Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume
What did she see as Maine opened the door? It was a very spacious
bedroom, the bed in an alcove hung with rose-coloured satin embroidered
with myrtles and white roses, looped up with lace and muslin. Like
draperies hung round the window, fluted silk lined the room, and
beautiful japanned and inlaid cabinets and _etageres_ adorned the walls,
bearing all varieties and devices of new and old porcelain from Chins,
Sevres, Dresden, or Worcester, tokens of Mr. Wayland’s travels. There
was a toilette table before one window covered with lacquer ware, silver
and ivory boxes, and other apparatus, and an exquisite Venetian mirror
with the borders of frosted silver work.
Not far off, but sideways to it, sat Lady Belamour in a loose sacque
of some rich striped silk, in crimson and blue stripes shot with gold
threads. Slippers, embroidered with gold, showed off her dainty feet,
and a French hairdresser stood behind her chair putting the finishing
touches to the imposing fabric of powder, flower, and feather upon her
head. A little hand-mirror, framed in carved ivory inlaid with coral,
and a fan, lay on a tiny spindle-legged table close in front of her,
together with a buff-coloured cup of chocolate. At a somewhat larger
table Mrs. Loveday, her woman, was dispensing the chocolate, whilst a
little negro boy, in a fantastic Oriental costume, waited to carry the
cups about.
On a sofa near at hand, in an easy attitude, reclined Colonel Mar,
holding out to Lady Belamour a snuff-box of tortoiseshell and gold,
and a lady sat near on one of the tall black-and-gold chairs drinking
chocolate, while all were giving their opinions on the laces, feathers,
ribbons, and trinkets which another Frenchman was displaying from a
basket-box placed on the floor, trying to keep aloof a little Maltese
lion-dog, which had been roused from its cushion, and had come to
inspect his wares. A little further off, Archer, in a blue velvet coat,
white satin waistcoat, and breeches and silk stockings, and Amoret,
white-frocked, blue-sashed, and bare-headed (an innovation of fashion),
were admiring the nodding mandarins, grinning nondescript monsters,
and green lions of extraordinary form which an emissary from a
curiosity-shop was unpacking. Near the door, in an attitude weary
yet obsequious, stood, paper in hand, a dejected figure in shabby
plum-colour--_i.e._ a poor author--waiting in hopes that his sonnet in
praise of Cytherea’s triumphant charms would win his the guinea he so
sorely needed, as
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
And heap the shrine of luxury and pride
With incense kindled at the Muses’ flame.
The scene was completed by a blue and yellow macaw at one window chained
to his perch, and a green monkey tethered in like manner at the other.
Of course Elizabeth Delavie did not perceive all these details at once.
Her first sensation was the shock to the decorum of a modest English
lady at intruding into a bed-room; but her foreign recollections coming
to her aid, she accepted the fashion with one momentary feminine review
of her own appearance, and relief that she had changed her travelling
gear for her Sunday silks, and made her father put on his full uniform.
All this passed while Sir Amyas was leading her into the room, steering
her carefully out of the monkey’s reach. Then he went a step or two
forward and bent before his mother, almost touching the ground with one
knee, as he kissed her hand, and rising, acknowledged the lady with a
circular sweep of his hat, and his Colonel with a military salute, all
rapidly, but with perfect ease and gracefulness. “Ah! my truant, my
runaway invalid!” said Lady Belamour, “you are come to surrender.”
“I am come,” he said gravely, holding out his stronger hand to his
little brother and sister, who sprang to him, “to bring my father-and
sister-in-law, Major and Miss Delavie.”
“Ah! my good cousin, my excellent Mrs. Betty, excuse me that my tyrant
_friseur_ prevents my rising to welcome you. It is so good and friendly
in you to come in this informal way to cheer me under this terrible
anxiety. Let me present you to my kind friend, the Countess of
Aresfield, who has been so good as to come in to-day to sustain
my spirits. Colonel Mar you know already. Pray be seated.
Amyas--Archer--chairs. Let Syphax give you a cup of chocolate.”
“Madam,” said the Major, disregarding all this and standing as if on
parade, “can I see you alone? My business is urgent.”
“No evil news, I trust! I have undergone such frightful shocks of late,
my constitution is well nigh ruined.”
“It is I that have to ask news of you madam.”
She saw that, if she trifled with him, something would break out that
she would not wish to have said publicly. “My time is so little my own,”
she said, “I am under command to be at the Palace by two o’clock, but in
a few minutes I shall be able to dismiss my tormentor, and then, till
my woman comes to dress me, I shall be at your service. Sit down, I
entreat, and take some chocolate. I know Mrs. Betty is an excellent
housekeeper, and I want her opinion. My dear Lady Aresfield, suffer me
to introduce my estimable cousin, Mrs. Betty Delavie.”
The Countess looking in her feathers and powder like a beetroot in white
sauce, favoured Betty with a broad stare. Vulgarity was very vulgar in
those days, especially when it had purchased rank, and thought manners
might be dispensed with. Betty sat down, and Amoret climbed on her lap,
while a diversion was made by Archer’s imperious entreaty that his mamma
would purchase a mandarin who not only nodded, but waved his hands and
protruded his tongue.
Then ensued what seemed, to the sickening suspense of the two Delavies,
a senseless Babel of tongues on all sides; but it ended in the _friseur_
putting up his implements, the trades-folk leaving the selected goods
unpaid for, and the poor poet bowing himself within reach of the monkey,
who made a clutch at his MS., chattered over it, and tore it into
fragments. There was a peal of mirth--loudest from Lady Aresfield--but
Sir Amyas sprang forward with gentlemanly regrets, apologies, and
excuses, finally opening the door and following the poor man out of the
room to administer the guinea from his own pocket, while Colonel Mar
exclaimed, “Here, Archer, boy, run after him with this. The poor devil
has won it by producing a smile from those divine lips--such as his
jungle might never have done---”
“Fie! fie! Mar,” said the Lady, shaking her fan at him, “the child will
repeat it to him.”
“The better sport if he do,” said Colonel Mar, carelessly; “he may term
himself a very Orpheus charming the beasts, so that they snatch his
poems from him!”
Then, as Sir Amyas returned, Lady Belamour entreated her dear Countess
to allow him to conduct her to the withdrawing room, and there endeavour
to entertain her. The Colonel could not but follow, and the Major and
Betty found themselves at length alone with her Ladyship.
“I trust you have come to relieve my mind as to our poor runaway,” she
began.
“Would to Heaven I could!” said the Major.
“Good Heavens! Then she has never reached you!”
“Certainly not.
“Nor her sister? Oh, surely she is with her sister!”
“No, madam, her sisters knows nothing of her. Cousin, you have children
of your own! I entreat of you to tell me what you have done with her.”
“How should I have done anything with her? I who have been feeding all
this time on the assurance that she had returned to you.”
“How could a child like her do so?”
“We know she had money,” said Lady Belamour.
“And we know,” said Betty, fixing her eyes on the lady, “that though she
escaped, on the first alarm, as far as Sedhurst, and was there seen,
she had decided on returning to Bowstead and giving herself up to you
Ladyship.”
“Indeed? At what time was that?” exclaimed my Lady.
“Some time in the afternoon of Sunday!”
“Ah! then I must have left Bowstead. I was pledged to her Majesty’s
card-table, and royal commands cannot be disregarded, so I had to
go away in grievous anxiety for my poor boy. She meant to return to
Bowstead, did she? Ah. Does not an idea strike you that old Amyas
Belamour may know more than he confesses! He has been playing a double
game throughout.”
“He is as anxious to find the dear girl as we are madam.”
“So he may seem to you and to my poor infatuated boy, but you see those
crazed persons are full of strange devices and secrets, as indeed we
have already experienced. I see what you would say; he may appear sane
and plausible enough to a stranger, but to those who have known him
ever since his misfortunes, the truth is but too plain. He was harmless
enough as long as he was content to remain secluded in his dark chamber,
but now that I hear he has broken loose, Heaven knows what mischief he
may do. My dear cousin Delavie, you are the prop left to me in these
troubles, with my poor good man in the hands of those cruel pirates,
who may be making him work in chains for all I know,” and the tears came
into her beautiful eyes.
“They will not do that,” said Major Delavie, eager to reassure her; “I
have heard enough of their tricks to know that they keep such game as he
most carefully till they can get a ransom.”
“Your are sure of that!”
“Perfectly. I met an Italian fellow at Vienna who told me how it was all
managed by the Genoese bankers.”
“Ah! I was just thinking that you would be the only person who could be
of use--you who know foreign languages and all their ways. If you could
go abroad, and arrange it for me!”
“If my daughter were restored---” began the Major.
“I see what you would say, and I am convinced that the first step
towards the discovery would be to put Mr. Belamour under restraint, and
separate his black from him. Then one or other of them would speak, and
we might know how she has been played upon.”
“What does your Ladyship suppose then?” asked the Major.
“This is what I imagine. The poor silly maid repents herself and comes
back in search of me. Would that she had found me, her best friend! But
instead of that, she falls in with old Belamour, and he, having by this
time perceived the danger of the perilous masquerade in which he had
involved my unlucky boy, a minor, has mewed her up somewhere, till the
cry should be over.”
“That would be the part of a villain, but scarcely of a madman,” said
Betty dryly.
“My dear cousin Betty, there are lunatics endowed with a marvellous
shrewdness to commit senseless villanies, and to put on a specious
seeming. Depend upon it, my unfortunate brother-in-law’s wanderings at
night were not solely spent in communings with the trees and brooks. Who
knows what might be discovered if he were under proper restraint? And it
is to you, the only relation I have, that I must turn for assistance in
my most unhappy circumstances,” she added, wit a glance so full of sweet
helplessness that no man could withstand it. “I am so glad you are here.
You will be acting for me as well as for yourself in endeavouring to
find your poor lovely child, and the first thing I would have done would
be to separate Belamour and his black, put them under restraint, and
interrogate them separately. You could easily get an order from a
magistrate. But ah, here comes my woman. No more now. You will come to
me this evening, and we can talk further on this matter. I shall have
some company, and it will not be a regular rout, only a few card-tables,
and a little dancing for the young people.”
“Your ladyship must excuse me,” said Betty, “I have no dress to appear
in, even if I had spirits for the company.”
“Ah! my dear cousin, how do you think it is with my spirits? Yet I think
it my duty not to allow myself to be moped, but to exert myself for the