Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume

“I would not let a breath blow on her that could touch the bloom of her charming frank innocence,” cried the lad. “But think you she can be in health? Lady Belle spoke of her being pale!”

“Look at my young lady herself!” said the Major, which made them all laugh. They were full of hope. The Major and his daughter would go themselves the next day, and a father’s claim could not be refused even though not enforced according to Lady Arabella’s desire.

Their coach—for so Sir Amyas insisted on their going—was at the door at the earliest possible moment that a school for young ladies could be supposed to be astir; long before Mr. Belamour was up, for he retained his old habits so much that it was only on great occasions the he rose before noon; and while Eugene, under the care of Jumbo and Grey, was going off in great felicity to see the morning parade in St. James’s Park.

One of the expedients of well-born Huguenot refugees had been tuition, and Madame d’Elmar had made here boarding-school so popular and fashionable that a second generation still maintained its fame, and damsels of the highest rank were sent there to learn French, to play the spinnet, to embroider, to dance, and to get into a carriage with grace. It was only countrified misses, bred by old-fashioned scholars, who attempted to go any farther, such as that lusus naturae, Miss Elizabeth Carter, who knew seven languages, or the Bishop of Oxford’s niece, Catherine Talbot, who even painted natural flowers and wrote meditations! The education Aurelia Delavie had received over her Homer and Racine would be smiled at as quite superfluous.

There was no difficulty about admission. The coach with its Belamour trappings was a warrant of admittance. The father and daughter were shown into a parlour with a print of Marshal Schomberg over the mantelpiece, and wonderful performances in tapestry work and embroidery on every available chair, as well as framed upon the wainscoted walls.

A little lady, more French than English, moving like a perfectly wound up piece of mechanism, all but her bright little eyes, appeared at their request to see Madame. It had been agreed before-hand that the Major should betray neither doubt nor difficulty, but simply say that he had come up from the country and wished to see his daughter.

Madame, in perfectly good English, excused herself, but begged to hear the name again.

There must be some error, no young lady of the name of Delavie was there.

They looked at one another, then Betty asked, “Has not a young lady been placed here by Lady Belamour?”

“No, madam, Lady Belamour once requested me to receive her twin daughters, but they were mere infants; I receive none under twelve year old.”

“My good lady,” cried the Major, “if you are denying my daughter to me, pray consider what you are doing. I am her own father, and whatever Lady Belamour may tell you, I can enforce my claim.”

“I am not in the habit of having my word doubted, sir,” and the little lady drew herself up like a true Gascon baroness, as she was.

“Madam, forgive me, I am in terrible perplexity and distress. My poor child, who was under Lady Belamour’s charge, has been lost to us these three weeks or more, and we have been told that she has been seen here.”

“Thus,” said Betty, seeing that the lady still needed to be appeased, “we thought Lady Belamour might have deceived you as well as others.”

“May I ask who said the young lady had been seen here?” asked the mistress coldly.

“It was Lady Arabella Mar,” said Betty, “and, justly speaking, I believe she did not say it was here that my poor sister was seen, but that she had seen her, and we drew the conclusion that it was here.”

“My Lady Arabella Mar is too often taken out by my Lady Countess,” said Madame d’Elmar.

“Could I see her? Perhaps she would tell me where she saw my dear sister?” said Betty.

“She went to a rout last evening and has not returned,” was the reply. “Indeed my lady, her mother, spoke as if she might never come back, her marriage being on the tapis. Indeed, sir, indeed, madam, I should most gladly assist you,” she said as a gesture of bitter grief and disappointment passed between father and daughter, both of whom were evidently persons of condition. “If it will be any satisfaction to the lady to see all my pupils, I will conduct her through my establishment.”

Betty caught at this, though there was no doubt that the mistress was speaking in good faith. She was led to a large empty room, where a dozen young ladies were drawn up awaiting the dancing master—girls from fourteen to seventeen, the elder ones in mob caps, those with more pretensions to fashion, with loose hair. Their twelve curtsies were made, their twenty-four eyes peeped more or less through their lashes at the visitor, but no such soft brown eyes as Aurelia’s were among them.

“Madame,” said Betty, “may I be permitted to ask the ladies a question?” She spoke it low, and in French, and her excellent accent won Madame’s heart at once. Only Madame trusted to Mademoiselle’s discretion not to put mysteries into their minds, or they would be all tete montee.

So, as discretely as the occasion would permit, Betty asked whether any one had seen or heard Lady Belle speak of having seen any one—a young lady?

Half-a-dozen tongues broke out, “We thought it all Lady Belle’s whimsical secrets,” and as many stories were beginning, but Madame’s awful little hand waved silence, as she said, “Speak then, Miss Staunton.”

“I know none of Lady Belle’s secrets, ma’am—ask Miss Howard.”

Miss Howard looked sulky; and a little eager, black-eyed thing cried, “She said it was an odious girl whom Lady Belamour keeps shut up in a great dungeon of an old house, and is going to send beyond seas, because she married two men at once in disguise.”

“Fie, Miss Crawford, you know nothing about it.”

“You told me so, yourself, Miss Howard.”

“I never said anything so foolish.”

“Hush, young ladies,” said Madame. “Miss Howard, if you know anything, I request you to speak.”

“It would be a great kindness,” said Betty. “Might I ask the favour of seeing Miss Howard in private?”

Madame consented, and Miss Howard followed Betty out of hearing, muttering that Belle would fly at her for betraying her.

“I do not like asking you to betray your friend’s confidence,” said Betty.

“Oh, as to that, I’m not her friend, and I believe she has talked to a half-a-dozen more.”

“I am this poor young lady’s sister,” said Betty. “We are afraid she has fallen into unkind hands; and I should be very thankful if you could help me to find her. Where do you think Lady Belle saw her?”

“I thought it was in some old house in Hertfordshire,” said Miss Howard, more readily, “but I am not sure; for it was last Sunday, which she spent with her mamma. She came back and made it a great secret that she had seen the girl that had taken in Sir Amyas Belamour, who was contracted to herself, to marry him and his uncle both at once in disguise, and then had set the house a-fire. Belle had got some one to let her see the girl, and then she went on about her being not pretty.”

“What did she say about sending her beyond seas?”

“Oh! that Miss Crawford made up. She told me that they were going to find a husband for her such as a low creature like that deserved. And she protests she is to be married to Sir Amyas very soon, and come back here while he makes the grand tour. I hope she won’t. She will have more spiteful ways than ever.”

This was all that Betty could extract. She saw Miss Crawford alone, but her tiding melted into the vaguest second-hand hearsay. The inquiry had only produced a fresh anxiety.

CHAPTER XXIX. A BLACK BLONDEL

And to the castle gate approached in quiet wise,
Whereat soft knocking, entrance he desired.

                                              SPENSER.
“Nephew, is Delavie House inhabited?” inquired Mr. Belamour, as the baffled seekers sat together that evening.

“No, sir,” replied Sir Amyas. “My Lady will only lease it to persons of quality, on such high terms that she cannot obtain them for a house in so antiquated a neighbourhood. Oh, you do not think it possible that my dearest life can be in captivity so near us! An old house! On my soul, so it must be; I will go thither instantly.”

“And be taken for a Mohock! No, no, sit down, rash youth, and tell me who keeps the house.”

“One Madge, an old woman as sour as vinegar, who snarled at me like a toothless cur when I once went there to find an old fowling-piece of my father’s.”

“Then you ar the last person who should show yourself there, since there are sure to be strict charges against admitting you, and you would only put the garrison on the alert. You had better let the reconnoitring party consist of Jumbo and myself.”

The ensuing day was Sunday. Something was said of St. Paul’s, then in bloom of youth and the wonder of England; but Betty declared that she could not run about to see fine churches till her mind was at ease about her poor sister. Might she only go to the nearest and quietest church? So she, with her father and Eugene, repaired to St. Clement Danes, where their landlord possessed a solid oak pew, and they heard a sermon on the wickedness and presumption of inoculating for the small-pox.

It was not a genteel neighbourhood, and the congregation was therefore large, for the substantial tradesfolk who had poured into the Strand since it had been rebuilt were far more religiously disposed than the fashionable world, retaining either the Puritan zeal, or the High Church fervour, which were alike discouraged in the godless court. The Major and his son and daughter were solitary units in the midst of the groups of portly citizens, with soberly handsome wives, and gay sons and daughters, who were exchanging greetings; and on their return to their hotel, the Major betook himself to a pipe in the bar, and Eugene was allowed to go for a walk in the park with Palmer, while Betty sat in her own room with her Bible, striving to strengthen her assurance that the innocent would never be forsaken. Indeed Mr. Belamour had much strengthened her grounds of hope and comfort by his testimony to poor Aurelia’s perfect guilelessness and simplicity throughout the affair. Yet the echo of that girl’s chatter about Lady Belle’s rival being sent beyond the sea would return upon her ominously, although it might be mere exaggeration and misapprehension, like so much besides.

A great clock, chiming one, warned her to repair to the sitting-room, where she met Eugene, full of the unedifying spectacle of a fight between two street lads. There had been a regular ring, and the boy had been so much excited that Palmer had had much ado to bring him away. Betty had scarcely hushed his eager communications and repaired his toilette for dinner before Sir Amyas came in, having hurried away as soon as possible after attending his men to and from church.

“Sister,” he said, for so he insisted on calling Betty, “I really think my uncle’s surmise may be right. I went home past Delavie House last night, just to look at it, and there was—there really was, a light in one of the windows on the first floor, which always used to be as black as Erebus. I had much ado to keep myself from thundering at the gate. I would have done so before now but for my uncle’s warning. Where can he be?”