Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume
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