Books: Love and Life
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Charlotte M. Yonge >> Love and Life
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The threat renewed Aurelia's terror, and again she fled, but this time
she fell into a path better known to her, that leading to Sedhurst,
and ultimately to Brentford.
The recollection of Dame Wheatfield's genial good nature inspired her
with another hope, and she made her way towards the farm. The church
bells were ringing, and she saw the farmer and his children going
towards the church, but not the mistress, and she might therefore
hope to find her at home and alone. As she approached, a great dog
began a formidable barking, and his voice brought out the good woman
in person. "Down, Bouncer! A won't hurt'ee, my lass. What d'ye
lack that you bain't at church?"
"May I speak to you, Mrs. Wheatfield?"
"My stars, if it bain't young Miss--Madam, I mean! Nothing ain't
wrong with the child?"
"O no, she is quite well, but--"
"What, ye be late for church? Come in and sit ye down a bit and sup
after your walk. We have been and killed Spotty's calf, though
'twas but a staggering Bob, but us couldn't spare the milk no longer.
So we've got the l'in on un for dinner, and you're kindly welcome if
you ain't too proud. Only I wish you had brought my little missie."
"O Mrs. Wheatfield! Shall I ever see the dear little girl again? Oh!
can you help me? Do you know where Lea Farm is? I'd pay anything for
a horse and man to take me there, where my sister is staying."
"Well, I don't know as my master would hire a horse out of a Sunday,
unless 'twere very particler--illness or suchlike. Lea Farm did you
say ma'am? Is it the Lea out by Windmill hill--Master Brown's; or
Lea Farm, down by the river--Tom Smith's?"
"No, this is Mr. Meadows's, a grazier."
"Never heard tell on him, ma'am, but the master might, when he comes
in. But bless me," she added, after a moment's consideration, "what
will your master say? He'll be asking how it comes that a lady like
you, with a coach and horses of her own, should be coming after a
horse here. You ain't been and got into trouble with my Lady, my
dear?"
"Oh! Dame, indeed I have; pray help me!"
It was no wonder that Mrs. Wheatfield failed to gather more than that
young Madam had almost burnt the house, and had fallen under grievous
displeasure, so as even to fear the constable.
"Bless your poor heart! Think of that now! But I'm afeard we can't
do nothing for you. My master would be nigh about killing me if I
harboured you and got him into trouble, with the gentry."
"If you could only hide me in some loft or barn till I could meet the
coach for Bath! Then I should be almost at home."
"I dare not. The children are routing about everywhere on a Sunday
afternoon; and if so be as there's a warrant out after you" (Aurelia
shuddered) "my man would be mad with me. He ain't never forgot how
his grandfather was hanged up there in that very walnut for changing
clothes with a young gentleman in the wars long ago."
"Then I must go! Oh, what will become of me?"
"Stay a bit! It goes to my heart to turn you from the door, and you
so white and faint. And they won't be out of church yet a while.
You've ate nothing all this time! What was you thinking of doing,
my dear?"
"I don't know. If I could only find out the right Lea Farm, and get
a man and horse to take me there--but my sister goes on Monday, and
I might not find her, and nobody knows where it is. And nobody will
take me in or hide my till the coach goes! Oh, what will become of
me?"
"It is bitter hard," said the Dame. "I wish to my heart I could take
you in, but you see there's the master! I'll tell you what: there's
my cousin, Patty Woodman; she might take you in for a night or two.
But you'd never find your way to her cot; it lies out beyond the
spinneys. I must show you the way. Look you here. Nobody can't
touch you in a church, they hain't got no power there, and if you
would slip into that there empty place as opens with the little door,
as the ringers goes in by, afore morning prayers is over I'll make an
excuse to come to evening prayer alone, or only with little Davy, as
is lying asleep there. If Patty is there I'll speak, and you can go
home with her. If not, I must e'en walk with you out to the spinney.
Hern is a poor place, but her's a good sort of body, and won't let
you come to no harm; and her goes into Brentford with berries and
strawberries to meet the coaches, so may be she'll know the day."
"Oh, thank you, thank you, dear Mrs. Wheatfield! If I can only get
safe home!"
"Come, don't be in haste. You'll take a bit of bread and cheese,
and just a draught of ale to hearten you up a bit."
Aurelia was too sick at heart for food, and feared to delay, lest
she should meet the congregation, but Mrs. Wheatfield forced on her
a little basket with some provisions, and she gladly accepted
another draught of milk.
No one came out by the little door she was told; all she had to do
would be to keep out of sight when the ringers came in before the
afternoon service. She knew the way, and was soon close to Mary
Sedhurst's grave. "Ah! why was he not constant to her," she thought;
"and oh! why has he deserted me in my need?"
The little door easily yielded, and she found herself--after passing
the staircase-turret that led by a gallery to the belfry in the centre
of the church--in an exceedingly dilapidated transept; once, no doubt,
it had been beautiful, before the coloured glass of the floriated
window had been knocked out and its place supplied with bricks. The
broken effigy of a crusading Sedhurst, devoid of arms, feet, and nose
was stowed away in the eastern sepulchre, in company with funeral
apparatus, torn books, and moth-eaten cushions. But this would not
have shocked her even in calmer moments. She only cared to find a
corner where she was entirely sheltered, between a green stained
pier and the high wall and curtain of a gigantic pew, where no doubt
sweet Mary Sedhurst had once worshipped. The lusty voices of the
village choir in some exalted gallery beyond her view were shouting
out a familiar tune, and with some of Betty's mild superstition about
"the singing psalms," she heard--
"Since I have placed my trust in God
A refuge always nigh,
Why should I, like tim'rous bird
To distant mountains fly?
"Behold the wicked bend their bow,
And ready fix their dart,
Lurking in ambush to destroy
The man of upright heart.
"When once the firm assurance fails
Which public faith imparts,
'Tis time for innocence to flee
From such deceitful arts.
"The Lord hath both a temple here
And righteous throne above,
Whence He surveys the sons of men,
And how their counsels move."
Poor timorous bird, whom even the firm assurance of wedded faith had
failed, what was left to her but to flee from the darts levelled
against her? Yet that last verse brought a sense of protection.
Ah! did she deserve it? A prayerless night and prayerless morning
had been hers, and no wonder, since she had never gone to bed nor
risen with the ordinary forms; but it was with a pang that she
recollected that the habit of calling out in her heart for guidance
and help had been slipping from her for a long time past, and she
had never asked for heavenly aid when her judgment was perplexed by
Harriet, no, nor for protection in her flight.
She resolved to say her morning prayers with full attention so soon as
the church was empty, and meantime to follow the service with all her
powers, though her pulses were still throbbing and her head aching.
In the far distance she heard the Commandments, and near to her the
unseen clerk responding, and then followed a gospel of love and
comfort. She could not catch every word, but there was a sense of
promised peace and comfort, which began to soothe the fluttering
heart, for the first time enjoying a respite from the immediate
gripe of deadly terror.
The sermon chimed in with these feelings, not that she could have
any account of it, nor preserved any connected memory, but it was
full of the words, Faith, Love, Sacrifice, so that they were borne
in on her ear and thought. Heavenly Love surrounding as with an
atmosphere those who had only faith to "taste and see how gracious
the Lord is," believing that which cannot be seen, and therefore
having it revealed to their inmost sense, and thus living the only
real life.
This was the chief thought that penetrated to her mind as she crouched
on the straw hassock behind the pew, and shared unseen in the blessing
of peace. No one saw her as the hob-nailed shoes trooped out of church,
and soon she was entirely alone, kneeling still in her hiding-place,
and whispering half-aloud the omitted morning prayer, whose heartfelt
signification had, she felt, been neglected for a long, long time.
Since when? Ah! ever since those strange mysterious voices and caresses
had come to charm and terrify her, and when her very perplexity should
have warned her to cling closer to the aid of her Heavenly Father.
Vague yearnings, uplifted feelings, discontents, and little tempers
had usurped the place of higher feelings, and blinded her eyes. And
through it all, her heart began to ache and long for tidings of him
on whose pale features she had gazed so long and who had ventured and
suffered so much for her, nay, who had started into a moment's life
for her protection! All the tumult of resentment at the deception
practised on her fell on the uncle rather than the nephew; and in
spite of this long year of tender kindness and consideration from the
recluse, there was a certain consideration from the recluse, there
was a certain leaping of heart at finding herself bound not to him
but to the youth whose endearments returned with a flood of tender
remembrance. And she had fled just as he had claimed her as his
wife, had fled just as he had claimed her as his wife, unheeding
whether he died of the injury she had caused him! All that justified
her alarm was forgotten, her heartstrings had wound themselves round
him, and began to pull her back.
Then she thought of the danger of directing Lady Belamour's wrath
on her father, and leading to his expulsion and destitution. She
had been sent from home, and bestowed in marriage to prevent his
ruin, and should she now ensure it? Her return to him or even her
disappearance would no doubt lead to high words from him, and then
he would be cast out to beggary in his old age. No, she could only
save him by yielding herself up, exonerating him from all knowledge
of her strange marriage, far more of the catastrophe, and let my
Lady do her worst! She had, as she knew, not been going on well
lately, but she had confessed her faults, and recovered her confidence
that her Heavenly Father would guard her as long as she resolutely
did her duty. And her duty, as daughter and a wife, if indeed she
was one, was surely to return, where her heart was drawing her. It
might be very terrible, but still it was going nearer to _him_, and
it would save her father.
The door was still open; she wrote a few words of gratitude and
explanation to Dame Wheatfield, on a piece of a torn book, wrapped
a couple of guineas in it, and laid it in the basket, then kneeling
again to implore protection and safety, and if it might be, forgiveness
and reconciliation, she set forth. "Love is strong as death," said
Mary Sedhurst's tomb. She knew better what that meant than when her
childish eyes first fell upon it. A sense of Divine Love was wrapping
her round with a feeling of support and trust, while the human love
drew her onwards to confront all deadly possibilities in the hope of
rejoining her husband, or at least of averting misfortune from her
father.
CHAPTER XXV. VANISHED.
Where there is no place
For the glow-worm to lie,
Where there is no space
For receipt of a fly,
Where the midge dares not venture
Lest herself fast she lay,
If Love come, he will enter
And find out the way.--OLD SONG.
Major Delavie and his eldest daughter were sitting down to supper
in the twilight, when a trampling of horses was heard in the lane
a carriage was seen at the gate, and up the pathway came a slender
youthful figure, in a scarlet coat, with an arm in a sling.
"It is!--yes, it is!" exclaimed Betty: "Sir Amyas himself!"
In spite of his lameness, the Major had opened the door before Palmer
could reach it; but his greeting and inquiry were cut short by the
young man's breathless question: "Is she here?"
"Who?"
"My wife--my love. Your daughter, sweet Aurelia! Ah! it was my one
hope."
"Come in, come in, sir," entreated Betty, seeing how fearfully pale
he grew. "What has befallen you, and where is my sister?"
"Would that I knew! I trusted to have found her here; but now, sir,
you will come with me and find her!"
"I do not understand you, sir," said the Major severely, "nor how you
are concerned in the matter. My daughter is the wife of your uncle,
Mr. Belamour, and if, as I fear, you bear the marks of a duel in
consequence of any levity towards her, I shall not find it easy to
forgive."
"On my word and honour it is no such thing," said the youth, raising
a face full of frank innocence: "Your daughter is my wife, my most
dear and precious wife, with full consent and knowledge of my uncle.
I was married to her in his clothes, in the darkened room, our names
being the same!"
"Was this your promise?" Betty exclaimed.
"Miss Delavie, to the best of my ability I have kept my promise.
Your sister has never seen me, nor to her knowledge spoken with me."
"These are riddles, young man," said the Major sternly. "If all
be not well with my innocent child, I shall know how to demand an
account."
"Sir," said the youth: "I swear to you that she is the same innocent
maiden as when she left you. Oh!" he added with a gesture of earnest
entreaty, "blame me as you will, only trace her."
"Sit down, and let us hear," said Betty kindly, pushing a chair towards
him and pouring out a glass of wine. He sank into the first, but waved
aside the second, becoming however so pale that the Major sprang to
hold the wine to his lips saying: "Drink, boy, I say!"
"Not unless you forgive me," he replied in a hoarse, exhausted voice.
"Forgive! Of course, I forgive, if you have done no wrong by my child.
I see, I see, 'tis not wilfully. You have been hurt in her defence."
"Not exactly," he said: "I have much to tell," but the words came
slowly, and there was a dazed weariness about his eye that made Betty
say, in spite of her anxiety--"You cannot till you have eaten and
rested. If only one word to say where she is!"
"Oh! that I could! My hope was to find her here," and he was choked
by a great strangling sob, which his youthful manhood sought to
restrain.
Betty perceived that he was far from being recovered from the injury
he had suffered, and did her best to restrain her own and her father's
anxiety till she had persuaded him to swallow some of the excellent
coffee which Nannerl always made at sight of a guest. To her father's
questions meantime, he had answered that he had broken his arm ten
days ago, but he could not wait, he had posted down as soon as he
could move.
"You ought to sleep before you tell us farther," said the Major,
speaking from a strong sense of the duties of a host; but he was
relieved when the youth answered, "You are very good, sir, but I
could not sleep till you know all."
"Speak, then," said the Major, "I cannot look at your honest young
countenance and think you guilty of more than disobedient folly; but
I fear it may have cost my poor child very dear! Is it your mother
that you dread?"
"I would be thankful even to know her in my mother's keeping!" he said.
"Is there no mistake?" said the Major; "my daughter, Mrs. Arden, saw
her at Brentford, safe and blooming."
"Oh, that was before--before--" said Sir Amyas, "the day before she
fled from my mother at Bowstead, and has been seen no more."
He put his hand over his face, and bowed it on the table in such
overpowering grief as checked the exclamations of horror and dismay
and the wrathful demands that were rising to the lips of his auditors,
and they only looked at one another in speechless sorrow. Presently
he recovered enough to say, "Have patience with me, and I will try
to explain all. My cousin, Miss Delavie, knows that I loved her
sweet sister from the moment I saw her, and that I hurried to London
in the hope of meeting her at my mother's house. On the contrary,
my mother, finding it vain to deny all knowledge of her, led me to
believe that she was boarded at a young ladies' school with my little
sisters. I lived on the vain hope of the holidays, and meantime
every effort was made to drive me into a marriage which my very soul
abhorred, the contract being absolutely made by the two ladies, the
mothers, without my participation, nay, against my protest. I was to
be cajoled or else persecuted into it--sold, in fact, that my mother's
debts might be paid before her husband's return! I knew my Uncle
Belamour was my sole true personal guardian, though he had never acted
further than by affixing his signature when needed. I ought to have
gone long before to see him, but as I now understand, obstacles had
been purposely placed in my way, while my neglectful reluctance was
encouraged. It was in the forlorn hope of finding in him a resource
that took me to Bowstead at last, and then it was that I learnt how
far my mother could carry deception. There I found my sisters, and
learnt that my own sweetest life had been placed there likewise. She
was that afternoon visiting some old ladies, but my uncle represented
that my meeting her could only cause her trouble and lead to her being
removed. I was forced then to yield, having an engagement in London
that it would have been fatal to break, but I came again at dark, and
having sworn me to silence, he was forced to let me take advantage of
the darkness of his chamber to listen to her enchanting voice. He
promised to help me, as far as he had the power, in resisting the
hateful Aresfield engagement, and he obtained the assistance of an
old friend in making himself acquainted with the terms of his
guardianship, and likewise of a letter my father had left for him.
He has given me leave to show a part of it to you, sir," he added,
"you will see that my father expressed a strong opinion that you were
wronged in the matter of the estates, and declared that he had hoped
to make some compensation by a contract between one of your daughters
and my brother who died. He charged my uncle if possible to endeavour
to bring about such a match between one of your children and myself.
Thus, you see, I was acting in the strictest obedience. You shall
see the letter at once, if I may bid my fellow Gray bring my pocket-
book from my valise."
"I doubt not of your words, my young friend; your father was a
gentleman of a high and scrupulous honour. But why all this hide-
and-seek work?--I hate holes and corners!"
"You will see how we were driven, sir. My mother came in her turn
to see my uncle, and obtain his sanction to her cherished plan, and
when he absolutely refused, on account of Lady Aresfield's notorious
character, if for no other, she made him understand that nothing would
be easier than to get him declared a lunatic and thus to dispense
with his consent. Then, finding how the sweet society of your dear
daughter had restored him to new life and spirit, she devised the
notable expedient of removing what she suspected to be the chief cause
of my contumacy, by marrying the poor child to him. He scouted the
idea as a preposterous and cruel sacrifice, but it presently appeared
that Colonel Mar was ready to find her a debauched old lieutenant who
would gladly marry--what do I say?--it profanes the word--but accept
the young lady for a couple of hundred pounds. Then did I implore my
uncle to seem to yield, and permit me to personate him at the ceremony.
Our names being the same, and all being done in private and in the
dark, the whole was quite possible, and it seemed the only means of
saving her from a terrible fate."
"He might--or you might, have remembered that she had a father!" said
the Major.
"True. But you were at a distance, and my mother's displeasure
against you was to be deprecated."
"I had rather she had been offended fifty times than have had such
practices with my poor little girl!" said Major Delavie. "No wonder
the proposals struck me as strange and ambiguous. Whose writing was
it?"
"Mine, at his dictation," said the youth. "He was unwilling, but my
importunity was backed by my mother's threats, conveyed through
Hargrave, that unless Aurelia became his wife she should be disposed
of otherwise, and that his sanity might be inquired into. Hargrave,
who is much attached to my uncle, and is in great awe of my Lady,
was thoroughly frightened, and implored him to secure himself and the
young lady by consenting, thinking, too, that anything that would
rouse him would be beneficial."
"It is strange!" mused the Major. "A clear-headed punctilious man
like your uncle, to lend himself to a false marriage! His ten years
of melancholy must have changed him greatly!"
"Less than you suppose, sir; but you will remember that my mother is
esteemed as a terrible power by all concerned with her. Even when
she seemed to love me tenderly, I was made to know what it was to
cross her will, and alas! she always carries her point."
"It did seem a mode of protection," said Betty, more kindly.
"And" added the youth, "my uncle impressed on me from the first that
he only consented on condition the I treated this wedlock as betrothal
alone, never met my sweet love save in his dark room, and never revealed
myself to her. He said it was a mere expedient for guarding her until
I shall come of age, or Mr. Wayland comes home, when I shall woo her
openly, and if needful, repeat the ceremony with her full knowledge.
Meanwhile I wrote the whole to my stepfather, and am amazed that he
has never written nor come home."
"That is the only rational thing I have heard," said the Major.
"Though--did your uncle expect your young blood to keep the terms?"
"Indeed, sir, I was frightened enough the first evening that I
ventured on any advances, for they startled her enough to make her
swoon away. I carried her from her room, and my uncle dragged me
back before the colour came back to that lovely face so that the
women might come to her. That was the only time I ever saw her
save through the chinks of the shutters. Judge of the distraction
I lived in!"
Betty looked shocked, but her father chuckled a little, though he
maintained his tone of censure "And may I inquire how often these
distracting interviews took place?"
"Cruelly seldom for one to whom they were life itself! Mar is, as
you know, colonel of my corps, and my liberty has been restrained
as much as possible; I believe I have been oftener on guard and on
court-martial than any officer of my standing in the service; but
about once in a fortnight I could contrive to ride down to a little
wayside inn where I kept a fresh horse, also a livery coat and hat.
I tied up my horse in a barn on the borders of the park, and put on
a black vizard, so as to pass for my uncle's negro in the dark. I
could get admittance to my uncle's rooms unknown to any servant save
faithful Jumbo--who has been the sole depository of our secret.
However, since my mother's return from Bath, where the compact with
Lady Aresfield was fully determined, the persecution has been fiercer.
I may have aroused suspicion by failing to act my part when she
triumphantly announced my uncle's marriage to me, or else by my
unabated resistance to the little termagant who is to be forced on me.
At any rate, I have been so intolerably watched whenever I was not on
duty, that my hours of bliss became rarer than ever. Well, sir, my
uncle charges me with indiscretion, and says my ardour aroused
unreasonable suspicions. He was constantly anxious, and would baulk
me in my happiest and most tantalising moments by making some excuse
for breaking up the evening, and then would drive me frantic by asking
whether he was to keep up my character for consistency in my absence.
However, ten days since, the twelfth of May, after three weeks'
unendurable detention in town on one pretext or another, I escaped,
and made my way to Bowstead at last. My uncle told me that he had
been obliged unwillingly to consent to our precious charge going to
meet her sister at Brentford, and that she was but newly come home.
Presently she entered, but scarcely had I accosted her before a blaze
broke out close to us. The flame caught the dry old curtains, they
flamed up like tinder, and as I leaped up on a table to tear them
down, it gave way with me, I got a blow on the head, and knew no more.
It seems that my uncle, as soon as the fire was out, finding that my
arm was broken, set out to send the groom for the doctor--he being
used to range the park at night. The stupid fellow, coming home half
tipsy from the village, saw his white hair and beard in the moonlight,
took him for a ghost, and ran off headlong. Thereupon my uncle,
with new energy in the time of need, saddled the horse, changed his
dressing-gown with the groom's coat, and rode off to Brentford. Then,
finding that Dr. Hunter was not within, he actually went on to London,
where Dr. Sandys, who had attended him ever since his would, forced
him to go to bed, and to remain there till his own return. Thus my
darling had no one to protect her, when, an hour or so after the
accident, my mother suddenly appeared. Spies had been set on me by
Mar, and so soon as they had brought intelligence of my movements
she had hurried off from Ranelagh, in full dress, just as she was,
to track and surprise me. My uncle, having gone by the bridle path,
had not met her, and I was only beginning to return to my senses. I
have a dim recollection of hearing my mother threatening and accusing
Aurelia, and striving to interfere, but I was as one bound down, and
all after that is blank to me. When my understanding again became
clear, I could only learn that my mother had locked her into her own
room, whence she had escaped, and"--with a groan--"nothing has been
heard of her since!" Again he dropped his head on his hand as one
in utter dejection.
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