Books: Love and Life

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

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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 had applied. She would not take them
home, being, of course, afraid of their tongues, and in her perplexity
had been reduced to letting them share Aurelia's captivity at least
for the night.

What joy it was! They said it was an ugly dark house, but Aurelia's
presence was perfect content to them, and theirs was to her comparative
felicity, assuring her as they did, through their childish talk, of
Sir Amyas's unbroken love and of Mr. Belamour's endeavours to find
her. What mattered it that Madge was more offended than ever, and
refused to make the slightest exertion for "the Wayland brats at
that time of night" without warning. They had enough for supper, and
if Aurelia had not, their company was worth much more to her than a
full meal. The terrier's rushes after rats were only diversion now,
and when all three nestled together in the big bed, the fun was more
delightful than ever. Between those soft caressing creatures Aurelia
heard no rats, and could well bear some kicks at night, and being
drummed awake at some strange hour in the morning.

Mrs. Loveday arrive soon after the little party had gone down stairs.
She said the children were to remain until her ladyship had decided
where to send them; and she confirmed their report that his Honour
was recovering quickly. As soon as he was sufficiently well to leave
Bowstead he was to be brought to London, and married to Lady Arabella
before going abroad to make the grand tour; and as a true well-wisher,
Mrs. Loveday begged Miss Delavie not to hold out when it was of no
use, for her Ladyship declared that her contumacy would be the worse
for her. Aurelia's garrison was, however, too well reinforced for
any vague alarms to shake even her out works, and she only smiled
her refusal, as in truth Mrs. Loveday must have expected, for it
appeared that she had secured a maid to attend on the prisoners; an
extremely deaf woman, who only spoke in the broken imperfect mode of
those who have never heard their own voice, deficiencies that made
it possible that Madge would keep the peace with her.

Lady Belamour had also found another piece of work for Aurelia. A
dark cupboard was opened, revealing shelves piled with bundle of
old letters and papers. There was a family tradition that one of
the ladies of the Delavie family had been an attendant of Mary of
Scotland for a short time, and had received from her a recipe for
preserving the complexion and texture of the skin, devised by the
French Court perfumer. Nobody had ever seen this precious
prescription; but it was presumed to be in the archives of the
family, and her ladyship sent word that if Miss Delavie wished
to deserve her favour she would put her French to some account
and discover it.

A severe undertaking it was. Piles of yellow letters, files of dusty
accounts, multitudes of receipts, more than one old will had to be
conned it was possible to be certain they were not the nostrum. In
the utter solitude, even this occupation would have been valuable,
but with the little girls about her, and her own and their property,
she had alternative employments enough to make it an effort to apply
herself to this.

Why should she? she asked herself more than once; but then came the
recollection that if she showed herself willing to obey and gratify
my Lady, it might gain her good will, and if Sir Amyas should indeed
hold out till Mr. Wayland came home--Her heart beat wildly at the
vision of hope.

She worked principally at the letters, after the children had gone to
bed, taking a packet up stairs with her, and sitting in the bedroom,
deciphering them as best she might by the light of the candles that
Loveday had brought her.

Every morning Loveday appeared with supplies, and messages from her
Ladyship, that it was time Miss submitted; but she was not at all
substantially unkind, and showed increasing interest in her captive,
though always impressing on her that her obstinacy was all in vain.
My Lady was angered enough at his Honour having got up from his sick
bed and gone off to Carminster, and if Miss did not wish to bring her
father into trouble she must yield. No, this gladdened rather than
startled Aurelia, though her heart sank within her when she was
warned that Mr. Wayland had been taken by the corsairs, so that my
Lady would have the ball at her own foot now. The term of waiting
seemed indefinitely prolonged.

The confinement to the dingy house and courtyard was trying to all
three, who had been used to run about in the green park and breezy
fields; but Aurelia did her best to keep her little companions happy
and busy, and the sense of the insecurity of her tenure of their
company aided her the more to meet with good temper and sweetness
the various rubs incidental to their captivity in this close warm
house in the hottest of summer weather. The pang she had felt at
her own fretfulness, when she thought she had lost them, made her
guard the more against giving way to impatience if they were
troublesome or hard to please. Indeed, she was much more gentle
and equable now, in the strength of her resolution, than she had
been when uplifted by her position, yet doubtful of its mysteries.

Sundays were the most trying time. The lack of occupation in the
small space was wearisome, and Aurelia's heart often echoed the old
strains of Tate and Brady,

I sigh whene'er my musing thoughts
Those happy days present,
When I with troops of pious friends
Thy temple did frequent.

She and her charges climbed up to the window above, which happily had
a broken pane, tried to identify the chimes of the church bells by the
notable nursery rhyme,

Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clements, &c.,

watched the church-goers as far as they could see them, and then came
down to such reading of the service and other Sunday occupations as
Aurelia could devise. On the Sunday of her durance it was such a
broiling day that, unable to bear the heat of her parlour, she
established herself and her charges in a nook of the court, close
under the window, but shaded by the wall, which was covered with an
immense bush of overhanging ivy, and by the elm tree in the court.
Here she made Fay and Letty say their catechism, and the Psalm she
had been teaching them in the week, and then rewarded them with a
Bible story, that of Daniel in the den of lions. Once or twice the
terrier (whose name she had learnt was Bob) had pricked his ears,
and the children had thought there was a noise, but the sparrows in
the ivy might be accountable for a great deal, and the little ones
were to much wrapped in her tale to be attentive to anything else.

"Then it came true!" said Letty. "His God Whom he trusted did deliver
him out of the den of lions?"

"God always does deliver people when they trust Him," said Fay, with
gleaming eyes.

"Yes, one way or the other," said Aurelia.

"How do you think He will deliver us?" asked Letty; "for I am sure
this is a den, though there are no lions."

"I do not know how," said Aurelia, "but I know He will bear us through
it as long as we trust Him and do nothing wrong," and she looked up at
the bright sky with hope and strength in her face.

"Hark! what's that?" cried Letty, and Bob leapt up and barked as a
great sob became plainly audible, and within the room appeared Mrs.
Loveday, her face all over tears, which she was fast wiping away as
she rose up from crouching with her head against the window-sill.

"I beg your pardon, ma'am," said she, her voice still broken when she
rejoined them, "but I would not interrupt you, so I waited within; and
oh, it was so like my poor old mother at home, it quite overcame me!
I did not think there was anything so near the angels left on earth."

"Nay, Loveday," said Fay, apprehending the words in a different sense,
"the angels are just as near us as ever they were to Daniel, only we
cannot see them. Are they not, Cousin Aura?"

"Indeed they are, and we may be as sure that they will shut the lions'
mouths," said Aurelia.

"Ah! may they," sighed Loveday, who had by this time mastered her
agitation, and remembered that she must discharge herself of her
messages, and return hastily to my Lady's toilette.

"I have found the recipe," said Aurelia. "Here it is." And she put
into Loveday's hand a yellow letter, bearing the title in scribbled
writing, "_Poure Embellire et blanchire la Pel, de part de Maistre
Raoul, Parfumeur de la Royne Catherine_."

CHAPTER XXXII. LIONS.

The helmet of darkness Pallas donned,
To hide her presence from the sight of man.
_Derby's_ HOMER.

The next morning Loveday returned with orders from Lady Belamour that
Miss Delavie should translate the French recipe, and make a fair copy
of it. It was not an easy task, for the MS. was difficult and the
French old; whereas Aurelia lived on the modern side of the _Acadamie_,
her French was that of Fenelon and Racine.

However, she went to work as best she could in her cool corner,
guessing at many of the words by lights derived from _Comenius_, and
had just made out that the chief ingredients were pounded pearls and
rubies, mixed with white of eggs laid by pullets under a year old,
during the waxing of the April moon, when she heard voices chattering
in the hall, and a girlish figure appeared in a light cloak and calash,
whom Loveday seemed to be guiding, and yet keeping as much repressed
as she could.

"Gracious Heavens!" were the first words to be distinguished; "what a
frightful old place; enough to make one die of the dismals! I won't
live here when I'm married, I promise Sir Amyas! Bless me, is this
the wench?"

"Your Ladyship promised to be careful," entreated Loveday, while
Aurelia rose, with a graceful gesture of acknowledgment, which,
however remained unnoticed, the lady apparently considering herself
unseen.

"Who are these little girls?" asked she, in a giggling whisper.
"Little Waylands? Then it is true," she cried, with a peal of shrill
laughter. "There are three of them, only Lady Belamour shuts them up
like kittens--I wonder she did not. Oh, what sport! Won't I tease
her now that I know her secret!"

"Your ladyship!" intreated Loveday in distress in an audible aside,
"you will undo me." Then coming forward, she said, "You did not
expect me at this hour, madam; but if your French copy be finished,
my Lady would like to have it at once."

"I have written it out once as well as I could," said Aurelia, "but I
have not translated it; I will find the copy."

She rose and found the stranger full before her in the doorway, gazing
at her with an enormous pair of sloe-black eyes, under heavy inky brows,
set in a hard, red-complexioned face. She burst into a loud, hoydenish
laugh as Loveday tried to stammer something about a friend of her own.

"Never mind, the murder's out, good Mrs. Abigail," she cried, "it is
me. I was determined to see the wench that has made such a fool of
young Belamour. I vow I can't guess what he means by it. Why, you
are a poor pale tallow-candle, without a bit of colour in your face.
Look at me! Shall you ever have such a complexion as mine, with ever
so much rouge?"

"I think not," said Aurelia, with one look at the peony face.

"Do you know who I am, miss? I am the Lady Bella Mar. The Countess
of Aresfield is my mamma. I shall have Battlefield when she dies, and
twenty thousand pounds on my wedding day. The Earl of Aresfield and
Colonel Mar are my brothers, and a wretched little country girl like
you is not to come between me and what my mamma has fixed for me; so
you must give it up at once, for you see he belongs to me."

"Not yet, madam," said Aurelia.

"What do you say? Do you pretend that your masquerade was worth a
button?"

"That is not my part to decide," said Aurelia. "I am bound by it, and
have no power to break it."

"You mean the lawyers! Bless you, they will never give it to you
against me! You'd best give it up at once, and if you want a husband,
my mamma has one ready for you."

"I thank her ladyship," said Aurelia, with simple dignity, "but I will
not give her the trouble."

She glanced at her wedding ring, and so did Lady Belle, who screamed,
"You've the impudence to wear that! Give it to me."

"I cannot," repeated Aurelia.

"You cannot, you insolent, vulgar, low"--

"Hush! hush, my lady," entreated Loveday. "Come away, I beg of your
ladyship!"

"Not till I have made that impudent hussy give me that ring," cried
Belle, stamping violently. "What's that you say?"

"That your ladyship asks what is impossible," said Aurelia, firmly.

"Take that then, insolent minx!" cried the girl, flying forward and
violently slapping Aurelia's soft cheeks, and making a snatch at her
hair.

Loveday screamed, Letty cried, but Fidelia and Bob both rushed forward
to Aurelia's defence, one with her little fists clenched, beating Lady
Belle back, the other tearing at her skirts with his teeth. At that
moment a man's step was heard, and a tall, powerful officer was among
them, uttering a fierce imprecation. "You little vixen, at your
tricks again," he said, taking Belle by the waist, while she kicked
and screamed in vain. She was like an angry cat in his arms. "Be
quiet, Belle," he said, backing into the sitting-room. "Let Loveday
compose your dress. Recover your senses and I shall take you home:
I wish it was to the whipping you deserve."

He thrust her in, waved aside Loveday's excuses about her ladyship not
being denied, and stood with his back to the door as she bounced
shrieking against it from within.

"I fear this little devil has hurt you, madam," he said.

"Not at all, I thank you, sire." said Aurelia, though one side of her
face still tingled.

"She made at you like a little game-cock," he said. "I am glad I was
in time. I followed when I found she had slipped away from Lady
Belamour's, knowing that her curiosity is only equalled by her spite.
By Jove, it is well that her nails did not touch that angel face!"

Aurelia could only curtsey and thank him, hoping within herself that
Lady Belle would soon recover, and wondering how he had let himself
in. There was something in his manner of examining her with his eyes
that made her supremely uncomfortable. He uttered fashionable
expletives of admiration under his breath, and she turned aside in
displeasure, bending down to Fidelia. He went on, "You must be
devilishly moped in this dungeon of a place! Cannot we contrive
something better?"

"Thank you, sir, I have no complaint to make. Permit me to see
whether the Lady Arabella is better."

"I advise you not. Those orbs are too soft and sparkling to be
exposed to her talons. 'Pon my honour, I pity young Belamour.
But there is no help for it, and such charms ought not to be wasted
in solitude on his account. These young lads are as fickle as the
weather-cock, and have half-a-dozen fancies in as many weeks.
Come now, make me your friend, and we will hit on some device
for delivering the enchanted princess from her durance vile."

"Thank you, sir, I promised Lady Belamour to make no attempt to
escape."

At that moment out burst Lady Belle, shouting with laughter: "Ho!
ho! Have I caught you, brother, gallanting away with Miss? What
will my lady say? Pretty doings!"

She had no time for more. Her brother fiercely laid hold of her,
and bore her away with a peremptory violence that she could not
resist, and only turning at the hall door to make one magnificent
bow.

Loveday was obliged to follow, and the children were left clinging
to Aurelia and declaring that the dreadful young lady was as bad as
the lions; while Aurelia, glowing with shame and resentment at what
she felt as insults, had a misgiving that her protector had been the
worse lion of the two.

She had no explanation of the invasion till the next morning, when
Loveday appeared full of excuses and apologies. From the fact of
Lady Aresfield's carriage having been used on Aurelia's arrival, her
imprisonment was known, and Lady Belle, spending a holiday at Lady
Belamour's, had besieged Loveday with entreaties to take her to see
her rival. As the waiting-woman said, for fear of the young lady's
violent temper, but more probably in consideration of her bribes,
she had yielded, hoping that Lady Belle would be satisfied with a
view from the window, herself unseen. However, from that moment all
had been taken out of the hands of Loveday, and she verily believed
the Colonel had made following his sister an excuse for catching a
sight of Miss Delavie, for he had been monstrously smitten even
with the glimpse he had had of her in the carriage. And now, as
his sister had cut short what he had to say, he had written her a
billet. And Loveday held out a perfumed letter.

Aurelia's eyes flashed, and she drew herself up: "You forget, Loveday,
I promised to receive no letters!"

"Bless me, ma'am, they, that are treated as my lady treats you, are
not bound to be so particular as that."

"O fie, Loveday," said Aurelia earnestly, "you have been so kind, that
I thought you would be faithful. This is not being faithful to your
lady, nor to me."

"It is only from my wish to serve you, ma'am," said Loveday in her
fawning voice. "How can I bear to see a beautiful young lady like
you, that ought to be the star of all the court, mewed up here for
the sake of a young giddy pate like his Honour, when there's one of
the first gentlemen in the land ready to be at your feet?"

"For shame! for shame!" exclaimed Aurelia, crimson already. "You
know I am married."

"And you will not take the letter, nor see what the poor gentleman
means? May be he wants to reconcile you with my lady, and he has
power with her."

Aurelia took the letter, and, strong paper though it was, tore it
across and across till it was all in fragments, no bigger than daisy
flowers. "There," she said, "you may tell him what I have done to
his letter."

Loveday stared for a minute, then exclaimed, "You are in the right, my
dear lady. Oh, I am a wretch--a wretch--" and she went away sobbing.

Aurelia hoped the matter was ended. It had given her a terrible
feeling of insecurity, but she found to her relief that Madge was
really more trustworthy than Loveday. She overheard from the court
a conversation at the back door in which Madge was strenuously
refusing admission to some one who was both threatening and bribing
her, all in vain; but she was only beginning to breathe freely when
Loveday brought, not another letter, but what was less easy to stop,
a personal message from "that poor gentleman."

"Loveday, after what you said yesterday, how can you be so--wicked?"
said Aurelia.

"Indeed, miss, 'tis only as your true well-wisher."

Aurelia turned away to leave the room.

"Yes, it is, ma'am! On my bended knees I will swear it," cried
Loveday, throwing herself on them and catching her dress. "It is
because I know my lady has worse in store for you!"

"Nothing can be worse than wrong-doing," said Aurelia.

"Ah! you don't know. Now, listen, one moment. I would not--indeed
I would not--if I did not know that he meant true and honourable--
as he does, indeed he does. He is madder after you then ever he was
for my lady, for he says you have all her beauty, and freshness and
simplicity besides. He is raving. And you should never leave me,
indeed you should not, miss, if you slipped out after me in Deb's
muffler--and we'd go to the Fleet. I have got a cousin there, poor
fellow--he is always in trouble, but he is a real true parson
notwithstanding, and I'd never leave your side till the knot was
tied fast. Then you would laugh at my lady, and be one of the first
ladies in the land, for my Lord Aresfield is half a fool, and can't
live long, and when you are a countess you will remember your poor
Loveday."

"Let me go. You have said too much to a married woman," said Aurelia,
and as the maid began the old demonstrations of the invalidity of the
marriage, and the folly of adhering to it when nobody knew where his
honour was gone, she said resolutely, "I shall write to Lady Belamour
to send me a more trustworthy messenger."

On this Loveday fairly fell on the floor, grovelling in her wild
entreaty that my Lady might hear nothing of this, declaring that
it was not so much for the sake of the consequences to herself as
to the young lady, for there was no guessing what my lady might not
be capable of if she guessed at Colonel Mar's admiration of her
prisoner. Aurelia, frightened at her violence, finally promised
not to appeal to her ladyship as long as Loveday abstained from
transmitting his messages, but on the least attempt on her part
to refer to him, a complaint should certainly be made to my lady.

"Very well, madam," said Loveday, wiping her eyes. "I only hope it
will not be the worse for you in the end, and that you will not wish
you had listened to poor Loveday's advice."

"I can never wish to have done what I know to be a great sin," said
Aurelia gravely.

"Ah! you little know!" said Loveday, shaking her head sadly and
ominously.

Something brought to Aurelia's lips what she had been teaching the
children last Sunday, and she answered,

"My God, in Whom I have trusted, is able to deliver me out of the
mouth of lions, and He will deliver me out of thy hand."

"Oh! if ever there were one whom He should deliver!" broke out
Loveday, and again she went away weeping bitterly.

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