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.
“Yes,” she said.
“And what shall I call you, my dear?”
“I’m Missy.”
“No, Missy, me--me eldest,” cried the other.
“Bless the poor children!” exclaimed Mrs. Wheatfield, laughing, “they be
both of ‘em eldest, as one may say.”
“They are twins, then?” said Aurelia.
“More than that--all three of them came together! I’ve heard tell of
such a thing once or twice, but never of all living and thriving. Folk
said it was a judgment on my Lady that she spoke sharp and hard to a
poor beggar woman with a child on each arm. It was not a week out before
my Lady herself was down, quite unexpected, as I may say, for she was
staying here for a week, with a lot of company, when these three was
born. They do say she was nigh beside herself that the like of that
should have happened to her. Mr. Wayland, he was not so ill pleased, but
the poor little things had to be got out of the house any way, for she
could not abear to hear of them. Mrs. Rolfe, as was an old servant of
the family, took that one, and I was right glad to have you, my pretty
one, for I had just lost my babe at a fortnight old, and the third was
sent to Goody Bowles, for want of a better. They says as how my Lady
means to bring them out one by one, and to make as this here is bigger,
and the other up stairs is lesser, and never let on that they are all of
an age.”
The good gossip must have presumed greatly on the children’s want of
comprehension if she did not suppose that they understood her at least
as well as the young lady to whom her dialect was strange.
“And has she not seen them?”
“Never till last Monday, if you’ll believe me miss, when she drove down
in her coach, and the children were all brought home. I thought she
might have said something handsome, considering the poor little babe
as my Missy here was when I had her--not so long as my hand--and scarce
able to cry enough to show she was alive. The work I and my good man had
with her! He would walk up and down half the night with her. Not as we
grudged it. He is as fond of the child as myself; and Mr. Wayland, he
knew it. ‘She has a good nurse, dame,’ says he to me, with the water in
his eyes, before he went to foreign parts. But my Lady! When the little
one as had been with Goody Bowles--an ignorant woman, you see--cried and
clung to her, and kicked, ‘Little savages all,’ says my Lady. There was
thanks to them that had had more work to rear her children than ever
with one of her own! ‘Perfect little rustics!’ she said, even when you
made your curtsey as pretty as could be, didn’t you, my little lammie?”
“Mammy Rolfe taught me to make my curtsey like a London lady,” said the
other child, the most advanced in manners.
“Aha! little pitchers have long ears; but, bless you, they don’t know
what it means,” said Dame Wheatfield, too glad to talk to check herself
on any account; “Not so much as a kiss for them, poor little darlings!
Folks say she does not let even Master Wayland kiss aught but her hands
for fear of her fine colours. A plague on such colours, I say.”
“Poor little things!” whispered Aurelia.
“You’ll be good to them, won’t you miss?”
“Indeed I hope so! I am only just come from home, and they will be all I
have to care for here.”
“Ay, you must be lonesome in this big place; but I’m right glad to have
seen you, miss; I can part with the little dear with a better heart, for
Mrs. Aylward don’t care for children, and Jenny Bowles is a rough wench,
wrapped up in her own child, and won’t be no good to the others. Go to
the lady, my precious,” she added, trying to put the little girl into
her cousin’s lap, but this was met with struggles, and vehement cries
of--
“No; stay with mammy!”
The little sister, who had not brought her nurse, was, however, well
contented to be lifted to Aurelia’s knee, and returned her caresses.
“And have you not a name, my dear? We can’t call you all missie.”
“Fay,” the child lisped; “Fayfiddly Wayland.”
“Lawk-a-daisy!” and Mrs. Wheatfield fell back laughing. “I’ll tell you
how it was, ma’am. When no one thought they would live an hour, Squire
Wayland he sent for parson and had ‘em half baptised Faith, Hope, and
Charity. They says his own mother’s was called Faith, and the other two
came natural after it, and would do as well to be buried by as aught. So
that’s what she means by Fay, and this here is Miss Charity.”
“She said something besides Faith.”
“Well, when my lady got about again, they say if she was mad at their
coming all on a heap, she was madder still at their name. Bible wasn’t
grand enough for her! I did hear tell that she throwed her slipper at
her husband’s head, and was like to go into fits. So to content her he
came down, and took each one to Church, and had a fine London name of my
Lady’s choosing tacked on in parson’s register for them to go by; but
to my mind it ain’t like their christened name. Mine here got called for
her share Amoretta.”
“A little Love,” cried Aurelia. “Oh, that is pretty. And what can your
name be, my dear little Fay? Will you tell me again?”
When repeated, it was plainly Fidelia, and it appeared that Hope had
been also called Letitia. As to age, Mrs. Wheatfield knew it was five
years last Michaelmas since the child had been brought to her from whom
she was so loth to part that she knew not how to go when her husband
came for her in his cart. He was a farmer, comfortably off, though very
homely, and there were plenty of children at home, so that she had been
ill spared to remain at the Park till Aurelia’s arrival. Thus she took
the opportunity of going away while the little one was asleep.
Aurelia asked where she lived now. At Sedhurst, in the next parish, she
was told; but she would not accept a promise that her charge should soon
be brought to visit her. “Better not, ma’am, thank you all the same,
not till she’s broke in. She’ll pine the less if she don’t see nor hear
nothing about the old place, nor Daddy and Sally and Davie. If you
bring her soon, you’ll never get her away again. That’s the worst of a
nurse-child. I was warned. It just breaks your heart!”
So away went the good foster-mother sobbing; and Aurelia’s charge began.
Fay claimed her instantly to explore the garden and house. The child had
been sent home alone on the sudden illness of her nurse, and had been
very forlorn, so that her cousin’s attention was a great boon to her.
Hope was incited to come out; but Jenny Bowles kept a jealous watch over
her, and treated every one else as an enemy; and before Aurelia’s
hat was on, came the terrible woe of Amoret’s awakening. Her sobs and
wailings for her mammy were entirely beyond the reach of Aurelia’s
soothings and caresses, and were only silenced by Molly’s asseveration
that the black man was at the door ready to take her into the dark room.
That this was no phantom was known to the poor child, and was a lurking
horror to Aurelia herself. No wonder that the little thing clung to her
convulsively, and would not let her hand go for the rest of the day,
every now and then moaning out entreaties to go home to mammy.
With the sad little being hanging to her hand, Aurelia was led by Fay
round their new abiding place. The house was of brick, shaped like the
letter H, Dutch, and with a tall wing, at each end of the main body,
projecting, and finishing in fantastic gables edged with stone. One
of these square wings was appropriated to Aurelia and her charges, the
other to the recluse Mr. Belamour. The space that lay between the two
wings, on the garden front, was roofed over, and paved with stone,
descending in several broad shallow steps at the centre and ends,
guarded at each angle by huge carved eagles, the crest of the builder,
of the most regular patchwork, and kept, in spite of the owner’s
non-residence, in perfect order. The strange thing was that this fair
and stately place, basking in the sunshine of early June, should be left
in complete solitude save for the hermit in the opposite wing, the three
children, and the girl, who felt as though in a kind of prison.
The sun was too hot for Aurelia to go out of doors till late in the day,
when the shadow of the house came over the steps. She was sitting on
one, with Amoret nestled in her lap, and was crooning an old German
lullaby of Nannerl’s, which seemed to have a wonderful effect in calming
the child, who at last fell into a doze. Aurelia had let her voice die
away, and had begun to think over her strange situation, when she was
startled by a laugh behind her, and looking round, hardly repressed
a start or scream, at the sight of Fay enjoying a game at bo-peep,
with--yes--it actually was--the negro--over the low-sashed door.
“I beg pardon, ma’am,” said Jumbo, twitching his somewhat grizzled wool;
“I heard singing, and little missy--”
Unfortunately Amoret here awoke, and with a shriek of horror cowered in
her arms.
“I am so sorry,” said Aurelia, anxious not to hurt his feelings. “She
knows no better.”
Jumbo grinned, bowed, and withdrew, Fay running after him, for she had
made friends with him during her days of solitude, being a fearless
child, and not having been taught to make a bugbear of him. “The soot
won’t come off,” she said.
Aurelia had not a moment to herself till Fay had said the Lord’s prayer
at her knee, and Amoret, with much persuasion, had been induced to lisp
out--
“Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed I sleep upon;
Four corners to by bed,
Four angles round my head,
One to read and one to write,
And two to guard my soul at night.”
Another agony for mammy ensued, nor could Aurelia leave the child till
sleep had hushed the wailings. Then only could she take her little
writing-case to begin her letter to Betty. It would be an expensive
luxury to her family, but she knew how it would be longed for; and
though she cried a good deal over her writing, she felt as if she ought
to make the best of her position, for had not Betty said it was for her
father’s sake? No, her tears must not blot the paper, to distress
those loving hearts. Yet how the drops _would_ come, gathering fast and
blinding her! Presently, through the window, came the sweet mysterious
strains of the violin, not terrifying her as before, but filling her
with an inexpressible sense of peace and calmness. She sat listening
almost as one in a dream, with her pen suspended, and when the spell was
broken by Molly’s entrance with her supper, she went on in a much more
cheerful strain than she had begun. It was dull, and it was a pity that
her grand wardrobe, to say nothing of Betty’s good advice, should be
wasted, but her sister would rejoice in her seclusion from the grand,
fashionable world, and her heart went out to the poor little neglected
children, whose mother could not bear the sight of them.