjournment to the next room, she was
treated with such double stiffness and ceremony as to make her feel that
she had given great offence, and was highly disapproved of by all but
Mrs. Hunter. And Aurelia could not like her, for her gossip had been far
broader and coarser than that of the Mistresses Treforth, who, though
more bitter were more of gentlewomen. Happily much of what passed was
perfectly unintelligible to Betty’s carefully shielded pupil, who sat
all the time with the cat on her lap, listening to its purring music,
but feeling much more inclined to believe nothing against my Lady, after
her father’s example, than to agree with those who were so evidently
prejudiced. Tea was brought in delicate porcelain cups, then followed
cards, which made the time pass less drearily till supper. This
consisted of dishes still tinier than those at dinner, and it was
scarcely ended when it was announced that Jumbo had come for Miss
Delavie.

Gladly she departed, after an exchange of curtsies, happily not hearing
the words behind her:--

“An artful young minx.”

“And imagine the impudence of securing Jumbo’s attendance, forsooth!”

“Nay,” said Mrs. Hunter, “she seemed to me a pretty modest young
gentlewoman enough.”

“Pretty! Yes, she comes of my Lady’s own stock, and will be just such
another.”

“Yes; it is quite plain that it is true that my Lady sent her here
because she had been spreading the white apron for the young baronet.”

“And now she is trying her arts on poor cousin Amyas Belamour. You heard
how she would take no advice, and replied with impertinence.”

“Shall you give my Lady a hint?”

“Not I. I have been treated with too much insolence by Lady Belamour
to interfere with her again,” said Mrs. Phoebe, drawing herself up; “I
shall let things take their course unless I can remonstrate with my own
kinsman.”




CHAPTER XIII. THE FLUTTER OF HIS WINGS.


    Then is Love’s hour to stray!
    Oh, how he flies away!--T. MOORE.


Meanwhile Aurelia, mounted on a pair of pattens brought by the negro
to keep her above the dew, was crossing the park by the light of a fine
hunter’s moon, Jumbo marching at a respectful distance in the rear. He
kept on chuckling to himself with glee, and when she looked round at
him, he informed her with great exultation that “Mas’r had not been
alone. His honour had been to see him. Mas’r so glad.”

“Sir Amyas!” exclaimed Aurelia: “Is he there still?”

“No, missie. He went away before supper.”

“Did he see the young ladies?”

“Oh, yes, missie. He came before mas’r up, quite promiskius,” said
Jumbo, who loved a long word. “I tell him, wait till mas’r be dress,
and took him to summer parlour. He see little missies out in garden;
ask what chil’ren it was. His Hounour’s sisters, Miss Fay, Missie Letty,
Missie Amy, I say! His Honour wonder. ‘My sisters,’ he say, ‘my sisters
here,’ and out he goes like a flash of lightning and was in among them.”

Aurelia’s first thought was “Oh, I hope they were clean and neat, and
that they behaved themselves. I wish I had been at home.” Wherewith
followed the recollection that Sir Amyas had been called her beau,
and her cheeks burnt; but the recent disagreeable lecture on etiquette
showed her that it would only have led to embarrassment and vexation
to have had any question of an interview with a young gentleman by so
little her elder. Nor would she have known what to say to him. Old Mr.
Belamour in the dark was a very different matter, and she had probably
had an escape from much awkwardness.

Molly received her with her favourite exclamation: “Lawk, miss, and who
do you think have been here?”

“Jumbo told me, Molly.”

“Ain’t he a perfect pictur of a man? And such a gentleman! He gave me
a whole goolden guinea for my good care of his little sisters, and says
he: ‘Their father shall hear of them, and what little ladies they be.’”

“I am glad they behaved themselves prettily.”

“Yes, that they did, ma’am. It was good luck that they had not been
grubbing in their gardens as you lets ‘em do, ma’am, but they was all as
clean as a whistle, a picking up horse-chestnuts under the big tree
at the corner of the bowling green, when out on the steps we sees him,
looking more like an angel than a man, in his red coat, and the goold
things on his shoulders, and out he comes! Miss Amy, she was afeard at
first: ‘Be the soldiers a coming?’ says she, and runs to me; but Miss
Letty, she holds out her arms, and says “It’s my papa,” and Miss Fay,
she stood looking without a word. Then when his Honour was in among
them: “My little sisters, my dear little sisters,” says he, “don’t you
know me?” and down he goes on one knee in the grass, never heeding his
beautiful white small-clothes, if you’ll believe me, miss, and holds out
his arms, and gets Miss Fay into one arm, and Miss Letty into t’other,
and then Miss Amy runs up, and he kisses them all. Then miss Letty says
again ‘Are you my papa from foreign parts?’ and he laughs and says: ‘No,
little one, I’m your brother. Did you never hear of your brother Amyas?’
and Miss Fay stood off a little and clapped her little hands, and says:
‘O brother Amyas, how beautiful you are!’”

Aurelia could not help longing to know whether she had been mentioned,
but she did not like to inquire, and she was obliged to rest satisfied
with the assurance that her little girls had comported themselves like
jewels, like lambs, like darling lumps of sugar, or whatever metaphors
were suggested by the imagination of Molly, who had, apparently, usurped
the entire credit of their good manners. It was impossible to help
feeling a little aggrieved, or, maugre [in spite of--D.L.] all
inconvenient properties to avoid wishing to have been under the
horse-chestnut tree, even though she might have shown herself just such
a bashful little speechless fool as she had been when Sir Amyas had
danced with her at Carminster.

She was destined to hear a good deal more of the visitor the next day.
The children met her with the cry of “Cousin Aura, our brother”--“our
big beautiful brother--Brother Amyas.”--They were with difficulty calmed
into saying their prayers, and Amoret startled the little congregation
by adding to “bless by father, my mother, my brothers and sisters,”
 “and pray bless big brother Amyas best of all, for I love him very much
indeed!”

All day little facts about “brother Amyas” kept breaking out. Brother
Amyas had beautiful gold lace, brother Amyas had a red and white
feather; brother Amyas had given Fay and Letty each a ride on his
shoulder, but Amy was afraid; brother Amyas said their papa would love
them very much. He had given them each a new silver shilling, and Amoret
had in return presented him with her doll’s beautiful pink back-string
that Cousin Aura had made for her. This wonderful brother had asked
who had taught them to be such pretty little gentlewomen, and at this
Aurelia’s heart beat a little, but provoking Fidelia replied: “I told
him my Mammy Rolfe taught me to be genteel,” and Letty added: “And he
said Fay was a conceited little pussy cat.”

A strange indefinable feeling between self-respect and shyness made
Aurelia shrink from the point-blank question whether the ungrateful
little things had acknowledged their obligations to her. She was
always hoping they would say something of their own accord, and always
disappointed.

Evening came, and she eagerly repaired to the dark room, wondering, yet
half dreading to enter on the subject, and beginning by an apology for
having by no means perfected herself in Priam’s visit to Achilles.

“If you have been making visits,” said Mr. Belamour: “I too have had a
visitor.”

“The children told me so,” she answered.

“He was greatly delighted with them,” said Mr. Belamour.

“While they, poor little things, never were more happy in their lives.
He must have been very kind to them, yet he did not know that they were
here.”

“His mother is not communicative respecting them. Ladies who love power
seek to preserve it by making little mysteries.”

“It was to see you, sir, that he came.”

“Yes. He ingenuously avowed that he had always been urged to do so by
his stepfather, but his mother has always put obstacles in the way, and
assured him that he would not gain admission. I have certainly refused
to see her, but this is a very different matter--my brother’s only
child, my godson, and my ward!”

“I am very glad he has come to see you, sir, and I am sure it has given
you pleasure.”

“Pleasure in seeing that he is a lad of parts, and of an ingenuous,
affectionate, honest nature, but regret in perceiving how I failed in
the confidence that his father reposed in me.”

“But, sir, you could not help it!”

“Once I could not. It was, I know not how long, before I knew that my
brother was no more; and thinking myself dead to the world and the
world to me, I took no heed to what, it now seems to me, I was told of
guardianship to the boy. I was incapable of fulfilling any such charge,
and I shunned the pain of hearing of it,” he continued, rather as if
talking to himself than to his auditor. “When I could, I gave them
my name and they asked no more. Yet what did they tell me of a sealed
letter from my brother, addressed to me? True, I heard of it more than
once, but I could ask no one to read it to me, and I closed my ears. In
Wayland’s hands I knew the youth was well cared for, and only now do I
feel that I have ill requited my brother’s confidence.”

“Indeed, sir, I cannot see how you could have done otherwise,” said
Aurelia, who could not bear to hear his tone of self-reproach.

“My amiable visitor!” he exclaimed, as though recalled to a sense of
her presence. “Excuse the absence of mind which has inflicted on you the
selfish murmurs of the old recluse. Tell me how you prospered with my
cousins, whom I remember as sprightly maidens. Phoebe had somewhat of
the prude, Delia of the coquette.”

“I could imagine what you say of Mistress Phoebe, sir, better than of
Mistress Delia.”

“Had they any guests to meet you?”

“A Mrs. Hunter, sir, from Brentford, a doctor’s wife I suppose.”

“You are right. She was a cousin of theirs on the other side of the
house, a loud-voiced buxom lass, who was thought to have married beneath
here when she took Dr. Hunter; but apparently they have forgiven her.”

Mr. Belamour was evidently much interested and amused by Aurelia’s small
experiences and observations, such as they were. In spite of the sense
of past omission which had been aroused by his nephew’s visit, it had
evidently raised his spirits, for he laughed when Aurelia spiced her
descriptions with a little playful archness, and his voice became more
cheery.

So, too, it was on the ensuing evening when Aurelia, to compensate for
the last day’s neglect, came primed with three or four pages of the
conversation between Priam and Achilles, which she rehearsed with great
feeling, thinking, like Pelides himself, of her own father and home. It
was requited with a murmured “Bravo,” and Mr. Belamour then begged of
her, if she were not weary, to favour him with the Nightingale Song,
Jumbo as usual accompanying her with his violin. At the close there was
again a “Bravo! Truly exquisite!” in a tone as if the hermit were really
finding youth and life again. Once more at his request, she sang, and
was applauded with even more fervour, with a certain tremulous eagerness
in the voice. Yet there was probably a dread of the excitement being
too much, for this was followed by “Thank you, kind songstress, I could
listen for ever, but it is becoming late, and I must not detain you
longer.”

She found herself handed out of the room, with somewhat curtailed good
nights, although nine o’clock, her usual signal, had not yet struck.
When she came into the lamplit hall, Jumbo was grinning and nodding like
a maniac, and when she asked what was the matter, he only rolled his
eyes, and said, “Missie good! Mas’r like music!”

The repressed excitability she had detected made her vaguely nervous
(not that she would have so called herself), and as the next day was the
blank Sunday, she appeased and worked off her restlessness by walking
with the children to Sedhurst church. It was the sixteenth Sunday after
Trinity, and the preacher, who had caught somewhat of the fire of Wesley
and Whitfield, preached a sermon which arrested her attention,
and filled her with new thoughts. Taking the Epistle and Gospel in
connection, he showed the death-in-life of indifference, and the
quickening touch of the Divine Love, awakening the dead spirit into true
life. On that life, with its glow of love, hope, and joy, the preacher
dwelt with enthusiasm such as Aurelia had never heard, and which carried
her quite out of herself. Tears of emotion trembled in her eyes, and she
felt a longing desire to walk on in that path of love to her Maker, whom
she seemed to have never known before.

She talked with a new fervour to the children of the birds and flowers,
and all the fair things they loved, as the gifts of their Father in
Heaven; and when she gathered them round the large pictured Bible, it
was to the Gospel that she turned as she strove to draw their souls to
the appreciation of the Redeeming Love there shown. She saw in Fay’s
deep eyes and thoughtful brow that the child was taking it in, though
differently from Amy, who wanted to kiss the picture, while Letty asked
those babyish material questions about Heaven that puzzle wiser heads
than Aurelia’s to answer.

So full was she of the thought, that she forgot her sense of something
strange and unaccountable in Mr. Belamour’s manner before the evening,
nor was there anything to remind her of it afresh, for he was as calmly
grave and kindly courteous as ever; and he soon led her to pour forth
all her impressions of the day. Indeed she repeated to him great part of
the sermon, with a voice quivering with earnestness and emotion. He
was not stirred in the same way as she had been, saying in his pensive
meditative way, “The preacher is right. Love is life. The misfortune is
when we stake our all on one love alone, and that melts from us. Then
indeed there is death--living death!”

“But there is never-failing love, and new life that never dies!” cried
Aurelia, almost transported out of herself.

“May you ever keep hold of both unobscured, my sweet child,” he
returned, with a sadness that repressed and drove her back into herself
again, feeling far too childish and unworthy to help him to that
new life and love; though her young heart yearned over him in his
desolation, and her soul was full of supplication for him.




CHAPTER XIV. THE CANON OF WINDSOR.


    Turn, gentle hermit of the dale.--GOLDSMITH.


“My child, will you do me a favour?” said Mr. Belamour the next evening,
in a tone no longer formal, but paternal. “Take this packet” (he put
one into the girl’s hand) “to the light and inform me what is the
superscription.”

It was a thick letter, with a large red wax seal, bearing the well known
arms of Belamour and Delavie, and the address was


                To AMYAS BELAMOUR, ESQ., K.C.,

                OF THE INNER TEMPLE, LONDON.
To be opened after my death.]

                                 JOVIAN BELAMOUR.
                                 Dec. 14th, 1727.


“I thought so,” said Mr. Belamour, when she returned to him with
intelligence. “Little did my poor brother guess how long it would be
unopened! Will my gentle friend confer another obligation on me?”

Aurelia made her ready assent, hoping to be asked to read the letter,
when he continued, “I cannot read this myself. Even could I bear the
light, the attempt to fix my eyes sends darts shooting through my
brain, which would take away my very power of comprehension. But,” he
continued, “there are only two men living to whom I could entrust my
brother’s last words to me. One, your own good father, is out of
reach; the other has frequently proffered his good offices and has been
rejected. Would you add to your kindness that of writing to entreat my
old friend, Dr. Godfrey, to favour with a visit one who has too often
and ungratefully refused him admission.”

Feminine curiosity felt balked, but Aurelia was ashamed of the
sensation, and undertook the task. Instructions were given her that she
was to write--


 “If Amyas Belamour’s old Schoolfellow and Friend can overlook and
  pardon the undeserved Rebuffs to His Constancy and Solicitude for
  a lonely and sullen Wretch, and will once more come and spend a
  Night at Bowstead, he will confer an inestimable Favour upon one
  who is more sensible of his Goodness than when it has been
  previously offered.”


This letter, written in Aurelia’s best Italian hand, on a large sheet
of paper, she brought with her the next evening. She was bidden to fold
down the exact place for the signature, which Mr. Belamour proceeded
to affix, and she was then to carry it to the candles in the lobby, and
there fold, seal, and address it to the Reverend Edward Godfrey, D.D.,
Canon of Windsor, Windsor. She found the A. Belamour very fairly written
except that it was not horizontal, and she performed the rest of the
task with ladylike dexterity, sealing it with a ring that had been
supplied for the purpose. It did not, as she expected, bear the Belamour
sheaf of arrows, but was a gem, representing a sleeping Cupid with
folded wings, so beautiful that she asked leave to take another
impression for Harriet, who collected seals, after the fashion of the
day.

“You are welcome,” Mr. Belamour replied. “I doubt its great antiquity,
since the story of Cupid and Psyche cannot be traced beyond Apuleius.
I used it because Dr. Godfrey will remember it. He was with me at Rome
when I purchased it.”

The ring was of the size for a lady’s finger, and Aurelia durst ask no
more.

How the letter was sent she knew not, but Mrs. Aylward was summoned to
Mr. Belamour’s room, and desired to have a room ready at any time for
his friend.

Three days later, towards sunset, a substantial-looking clergyman,
attended by two servants, rode up to the door; and was immediately
appropriated by Jumbo, disappearing into the mysterious apartments;
Aurelia expected no summons that night, but at the usual hour, the negro
brought a special request for the honour of her society; and as she
entered the dark room, Mr. Belamour said, “My fair and charitable
visitor will permit me to present to her my old and valued friend, Dr.
Godfrey.” He laid the hand he had taken on one that returned a little
gentlemanly acknowledgment, while a kind fatherly voice said, “The lady
must pardon me if I do not venture to hand her to her chair.”

“Thank you, sir, I am close to my seat.”

“Your visitors acquire blind eyes, Belamour,” said Dr. Godfrey,
cheerfully.

“More truly they become eyes to the blind,” was the answer. “I feel
myself a man of the world again, since this amiable young lady has
conned the papers on my behalf, and given herself the trouble of
learning the choicest passages of the poets to repeat to me.”

“You are very good, sir,” returned Aurelia; “it is my great pleasure.”

“That I can well believe,” said Dr. Godfrey. “Have these agreeable
recitations made you acquainted with the new poem on the _Seasons_ by
Mr. James Thomson?”

“No,” replied Mr. Belamour, “my acquaintance with the _belles letters_
ceased nine years ago.”

“The descriptions have been thought extremely effective. Those of autumn
were recalled to my mind on my way.”

Dr. Godfrey proceeded to recite some twenty lines of blank verse, for in
those days people had more patience and fewer books, and exercised their
memories much more than their descendants do. Listening was far from
being thought tedious.


            “‘But see the fading many-coloured roads,
              Shade deepening over shade, the country round
              Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dim,
              Of every hue, from wan, declining green,
              To sooty dark.’”


The lines had a strange charm to one who had lived in darkness through
so many revolving years. Mr. Belamour eagerly thanked his friend, and on
the offer to lend him the book, begged that it might be ordered for him,
and that any other new and interesting work might be sent to him that
was suitable to the fair lips on which he was dependent.

“You are secure with Mr. Thomson,” said the Doctor. “Hear the conclusion
of his final hymn.”


            “‘When even at last the solemn hour shall come,
              And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
              I cheerful will obey; there with new powers
              Will rising wonders sing.  I cannot go
              Where Universal Love not smiles around,
              Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns,
              From seeming evil still educing good,
              And better thence again, and better still,
              In infinite progression.  But I lose
              Myself in Him, in Light ineffable;
              Come then expressive Silence, mine the praise.’”


“‘Universal Love!’” repeated Mr. Belamour; “the poet sings as you do, my
amiable friend! I can conceive the idea better than I could a few months
ago.”

            “‘From seeming evil, still educing good,’”

quoted Dr. Godfrey earnestly, as if feeling his way.

“More of this another time,” said Mr. Belamour hastily. “What say the
critics respecting this new aspirant?”

The ensuing conversation much interested Aurelia, as it was on the men
of letters whose names had 

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