Mrs. Aylward, who had a big Bible open on the table before her.
'Oh, ma'am,' she cried, between her panting sobs, 'I can't stay there! I shall die!'
'What means this, madam?' said Mrs. Aylward, stiffly, making the word sound much like 'foolish child.'
'The-the music!' she managed faintly to utter, falling again into the friendly chair.
'The music?' said Mrs. Aylward, considering; then with a shade of polite contempt, 'O! Jumbo's fiddle! I did not know it could be heard in your room, but no doubt the windows below are open.'
'Is Jumbo that black man?' asked Aurelia, shuddering; for negro servants, though the fashion in town, had not penetrated into the west.
'Mr. Belamour's blackamoor. He often plays to him half the night.'
'Oh!' with another quivering sound of alarm; 'is Mr. Belamour the gentleman in the dark?'
'Even so, madam, but you need have no fears. He keeps his room and admits no one, though he sometimes walks out by night. You will only have to keep the children from a noise making near his apartments. Good night, madam.'
'Oh, pray, if I do not disturb you, would you be pleased to let me stay till you have finished your chapter; I might not be so frightened then.'
In common humanity Mrs. Aylward could not refuse, and Aurelia sat silently grasping the arms of her chair, and trying to derive all the comfort she could from the presence of a Bible and a good woman. Her nerves were, in fact, calmed by the interval, and when Mrs. Aylward took off her spectacles and shut up her book, it had become possible to endure the terrors of the lonely chamber.
CHAPTER VIII. THE ENCHANTED CASTLE.
A little she began to lose her fear.-MORRIS.
Aurelia slept till she was wakened by a bounce at the door, and the rattling of the lock, but it was a little child's voice that was crying, 'I will! I will! I will go in and seem by cousin!'
Then came Mrs. Aylward's severe voice: 'No, miss, you are not to waken your cousin. Come away. Where is that slut, Jenny?'
Then there was a scuffle and a howl, as if the child were being forcibly carried away. Aurelia sprang out of bed, for sunshine was flooding the room, and she felt accountable for tardiness. She had made some progress in dressing, when again little hands were on the lock, little feet kicking the door, and little voices calling, 'Let me in.'
She opened the door, and white nightgowns, all tumbled back one over the other.
'My little cousins,' she said, 'come and kiss me.'
One came forward and lifted up a sweet little pale face, but the other two stood, each with a finger in the mouth, right across the threshold, in a manner highly inconvenient to Aurelia, who was only in her stiff stays and dimity petticoat, with a mass of hair hanging down below her waist. She turned to them with arms out-stretched, but this put them instantly to the rout, and they ran off as fast as their bare pink feet could carry them, till one stumbled, and lay with her face down and her plump legs kicking in the air. Aurelia caught her up, but the capture produced a powerful yell, and out, all at once hurried into the corridor, Mrs. Aylward, a tidy maid servant, a stout, buxom countrywoman, and a rough girl, scarcely out of bed, but awake enough to snatch the child out of the young lady's arms, and carry her off. The housekeeper began scolding vigorously all round, and Aurelia escaped into her room, where she completed her toilette, looking out into a garden below, laid out in the formal Dutch fashion, with walks and beds centring in a fountain, the grass plats as sharply defined as possible, and stiff yews and cypresses dotted at regular intervals or forming straight alleys. She felt strange and shy, but the sunshine, the cheerfulness, and the sight of the children, had reassured her, and when she had said her morning prayer, she had lost the last night's sense of hopeless dreariness and unprotectedness. When another knock came, she opened the door cheerfully, but there was a chill in meeting Mrs. Aylward's grave, cold face, and stiff salutation. 'If you are ready, madam,' she said, 'I will show you to the south parlour, where the children will eat with you.'
Aurelia ventured to ask about her baggage, and was told that it would be forwarded from Brentford. Mrs. Aylward then led the way to a wide stone staircase, with handsome carved balusters, leading down into the great hall, with doors opening from all sides. All was perfectly empty, and so still, that the sweep of the dresses, and the tap of the heels made an echo; and the sunshine, streaming in at the large window, marked out every one upon the floor, in light and shadow, and exactly repeated the brown-shaded, yellow-framed medallions of painted glass upon the pavement. There was something awful and oppressive in the entire absence of all tokens of habitation, among those many closed doors.
One, however, at the foot of the stairs was opened by Mrs. Aylward. It led to a sort of narrow lobby, with a sashed window above a low door, opening on stone steps down to the terrace and garden. To the right was an open door, giving admittance to a room hung with tapestry, with a small carpet in the centre of the floor, and a table prepared for the morning meal. There was a certain cheerfulness about it, though it was bare of furniture; but there was an easy chair, a settee, a long couch, a spinnet, and an embroidery frame, so that altogether it had capabilities of being lived in.
'Here you will sit, madam, with the young ladies,' said Mrs. Aylward. 'They have a maid-servant who will wait on you, and if you require anything, you will be pleased to speak to me. My Lady wishes you to take charge of them, and likewise to execute the piece of embroidery you will find in that frame, with the materials. This will be your apartment, and you can take the young ladies into the garden and park, wherever you please, except that they must not make a noise before the windows of the other wing, which you will see closed with shutters, for those are Mr. Belamour's rooms.'
With these words Mrs. Aylward curtsied as if about to retire, Aurelia held out her hand in entreaty. 'Oh, cannot you stay with me?'
'No, madam, my office is the housekeeper's,' was the stiff response. 'Molly will call me if you require my services. I think you said you preferred bread and milk for breakfast. Dinner will be served at one.'
Mrs. Aylward retreated, leaving a chill on the heart of the lonely girl.
She was a clergyman's widow, though with no pretensions to gentility, and was a plain, conscientious, godly woman, but with the narrow self- concentrated piety of the time, which seemed to ignore all the active part of the duty to our neighbour. She had lived many years as a faithful retainer to the Belamour family, and avoided perplexity by minding no one's business but her own, and that thoroughly. Naturally reserved, and disapproving much that she saw around her, she had never held it to be needful to do more than preserve her own integrity, and the interests of her employers, and she made it a principle to be in no wise concerned in family affairs, and to hold aloof from perilous confidences.
Thus Aurelia was left to herself, till three bowls of milk were borne in by Molly, who was by no means loth to speak.
'The little misses will be down directly, ma'am,' she said, 'that is, two on 'em. The little one, she won't leave Jenny Bowles, but Dame Wheatfield, she'll bring down the other two. You see, ma'am, they be only just taken home from being out at nurse, and don't know one another, nor the place, and a pretty handful we shall have of 'em.'
Here came a call for Molly, and the girl with a petulant exclamation, sped away, leaving Aurelia to the society of the tapestry. It was of that set of Gobelin work which represents the four elements personified by their goddesses, and Aurelia's mythology, founded on Fenelon, was just sufficient to enable her to recognise the forge of Vulcan and the car [chariot-D.L.] of Venus. Then she looked at the work prepared for her, a creamy piece of white satin, and a most elaborate pattern of knots of roses, lilacs, hyacinths, and laburnums, at which her heart sank within her. However, at that moment the stout woman she had seen in the morning appeared at the open door with a little girl in each hand, both in little round muslin caps, long white frocks, and blue sashes.
One went up readily to Aurelia and allowed herself to be kissed, and lifted to a chair; the other clung to Dame Wheatfield, in spite of coaxing entreaties. 'Speak pretty, my dear; speak to the pretty lady. Don't ye see how good your sister is? It won't do, miss,' to Aurelia; 'she's daunted, is my pretty lamb. If I might just give her her breakwist-for it is the last time I shall do it-then she might get used to you before my good man comes for me.'
Aurelia was only too glad to instal Dame Wheatfield in a chair with her charge in her lap. The other child was feeding herself very tidily and independently, and Aurelia asked her if she were the eldest.
