Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume
hours since her sister had tasted food.
Sir Amyas and Betty hovered about her, giving her whatever she could
need, in the partial light, while the others stood apart, exchanging
such explanations as they could. Mr. Wayland said he must report himself
to Government on the morrow; but intended afterwards to take his wife
to Bowstead, whither she had sent all her children with Mrs. Dove. There
was a great tenderness in his tone as he spoke of her, and when he took
leave Mr. Belamour shrugged his shoulders saying, “She will come round
him again!”
“It is true enough that he ought not to have left her to herself,” said
the Major.
“You making excuses for her after the diabolical plot of to-day?” said
Mr. Belamour; “I could forgive her all but that letter to you.”
“My Lady loves her will,” quoted the Major; “it amounts to insanity in
some women, I believe.”
“So I might say does men’s infatuation towards women like her,” muttered
Mr. Belamour.
By this time Aurelia had finished her meal, and Betty was anxious to
carry her off without any more excitement, for she was still drowsy and
confused. She bade her father good night, asking his blessing as of old,
but when Mr. Belamour kissed her hand and repeated the good night, she
said, “Sir, I ought to have trusted you; I am so sorry.”
“It is all well now, my child,” he said, soothingly, understanding
Betty’s wish; “Sleep, and we will talk it over.”
So the happy sisters once more slept in each other’s arms, till in the
early summer morning Betty heard the whole story from Aurelia, now
fully herself, though she slumbered again after all was poured into her
sister’s bosom.
Betty had sympathised step by step, and felt even more strongly than
Harriet that the situation had been intolerable for womanhood, and that
only Aurelia’s childishness could have endured it so long. Only the
eldest sister held that it would have been right and honourable to
have spoken before flashing out the flame; but when, with many tears of
contrition, Aurelia owned that she had long thought so, and longed to
confess it, what could the motherly sister do but kiss the tears away,
and rejoice that the penance was over which had been borne with such
constancy and self-devotion.
Then Betty rose quietly, and after giving thanks on her knees that the
gentle spirit had passed through all unscathed, untainted with even the
perception of evil, she applied herself to the adaptation of one of her
morning caps to her poor shorn lamb’s head. Nor did Aurelia wake again
till her father came to the door to make sure that all was well with his
recovered treasure, and to say that Loveday would recover for her the
box of clothes, which old Madge had hidden.
Loveday had gone back to her mistress, who either had not discovered her
betrayal, or, as things had turned out, could not resent it.
So, fresh and blooming, Aurelia came out into the sitting-room, whence
her father held out his arms to her. He would have her all to himself
for a little while, since even Eugene was gone to his daily delight, the
seeing the changing of the guard.
“And now, my child, tell me,” he said, when he had heard a little of her
feelings through these adventures, “what would you have me do? Remember,
such a wedding as yours goes for nothing, and you are still free to
choose either or neither of your swains.”
“Oh, papa!” in a remonstrating tone.
“You were willing to wed your old hermit?”
“I was content _then_. He was very kind to me.”
“Content then, eh? Suppose you were told he was your real husband?”
“Sir, he is not!” cried Aurelia, frightened.
“If he were?”
“I would try to do my duty,” she said, in a choked voice.
“Silly child, don’t cry. And how, if after these fool’s tricks it
turns out that the other young spark is bound to that red-faced little
spitfire and cannot have you?”
“Papa, don’t!” she cried. “You know he is my husband in my heart, and
always will be, and if he cannot come back to me take me home, and I
will try to be a good daughter to you,” and she hid her face on his
shoulder.
“Poor child, it is a shame to tease her,” said her father, raising up
her face; “I only wanted to know which of them you would wish to put on
the ring again. I see. You need not be afraid, you shall have the ruby
one. But as for the little gold one, wait for that till it is put on in
church, my dear. Ah! and there’s the flutter of his wings, or rather the
rattle of his spurs. Now then, young people, you shall not be hindered
from a full view of each others lineaments. It is the first time you
ever had a real sight of each other, neither of you being in a swoon, is
it not? I trust you do not repent upon further acquaintance. Aurelia got
as far as the shoe-buckles once, I believe.”
“She will get no farther this time, sir, if you annihilate her with your
pleasantry,” said Betty, fully convinced by this time.
“Ah! young Love has made himself more dazzling than ever,” continued
the Major, too delighted to be stopped. “The fullest dress uniform, I
declare; M. le Capitaine is bent on doing honour to the occasion.”
“Would that it were on for no other reason, sir,” said Sir Amyas; “but
the King and Queen have taken it into their heads to go off to Kew and
here am I under orders to command the escort. I verily believe it is all
spite on the Colonel’s part, for Russell would have exchanged the turn
with me, but he sent down special orders for me. I have but half an hour
to spend here, and when I shall be able to get back again Heaven only
knows.”
However, he and Aurelia were permitted to improve that half hour to the
utmost in their own way, while the Major and Betty were reading a long
and characteristic letter from Mrs. Arden, inquiring certainly for
her sister’s fate, but showing far more solicitude in proving that she
(Harriet Arden) had acted a wise, prudent, and sisterly part, and that
it was most unreasonable and cruel to treat her as accountable for her
sister’s disappearance. It was really making her quite ill, and Mr.
Arden was like a man--so disagreeable about it.
Betty was very glad this epistle had not come till it was possible to
laugh at it. She would have sat down to reply to it at once, had not a
billet been brought in from the widow of one of her father’s old brother
officers who had heard of his being in town, and begged him to bring his
daughter to see her, excusing herself for not waiting on Miss Delavie,
as she was very feeble and infirm.
It was a request that could not be refused, but Aurelia was not equipped
for such a visit, and shrank timidly from showing herself. So when Mr.
Belamour came down it was agreed that she should remain at home under
his protection, in which she could be very happy, though his person was
as strange to her as his voice was familiar. Indeed she felt as if a
burden was on her mind till she could tell him of her shame at having
failed in the trust and silence that he had enjoined on her.
“My child,” he said, “we have carried it too far. It was more than we
ought to have required of you, and I knew it. I had made up my mind, and
told my nephew that the first time you really asked I should tell the
whole truth, and trust to your discretion, while of course he wished for
nothing more.”
“As my sister said, it was my fault.”
“Nay, I think you had good cause to stand on your defence, and I cannot
have you grieve over it. You have shown an unshaken steadiness under
trial since, such as ought indeed to be compensation.”
“I deserved it all,” said Aurelia; “and I do hope that I am a little
wiser and less foolish for it all; a little more of a woman,” she added,
blushing.
“A soul trained by love and suffering, as in the old legend,” said Mr.
Belamour thoughtfully.
Thoroughly pleasant was here _tete-a-tete_ with him, especially when she
artlessly asked him whether her dear sister were not all she had told
him, and he fervently answered that indeed she was “a perfect lesson to
all so-called beauties of what true loveliness of a countenance can be.”
“Oh, I am so glad,” cried Aurelia. “I never saw a face--a woman’s I
mean--that I like as well as my dear sister’s!”
She was sorry when they were interrupted by a call from Mr. Wayland, who
had reported himself at the Secretary of War, but could do no more that
day, and had come to inquire for her. He and Mr. Belamour drew apart
into a window, and conversed in a low voice, and then they came to her,
and Mr. Wayland desired to know from where she found the recipe for the
cosmetic which had nearly cost her so dearly.
“It was in a shelf in the wainscoting, in a sort of little study at that
house,” said Aurelia.
“Among other papers?”
“Quantities of other papers.”
“Of what kind?”
“Letters, and bills, and wills, and parchments! Oh, so dusty! Some were
on paper tumbling to pieces, and some on tiny slips of parchment.”
“And you read them all?”
“I had to read them to see what they were, as well as I could make out,
and sorted them and tied them up in bundles.”
“Can you tell me whether they were Delavie wills?”
“I should think they were. I know that the oldest of all were Latin,
and I could make nothing out in them but something about _Manoriem_
and Carminster, and what looked like the names of some of the fields at
home.”
“Do you think you could show me those slips?”
“I do not suppose any one has touched them.”
“Then, my dear young lady, you would confer a great favour on me if you
would allow Mr. Belamour and myself to escort you to Delavie and show us
these papers. I fear it may be alarming and distressing.”
“Oh no, sir, I know no harm can happen to me where Mr. Belamour is,” she
said, smiling.
“It may be very important,” he said, and she went to put on her hood.
“Surely,” said Mr. Wayland, “the title-deeds cannot have been left
there?”
“No. The title-deeds to the main body of the property are at Hargrave’s.
I have seen them, at the time of my brother’s marriage; but still this
may be what was wanting.”
“Yet the sending this child to search is presumption that no such
document existed.”
“Of course no one supposed it did,” said Mr. Wayland, on the defence
again.
Aurelia was quickly ready in her little hood and kerchief, and trim
high-heeled shoes. She was greatly surprised to find how near she had
been to her friends during these last few days of her captivity, and
when Madge obeyed the summons to the door, the old woman absolutely
smiled to see her safe, and the little terrier danced about her in such
transports that she begged to take him back with her.
She opened the door of the little empty book room, where nothing stood
except the old bureau. That, she said, had been full of letters, but all
the oldest things had been within a door opening in the wainscot, which
she should never have found had not Bob pushed it open in his search for
rats, and then she found a tin case full of papers and parchments, much
older, she thought, than the letters. She had tied them up together, and
easily produced them.
Mr. Wayland handed them to Mr. Belamour, whose legal eye was better
accustomed to crabbed old documents. A conversation that had begun
on the way about Fay and Letty was resumed, and interested both their
father and Aurelia so much that they forgot to be impatient, until
Mr. Belamour looked up from his examination, saying, “This is what was
wanting. Here is a grant in the 12th year of Henry III. to Guglielmus ab
Vita and the heirs male of his body to the Manor, lying without the city
of Carminster, and here are three wills of successive lords of Delavie
expressly mentioning heirs male. Now the deeds that I have seen do not
go beyond 1539, when Henry Delavie had a grant of the Grange and lands