Straight down she ran
.... and fatally did vow To wreake her on the mayden messenger
Whom she had caused be kept as prisonere.
SPENSER.
Hark! there was the trampling of horses and thundering of wheels at the
door! Could the doctor be come already, and in such a fashion?
Jumbo hurried to admit him, and Mrs. Aylward moved to arrange matters,
but the clasp that was on Aurelia’s hand would not let her go.
Presently there came, not Dr. Hunter’s tread, but a crisp, rustling
sound, and the tap of high heels, and in the doorway stood, tall, erect,
and terrible, Lady Belamour, with a blaze of wrath in her blue eyes, and
concentrated rage in her whole form, while in accents low, but coming
from between her teeth, she demanded, “Miserable boy, what means this?”
“Oh! madam, take care! he is sadly hurt!” cried Aurelia, with a gesture
as if to screen him.
“I ask what this means?” repeated Lady Belamour, advancing, and seeming
to fill the room with her majestic figure, in full brocaded dress, with
feathers waving in her hair.
“His Honour cannot answer you, my Lady,” said Mrs. Aylward. “He has had
a bad fall, and Mr. Belamour is gone to send for the doctor.”
“This is the housekeeping in my absence!” said Lady Belamour, showing
less solicitude as to her son’s condition than indignation at the
discovery, and her eyes and her diamonds glittering fearfully.
“My Lady,” said Mrs. Aylward, with stern respectfulness, “I knew nothing
of all this till this lady called me an hour ago telling me Sir Amyas
was hurt. I found him as you see. Please your Ladyship, I must go back
to him.”
“Speak then, you little viper,” said Lady Belamour, turning on Aurelia,
who had risen, but was held fast by the hand upon hers. “By what arts
have you well nigh slain my son? Come here, and tell me.”
“None, madam!” gasped Aurelia, trembling, so that she grasped her
chair-back with her free hand for support. “I never saw him till
to-night.”
“Lies will not serve you, false girl. Come here this instant! I _know_
that you have been shamelessly receiving my son here, night after
night.”
“I never knew!”
“Missie Madam never knew,” chimed in Jumbo. “All in the dark. She
thought it old mas’r.”
Lady Belamour looked contemptuously incredulous; but the negro’s
advocacy gave a kind of courage to Aurelia, and availing herself of
a slight relaxation of the fingers she withdrew her hand, and coming
forward, said, “Indeed, madam, I know nothing, I was entirely deceived.
Only hearing two voices in the dark alarmed me, so that I listened to my
sister, and struck a light to discover the truth. Then all caught fire,
and blazed up, and--”
“Then you are an incendiary as well as a traitor,” said her Ladyship,
with cold, triumphant malignity. “This is work for the constable. Here,
Loveday,” to her own woman, who was waiting in the outer room, “take this
person away, and lock her into her own room till morning, when we can
give her up to justice.”
“Oh, my Lady,” cried Aurelia, crouching at her feet and clinging to her
dress, “do not be so cruel! Oh! let me go home to my father!”
“Madam!” cried a voice from the bed, “let alone my wife! Come, Aurelia.
Oh!”
Then starting up in bed had wrenched his broken arm, and he fell back
senseless again, just as Aurelia would have flown back to him, but his
mother stood between, spurning her away.
Another defender, if she could so be called, spoke for her. “It is true,
please your Ladyship,” said Mrs. Aylward, “that Mr. Belamour called her
the wife of this poor young gentleman.”
Jumbo too exclaimed, “No one knew but Jumbo; His Honour marry pretty
missie in mas’r’s wig and crimson dressing-gown.”
“A new stratagem!” ironically observed the incensed lady. “But your game
is played out, miss, for madam I cannot call you. Such a marriage cannot
stand for a moment; and if a lawyer like Amyas Belamour pretended it
could, either his wits were altogether astray or he grossly deceived
you. Or, as I believe, he trafficked with you to entrap this unhappy
youth, whose person and house you have, between you, almost destroyed.
Remove her, Loveday, and lock her up till we can send for a magistrate
to take depositions in the morning. Go quietly, girl I will not have my
son disturbed with your outcries.”
Poor Aurelia’s voice died in her throat. Oh! why did not Mr. Belamour
come to her rescue? Ah! he had bidden her trust and be patient; she had
transgressed, and he had abandoned her! There was no sign of life or
consciousness in the pallid face on the bed, and with a bleeding heart
she let the waiting-maid lead her through the outer apartment, still
redolent of the burning, reached her own chamber, heard the key turn in
the lock, and fell across her bed in a sort of annihilation.
The threat was unspeakably frightful. Those were days of capital
punishment for half the offences in the calendar, and of what was to her
scarcely less dreadful, of promiscuous imprisonment, fetters, and gaol
fever. Poor Aurelia’s ignorance could hardly enhance these horrors, and
when her perceptions began to clear themselves, her first thought was of
flight from a fate equally dreadful to the guilty or not guilty.
Springing from the bed, she tried the other door of her room, which
was level with the wainscoting, and not readily observed by a person
unfamiliar with the house. It yielded to her hand, and she knew there
was a whole suite of empty rooms thus communicating with one another. It
was one of those summer nights that are never absolutely dark, and
there was a full moon, so that she had light enough to throw off her
conspicuous white habit, all scorched and singed as it was, and to put
on her dark blue cloth one, with her camlet cloak and hood. She made up
a small bundle of clothes, took her purse, which was well filled with
guineas and silver, and moved softly to the door. Hide and seek had
taught her all the modes of eluding observation, and with her walking
shoes in her hand, and her feet slippered, she noiselessly crept through
one empty room after another, and descended the stair into her own
lobby, where she knew how to open the sash door.
One moment the thought that Mr. Belamour would protect her made her
pause, but the white phantom she had seen seemed more unreal than the
voice she was accustomed to, and both alike had vanished and abandoned
her to her fate. Nay, she had been cheated from the first. Everything
had given way with her. My Lady might be coming to send her to prison.
Hark, some one was coming! She darted out, down the steps, along the
path like a wild bird from a cage.