Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume

CHAPTER XIII. THE FLUTTER OF HIS WINGS

 
    Then is Love’s hour to stray!
    Oh, how he flies away!—T. MOORE.
 

Meanwhile Aurelia, mounted on a pair of pattens brought by the negro to keep her above the dew, was crossing the park by the light of a fine hunter’s moon, Jumbo marching at a respectful distance in the rear. He kept on chuckling to himself with glee, and when she looked round at him, he informed her with great exultation that “Mas’r had not been alone. His honour had been to see him. Mas’r so glad.”

“Sir Amyas!” exclaimed Aurelia: “Is he there still?”

“No, missie. He went away before supper.”

“Did he see the young ladies?”

“Oh, yes, missie. He came before mas’r up, quite promiskius,” said Jumbo, who loved a long word. “I tell him, wait till mas’r be dress, and took him to summer parlour. He see little missies out in garden; ask what chil’ren it was. His Hounour’s sisters, Miss Fay, Missie Letty, Missie Amy, I say! His Honour wonder. ‘My sisters,’ he say, ‘my sisters here,’ and out he goes like a flash of lightning and was in among them.”

Aurelia’s first thought was “Oh, I hope they were clean and neat, and that they behaved themselves. I wish I had been at home.” Wherewith followed the recollection that Sir Amyas had been called her beau, and her cheeks burnt; but the recent disagreeable lecture on etiquette showed her that it would only have led to embarrassment and vexation to have had any question of an interview with a young gentleman by so little her elder. Nor would she have known what to say to him. Old Mr. Belamour in the dark was a very different matter, and she had probably had an escape from much awkwardness.

Molly received her with her favourite exclamation: “Lawk, miss, and who do you think have been here?”

“Jumbo told me, Molly.”

“Ain’t he a perfect pictur of a man? And such a gentleman! He gave me a whole goolden guinea for my good care of his little sisters, and says he: ‘Their father shall hear of them, and what little ladies they be.’”

“I am glad they behaved themselves prettily.”

“Yes, that they did, ma’am. It was good luck that they had not been grubbing in their gardens as you lets ‘em do, ma’am, but they was all as clean as a whistle, a picking up horse-chestnuts under the big tree at the corner of the bowling green, when out on the steps we sees him, looking more like an angel than a man, in his red coat, and the goold things on his shoulders, and out he comes! Miss Amy, she was afeard at first: ‘Be the soldiers a coming?’ says she, and runs to me; but Miss Letty, she holds out her arms, and says “It’s my papa,” and Miss Fay, she stood looking without a word. Then when his Honour was in among them: “My little sisters, my dear little sisters,” says he, “don’t you know me?” and down he goes on one knee in the grass, never heeding his beautiful white small-clothes, if you’ll believe me, miss, and holds out his arms, and gets Miss Fay into one arm, and Miss Letty into t’other, and then Miss Amy runs up, and he kisses them all. Then miss Letty says again ‘Are you my papa from foreign parts?’ and he laughs and says: ‘No, little one, I’m your brother. Did you never hear of your brother Amyas?’ and Miss Fay stood off a little and clapped her little hands, and says: ‘O brother Amyas, how beautiful you are!’”

Aurelia could not help longing to know whether she had been mentioned, but she did not like to inquire, and she was obliged to rest satisfied with the assurance that her little girls had comported themselves like jewels, like lambs, like darling lumps of sugar, or whatever metaphors were suggested by the imagination of Molly, who had, apparently, usurped the entire credit of their good manners. It was impossible to help feeling a little aggrieved, or, maugre [in spite of—D.L.] all inconvenient properties to avoid wishing to have been under the horse-chestnut tree, even though she might have shown herself just such a bashful little speechless fool as she had been when Sir Amyas had danced with her at Carminster.

She was destined to hear a good deal more of the visitor the next day. The children met her with the cry of “Cousin Aura, our brother”—“our big beautiful brother—Brother Amyas.”—They were with difficulty calmed into saying their prayers, and Amoret startled the little congregation by adding to “bless by father, my mother, my brothers and sisters,” “and pray bless big brother Amyas best of all, for I love him very much indeed!”

All day little facts about “brother Amyas” kept breaking out. Brother Amyas had beautiful gold lace, brother Amyas had a red and white feather; brother Amyas had given Fay and Letty each a ride on his shoulder, but Amy was afraid; brother Amyas said their papa would love them very much. He had given them each a new silver shilling, and Amoret had in return presented him with her doll’s beautiful pink back-string that Cousin Aura had made for her. This wonderful brother had asked who had taught them to be such pretty little gentlewomen, and at this Aurelia’s heart beat a little, but provoking Fidelia replied: “I told him my Mammy Rolfe taught me to be genteel,” and Letty added: “And he said Fay was a conceited little pussy cat.”

A strange indefinable feeling between self-respect and shyness made Aurelia shrink from the point-blank question whether the ungrateful little things had acknowledged their obligations to her. She was always hoping they would say something of their own accord, and always disappointed.

Evening came, and she eagerly repaired to the dark room, wondering, yet half dreading to enter on the subject, and beginning by an apology for having by no means perfected herself in Priam’s visit to Achilles.

“If you have been making visits,” said Mr. Belamour: “I too have had a visitor.”

“The children told me so,” she answered.

“He was greatly delighted with them,” said Mr. Belamour.

“While they, poor little things, never were more happy in their lives. He must have been very kind to them, yet he did not know that they were here.”

“His mother is not communicative respecting them. Ladies who love power seek to preserve it by making little mysteries.”

“It was to see you, sir, that he came.”

“Yes. He ingenuously avowed that he had always been urged to do so by his stepfather, but his mother has always put obstacles in the way, and assured him that he would not gain admission. I have certainly refused to see her, but this is a very different matter—my brother’s only child, my godson, and my ward!”

“I am very glad he has come to see you, sir, and I am sure it has given you pleasure.”

“Pleasure in seeing that he is a lad of parts, and of an ingenuous, affectionate, honest nature, but regret in perceiving how I failed in the confidence that his father reposed in me.”

“But, sir, you could not help it!”

“Once I could not. It was, I know not how long, before I knew that my brother was no more; and thinking myself dead to the world and the world to me, I took no heed to what, it now seems to me, I was told of guardianship to the boy. I was incapable of fulfilling any such charge, and I shunned the pain of hearing of it,” he continued, rather as if talking to himself than to his auditor. “When I could, I gave them my name and they asked no more. Yet what did they tell me of a sealed letter from my brother, addressed to me? True, I heard of it more than once, but I could ask no one to read it to me, and I closed my ears. In Wayland’s hands I knew the youth was well cared for, and only now do I feel that I have ill requited my brother’s confidence.”

“Indeed, sir, I cannot see how you could have done otherwise,” said Aurelia, who could not bear to hear his tone of self-reproach.

“My amiable visitor!” he exclaimed, as though recalled to a sense of her presence. “Excuse the absence of mind which has inflicted on you the selfish murmurs of the old recluse. Tell me how you prospered with my cousins, whom I remember as sprightly maidens. Phoebe had somewhat of the prude, Delia of the coquette.”

“I could imagine what you say of Mistress Phoebe, sir, better than of Mistress Delia.”

“Had they any guests to meet you?”

“A Mrs. Hunter, sir, from Brentford, a doctor’s wife I suppose.”

“You are right. She was a cousin of theirs on the other side of the house, a loud-voiced buxom lass, who was thought to have married beneath here when she took Dr. Hunter; but apparently they have forgiven her.”

Mr. Belamour was evidently much interested and amused by Aurelia’s small experiences and observations, such as they were. In spite of the sense of past omission which had been aroused by his nephew’s visit, it had evidently raised his spirits, for he laughed when Aurelia spiced her descriptions with a little playful archness, and his voice became more cheery.

So, too, it was on the ensuing evening when Aurelia, to compensate for the last day’s neglect, came primed with three or four pages of the conversation between Priam and Achilles, which she rehearsed with great feeling, thinking, like Pelides himself, of her own father and home. It was requited with a murmured “Bravo,” and Mr. Belamour then begged of her, if she were not weary, to favour him with the Nightingale Song, Jumbo as usual accompanying her with his violin. At the close there was again a “Bravo! Truly exquisite!” in a tone as if the hermit were really finding youth and life again. Once more at his request, she sang, and was applauded with even more fervour, with a certain tremulous eagerness in the voice. Yet there was probably a dread of the excitement being too much, for this was followed by “Thank you, kind songstress, I could listen for ever, but it is becoming late, and I must not detain you longer.”

She found herself handed out of the room, with somewhat curtailed good nights, although nine o’clock, her usual signal, had not yet struck. When she came into the lamplit hall, Jumbo was grinning and nodding like a maniac, and when she asked what was the matter, he only rolled his eyes, and said, “Missie good! Mas’r like music!”

The repressed excitability she had detected made her vaguely nervous (not that she would have so called herself), and as the next day was the blank Sunday, she appeased and worked off her restlessness by walking with the children to Sedhurst church. It was the sixteenth Sunday after Trinity, and the preacher, who had caught somewhat of the fire of Wesley and Whitfield, preached a sermon which arrested her attention, and filled her with new thoughts. Taking the Epistle and Gospel in connection, he showed the death-in-life of indifference, and the quickening touch of the Divine Love, awakening the dead spirit into true life. On that life, with its glow of love, hope, and joy, the preacher dwelt with enthusiasm such as Aurelia had never heard, and which carried her quite out of herself. Tears of emotion trembled in her eyes, and she felt a longing desire to walk on in that path of love to her Maker, whom she seemed to have never known before.

She talked with a new fervour to the children of the birds and flowers, and all the fair things they loved, as the gifts of their Father in Heaven; and when she gathered them round the large pictured Bible, it was to the Gospel that she turned as she strove to draw their souls to the appreciation of the Redeeming Love there shown. She saw in Fay’s deep eyes and thoughtful brow that the child was taking it in, though differently from Amy, who wanted to kiss the picture, while Letty asked those babyish material questions about Heaven that puzzle wiser heads than Aurelia’s to answer.

So full was she of the thought, that she forgot her sense of something strange and unaccountable in Mr. Belamour’s manner before the evening, nor was there anything to remind her of it afresh, for he was as calmly grave and kindly courteous as ever; and he soon led her to pour forth all her impressions of the day. Indeed she repeated to him great part of the sermon, with a voice quivering with earnestness and emotion. He was not stirred in the same way as she had been, saying in his pensive meditative way, “The preacher is right. Love is life. The misfortune is when we stake our all on one love alone, and that melts from us. Then indeed there is death—living death!”

“But there is never-failing love, and new life that never dies!” cried Aurelia, almost transported out of herself.

“May you ever keep hold of both unobscured, my sweet child,” he returned, with a sadness that repressed and drove her back into herself again, feeling far too childish and unworthy to help him to that new life and love; though her young heart yearned over him in his desolation, and her soul was full of supplication for him.

CHAPTER XIV. THE CANON OF WINDSOR

 
    Turn, gentle hermit of the dale.—GOLDSMITH.
 

“My child, will you do me a favour?” said Mr. Belamour the next evening, in a tone no longer formal, but paternal. “Take this packet” (he put one into the girl’s hand) “to the light and inform me what is the superscription.”

It was a thick letter, with a large red wax seal, bearing the well known arms of Belamour and Delavie, and the address was

 To AMYAS BELAMOUR, ESQ., K.C.,

 OF THE INNER TEMPLE, LONDON

To be opened after my death.]

JOVIAN BELAMOUR

Dec. 14th, 1727

“I thought so,” said Mr. Belamour, when she returned to him with intelligence. “Little did my poor brother guess how long it would be unopened! Will my gentle friend confer another obligation on me?”

Aurelia made her ready assent, hoping to be asked to read the letter, when he continued, “I cannot read this myself. Even could I bear the light, the attempt to fix my eyes sends darts shooting through my brain, which would take away my very power of comprehension. But,” he continued, “there are only two men living to whom I could entrust my brother’s last words to me. One, your own good father, is out of reach; the other has frequently proffered his good offices and has been rejected. Would you add to your kindness that of writing to entreat my old friend, Dr. Godfrey, to favour with a visit one who has too often and ungratefully refused him admission.”

Feminine curiosity felt balked, but Aurelia was ashamed of the sensation, and undertook the task. Instructions were given her that she was to write—

“If Amyas Belamour’s old Schoolfellow and Friend can overlook and  pardon the undeserved Rebuffs to His Constancy and Solicitude for  a lonely and sullen Wretch, and will once more come and spend a  Night at Bowstead, he will confer an inestimable Favour upon one  who is more sensible of his Goodness than when it has been  previously offered.”

This letter, written in Aurelia’s best Italian hand, on a large sheet of paper, she brought with her the next evening. She was bidden to fold down the exact place for the signature, which Mr. Belamour proceeded to affix, and she was then to carry it to the candles in the lobby, and there fold, seal, and address it to the Reverend Edward Godfrey, D.D., Canon of Windsor, Windsor. She found the A. Belamour very fairly written except that it was not horizontal, and she performed the rest of the task with ladylike dexterity, sealing it with a ring that had been supplied for the purpose. It did not, as she expected, bear the Belamour sheaf of arrows, but was a gem, representing a sleeping Cupid with folded wings, so beautiful that she asked leave to take another impression for Harriet, who collected seals, after the fashion of the day.

“You are welcome,” Mr. Belamour replied. “I doubt its great antiquity, since the story of Cupid and Psyche cannot be traced beyond Apuleius. I used it because Dr. Godfrey will remember it. He was with me at Rome when I purchased it.”

The ring was of the size for a lady’s finger, and Aurelia durst ask no more.

How the letter was sent she knew not, but Mrs. Aylward was summoned to Mr. Belamour’s room, and desired to have a room ready at any time for his friend.

Three days later, towards sunset, a substantial-looking clergyman, attended by two servants, rode up to the door; and was immediately appropriated by Jumbo, disappearing into the mysterious apartments; Aurelia expected no summons that night, but at the usual hour, the negro brought a special request for the honour of her society; and as she entered the dark room, Mr. Belamour said, “My fair and charitable visitor will permit me to present to her my old and valued friend, Dr. Godfrey.” He laid the hand he had taken on one that returned a little gentlemanly acknowledgment, while a kind fatherly voice said, “The lady must pardon me if I do not venture to hand her to her chair.”

“Thank you, sir, I am close to my seat.”

“Your visitors acquire blind eyes, Belamour,” said Dr. Godfrey, cheerfully.

“More truly they become eyes to the blind,” was the answer. “I feel myself a man of the world again, since this amiable young lady has conned the papers on my behalf, and given herself the trouble of learning the choicest passages of the poets to repeat to me.”

“You are very good, sir,” returned Aurelia; “it is my great pleasure.”

“That I can well believe,” said Dr. Godfrey. “Have these agreeable recitations made you acquainted with the new poem on the Seasons by Mr. James Thomson?”

“No,” replied Mr. Belamour, “my acquaintance with the belles letters ceased nine years ago.”

“The descriptions have been thought extremely effective. Those of autumn were recalled to my mind on my way.”

Dr. Godfrey proceeded to recite some twenty lines of blank verse, for in those days people had more patience and fewer books, and exercised their memories much more than their descendants do. Listening was far from being thought tedious.

 
            “‘But see the fading many-coloured roads,
              Shade deepening over shade, the country round
              Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dim,
              Of every hue, from wan, declining green,
              To sooty dark.’”
 

The lines had a strange charm to one who had lived in darkness through so many revolving years. Mr. Belamour eagerly thanked his friend, and on the offer to lend him the book, begged that it might be ordered for him, and that any other new and interesting work might be sent to him that was suitable to the fair lips on which he was dependent.

“You are secure with Mr. Thomson,” said the Doctor. “Hear the conclusion of his final hymn.”

 
            “‘When even at last the solemn hour shall come,
              And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
              I cheerful will obey; there with new powers
              Will rising wonders sing.  I cannot go
              Where Universal Love not smiles around,
              Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns,
              From seeming evil still educing good,
              And better thence again, and better still,
              In infinite progression.  But I lose
              Myself in Him, in Light ineffable;
              Come then expressive Silence, mine the praise.’”
 

“‘Universal Love!’” repeated Mr. Belamour; “the poet sings as you do, my amiable friend! I can conceive the idea better than I could a few months ago.”

 
            “‘From seeming evil, still educing good,’”
 

quoted Dr. Godfrey earnestly, as if feeling his way.

“More of this another time,” said Mr. Belamour hastily. “What say the critics respecting this new aspirant?”

The ensuing conversation much interested Aurelia, as it was on the men of letters whose names had long been familiar to her, and whom the two gentlemen had personally known. She heard of Pope, still living at Twickenham, and of his bickerings with Lady Mary Wortley Montagu; of young Horace Walpole, who would never rival his father as a politician, but who was beginning his course as a dilettante, and actually pretending to prefer the barbarous Gothic to the classic Italian. However, his taste might be improved, since he was going to make the grand tour in company with Mr. Gray, a rising young poet, in whom Dr. Godfrey took interest, as an Etonian and a Cantab.

At nine o’clock Mr. Belamour requested Miss Delavie to let him depute to her the doing the honours of the supper table to his friend, who would return to him when she retired for the night.

Then it was that she first saw the guest, a fine, dignified clergyman, in a large grey wig, with a benignant countenance, reminding her of the Dean of Carminster. When she was little, the Dean had bestowed on her comfits and kisses; but since she had outgrown these attentions, he was wont to notice her only by a condescending nod, and she would no more have thought of conversing with him at table than in his stall in the cathedral. Thus it was surprising to find herself talked to, as Betty might have been, by this reverend personage, who kindly satisfied her curiosity about the King, Queen, and Princesses, but with a discretion which did not diminish that blind loyalty which saw no defects in “our good king,” though he was George II. She likewise answered a few questions about Mr. Belamour’s tastes and habits, put in a very different manner from those of the Mistress Treforth, and as soon as supper was over she rose and retired.

She did not see Dr. Godfrey again until he was ready for a late breakfast, having been up nearly the whole night with his friend. His horses were ordered immediately after the meal, as he had an appointment in London, and he presently looked up, and said,

“Madam, you must excuse me, I was silent from thinking how I can adequately express my respect and gratitude for you.”

“I beg your pardon, sir,” exclaimed Aurelia, thinking her ears mistaken.

“My gratitude,” he repeated, “for the inestimable blessing you have been to my dear and much valued friend, in rousing him from that wretched state of despondency in which no one could approach him.”

“You are too good, sir,” returned Aurelia. “It was he who sent for me.”

“I know you did it in all simplicity, my dear child—forgive the epithet, I have daughters of my own, and thankful should I be if one of them could have produced such effects. I tell you, madam, my dear friend, one of the most estimable and brilliant men of his day, was an utter wreck, both in mind and body, through the cruel machinations of an unprincipled woman. How much was to the actual injury from his wound, how much to grief and remorse, Heaven only knows, but the death of his brother, who alone had authority with him, left him thus to cut himself off entirely in this utter darkness and despair. I called at first monthly, then yearly, after the melancholy catastrophe, and held many consultations with good Mr. Wayland, but all in vain. It was reserved for your sweet notes to awaken and recall him to what I trust is indeed new life.”

Tears filled Aurelia’s eyes, and she could only murmur something about being very glad.

“Yes,” pursued Dr. Godfrey, “it is as if I saw him rising from his living tomb in all senses of the word. I find that your artless Sunday evening conversations have even penetrated the inner hopeless gloom, still more grievous than the outer darkness in which he lived.”

“Indeed, sir, I never meant to be presumptuous.”

“God’s blessing on such presumption, my good child! If you had been fully aware of his state of mind, you might never have ventured nor have touched the sealed heart, as you have done, as I perceive, in your ignorance, out of your obedient reverence to the Lord’s day. Am I not right?”

“Yes, sir, I thought one could not repeat plays and poems on Sunday, and I was frightened when I found those other things were strange to him; but he bade me go on.”

“For the sake of the music of your voice, as he tells me, at first; but afterwards because you became the messenger of hope to one who had long lain in the shadow of death, thinking pardon and mercy too much out of reach to be sought for. You have awakened prayer within him once more.”

She could not speak, and Dr. Godfrey continued, “You will be glad to hear that I am to see the curate on my way through Brentford, and arrange with him at times to read prayers in the outer room. What is it?” he added; “you look somewhat doubtful.”

“Only, sir, perhaps I ought not to say so, but I cannot think Mr. Belamour well ever care for poor Mr. Greaves. If he could only hear that gentleman who comes to Sedhurst! I never knew how much fire could be put into the service itself, and yet I have often been at Carminster Cathedral.”

“True, my dear young lady. These enthusiasts seem to be kindling a new fire in the Church, but I am not yet so convinced of their orthodoxy and wisdom as to trust them unreservedly; and zeal pushed too far might offend our poor recluse, and alienate him more than ever. He is likely to profit more by the direct words of the Church herself, read without personal meaning, than by the individual exhortations of some devout stranger.”

“Yes, sir. Thank you, I never meant to question your judgment. Indeed I did not.”

The horses were here announced, and Dr. Godfrey said,

“Then I leave him to you with a grateful heart. I am beginning to hope that there is much hypochondriacism in his condition, and that this may pass away with his despondency. I hope before many weeks are over to come and visit him again, before I go to my parish in Dorsetshire.”

Then, with a fatherly blessing, the Canon took his leave.

He was scarcely gone before there was a great rustling in the hall, and Mrs. Phoebe and Mrs. Delia Treforth were announced. Aurelia was surprised, for she had been decidedly sensible of their disapproval when she made her visit of ceremony after her entertainment by them. She, however, had underrated the force of the magnet of curiosity. They had come to inquire about the visitor, who had actually spent a night at the Park. They knew who he was, for “Ned Godfrey” had been a frequent guest at Bowstead in the youth of all parties, and they were annoyed that he had not paid his respects to them.

“It would have been only fitting to have sent for us, as relations of the family, to assist in entertaining him,” said Mrs. Phoebe. “Pray, miss, did my eccentric cousin place you in the position of hostess?”

“It fell to me, madam,” said Aurelia.

“You could have asked for our support,” said Mrs. Phoebe, severely. “It would have become you better, above all then Sir Amyas Belamour himself was here.”

“He has only been here while I was with you, madam, and was gone before my return.”

“That is true,” but Mrs. Phoebe looked at the girl so inquisitively that her colour rose in anger, and exclaimed, “Madam, I know not what you mean!”

“There, sister,” said Mrs. Delia, more kindly. “She is but a child, and Bet Batley is a gossip. She would not know his Honour in the dark from the blackamoor going down to visit his sweetheart.”

Very glad was Aurelia when the ladies curtsied themselves out of her summer parlour, declaring they wished to speak to Mrs. Aylward, who she knew could assure them of the absurdity of these implied suspicions.

And Mrs. Aylward, who detested the two ladies, and repelled their meddling, stiffly assured them both of Miss Delavie’s discretion and her own vigilance, which placed visits from the young baronet beyond the bounds of possibility. Supposing his Honour should again visit his uncle, she should take care to be present at any interview with the young lady. She trusted that she knew her duty, and so did Miss Delavie.