Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume
So up the creaking stairs she was guided to a room, very unlike that
fresh white bower at Bowstead, large, eerie, ghostly-looking, bare
save for a dark oak chest, and a bed of the same material, the posts
apparently absolute trees, squared and richly carved, and supporting a
solid wooden canopy with an immense boss as big as a cabbage, and carved
something like one, depending from the centre, as if to endanger the
head of the unwary, who should start up in bed. No means of ablution
were provided, and Aurelia felt so grimed and dusty that she ventured to
beg for an ewer and basin; but her amiable hostess snarled out that she
had enough to do without humouring fiddle-faddle whimsies, and that she
might wash at the pump if nothing else would serve her.
Aurelia wished she had known this before going up stairs, and, worn out
as she was, the sense implanted by her mother that it was wicked to go
to sleep dirty, actually made her drag herself down to a grim little
scullery, where she was permitted to borrow a wooden bowl, since she
was too _nice_ forsooth to wash down stairs. She carried it up with a
considerable trouble more than half full, and a bit of yellow soap and
clean towel were likewise vouchsafed to her. The wash--perhaps because
of the infinite trouble it cost her--did her great good,--it gave her
energy to recollect her prayers and bring good angels about her. If this
had been her first plunge from home, when Jumbo’s violin had so scared
her, such a place as this would have almost killed her; but the peace
that had come to her in Sedhurst Church lingered still round her, and
as she climbed up into the lofty bed the verse sang in her ears “Love is
strong as death.” Whether Love Divine or human she did not ask herself,
but with the sense of soothing upon her, she slept--and slept as a
seventeen-years’-old frame will sleep after having been thirty-six hours
awake and afoot.
When she awoke it was with the sense of some one being in the room. “O
gemini!” she heard, and starting up, only just avoiding the knob, she
saw Mrs. Loveday’s well-preserved brunette face gazing at her.
“Your servant, ma’am,” she said. “You’ll excuse me if I speak with you
here, for I must be back by the time my Lady’s bell rings.”
“Is it very late?” said Aurelia, taking from under her pillow her watch,
which had stopped long ago.
“Nigh upon ten o’clock,” said Loveday. “I must not stay, but it is my
Lady’s wish that you should have all that is comformable, and you’ll let
me know how Madge behaves herself.”
“Is there any news from Bowstead?” was all Aurelia could at first
demand.
“Not yet; but bless you, my dear young lady, you had best put all that
matter out of your head for ever and a day. I know what these young
gentlemen are. They are not to be hearkened to one moment, not the best
of them. Let them be ever so much in earnest at the time, their parents
and guardians have the mastery of them sooner or later, and the farther
it has gone, the worse it is. I saw you lying asleep here looking so
innocent that it went to my heart, and I heard you mutter in your sleep
‘Love is strong as death,’ but that’s only a bit of some play-book, and
don’t you trust to it, for I never saw love that was stronger than a
spider’s web.”
“Oh, hush, Mrs. Loveday. It is in the Bible!”
“You don’t say so, ma’am,” the woman said awestruck.
“I would show it you, only all my things are away. God is love, you
know,” said Aurelia, sitting up with clasped hands, “and He gives it, so
it must be strong.”
“Well, all the love I’ve ever seen was more the devil’s,” said Loveday
truly enough; “and you’ll find it so if you mean to trust to these fine
young beaux and what they say.”
Aurelia shook her head a little as she sat up in bed with her clasped
hands; and there was a look on her face that Mrs. Loveday did not
understand, as she went on with her advice.
“So, my dear young lady, you see all that is left for you is to frame
your mind to keep close here, and conform to my Lady’s will till all is
blown over one way or another.”
“I know that,” said Aurelia.
“Don’t’ you do anything to anger her,” added the waiting-woman, “for
there’s no one who can stand against her; and I’ll speak up for you when
I can, for I know how to come round my Lady, if any one does. Tell me
what you want, and I’ll get it for you; but don’t try to get out, and
don’t send Madge, for she is not to be trusted with money. If I were
you, I’d not let her see that watch, and I’d lock my door at night.
You’re too innocent, whatever my Lady may say. Here’s half a pound of
tea and sugar, which you had best keep to yourself, and I’ve seen
to there being things decent down stairs. Tell me, my dear, is there
anything you want? Your clothes, did you say? Oh, yes, you shall have
them--yes, and your books. Here’s some warm water,” as a growling was
heard at the door; “I must not wait till you are dressed, but there’s a
box of shells down in your room that Mr. Wayland sent home for my Lady
to line a grotto with, and she wants them all sorted out. ‘Tell her she
must make herself of use if she wants to be forgiven,’ says my Lady, for
she is in a mighty hurry for them now she has heard of the Duchess of
Portland’s grotto; though she has let them lie here unpacked for this
half year and more. So if they are all done by night, maybe may Lady
will be pleased to let you have a bit more liberty.”
Mrs. Loveday departed, having certainly cheered the captive, and Aurelia
rose, weary-limbed and sad-hearted, with a patient trust in her soul
that Love Divine would not fail her, and that earthly love would do its
best.
She found matters improved in the down-stairs room, the furniture was in
order, a clean cloth on the table, a white roll, butter, and above all
clean bright implements, showing Mrs. Loveday’s influence. She ate and
drank like a hungry girl, washed up for herself rather than let Madge
touch anything she could help, and looked from the window into a
dull court of dreary, blighted-looking turf divided by flagged walks,
radiating from a statue in the middle, representing a Triton blowing a
conch--no doubt intended to spout water, for there was a stone trough
round him, but he had long forgotten his functions, and held a sparrow’s
nest with streaming straws in his hand. This must be the prison-yard,
where alone she might walk, since it lay at the back of the house; and
with a sense of depression she turned to the task that awaited her.
A very large foreign-looking case had been partly opened, and when she
looked in she was appalled at the task to be accomplished in one day.
It was crammed with shells of every size and description, from the
large helmet-conch and Triton’s trumpet, down to the tiny pink cowry
and rice-volute, all stuffed together without arrangement or packing,
forming a mass in which the unbroken shells reposed in a kind of sand,
of _debris_ ground together out of the victims; and when she took up a
tolerably-sized univalve, quantities of little ones came tumbling out
of its inner folds. She took up a handful, and presently picked out
one perfect valve like a rose petal, three fairy cups of limpets, four
ribbed cowries, and a thing like a green pea. Of course she knew no
names, but a kind of interest was awakened by the beauty and variety
before her. A pile of papers had been provided, and the housewife [a
pocket-size container for small articles (as thread)--D.L.] which Betty
made her always carry in her pocket furnished wherewithal to make up a
number of bags for the lesser sorts; and she went to work, her troubles
somewhat beguiled by the novel beauties of each delicate creature
she disinterred, but remembering with a pang how, if she could have
described them to Mr. Belamour, he would have discoursed upon the Order
of Nature.
London noises were not the continuous roar of vehicles of the present
day, but there was sound enough to remind the country girl where she
was, and the street cries “Old Clothes!” “Sprats, oh!” “Sweep!” were
heard over the wall, sometimes with tumultuous voices that seemed
to enhance her loneliness, as she sat on the floor, hour after hour,
sifting out the entire shells, and feeling a languid pleasure in joining
the two halves of a bivalve, especially those lovely sunset shells that
have rosy rays diverging from their crimson hinge over their polished
surface, white, or just tinted with the hues of a daffodil sky. She
never clasped a pair together without a little half-uttered ejaculation,
“Oh, bring me and my dear young love thus together again!” And when she
found a couple making a perfect heart, and holding together through all,
she kissed it tenderly in the hope that thus it might be with her and
with him whose hand and whose voice returned on her, calling her his
dearest life!
She durst only quit the shells to eat the dinner which Madge served at
one o’clock--a tolerable meal of slices of cold beef from a cook’s-shop,
but seasoned with sour looks and a murmur at ladies’ fancies. The
weariness and languor of the former day’s exertions made her for the
present disinclined to explore the house, even had she had time, and
when twilight came there could have been little but fragments at the
bottom of the case, though she could see no more to sort them.
And what were these noises around her making her start? Rats! Yes, here
they were, venturing out from all the corners. They knew there had been
food in the room. This was why Madge had those to gaunt, weird-looking
cats in her kitchen! Aurelia went and sat on the step into the court to
be out of their way, but Madge hunted her in that the door might be shut
and barred; and when she returned trembling to the sitting room, she
heard such a scampering and a scrambling that she durst not enter, and
betook herself to her chamber and to bed.
Alas! that was no refuge. She had been too much tired to hear anything
the night before, but to-night there was scratching, nibbling,
careering, fighting, squeaking, recoil and rally, charge and rout, as
the grey Hanover rat fought his successful battle with his black English
cousin all over the floors and stairs--nay, once or twice came rushing
up and over the bed--frightening its occupant almost out of her senses,
as she cowered under the bed-clothes, not at all sure that they would
not proceed to eating her. Happily daylight came early. Aurelia, at its
first ray, darted across the room, starting in horror when she touched
a soft thing with her bare foot, opened the shutter, and threw open the
casement. Light drove the enemy back to their holes, and she had a few
hours’ sleep, but when Mrs. Loveday came to the room when she was
nearly dressed, she exclaimed, “Why, miss, you look paler than you did
yesterday.”
“The rats!” said Aurelia under her breath.
“Ah! the rats! Of course they are bad enough in an old desolate place
like this. But you’ve done the shells right beautiful, that I will say;
and you may leave this house this very day if you will only give your
consent to what my Lady asks. You shall be sent down this very day to
Carminster, if so be you’ll give up that ring of yours, and sign a paper
giving up all claim to be married to his Honour. See, here it is, all
ready, in my Lady’s letter.”
“I cannot,” said Aurelia, with her hands behind her.
“You can read my Lady’s letter,” said Loveday; “that can do you no
harm.”
Aurelia felt she must do that at least.
“CHILD,
“I will overlook your Transgression on the One Condition, that
you sign this Paper and send it with your so-called Wedding Ring back
to me immediately. Otherwise you must take the Consequences, and remain
where you are till after my Son’s Marriage.
“URANIA BELAMOUR.”