Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume
allowed to go for a walk in the park with Palmer, while Betty sat in her
own room with her Bible, striving to strengthen her assurance that
the innocent would never be forsaken. Indeed Mr. Belamour had much
strengthened her grounds of hope and comfort by his testimony to poor
Aurelia’s perfect guilelessness and simplicity throughout the affair.
Yet the echo of that girl’s chatter about Lady Belle’s rival being sent
beyond the sea would return upon her ominously, although it might be
mere exaggeration and misapprehension, like so much besides.
A great clock, chiming one, warned her to repair to the sitting-room,
where she met Eugene, full of the unedifying spectacle of a fight
between two street lads. There had been a regular ring, and the boy had
been so much excited that Palmer had had much ado to bring him away.
Betty had scarcely hushed his eager communications and repaired his
toilette for dinner before Sir Amyas came in, having hurried away as
soon as possible after attending his men to and from church.
“Sister,” he said, for so he insisted on calling Betty, “I really think
my uncle’s surmise may be right. I went home past Delavie House last
night, just to look at it, and there was--there really was, a light in
one of the windows on the first floor, which always used to be as black
as Erebus. I had much ado to keep myself from thundering at the gate. I
would have done so before now but for my uncle’s warning. Where can he
be?”
The Major and Mr. Belamour here came in together, and the same torrent
was beginning to be poured forth, when the latter cut it short with,
“They are about to lay the cloth. Restrain yourself, my dear boy, or---”
and as at that moment the waiter entered, he went on with the utmost
readiness--“or, as it seems, the Queen of Hungary will never make good
her claims. Pray, sir,” turning to Major Delavie, “have you ever seen
these young Archduchesses whose pretensions seem likely to convulse the
continent to its centre?”
The Major, with an effort to gather his attention, replied that he could
not remember; but Betty, with greater presence of mind, described how
she had admired the two sisters of Austria as little girls walking on
the Prater. Indeed she and Mr. Belamour contrived to keep up the ball
till the Major was roused into giving an opinion of Prussian discipline,
and to tell stories of Leopold of Dessau, Eugene, and Marlborough with
sufficient zest to drive the young baronet almost frantic, especially
as Jumbo, behind his master’s chair, was on the broad grin all the time,
and almost dancing in his shoes. Once he contrived to give an absolute
wink with one of his big black eyes; not, however, undetected, for Mr.
Belamour in a grave tone of reprimand ordered him off to fetch an ivory
toothpick-case.
Not till the cloth had been remove, and dishes of early strawberries and
of biscuits, accompanied by bottles of port and claret, placed on the
table, and the servants had withdrawn, did Mr. Belamour observe, “I have
penetrated the outworks.”
There was an outburst of inquiry and explanation, but he was not to be
prevented from telling the story in his own way. “I know the house well,
for my brother lived there the first years of his marriage, before you
came on the stage, young sir. Perhaps you do not know how to open the
door from without?”
“Oh, sir, tell me the trick!”
Mr. Belamour held up a small pass-key. There was a certain tone of
banter about him which almost drove his nephew wild, but greatly
reassured Miss Delavie.
“Why--why keep me in torments, instead of taking me with you?” cried the
youth.
“Because I wished my expedition to be no failure. I could not tell
whether my key, which I found with my watch and seals, would still
serve me. Ah! you look on fire; but remember the outworks are not the
citadel.”
“For Heaven’s sake, sir, torture me not thus!”
“I knew that to make my summons at the out gate would lead to a summary
denial by the sour porteress, so I experimented on the lock of the
little door into the lane, and admitted myself and Jumbo into the court;
but the great hall-door stood before me jealously closed, and the lower
windows were shut with shutters, so that all I could do was to cause
Jumbo to awake the echoes with a lusty peal on the knocker, which he
repeated at intervals, until there hobbled forth to open it a crone as
wrinkled and crabbed as one of Macbeth’s witches. I demanded whether my
Lady Belamour lived there. She croaked forth a negative sound, and had
nearly shut the door in my face, but I kept her in parley by protesting
that I had often visited my Lady there, and offering a crown-piece if
she would direct me to her.”
“A crown! a kingdom, if she would bring us to the right one!” cried Sir
Amyas.
“Of course she directed me to Hanover Square, and then, evidently
supposing there was something amiss with the great gates, she insisted
on coming to let me out, and securing them after me.”
The youth gave a great groan, saying, “Excuse me, sir, but what are we
the better of that?”
“Endure a little while, impatient swain, and you shall hear. I fancy
she recognised the Belamour Livery on Jumbo, for she hobbled by my side
maundering apologies about its being against orders to admit gentle or
simple, beast or body into the court, and that a poor woman could not
lose her place and the roof over her head. But mark me, while this
was passing, Jumbo, who had kept nearer the house whistling ‘The
Nightingale’ just above his breath, heard his name called, and presently
saw two little faces at an up-stairs window.”
“My little sisters!” cried Sir Amyas.
“Even so; and he believes he heard one of them call out, ‘Cousin, cousin
Aura, come and see Jumbo;’ but as the window was high up, I scarce
dare credit his ears rather than his imagination, and we were instantly
hustled away by the old woman, whose evident alarm is a further
presumption that the captive is there, since Faith and Hope scarce have
reached the years of being princesses immured in towers.”
“It must be so,” said Betty; “it would explain Lady Belle’s having had
access to her! And now?”
“Is it impossible to effect an entrance from the court and carry her
away?” asked Sir Amyas.
“Entirely so,” said his uncle. “The only door into the court is fit to
stand a siege, and all the lower windows are barred and fastened with
shutters. The servants’ entrance is at the back towards the river, but
no doubt it is also guarded, and my key will not serve for it.”
“I could get some sprightly fellow of ours to come disguised as Mohocks,
and break in,” proceeded the youth, eagerly. “Once in the court, trust
me for forcing my way to her.”
“And getting lodged in Newgate for your pains, or tried by
court-martial,” said the Major. “No, when right is on our side, do
not let us make it wrong. Hush, Sir Amyas, it is I who must here act.
Whether you are her husband I do not know, I know that I am her father,
and to-morrow morning, as soon as a magistrate can be spoken with,
I shall go and demand a search warrant for the body of my daughter,
Aurelia Delavie.”
“The body! Good Heavens, sir,” cried Betty.
“Not without the sweet soul, my dear Miss Delavie,” said Mr. Belamour.
“Your excellent father has arrived at the only right and safe decision,
and provided no farther alarm is given, I think he may succeed. It is
scarcely probable that my Lady is in constant communication with her
stern porteress, and my person was evidently unknown. For her own
sake, as well as that of the small fee I dropped into her hand, she is
unlikely to report my reconnoissance.”
Sir Amyas was frantic to go with his father-in-law, but both the elder
men justly thought that his ambiguous claims would but complicate the
matter. The landlord was consulted as to the acting magistrates of the
time, and gave two or three addresses.
Another night of prayer, suspense, and hope for Betty’s sick heart.
Then, immediately after breakfast, the Major set forth, attended by
Palmer, long before Mr. Belamour had left his room, or the young baronet
could escape from his military duties. Being outside the City,
the Strand was under the jurisdiction of justices of the peace for
Middlesex, and they had so much more than they could do properly, that
some of them did it as little as possible. The first magistrate would
not see him, because it was too early to attend to business; the second
never heard matters at his private house, and referred him to the office
in Bow Street. In fact he would have been wiser to have gone thither at
first, but he had hoped to have saved time. He had to wait sitting on
a greasy chair when he could no longer stand, till case after case
was gone through, and when he finally had a hearing and applied for
a warrant to search for his daughter in Delavie House, there was much
surprise and reluctance to put such an insult on a lady of quality in
favour at Court. On his giving his reasons on oath for believing the
young lady to be there, the grounds of his belief seemed to shrink away,
so that the three magistrates held consultation whether the warrant
could be granted. Finally, after eying him all over, and asking him
where he had served, one of them, who had the air of having been in the
army, told him that in consideration of his being a gentleman of high
respectability who had served his country, they granted what he asked,
being assured that he would not make the accusation lightly. The reforms
made by Fielding had not yet begun, everybody had too much work, and the
poor Major had still some time to wait before an officer--tipstaff, as
he was called--could accompany him, so that it was past noon when,
off in the Bowstead carriage again, they went along the Strand, to a
high-walled court belonging to one of the old houses of the nobility,
most of which had perished in the fire of London. There was a
double-doored gateway, and after much thundering in vain, at which the
tipstaff, a red-nosed old soldier, waxed very irate, the old woman came
out in curtseying, crying, frightened humility, declaring that they
would find no one there--they might look if they would.
So they drove over the paved road, crossing the pitched pebbles, the
door was unbarred, but no Aurelia sprang into her father’s arms. Only a
little terrier came barking out into the dismal paved hall. Into every
room they looked, the old woman asseverating denials that it was of no
use, they might see for themselves, that no one had been there for years
past. Full of emptiness, indeed, with faded grimy family portraits on
the walls, moth-eaten carpets and cushions, high-backed chairs with
worm-holes; and yet, somehow, there was one room that did look as if
it had recently been sat in. Two little stools were drawn up close to a
chair; the terrier poked and smelt about uneasily as though in search
of some one, and dragged out from under a couch a child’s ball which he
began to worry. On the carpet, too, were some fragments of bright fresh
embroidery silk, which the practiced eye of the constable noticed. “This
here was not left ten or a dozen years ago,” said he; and, extracting
the ball from the fangs of the dog, “No, and this ball ain’t ten year
old, neither. Come, Mother What’s’-name, it’s no good deceiving an
officer of the law; whose is this here ball?”
“It’s the little misses. They’ve a bin here with their maid, but their
nurse have been and fetched ‘em away this morning, and a good riddance
too.”
“Who was the maid?--on your oath!”
“One Deborah Davis, a deaf woman, and pretty nigh a dumb one. She be
gone too.”
Nor could the old woman tell where she was to be found. “My Lady’s woman
sent her in,” she said, “and she was glad enough to be rid of her.”
“Come, now, my good woman, speak out, and it will be better for you,”