Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume
explain this double-faced or double-voiced husband of yours, I vow to
you that I shall speak to Mr. Arden, and write to my father.”
“Oh! do not, do not, sister! Remember, it is of no use unless this
temper of affection be on him, and I have not heard it this fortnight,
no, nor more.”
“Promise me, then, that you will make the experiment. See, here is a
little chain-stitch pouch--poor Peggy Duckworth’s gift to me--with two
pockets. Let me fasten it under your dress, and then you will always
have it about you.”
“If the bottle broke as I rode home!”
“Impossible; it is a scent-bottle of strong glass.”
Here Mr. Arden knocked at the door, regretting to interrupt their
confidences, but dinner awaited them; and as, immediately after, Mrs.
Hunter brought her husband in his best wig to call on Madame Belamour
and her relations, the sisters had no more time together, till the
horses were at the door, and they went to their room together to put on
their hats.
A whole mass of refusals and declarations of perfect confidence were on
Aurelia’s tongue, but Harriet cut them all short by saying, “Remember,
you are bound for your own honour and ours, to clear up this mystery!”
Then they rode off their several ways, Madame Belamour towards Bowstead,
Mr. and Mrs. Arden on their sturdy roadster towards Lea Farm.
CHAPTER XXII. A FATAL SPARK.
And so it chanced; which in those dark
And fireless halls was quite amazing,
Did we not know how small a spark
Can set the torch of love ablazing.
T. MOORE.
Aurelia rode home in perplexity, much afraid of the combustibles at her
girdle, and hating the task her sister had forced on her. She felt as
if her heedless avowals had been high treason to her husband; and yet
Harriet was her elder, and those assurances that as a true woman she was
bound to clear up the mystery, made her cheeks burn with shame, and her
heart thrill with the determination to vindicate her husband, while the
longing to know the face of one who so loved her was freshly awakened.
She was strongly inclined to tell him all, indeed she knew herself well
enough to be aware that half a dozen searching questions would draw out
the whole confession of her own communication and Harriet’s unworthy
suspicions; and humiliating as this would be, she longed for the
opportunity. Here, however, she was checked in her meditations by a
stumble of her horse, which proved to have lost a shoe. It was necessary
to leave the short cut, and make for the nearest forge, and when the
mischief was repaired, to ride home by the high road.
She thus came home much later than had been expected; Jumbo, Molly, and
the little girls were all watching for her, and greeted her eagerly. The
supper was already on the table for her, and she had only just given
Fay and Letty the cakes and comfits she had bought at Brentford for them
when Jumbo brought the message that his master hoped that madam, if not
too much fatigued, would come to him as soon as her supper was finished.
Accordingly, she came without waiting to change her dress, having only
taken off her hat and arranged her hair.
She felt guilty, and dreaded the being questioned, yet longed to make
her avowal and have all explained. The usual greetings passed, and then
Mr. Belamour said, “I heard your horse hoofs come in late. You were
detained?”
She explained about the shoe, and a few sentences were passing about her
sister when she detected a movement, as if a step were stealing towards
her, together with a hesitation in the remark Mr. Belamour was making
about Mrs. Hunter’s good nature.
Quite irrelevantly came in the whispering voice, “Where is my dearest
life?”
“Sir, sir!” she cried, driven at last to bay, “what is this? Are you one
or two?”
“One with you, my sweetest life! Your own--your husband!”
Therewith there was a kind of groan further off, and as Aurelia felt a
hand on her dress, her fight and distress at the duality were complete.
While, in the dark, the hands were still groping for her, she eluded
them, and succeeded in carrying out Harriet’s manoeuvre so far that
a quick bright flame leapt forth, lighting up the whole room, and
revealing two--yes, two! But it did not die away! In her haste, and in
the darkness, she had poured the whole contents of the bottle on the
phosphoric cotton, and dropped both without knowing it on a chintz
curtain. A fresh evening breeze was blowing in from the window, open
behind the shutters, and in one second the curtain was a flaming, waving
sheet. Some one sprang up to tear it down, leaping on a table in the
window. The table overbalanced, the heavy iron curtain-rod came out
suddenly, and there was a fall, the flaming mass covering the fallen!
The glare shone on a strange white face and head as well as on Jumbo’s
black one, and with a trampling and crushing the fire died down,
quenched as suddenly as it began, and all was obscurity again.
“Nephew, dear boy, speak,” exclaimed Mr. Belamour; and as there was no
answer, “Open the shutters, Jumbo. For Heaven’s sake let us see!”
“Oh! what have I done?” cried poor Aurelia, in horror and misery,
dropping by him on the ground, while the opened shutters admitted the
twilight of a May evening, with a full moon, disclosing a strange scene.
A youth in a livery riding coat lay senseless on the ground, partly
covered by the black fragments of the curtain, the iron rod clenched in
one hand, the other arm doubled under him. A face absolutely white, with
long snowy beard and hair hung over him, and an equally white pair of
hands tried to lift the head. Jumbo had in a second sprung down, removed
the fallen table, and come to his masters help. “Struck head with this,”
he said, as he tried to unclasp the fingers from the bar, and pointed to
a grazed blow close to the temple.
“We must lay him on my bed,” said Mr. Belamour. Then, seeing the
girl’s horror-stricken countenance, “Ah, child, would that you had been
patient; but it was overtasking you! Call Aylward, I beg of you.
Tell her he is here, badly hurt. What, you do not know him,” as her
bewildered eyes and half-opened lips implied the question she could not
utter, “you do not know him? Sir Amyas--my nephew--your true husband!”
“Oh! and I have killed him!” she cried, with clasped hands.
“Hush, child, no, with God’s mercy! Only call the woman and bring a
light.”
She rushed away, and appeared, a pale terrified figure, with the smell
of fire on her hair and white dress, in the room where Mrs. Aylward was
reading her evening chapter. She could scarcely utter her message as
she stood under the gaze of blank amazement; but Mrs. Aylward understood
enough to make her start up without another word, and hurry away, candle
in hand.
Aurelia took up the other, and followed, trembling. When she reached
the outer room the rush of air almost blew out her light, and pausing,
afraid to pass on, she perceived that Mr. Belamour and Jumbo were
carrying the insensible form between them into the inner apartment,
while a moan or two filled her heart with pangs of self-reproach.
She hung about, in terrible anxiety, but not daring to come forward
while the others were engaged about the sufferer, for what seemed a very
long time before she heard Mrs. Aylward say, “His arm is broke, sir. We
must send for Dr. Hunter. The maids are all in their beds, but I will go
and wake one, and send her to the stables to call the groom.”
“I had best go,” said Mr. Belamour. “You are of more use than I. He
sleeps at the stables, you say?” Then, seeing the waiting, watching form
of Aurelia, he said, “Come in, my poor child. Perhaps your voice may
rouse him.” Every one, including himself, seemed to have forgotten Mr.
Belamour’s horror of the light, for candles were flaring on all the
tables, as he led the you girl in, saying, “Speak to him.”
At the death-like face in its golden hair, Aurelia’s voice choked in her
throat, and it was in an unnatural hoarse tone that she tried to say,
“Sir--Sir Amyas--”
“I trust he will soon be better,” said Mr. Belamour, marking her dismay
and grief with his wonted kindness, “but his arm needs the surgeon, and
I must be going. Let Lady Belamour sit here, Mrs. Aylward. I trust
you with the knowledge. It was my nephew, in disguise, who wedded
her, unknown to her. She is entirely blameless. Let Jumbo fetch her a
cordial. There, my child, take this chair, so that his eyes may fall
on you when he opens them. Bathe his head if you will. I shall return
quickly after having sped the groom on his journey.”
Gloomy and doubtful were the looks cast on Aurelia by the housekeeper,
but all unseen by the wondering, bewildered, remorseful eyes fixed
on the white face on the pillow, heedless of its perfect symmetry of
feature, and knowing only that this was he who had thrilled her heart
with his tender tones, who had loved her so dearly, and dared so much
for her sake, but whom her impatience and distrust had so cruelly
injured. Had she seen him strong, well, and ardent, as she had so
lately heard him, her womanhood would have recoiled indignantly at the
deception which had stolen her vows; but the spectacle of the
young senseless face and prostrate form filled her with compassion,
tenderness, and remorse, for having yielded to her sister’s persuasions.
With intense anxiety she watched, and assisted in the fomentations,
longing for Mr. Belamour’s return; but time passed on and still he
came not. No words passed, only a few faint sighs, and one of the hands
closed tight on Aurelia’s.
CHAPTER XXIII. WRATH AND DESOLATION.
Straight down she ran
.... and fatally did vow To wreake her on the mayden messenger
Whom she had caused be kept as prisonere.
SPENSER.
Hark! there was the trampling of horses and thundering of wheels at the
door! Could the doctor be come already, and in such a fashion?
Jumbo hurried to admit him, and Mrs. Aylward moved to arrange matters,
but the clasp that was on Aurelia’s hand would not let her go.
Presently there came, not Dr. Hunter’s tread, but a crisp, rustling
sound, and the tap of high heels, and in the doorway stood, tall, erect,
and terrible, Lady Belamour, with a blaze of wrath in her blue eyes, and
concentrated rage in her whole form, while in accents low, but coming
from between her teeth, she demanded, “Miserable boy, what means this?”
“Oh! madam, take care! he is sadly hurt!” cried Aurelia, with a gesture
as if to screen him.
“I ask what this means?” repeated Lady Belamour, advancing, and seeming
to fill the room with her majestic figure, in full brocaded dress, with
feathers waving in her hair.
“His Honour cannot answer you, my Lady,” said Mrs. Aylward. “He has had
a bad fall, and Mr. Belamour is gone to send for the doctor.”
“This is the housekeeping in my absence!” said Lady Belamour, showing
less solicitude as to her son’s condition than indignation at the
discovery, and her eyes and her diamonds glittering fearfully.
“My Lady,” said Mrs. Aylward, with stern respectfulness, “I knew nothing
of all this till this lady called me an hour ago telling me Sir Amyas
was hurt. I found him as you see. Please your Ladyship, I must go back
to him.”
“Speak then, you little viper,” said Lady Belamour, turning on Aurelia,
who had risen, but was held fast by the hand upon hers. “By what arts
have you well nigh slain my son? Come here, and tell me.”
“None, madam!” gasped Aurelia, trembling, so that she grasped her
chair-back with her free hand for support. “I never saw him till
to-night.”
“Lies will not serve you, false girl. Come here this instant! I _know_
that you have been shamelessly receiving my son here, night after
night.”
“I never knew!”