Books: Love and Life

C >> Charlotte M. Yonge >> Love and Life

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"I wish I had not told you," said Aurelia, tears rushing into her
eyes. "I ought not! He bade me be cautious how I talked, and you
have made me quite forget!"

"Did he so? Then it is evident that he fears disclosure! Something
must be done. Why not write to our father?"

"I could not! He would call it a silly fancy."

"And it might embroil him with my Lady," added Harriet. "We must
devise another mode."

"You will not--must not tell Mr. Arden," exclaimed Aurelia,
peremptorily.

"Never fear! He heeds nothing more sublunary than the course of the
planets. But I have it. His device will serve the purpose. Do you
remember Eugene confounding him with Friar Bacon because he was said
to light a candle without flint or steel? It was true. When he was
a bachelor he always lit his own candle and fire, and he always
carries the means. I was frighted the first time he showed me, but
now I can do it as well as he. See," she said, opening a case, "a
drop of this spirit upon this prepared cotton;" and as a bright flame
sprang up and made Aurelia start, she laughed and applied a taper to
it. "There, one such flash would be quite enough to prove to you
whether there be any deception practised on you."

"I could never do it! Light is agony to Mr. Belamour, and what would
he think?"

"He would take it for lightning, which I suppose he cannot keep out."

"One flash did come through everything last summer, but I was not
looking towards him."

"You will be wiser this time. Here, I can give you this little box,
for Mr. Arden compounded a fresh store in town."

"I dare not, sister. He has ever bidden me trust without sight; and
you cannot guess how good he is to me, and how noble and generous.
I cannot insult him by a doubt."

"Then he should not act as no true woman can endure."

"And it would hurt him."

"Tut, tut, child; if the lightning did not harm him how can this
flash? I tell you no man has a right to trifle with you in this
manner, and it is your duty to yourself and all of us to find out
the truth. Some young rake may have bribed the black, and be
personating him; and some day you may find yourself carried off
you know not where."

"Harriet, if you only knew either Mr. Belamour or Jumbo, you would
know that you are saying things most shocking!"

"Convince me, then! Look here, Aurelia, if you cannot write to me
and explain this double-faced or double-voiced husband of yours, I
vow to you that I shall speak to Mr. Arden, and write to my father."

"Oh! do not, do not, sister! Remember, it is of no use unless this
temper of affection be on him, and I have not heard it this fortnight,
no, nor more."

"Promise me, then, that you will make the experiment. See, here is
a little chain-stitch pouch--poor Peggy Duckworth's gift to me--with
two pockets. Let me fasten it under your dress, and then you will
always have it about you."

"If the bottle broke as I rode home!"

"Impossible; it is a scent-bottle of strong glass."

Here Mr. Arden knocked at the door, regretting to interrupt their
confidences, but dinner awaited them; and as, immediately after,
Mrs. Hunter brought her husband in his best wig to call on Madame
Belamour and her relations, the sisters had no more time together,
till the horses were at the door, and they went to their room
together to put on their hats.

A whole mass of refusals and declarations of perfect confidence
were on Aurelia's tongue, but Harriet cut them all short by saying,
"Remember, you are bound for your own honour and ours, to clear up
this mystery!"

Then they rode off their several ways, Madame Belamour towards
Bowstead, Mr. and Mrs. Arden on their sturdy roadster towards
Lea Farm.

CHAPTER XXII. A FATAL SPARK.

And so it chanced; which in those dark
And fireless halls was quite amazing,
Did we not know how small a spark
Can set the torch of love ablazing.
T. MOORE.

Aurelia rode home in perplexity, much afraid of the combustibles at
her girdle, and hating the task her sister had forced on her. She
felt as if her heedless avowals had been high treason to her husband;
and yet Harriet was her elder, and those assurances that as a true
woman she was bound to clear up the mystery, made her cheeks burn
with shame, and her heart thrill with the determination to vindicate
her husband, while the longing to know the face of one who so loved
her was freshly awakened.

She was strongly inclined to tell him all, indeed she knew herself
well enough to be aware that half a dozen searching questions would
draw out the whole confession of her own communication and Harriet's
unworthy suspicions; and humiliating as this would be, she longed for
the opportunity. Here, however, she was checked in her meditations
by a stumble of her horse, which proved to have lost a shoe. It was
necessary to leave the short cut, and make for the nearest forge,
and when the mischief was repaired, to ride home by the high road.

She thus came home much later than had been expected; Jumbo, Molly,
and the little girls were all watching for her, and greeted her
eagerly. The supper was already on the table for her, and she had
only just given Fay and Letty the cakes and comfits she had bought
at Brentford for them when Jumbo brought the message that his master
hoped that madam, if not too much fatigued, would come to him as soon
as her supper was finished.

Accordingly, she came without waiting to change her dress, having
only taken off her hat and arranged her hair.

She felt guilty, and dreaded the being questioned, yet longed to make
her avowal and have all explained. The usual greetings passed, and
then Mr. Belamour said, "I heard your horse hoofs come in late. You
were detained?"

She explained about the shoe, and a few sentences were passing about
her sister when she detected a movement, as if a step were stealing
towards her, together with a hesitation in the remark Mr. Belamour
was making about Mrs. Hunter's good nature.

Quite irrelevantly came in the whispering voice, "Where is my dearest
life?"

"Sir, sir!" she cried, driven at last to bay, "what is this? Are you
one or two?"

"One with you, my sweetest life! Your own--your husband!"

Therewith there was a kind of groan further off, and as Aurelia felt
a hand on her dress, her fight and distress at the duality were
complete. While, in the dark, the hands were still groping for her,
she eluded them, and succeeded in carrying out Harriet's manoeuvre
so far that a quick bright flame leapt forth, lighting up the whole
room, and revealing two--yes, two! But it did not die away! In her
haste, and in the darkness, she had poured the whole contents of the
bottle on the phosphoric cotton, and dropped both without knowing it
on a chintz curtain. A fresh evening breeze was blowing in from the
window, open behind the shutters, and in one second the curtain was
a flaming, waving sheet. Some one sprang up to tear it down, leaping
on a table in the window. The table overbalanced, the heavy iron
curtain-rod came out suddenly, and there was a fall, the flaming mass
covering the fallen! The glare shone on a strange white face and head
as well as on Jumbo's black one, and with a trampling and crushing
the fire died down, quenched as suddenly as it began, and all was
obscurity again.

"Nephew, dear boy, speak," exclaimed Mr. Belamour; and as there was
no answer, "Open the shutters, Jumbo. For Heaven's sake let us see!"

"Oh! what have I done?" cried poor Aurelia, in horror and misery,
dropping by him on the ground, while the opened shutters admitted
the twilight of a May evening, with a full moon, disclosing a strange
scene. A youth in a livery riding coat lay senseless on the ground,
partly covered by the black fragments of the curtain, the iron rod
clenched in one hand, the other arm doubled under him. A face
absolutely white, with long snowy beard and hair hung over him, and
an equally white pair of hands tried to lift the head. Jumbo had
in a second sprung down, removed the fallen table, and come to his
masters help. "Struck head with this," he said, as he tried to
unclasp the fingers from the bar, and pointed to a grazed blow
close to the temple.

"We must lay him on my bed," said Mr. Belamour. Then, seeing the
girl's horror-stricken countenance, "Ah, child, would that you had
been patient; but it was overtasking you! Call Aylward, I beg of
you. Tell her he is here, badly hurt. What, you do not know him,"
as her bewildered eyes and half-opened lips implied the question
she could not utter, "you do not know him? Sir Amyas--my nephew--
your true husband!"

"Oh! and I have killed him!" she cried, with clasped hands.

"Hush, child, no, with God's mercy! Only call the woman and bring
a light."

She rushed away, and appeared, a pale terrified figure, with the
smell of fire on her hair and white dress, in the room where Mrs.
Aylward was reading her evening chapter. She could scarcely utter
her message as she stood under the gaze of blank amazement; but Mrs.
Aylward understood enough to make her start up without another word,
and hurry away, candle in hand.

Aurelia took up the other, and followed, trembling. When she reached
the outer room the rush of air almost blew out her light, and pausing,
afraid to pass on, she perceived that Mr. Belamour and Jumbo were
carrying the insensible form between them into the inner apartment,
while a moan or two filled her heart with pangs of self-reproach.

She hung about, in terrible anxiety, but not daring to come forward
while the others were engaged about the sufferer, for what seemed a
very long time before she heard Mrs. Aylward say, "His arm is broke,
sir. We must send for Dr. Hunter. The maids are all in their beds,
but I will go and wake one, and send her to the stables to call the
groom."

"I had best go," said Mr. Belamour. "You are of more use than I. He
sleeps at the stables, you say?" Then, seeing the waiting, watching
form of Aurelia, he said, "Come in, my poor child. Perhaps your voice
may rouse him." Every one, including himself, seemed to have forgotten
Mr. Belamour's horror of the light, for candles were flaring on all
the tables, as he led the you girl in, saying, "Speak to him."

At the death-like face in its golden hair, Aurelia's voice choked in
her throat, and it was in an unnatural hoarse tone that she tried to
say, "Sir--Sir Amyas--"

"I trust he will soon be better," said Mr. Belamour, marking her dismay
and grief with his wonted kindness, "but his arm needs the surgeon,
and I must be going. Let Lady Belamour sit here, Mrs. Aylward. I
trust you with the knowledge. It was my nephew, in disguise, who
wedded her, unknown to her. She is entirely blameless. Let Jumbo
fetch her a cordial. There, my child, take this chair, so that his
eyes may fall on you when he opens them. Bathe his head if you will.
I shall return quickly after having sped the groom on his journey."

Gloomy and doubtful were the looks cast on Aurelia by the housekeeper,
but all unseen by the wondering, bewildered, remorseful eyes fixed
on the white face on the pillow, heedless of its perfect symmetry of
feature, and knowing only that this was he who had thrilled her heart
with his tender tones, who had loved her so dearly, and dared so much
for her sake, but whom her impatience and distrust had so cruelly
injured. Had she seen him strong, well, and ardent, as she had so
lately heard him, her womanhood would have recoiled indignantly at
the deception which had stolen her vows; but the spectacle of the
young senseless face and prostrate form filled her with compassion,
tenderness, and remorse, for having yielded to her sister's
persuasions. With intense anxiety she watched, and assisted in the
fomentations, longing for Mr. Belamour's return; but time passed on
and still he came not. No words passed, only a few faint sighs, and
one of the hands closed tight on Aurelia's.

CHAPTER XXIII. WRATH AND DESOLATION.

Straight down she ran
. . . . and fatally did vow
To wreake her on the mayden messenger
Whom she had caused be kept as prisonere.
SPENSER.

Hark! there was the trampling of horses and thundering of wheels at
the door! Could the doctor be come already, and in such a fashion?

Jumbo hurried to admit him, and Mrs. Aylward moved to arrange matters,
but the clasp that was on Aurelia's hand would not let her go.

Presently there came, not Dr. Hunter's tread, but a crisp, rustling
sound, and the tap of high heels, and in the doorway stood, tall,
erect, and terrible, Lady Belamour, with a blaze of wrath in her
blue eyes, and concentrated rage in her whole form, while in accents
low, but coming from between her teeth, she demanded, "Miserable boy,
what means this?"

"Oh! madam, take care! he is sadly hurt!" cried Aurelia, with a
gesture as if to screen him.

"I ask what this means?" repeated Lady Belamour, advancing, and
seeming to fill the room with her majestic figure, in full brocaded
dress, with feathers waving in her hair.

"His Honour cannot answer you, my Lady," said Mrs. Aylward. "He has
had a bad fall, and Mr. Belamour is gone to send for the doctor."

"This is the housekeeping in my absence!" said Lady Belamour, showing
less solicitude as to her son's condition than indignation at the
discovery, and her eyes and her diamonds glittering fearfully.

"My Lady," said Mrs. Aylward, with stern respectfulness, "I knew nothing
of all this till this lady called me an hour ago telling me Sir Amyas
was hurt. I found him as you see. Please your Ladyship, I must go
back to him."

"Speak then, you little viper," said Lady Belamour, turning on Aurelia,
who had risen, but was held fast by the hand upon hers. "By what arts
have you well nigh slain my son? Come here, and tell me."

"None, madam!" gasped Aurelia, trembling, so that she grasped her
chair-back with her free hand for support. "I never saw him till
to-night."

"Lies will not serve you, false girl. Come here this instant! I
_know_ that you have been shamelessly receiving my son here, night
after night."

"I never knew!"

"Missie Madam never knew," chimed in Jumbo. "All in the dark. She
thought it old mas'r."

Lady Belamour looked contemptuously incredulous; but the negro's
advocacy gave a kind of courage to Aurelia, and availing herself
of a slight relaxation of the fingers she withdrew her hand, and
coming forward, said, "Indeed, madam, I know nothing, I was entirely
deceived. Only hearing two voices in the dark alarmed me, so that
I listened to my sister, and struck a light to discover the truth.
Then all caught fire, and blazed up, and--"

"Then you are an incendiary as well as a traitor," said her Ladyship,
with cold, triumphant malignity. "This is work for the constable.
Here, Loveday," to her own woman, who was waiting in the outer room,
take this person away, and lock her into her own room till morning,
when we can give her up to justice."

"Oh, my Lady," cried Aurelia, crouching at her feet and clinging to
her dress, "do not be so cruel! Oh! let me go home to my father!"

"Madam!" cried a voice from the bed, "let alone my wife! Come,
Aurelia. Oh!"

Then starting up in bed had wrenched his broken arm, and he fell back
senseless again, just as Aurelia would have flown back to him, but
his mother stood between, spurning her away.

Another defender, if she could so be called, spoke for her. "It is
true, please your Ladyship," said Mrs. Aylward, "that Mr. Belamour
called her the wife of this poor young gentleman."

Jumbo too exclaimed, "No one knew but Jumbo; His Honour marry pretty
missie in mas'r's wig and crimson dressing-gown."

"A new stratagem!" ironically observed the incensed lady. "But your
game is played out, miss, for madam I cannot call you. Such a
marriage cannot stand for a moment; and if a lawyer like Amyas
Belamour pretended it could, either his wits were altogether astray
or he grossly deceived you. Or, as I believe, he trafficked with
you to entrap this unhappy youth, whose person and house you have,
between you, almost destroyed. Remove her, Loveday, and lock her
up till we can send for a magistrate to take depositions in the
morning. Go quietly, girl I will not have my son disturbed with
your outcries."

Poor Aurelia's voice died in her throat. Oh! why did not Mr. Belamour
come to her rescue? Ah! he had bidden her trust and be patient; she
had transgressed, and he had abandoned her! There was no sign of life
or consciousness in the pallid face on the bed, and with a bleeding
heart she let the waiting-maid lead her through the outer apartment,
still redolent of the burning, reached her own chamber, heard the key
turn in the lock, and fell across her bed in a sort of annihilation.

The threat was unspeakably frightful. Those were days of capital
punishment for half the offences in the calendar, and of what was
to her scarcely less dreadful, of promiscuous imprisonment, fetters,
and gaol fever. Poor Aurelia's ignorance could hardly enhance these
horrors, and when her perceptions began to clear themselves, her
first thought was of flight from a fate equally dreadful to the
guilty or not guilty.

Springing from the bed, she tried the other door of her room, which
was level with the wainscoting, and not readily observed by a person
unfamiliar with the house. It yielded to her hand, and she knew
there was a whole suite of empty rooms thus communicating with one
another. It was one of those summer nights that are never absolutely
dark, and there was a full moon, so that she had light enough to
throw off her conspicuous white habit, all scorched and singed as
it was, and to put on her dark blue cloth one, with her camlet cloak
and hood. She made up a small bundle of clothes, took her purse,
which was well filled with guineas and silver, and moved softly to
the door. Hide and seek had taught her all the modes of eluding
observation, and with her walking shoes in her hand, and her feet
slippered, she noiselessly crept through one empty room after
another, and descended the stair into her own lobby, where she knew
how to open the sash door.

One moment the thought that Mr. Belamour would protect her made her
pause, but the white phantom she had seen seemed more unreal than
the voice she was accustomed to, and both alike had vanished and
abandoned her to her fate. Nay, she had been cheated from the first.
Everything had given way with her. My Lady might be coming to send
her to prison. Hark, some one was coming! She darted out, down the
steps, along the path like a wild bird from a cage.

CHAPTER XXIV. THE WANDERER.

Widowed wife and wedded maid,
Betrothed, betrayer, and betrayed.--SCOTT.

Aurelia's first halt was in a moss-grown summer-house at the end of
the garden, where she ventured to sit down to put on her stout leather
shoes. The children's toys, a ball and a set of ninepins lay on the
floor! How many ages ago was it that she had made that sarcastic
reply to Letty?--perhaps her last!

A nightingale, close overhead, burst into a peal of song, repeating
his one favourite note, which seemed to her to cry out "Although my
heart is broke, broke, broke, broke." The tears rushed into her
eyes, but at a noise as of opening doors or windows at the house,
terror mastered her again, and she hurried on to hide herself from
the dawning light, which was beginning to increase, as she crossed
the park, on turf dank with Maydew, and plunged deep into the thick
woods beyond, causing many a twittering cry of wondering birds.

Day had fully come, and slanting golden beams were shining through
the tender green foliage, and illuminating the boles of the trees,
ere she was forced by failing strength again to pause and sit on a
faggot, while gathering breath and considering where she should go.
Home was her first thought. Who could shield her but her father
and sister? How she longed for their comfort and guardianship!
But how reach them? She had money but could do little for her.
England never less resembled those days of Brian Boromhe when the
maiden with the gems, rich and rare wandered unscathed form sea to
sea in Ireland. Post chaises, though coming into use, had not
dawned on the simple country girl's imagination. She knew there
was a weekly coach from London to Bath, passing through Brentford,
and that place was also a great starting-place for stage waggons,
of which one went through Carminster, but her bewildered brain
could not recall on what day it started, and there was an additional
shock of despair when she remembered that it was Sunday morning.
The chill of the morning dew was on her limbs, she was exhausted
by her fatigues of the night, a drowsy recollection of the children
in the wood came over her, and she sank into a dreamy state that
soon became actual sleep. She was wakened by a strong bright
sunbeam on her eyes, and found that this was what had warmed her
limbs in her sleep. A sound as of singing was also in her ears,
and of calling cows to be milked. She did not in the least know
where she was, for she had wandered into parts of the wood quite
strange to her, but she thought she must be a great way from home,
and quite beyond recognition, so she followed the voice, and soon
came out on a tiny meadow glade, where a stout girl was milking a
great sheeted cow.

She knew now that she was faint with hunger and thirst, and must take
food before she could go much farther, so taking out a groat, her
smallest coin, she accosted the girl, and offered it for a draught
of milk. To her dismay the girl exclaimed "Lawk! It be young Madam!
Sarvice, ma'am!"

"I have lost myself in the wood," said Aurelia. "I should be much
obliged for a little milk."

"Well to be sure. Think of that! And have ee been out all night?
Ye looks whisht!" said the girl, readily filling a wooden cup she
had brought with her, for in those days good new milk was a luxury
far more easily accessible than in ours. She added a piece of barley
bread, her own intended breakfast, and was full of respectful wonder,
pity, and curiosity, proposing that young Madam should come and rest
in mother's cottage in the wood, and offering to guide her home as
soon as the cows were milked and the pigs fed. Aurelia had some
difficulty in shaking her off, finding also that she had gone round
and round in the labyrinthine paths, and was much nearer the village
of Bowstead than she had intended.

Indeed, she was obliged to deceive the kindly girl by walking off in
the direction she pointed out, intending to strike afterwards into
another path, though where to go she had little idea, so long as it
was out of reach of my Lady and her prison.

Oh! if Harriet were only at Brentford, or if it were possible to reach
the Lea Farm where she was! Could she ask her way thither, or could
she find some shelter near or in Brentford till the coach or the
waggon started? This was the most definite idea her brain, refreshed
somewhat by the food, could form; but in the meantime she was again
getting bewildered in the field paths. It was a part she did not
know, lying between the backs of the cottages and their gardens, and
the woods belonging to the great house; and the long sloping meadows,
spangled with cowslips were much alike. The cowslips seemed to strike
her with a pang as she recollected her merry day among them last
spring, and how little she then thought of being a homeless wanderer.
At last, scarce knowing where she was, she sat down on the step of a
stile leading to a little farmyard, leant her head on the top bar and
wept bitterly.

Again she startled by hearing a voice saying, "Sister, what is that
in the field?" and starting up, she saw Mrs. Delia in high pattens,
and her Sunday silk tucked up over her quilted petticoat, with a
basket of corn in her hand, surrounded by her poultry, while Mrs.
Phoebe was bending over a coop. She had stumbled unawares on their
back premises, and with a wild hope, founded on their well-known
enmity to Lady Belamour, she sprang over the stile. Mrs. Delia
retreated in haste, but Mrs. Phoebe came to the front.

"Oh! Mrs. Phoebe," she cried, "I ask your pardon."

"Mrs. Belamour! Upon my word! To what are we indebted for this
visit?"

"Oh! of your kindness listen to me, madam," said Aurelia. "My Lady
is come, and there is some dreadful mistake, and she is very angry
with me; and if you would only take me in and hide me till the waggon
goes and I can get home!"

"So my Lady has found you out, you artful hussy," returned Mrs. Phoebe.
"I have long guessed at your tricks! I knew it was no blackamoor that
was stealing into the great house."

"I do not know what you mean."

"Oh! it is of no use to try your feigned artlessness on us. I wonder
at your assurance, after playing false with uncle and nephew both at
once."

"If you would but hear me!"

"I have heard enough of you already. I wonder you dare show your face
at a respectable house. Away with you, if you would not have me send
the constable after you!"

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