Arden, more wearisome and pertinacious than ever. So tiresome!
CHAPTER X. THE DARK CHAMBER.
Or singst thou rather under force
Of some Divine command,
Commissioned to presage a course
Of happier days at hand?
COWPER.
Aurelia was coming down stairs in the twilight after singing her charges to sleep about three weeks after her arrival, when she saw Jumbo waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
She had long ceased to be afraid of him. Indeed he had quite amazed her by his good-nature in helping to lift down naughty little Letitia, who was clambering up to the window of his master's chamber to look through the crevices of the shutters. He had given the children a gaily dressed rag doll, and was as delighted as they were when he played his fiddle to them and set them dancing.
Still, the whites of his eyes, his shining teeth, and the gold lace of his livery had a startling effect in the darkness, and Aurelia wished he would move away; but he was evidently waiting for her, and when she came near he addressed her thus, 'Mis'r Belamour present compliment, and would Miss Delavie be good enough to honour him with her company for a short visit?'
The girl started, dismayed, alarmed, yet unwilling to be unkind to the poor recluse, while she hoped that decorum and propriety would put the visit out of the question. She replied that she would ask Mrs. Aylward whether she might, and Jumbo followed her to the still-room, saying on the way, 'Mas'r heard Miss Delavie sing. He always has the window opened to hear her. It makes him hum the air-be merry. He has not asked to speak with lady since he heard the bad news-long, long, ago.'
Then Aurelia felt that nothing short of absolute impropriety ought to make her gratify her shrinking reluctance. Mrs. Aylward seemed to think her doubts uncalled for, and attributed her hesitation to fear of the dark room.
'Oh, no I am not so childish,' said the young lady with nervous dignity; 'but would it be proper?'
'Bless me, madam, he is as old as your father, and as civil a gentleman as lives. I would come in with you but that I am expecting Mr. Potts with the tallies. You need have no scruples.'
There was no excuse nor escape, and Aurelia followed the negro in trepidation. Crossing the hall, he opened for her the door of the lobby corresponding to her own, and saying, 'Allow me, ma'am,' passed before her, and she heard another door unclosed, and a curtain withdrawn. Beyond she only saw a gulf of darkness, but out of it came a deep manly voice, subdued and melancholy, but gentlemanlike and deferential.
'The young lady is so kind as to come and cheer the old hermit. A thousand thanks, madam. Permit me.'
Aurelia's hand was taken by one soft for want of use, and she was led forward on a deep piled carpet, and carefully placed on a chair in the midst of the intense black darkness. There was a little movement and then the voice said, 'I am most sensible of your goodness, madam.'
'I-I am glad. You are very good, sir,' murmured Aurelia, oppressed by the gloom and the peculiar atmosphere, cool-for the windows were open behind the shutters-but strangely fragrant.
'How does my excellent friend, Major Delavie?'
'I thank you, sir, he is well, though his wound troubles him from time to time.'
'Commend me to him when you write, if you are good enough to remember it.'
'I thank you, sir. He will be rejoiced to hear of you.'
'He does me too much honour.'
These conventionalities being exhausted, a formidable pause ensued, first broken by Mr. Belamour, 'May I ask how my fair visitor likes Bowstead?'
'It is a fine place, sir.'
'But somewhat lonely for so youthful a lady?'
'I have the children, sir.'
'I often hear their cheerful voices.'
'I hope we do not disturb you, sir, I strive to restrain them, but I fear we are all thoughtless.'
'Nay, the innocent sounds of mirth ring sweetly on my ears, like the notes of birds. And when I have heard a charming voice singing to the little ones, I have listened with delight. Would it be too presumptuous to beg the air songstress to repeat her song for the old recluse?'
'O, sir, I have only nursery ditties, caught from our old German maid,' cried Aurelia, in dismay.
'That might not diminish the charm to me,' he said. 'In especial there was one song whose notes Jumbo caught as you accompanied yourself on the spinnet.'
And Jumbo, who seemed able to see in the dark, played a bar on his violin, while Aurelia trembled with shyness.
'The Nightingale Song,' she said. 'My dear mother learnt the tune abroad. And I believe that she herself made the English words, when she was asked what the nightingales say.'
'May I hear it? Nightingales can sing in the dark.' Refusal was impossible, and Jumbo's violin was a far more effective accompaniment than her own very moderate performance on the spinnet; so in a sweet, soft, pure, untrained and trembling voice, she sang-
'O Life and Light are sweet, my dear,
O life and Light are sweet;
But sweeter still the hope and cheer
When Love and Life shall meet.
Oh! then it is most sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.
'But Love puts on the yoke, my dear,
But Love puts on the yoke;
The dart of Love calls forth the tear,
As though the heart were broke.
The very heart were broke, broke, broke, broke, broke, broke.
'And Love can quench Life's Light, my dear,
Drear, dark, and melancholy;
Seek Light and Life and jocund cheer,
And mirth and pleasing folly.
Be thine, light-hearted folly, folly, folly, folly, folly, folly.
''Nay, nay,' she sang. 'yoke, pain, and tear,
For Love I gladly greet;
Light, Life, and Mirth are nothing here,
Without Love's bitter sweet.
Give me Love's bitter sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.''
'Accept my fervent thanks, kind songstress. So that is the nightingale's song, and your honoured mother's?'
'Yes, sir. My father often makes us sing it because it reminds him of her.'
'Philomel could not have found a better interpreter,' said the grave voice, sounding so sad that Aurelia wished she could have sung something less affecting to his spirits.
'I gather from what you said that you are no longer blessed with the presence of the excellent lady, your mother,' presently added Mr. Belamour.
'No, sir. We lost her seven years ago.'
'And her husband mourns her still. Well he may. She was a rare creature. So she is gone! I have been so long in seclusion that no doubt time has made no small havoc, and my friends have had many griefs to bewail.'
Aurelia knew not what answer to make, and was relieved when he collected himself and said:-
'I will trespass no longer on my fair visitor's complaisance, but if she have not found the gloom of this apartment insupportable, it would be a charitable action to brighten it once more with her presence.'
'O sir, I will come whenever you are pleased to send for me,' she exclaimed, all her doubts, fears, and scruples vanishing at his tone of entreaty. 'My father would be so glad. I will practise my best song to sing to you to-
