Love and Life

'You shall hear all another time,' said lady Belamour. 'Let us go on now.'

They did so, but the horseman continued to flash across the windows, and when the coach, after considerable delay, had entered the walled court, rumbled over the pavement, and stopped before a closed door, he was still there. When, after much thundering, the door was opened, Aurelia had a moment's glimpse of a splendid figure in gold and scarlet handing out Lady Belamour, who stood talking with him on the steps of the house for some moments. Then, shrugging his shoulders, he remounted, and cantered off, after which my Lady signed to Aurelia to alight, and followed her into the hall.

'Madge,' said Lady Belamour to the witch-like old woman who had admitted her, 'this young lady is to remain here. You will open a bedroom and sitting-room for her at the back of the house. Let her be properly cared for, and go out in the court behind, but on no account approach the front gates. Let no one know she is here.'

Madge muttered some demands about supplies and payments, and Lady Belamour waved her to settle them with Mrs. Loveday, turning meantime to the prisoner and saying, 'There, child, you are to remain here on your good behaviour. Do your best to merit my good will, so that I may overlook what is past. Recollect, the least attempt to escape, or to hold intercourse with the young, or the old, fool, and it shall be the worse with them and with your father.'

Therewith she departed, followed by Loveday, leaving Aurelia standing in the middle of the hall, the old hag gazing on her with a malignant leer. 'Ho! ho'! So that's the way! He has begun that work early, has he? What's your name, my lass? Oh, you need give yourself airs! I cry you mercy,' and she made a derisive curtsey.

Poor Aurelia, pride had less to do with her silence than absolute uncertainty what to call herself. The wedding ring was on her finger, and she would not deny her marriage by calling herself Delavie, but Belamour might be dangerous, and the prefix was likewise a difficulty, so faltered, 'You may call me Madam Aurelia.'

'Madam Really. That's a queer name, but it will serve while you are here.'

'Pray let me go to my room,' entreated the poor prisoner, who felt as ineffable disgust at her jailor, and was becoming sensible to extreme fatigue.

'Your room, hey? D'ye think I keep rooms and beds as though this were an inn, single-handed as I am? You must wait, unless you be too fine to lend a hand.'

'Anything will do,' said Aurelia, 'if I may only rest. I would help, but I am so much tired that I can hardly stand.'

'My Lady has given it to you well, Mistress Really or Mistress Falsely, which ever you may be,' mumbled Madge, perhaps in soliloquy, fumbling at the lock of a room which at last she opened. It smelt very close and fusty, and most of the furniture was heaped together under a cloth in the midst, dimly visible by the light of a heart- shaped aperture in the shutters. Unclosing one of the leaves, the old woman admitted enough daylight to guide Aurelia to a couch against the wall, saying, 'You can wait there till I see to your bed. And you'll be wanting supper too!' she added in a tone of infinite disgust.

'O never mind supper, if I can only go to bed,' sighed Aurelia, sinking on the couch as the old woman hobbled off. Lassitude and exhaustion had brought her to a state like annihilation-unable to think or guess, hope or fear, with shoes hurting her footsore feet, a stiff dress cramping her too much for sleep, and her weary aching eyes gathering a few impressions in a passive way. On the walls hung dimly seen portraits strangely familiar to her. The man in a green dressing gown with floating hair had a face she knew; so had the lady in the yellow ruff. And was that not the old crest, the Delavie butterfly, with the motto, Ma Vie et ma Mie, carved on the mantelpiece? Thus she knew that she must be in Delavie House, and felt somewhat less desolate as she recognised several portraits as duplicates of those at the Great House at Carminster, and thought they looked at her in pity with their eyes like her father's. The youngest son in the great family group was, as she knew, an Amyas, and he put her in mind of her own. Oh, was he her own, when she could not tell whether those great soft, dark-grey eyes that looked so kindly on her had descended to the young baronet? She hoped not, for Harriet and she had often agreed that they presaged the fate of that gallant youth, who had been killed by Sir Bevil Grenville's side. He must have looked just as Sir Amyas did, lying senseless after the hurt she had caused.

No more definite nor useful thought passed through the brain of the overwearied maiden as she rest on the couch, how long she knew not; but it was growing dark by the time Madge returned with a guttering candle, a cracked plate and wedge of greasy-looking pie, a piece of dry bread, a pewter cup of small beer, and an impaired repulsive steel knife with a rounded end, and fork with broken prong. The fact of this being steel was not distressing to one who had never seen a silver fork, but the condition of both made her shudder, and added to the sick sense of exhaustion that destroyed her appetite. She took a little of the bread, and, being parched with thirst, drank some of the beer before Madge came back again. 'Oh ho, you're nice I see, my fine Dame Really!'

'Thank you, indeed I can't eat, I am so much tired,' said Aurelia apologetically.

'You'll have to put up with what serves your betters, I can tell you,' was all the reply she received. 'Well be ye coming to your bed?'

So up the creaking stairs she was guided to a room, very unlike that fresh white bower at Bowstead, large, eerie, ghostly-looking, bare save for a dark oak chest, and a bed of the same material, the posts apparently absolute trees, squared and richly carved, and supporting a solid wooden canopy with an immense boss as big as a cabbage, and carved something like one, depending from the centre, as if to endanger the head of the unwary, who should start up in bed. No means of ablution were provided, and Aurelia felt so grimed and dusty that she ventured to beg for an ewer and basin; but her amiable hostess snarled out that she had enough to do without humouring fiddle-faddle whimsies, and that she might wash at the pump if nothing else would serve her.

Aurelia wished she had known this before going up stairs, and, worn out as she was, the sense implanted by her mother that it was wicked to go to sleep dirty, actually made her drag herself down to a grim little scullery, where she was permitted to borrow a wooden bowl, since she was too nice forsooth to wash down stairs. She carried it up with a considerable trouble more than half full, and a bit of yellow soap and clean towel were likewise vouchsafed to her. The wash-perhaps because of the infinite trouble it cost her-did her great good,-it gave her energy to recollect her prayers and bring good angels about her. If this had been her first plunge from home, when Jumbo's violin had so scared her, such a place as this would have almost killed her; but the peace that had come to her in Sedhurst Church lingered still round her, and as she climbed up into the lofty bed the verse sang in her ears 'Love is strong as death.' Whether Love Divine or human she did not ask herself, but with the sense of soothing upon her, she slept-and slept as a seventeen-years'-old frame will sleep after having been thirty-six hours awake and afoot.

When she awoke it was with the sense of some one being in the room. 'O gemini!' she heard, and starting up, only just avoiding the knob, she saw Mrs. Loveday's well-preserved brunette face gazing at her.

'Your servant, ma'am,' she said. 'You'll excuse me if I speak with you here, for I must be back by the time my Lady's bell rings.'

'Is it very late?' said Aurelia, taking from under her pillow her watch, which had stopped long ago.

'Nigh upon ten o'clock,' said Loveday. 'I must not stay, but it is my Lady's wish that you should have all that is comformable, and you'll let me know how Madge behaves herself.'

'Is there any news from Bowstead?' was all Aurelia could at first demand.

'Not yet; but bless you, my dear young lady, you had best put all that matter out of your head for ever and a day. I know what these young gentlemen are. They are not to be hearkened to one moment, not the best of them. Let them be ever so much in earnest at the time, their parents and guardians have the mastery of them sooner or later, and the farther it has gone, the worse it is. I saw you lying asleep here looking so innocent that it went to my heart, and I heard you mutter in your sleep 'Love is strong as death,' but that's only a bit of some play-book, and don't you trust to it, for I never saw love that was stronger than a spider's web.'

'Oh, hush, Mrs. Loveday. It is in the Bible!'

'You don't say so, ma'am,' the woman said awestruck.

'I would show it you, only all my things are away. God is love, you know,' said Aurelia, sitting up with clasped hands, 'and He gives it, so it must be strong.'

'Well, all the love I've ever seen was more the devil's,' said Loveday truly enough; 'and you'll find it so if you mean to trust to these fine young beaux and what they say.'

Aurelia shook her head a little as she sat up in bed with her clasped hands; and there was a look on her face that Mrs. Loveday did not understand, as she went on with her advice.

'So, my dear young lady, you see all that is left for you is to frame your mind to keep close here, and conform to my Lady's will till all is blown over one way or another.'