Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume

“Letters, and bills, and wills, and parchments! Oh, so dusty! Some were on paper tumbling to pieces, and some on tiny slips of parchment.”

“And you read them all?”

“I had to read them to see what they were, as well as I could make out, and sorted them and tied them up in bundles.”

“Can you tell me whether they were Delavie wills?”

“I should think they were. I know that the oldest of all were Latin, and I could make nothing out in them but something about Manoriem and Carminster, and what looked like the names of some of the fields at home.”

“Do you think you could show me those slips?”

“I do not suppose any one has touched them.”

“Then, my dear young lady, you would confer a great favour on me if you would allow Mr. Belamour and myself to escort you to Delavie and show us these papers. I fear it may be alarming and distressing.”

“Oh no, sir, I know no harm can happen to me where Mr. Belamour is,” she said, smiling.

“It may be very important,” he said, and she went to put on her hood.

“Surely,” said Mr. Wayland, “the title-deeds cannot have been left there?”

“No. The title-deeds to the main body of the property are at Hargrave’s. I have seen them, at the time of my brother’s marriage; but still this may be what was wanting.”

“Yet the sending this child to search is presumption that no such document existed.”

“Of course no one supposed it did,” said Mr. Wayland, on the defence again.

Aurelia was quickly ready in her little hood and kerchief, and trim high-heeled shoes. She was greatly surprised to find how near she had been to her friends during these last few days of her captivity, and when Madge obeyed the summons to the door, the old woman absolutely smiled to see her safe, and the little terrier danced about her in such transports that she begged to take him back with her.

She opened the door of the little empty book room, where nothing stood except the old bureau. That, she said, had been full of letters, but all the oldest things had been within a door opening in the wainscot, which she should never have found had not Bob pushed it open in his search for rats, and then she found a tin case full of papers and parchments, much older, she thought, than the letters. She had tied them up together, and easily produced them.

Mr. Wayland handed them to Mr. Belamour, whose legal eye was better accustomed to crabbed old documents. A conversation that had begun on the way about Fay and Letty was resumed, and interested both their father and Aurelia so much that they forgot to be impatient, until Mr. Belamour looked up from his examination, saying, “This is what was wanting. Here is a grant in the 12th year of Henry III. to Guglielmus ab Vita and the heirs male of his body to the Manor, lying without the city of Carminster, and here are three wills of successive lords of Delavie expressly mentioning heirs male. Now the deeds that I have seen do not go beyond 1539, when Henry Delavie had a grant of the Grange and lands belonging to Carminster Abbey—the place, in fact, where the Great House stands, and there is in that no exclusion of female heirs. But the Manor house can certainly be proved to be entailed in the male line alone, according to what was, I believe, the tradition of the family.”

“There is no large amount of property involved, I fear,” said Mr. Wayland.

“There is an old house, much out of repair, and a few farms worth, may be, 200 pounds a year, a loss that will not be material to you, sir, I hope.”

“Do you mean—?” said Aurelia, not daring to ask farther.

“I mean, my dear young lady,” said Mr. Wayland, “that your researches have brought to light the means of doing tardy justice to your good father.”

“His right to the Manor House is here established,” explained Mr. Belamour. “It will not be a matter of favour of my Lady’s, but, as my brother supposed, he ought to have been put in possession on the old Lord’s death.”

“And Eugene will be a gentleman of estate,” cried Aurelia, joyously. “Nor will any one be able to drive out my dear father! Oh! how happy I am.”

Both she and Mr. Belamour spared Mr. Wayland the knowledge of my Lady’s many broken promises, and indeed she was anxious to get back to the Royal York, lest her father and sister should have returned, and think her again vanished.

They all met at the door, and much amazed were the Major and Betty to encounter her with her two squires. Mr. Wayland took the Major to show him the parchments. Betty had her explanation from her sister and Mr. Belamour.

“You actually ventured back to that dreadful house,” she said, looking at them gratefully.

“You see what protectors I had,” said Aurelia, with a happy smile.

“Yes,” said Betty, “I have been longing to say—only I cannot,” for she was almost choked by a great sob, “how very much we owe to you, sir. I could say it better if I did not feel it so much.” And she held out her hand.

“You cannot owe to me a tithe of what I owe to your sister,” said Mr. Belamour, “and through her to you, madam. Much as nature had done for her, never would she have been to the miserable recluse the life and light-bringing creature she was, save for the ‘sister’ she taught me to know and love, even before I saw her.”

A wonderful revelation here burst on Aurelia, the at least half-married woman, and she fled precipitately, smiling to herself in ecstasy, behind her great fan.

Betty, never dreaming of the drift of the words, so utterly out of the reach of love did she suppose herself, replied, composedly, “Our Aurelia is a dear good girl, and I am thankful that through all her trials she has so proved herself. I am glad she has been a comfort to you, sir. She–”

“And will not you complete the cure, and render the benefit lasting?” said Mr. Belamour, who had never let go the hand she had given him in gratitude, and now gave it a pressure that conveyed, for the first time, his meaning.

“Oh!” she cried, trying to take it away, “your kindness and gratitude are leading you too far, sir. A hideous old fright like me, instead of a lovely young thing like her! It is an absurdity.”

“Stay, Miss Delavie. Remember that your Aurelia’s roses and lilies were utterly wasted on me; I never thought whether she was beautiful save when others raved about her. I never saw her till yesterday; but the voice, the goodness, the amiability, in fact all that I did truly esteem and prize in her I had already found matured and mellowed together with that beauty of countenance which is independent of mere skin-deep complexion and feature. You know my history, and how far I am from being able to offer you a fresh untouched young heart, such as my nephew brings to the fair Aurelia; but the devotion of my life will be yours if you will accept it.”

“Sir, I cannot listen to you. You are very good, but I can never leave my father. Oh, let me go away!”

CHAPTER XXXVII. MAKING THE BEST OF IT

At last the Queen said, “Girl, I bid thee rise,
For now thou hast found favour in mine eyes,
And I repent me of the misery
That in this place thou hast endured me,
Altho’ because of it the Joy indeed
Shall now be mine, that pleasure is thy meed.”

                                                   MORRIS.
Those were evil times, and the court examples were most corrupting, so that a splendid and imperious woman like Urania, Lady Belamour, had found little aid from public opinion when left to herself by the absence of her second husband. Selfish, unscrupulous, and pleasure-loving she was by nature, but during Sir Jovian Belamour’s lifetime she had been kept within bounds. Then came a brief widowhood, when debt and difficulty hurried her into accepting Mr. Wayland, a thoughtful scientific man, whose wealth had accumulated without much volition of his own to an extent that made her covet his alliance. Enthralled by her charm of manner, he had not awakened to the perception of what she really was during the few years that had elapsed before he was sent abroad, and she refused to accompany him.

Then it was that wealth larger than she had before commanded, and a court appointment, involved her in more dangerous habits. Her debts, both of extravagance and of the gaming table, were enormous, trenching hard on the Delavie property, and making severe inroads on Mr. Wayland’s means; but the Belamour estates being safely tied up, she had only been able to borrow on her dower. She had sinned with a high hand, after the fashion of the time, and then, in terror at the approaching return of her husband, had endeavoured to conceal the ravages of her extravagance by her bargain for her son’s hand.

The youth, bred up at a distance, and then the companion of his step-father, had on his return found his home painfully altered in his two years’ absence, and had been galled and grieved by the state of things, so that even apart from the clearing of his prospects, the relief was great. The quarrel with Colonel Mar that Mr. Wayland had interrupted was not made up. There was no opportunity, for Mr. Wayland at once removed his family to Bowstead, there to remain while he transacted his business in London.

Moreover Mr. Belamour and Mr. Wayland agreed in selling the young baronet’s commission. The Major allowed that it was impossible that he should remain under the command of his present Colonel, but regretted that he should not continue in the service, declaring it the best school for a young man, and that he did not want to see his son-in-law a muddle-brained sporting country squire. He would have had Sir Amyas exchange into the line, and see a little service before settling down, but Maria Theresa had not as yet set Europe in a blaze, and in the absence of a promising war Sir Amyas did more incline to his uncle’s representations of duties to tenants and to his county, and was even ready to prepare himself for them when he should be of sufficient age to undertake them. However, in the midst of the debates a new scheme was made. Mr. Belamour had been called upon and welcomed by his old friends, who, being men of rank and influence, had risen in life while he was immured at Bowstead. One of these had just received a diplomatic appointment at Vienna, and in spite of insular ignorance of foreign manners was at a loss for a capable suite. Mr. Belamour suggested Major Delavie, as from his long service in Austria likely to be very useful. The Envoy caught at the idea, and the thought of once more seeing his old comrades enchanted the Major, whose only regret was that his hero, Prince Eugene, had been dead three years; but to visit his grave would be something. Appointments ran in families, so that nothing could be easier than to obtain one for the young baronet; and though Mr. Belamour did not depend on his own health enough to accept anything, he was quite willing to join the party, and to spend a little time abroad, while his nephew was growing somewhat older, making an essay of his talents, and at any rate putting off the commencement of stagnation. Thus matters settled themselves, the only disappointed member of the family being Mrs. Arden, who thought it very hard that she could not stir any one up to request an appointment of her husband as chaplain—not even himself!

Mr. Wayland was at once called upon to go out to America to superintend the defences of the Canadian frontier, and he resolved on taking his family out, obtaining land, and settling there permanently. He would pay all my Lady’s debts, but she should never again appear in London society, and cruel exile as it must seem to her, he trusted that his affection and tenderness would in time reconcile her to the new way of life, knowing as she did that he had forgiven much that had made him look like a crushed and sorrowful man in the midst of all the successes and the honours he received from his country.

She remained quietly at Bowstead, and none of them saw her except her son and the Major, to the latter of whom her husband brought a message that she would esteem it a favour if he would come and visit her there, the day before he returned to Carminster. Very much affected, the good Major complied with her request, went down with Mr. Wayland and spent a night at Bowstead.

He found that she had accepted her fate with the good grace of a woman whose first instinct was not to make herself disagreeable. She was rather pale, and not “made up” in any way, but exquisitely though more simply dressed, and more beautiful than ever, her cousin thought, as he always did whenever he came into her presence. She was one of those people whose beauty is always a fresh surprise, and she was far more self-possessed than he was.

“So, Cousin Harry, where am I to begin my congratulations! I did you and unwitting service when I sent your daughter to search among those musty old parchments. I knew my father believed in the existence of some such document, but I thought all those hoards in Delavie House were devoid of all legal importance, and had been sifted again and again. Besides, I always meant to settle that old house upon you.”

“I have always heard so, cousin,” he answered.

“But it was such a mere trifle,” she added, “that it never seemed worth while to set the lawyers to work about that alone, so I waited for other work to be in hand.”