Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume
The paper was a formal renunciation of all rights or claims from the
fictitious marriage by which she had been deceived, and an absolute
pledge never to renew any contract with Sir Amyas Belamour, Knight
Baronet, who had grossly played on her.
“No, I cannot,” said Aurelia, pushing it from her.
“Indeed, miss, I would not persuade you to it if it were not for your
own good; but you may be sure it is no use holding out against her
Ladyship. If you sign it now, and give it up honourable, she will send
Mr. Dove home with you, and there you’ll be as if nothing had been
amiss, no one knowing nothing about it; but if you persist it will not
make the marriage a bit more true, and you will only be kept moped up in
this dismal place till his Honour is married, and there’s no saying what
worse my Lady may do to you.”
Another night of rats came up before Aurelia’s imagination in contrast
with the tender welcome at home; but the white face and the tones that
had exclaimed, “Madam, what are you doing to my wife?” arose and forbade
her. She would not fail him. So she said firmly once more, “No, Mrs.
Loveday, I cannot. I do not know what lawyers may say, but I feel myself
bound to Sir Amyas, and I will not break my vow--God helping me,” she
added under breath.
“You must write it to her ladyship then. She will never take such a
message through me. Here is paper and pen that I brought, in hopes that
you would be wise and submit for your honoured father’s sake.”
“My father cannot be persecuted for what he has nothing to do with,”
said Aurelia, with the gentle dignity that had grown on her since her
troubles. And taking the pen, she wrote her simple refusal, signing it
Aurelia Belamour.
“As you please, ma’am,” said Mrs. Loveday, “but I have my Lady’s orders
to bring this paper every day till you sign it, and it would be better
for you if you would do it at once.”
Aurelia only shook her head, and asked if Mrs. Loveday had seen that she
had finished sorting the shells. Yes; and as she was now dressed they
went down together to the sitting-room. The shutters were still closed,
Madge would not put a hand to the room except on the compulsion, and
Aurelia’s enemies had left evidence of their work; not only was the
odour of the room like that of a barn, but the paper bags had in some
cases been bitten through, and the shells scattered about, and of the
loaf and butter which Aurelia had left on a high shelf in the cupboard
nothing remained but a few fragments.
Loveday was very much shocked, all the more when Aurelia quietly said
she should not mind it so much if the rats would only stay down stairs,
and not run over her in bed.
“Yet you will not sign the paper.”
“I cannot,” again said Aurelia.
“My stars, I never could abear rats! Why they fly at one’s throat
sometimes!”
“I hope God will take care of me,” said Aurelia, in a trembling voice.
“He did last night.”
Loveday began a formal leave-taking curtsey, but presently turned back.
“There now,” she said, “I cannot do it, I couldn’t sleep a wink for
thinking of you among the rats! Look here, I shall send a porter to
bring away those shells if you’ll make up their bags again that the
nasty vermin have eaten, and there’s a little terrier dog about the
place that no one will miss, he shall bring it down, and depend upon it,
the rats won’t venture near it.”
“Oh! thank you, Mrs. Loveday, how good you are!”
“Ah, don’t then! If you could say that my dear!”
Mrs. Loveday hurried away, and after breakfasting, Aurelia repaired the
ravages of the rats, and made a last sorting of the residuum of shell
dust, discovering numerous minute beauties, which awoke in her the happy
thought of the Creator’s individual love.
She had not yet finished before Madge’s voice was heard in querulous
anger, and a heavy tread came along with her. A big man, who could have
carried ten times the weight of the box of shells, came in with a little
white dog with black ears, under his arm.
“There,” said the amiable guardian of the house, “that smart madam says
that it’s her ladyship’s pleasure you should have that little beast to
keep down the rats. As if my cats was not enough! But mind you, Madam
Really, if so be he meddles with my cats, it will be the worse for him.”
The porter took up the box, and departed, and Aurelia was left with
her new companion sniffing all round the room, much excited by the
neighbourhood of his natural enemies. However, he obeyed her call, and
let her make friends, and read the name on the brass plate upon his
collar. When she read “Sir A. Belamour, Bart.,” she took the little dog
in her arms and kissed it’s white head.
Being fairly rested, and having no task to accomplish, she felt the day
much longer, though less solitary, in the companionship of the dog, to
whom she whispered many fond compliments, and vain questions as to his
name. With him at her heels and Madge and her cats safely shut into the
kitchen, she took courage to wander about the dull court, and then to
explore the mansion and try to get a view from the higher windows, in
case they were not shuttered up like the lower ones. The emptiness
of Bowstead was nothing to this, and she smiled to herself at having
thought herself a prisoner there.
Most of the rooms were completely dismantled, or had only ghastly rags
of torn leather or tapestry hanging to their walls. The upper windows,
however, were merely obscured by dust and cobwebs. Her own bedroom
windows only showed the tall front of an opposite house, but climbing
to the higher storey, she could see at the back over the garden wall
the broad sheet of the Thames, covered with boats and wherries, and the
banks provided with steps and stairs, at the opening of every street on
the opposite side, where she beheld a confused mass of trees, churches,
and houses. Nearer, the view to the westward was closed in by a stately
edifice which she did not know to be Somerset House; and from another
window on the east side of the house she saw, over numerous tiled
roofs, a gateway which she guessed to be Temple Bar, and a crowded
thoroughfare, where the people looked like ants, toiling towards the
great dome that rose in the misty distance. Was this the way she was to
see London?
Coming down with a lagging step, she met Madge’s face peering up.
“Humph! there you be, my fine miss! No gaping after sweethearts from the
window, or it will be the worse for you.”
The terrier growled, as having already adopted his young lady’s defence,
and Aurelia, dreading a perilous explosion of his zeal in her cause,
hurried him into her parlour.
CHAPTER XXXI. THE SECOND TASK.
Hope no more,
Since thou art furnished with hidden lore,
To ‘scape thy due reward if any day
Without some task accomplished passed away.
MOORE.
The little dog’s presence was a comfort, but his night of combat and
scuffling was not a restful one and the poor prisoner’s sickness of
heart and nervous terrors grew upon her every hour, with misgivings
lest she should be clinging to a shadow, and sacrificing her return to
Betty’s arms for a phantom. There were moments when her anguish of
vague terror and utter loneliness impelled her to long to sign her
renunciation that moment; and when she thought of recurring hours and
weeks of such days and such nights her spirit quailed within her, and
Loveday might have found her less calmly steadfast had she come in the
morning.
She did not come, and this in itself was a disappointment, for at least
she brought a human voice and a pitying countenance which, temptress
though she might be, had helped to bear Aurelia through the first days.
Oh! could she but find anything to do! She had dusted her two rooms as
well as she could consistently with care for the dress she could not
change. She blamed herself extremely for having forgotten her Bible and
Prayer-book when hastily making up her bundle of necessaries, and though
there was little chance that Madge should possess either, or be able to
read, she nerved herself to ask. “Bible! what should ye want of a Bible,
unless to play the hypocrite? I hain’t got none!” was the reply.
So Aurelia could only walk up and down the court trying to repeat the
Psalms, and afterwards the poetry she had learnt for Mr. Belamour’s
benefit, sometimes deriving comfort from the promises, but oftener
wondering whether he had indeed deserted her in anger at her distrustful
curiosity. She tried to scrape the mossgrown Triton, she crept up stairs
to the window that looked towards the City, and cleared off some of the
dimness, and she got a needle and thread and tried to darn the holes
in the curtains and cushions, but the rotten stuff crumbled under her
fingers, and would not hold the stitches. At last she found in a dusty
corner a boardless book with neither beginning nor end, being Defoe’s
_Plague of London_. She read and read with a horrid fascination,
believing every word of it, wondering whether this house could have been
infected, and at length feeling for the plague spot!
A great church-clock enabled her to count the hours! Oh, how many there
were of them! How many more would there be? This was only her
second day, and deliverance could not come for weeks, were her young
husband--if husband he were--ever so faithful. How should she find
patience in this dreariness, interspersed with fits of alarm lest he
should be dangerously ill and suffering? She fell on her knees and
prayed for him and for herself!
Here it was getting dark again, and Madge would hunt her in presently
and shut the shutters. Hark! what was that? A bell echoing over the
house! Madge came after her. “Where are you, my fine mistress! Go you
into the parlour, I say,” and she turned the key upon the prisoner,
whose heart beat like a bird fluttering in a cage. Suddenly her door was
opened, and in darted Fidelia and Lettice, who flung themselves upon her
with ecstatic shrieks of “Cousin Aura, dear cousin Aura!” Loveday was
behind, directing the bringing in of trunks from a hackney coach. All
she said was, “My Lady’s daughters are to be with you for the night,
madam; I must not say more, for her ladyship is waiting for me.”
She was gone, while the three were still in the glad tangle of an
embrace beginning again and again, with all sorts of little exclamations
from the children, into which Aurelia broke with the inquiry for their
brother. “He is much better,” said Fay. “He is to get up to-morrow, and
then he will come and find you.”
“Have you seen him?”
“Oh, yes, and he says it is Sister Aura, and not Cousin Aura--”
“My dear, dear little sisters--” and she hugged them again.
“I was sitting upon his bed,” said Letty, “and we were all talking about
you when my Lady mamma came. Are mothers kinder than Lady mammas?”
“Was she angry?” asked Aurelia.
“Oh! she frightened me,” said Fay. “She said we were pert, forward
misses, and we must hold our tongues, for we should be whipped if we
ever said you name, Cousin--Sister Aura, again; and she would not let us
go to wish Brother Amyas good-bye this morning.”
Aurelia’s heart could not but leap with joy that her tyrant should have
failed in carrying to Bowstead the renunciation of the marriage. Whether
Lady Belamour meant it or not, she had made resistance much easier by
the company of Faith and Hope, if only for a single night. She gathered
from their prattle that their mother, having found that their talk with
their brother was all of the one object of his thoughts, had carried
them off summarily, and had been since driving about London in search
of a school at which to leave them; but they were too young for Queen’s
Square, and there was no room at another house at which Lady Belamour