And now the glorious artist, ere he yet
Had reached the Lemnian Isle, limping, returned;
With aching heart he sought his home.
_Odyssey_--COWPER.
How were they to get the slumbering maiden home? That was the next
question. Loveday advised carrying her direct to her old prison, where
she would wake without alarm; but Sir Amyas shuddered at the notion,
and Betty said she _could_ not take her again into a house of Lady
Belamour’s.
The watermen, who were enthusiastic in the cause, which they understood
as that of one young sweetheart rescued by the other, declared that they
would carry the sweet lady between them on the cushions of their boat,
laid on stretchers; and as they knew of a land-place near the _Royal
York_, with no need of crossing any great thoroughfare, Betty thought
this the best chance of taking her sister home without a shock.
The boat from Woolwich had shot London Bridge immediately after them,
and stopped at the stairs nearest that where they landed; and just as
Sir Amyas, with an exclamation of annoyance at his unserviceable arm,
had resigned Aurelia to be lifted on to her temporary litter, a hand
was laid on his shoulder, a voice said “Amyas, what means this?” and he
found himself face to face with a small, keen-visaged, pale man, with
thick grizzled brows overhanging searching dark grey eyes, shaded by a
great Spanish hat.
“Sir! oh sir, is it you?” he cried, breathlessly; “now all will be
well!”
“I am very glad you think so, Amyas,” was the grave answer; “for all
this has a strange appearance.”
“It is my dearest wife, sir, my wife, whom I have just recovered
after--Oh, say, sir, if you think all is well with her, and it is only
a harmless sleeping potion. Sister--Betty--this is my good father, Mr.
Wayland. He is as good as a physician. Let him see my sweetest life.”
Mr. Wayland bent over the slumbering figure still in the bottom of
the boat, heard what could be told of the draught by Loveday, whom he
recognized as his wife’s attendant, and feeling Aurelia’s pulse, said,
“I should not think there was need for fear. To the outward eye she is
a model of sleeping innocence.” “Well you may say so,” and “She is
indeed,” broke from the baronet and the waiting-maid at the same
instant; but Mr. Wayland heeded them little as he impatiently asked,
“Where and how is your mother, Amyas?”
“In health sir, at home, I suppose,” said Sir Amyas; “but oh, sir, hear
me, before you see her.”
“I must, if you walk with me,” said Mr. Wayland, turning for a moment
to bid his servant reward and dismiss the boat’s crew, and see to the
transport of his luggage; and in the meantime Aurelia was lifted by her
bearers.
Sir Amyas again uttered a rejoicing, “We feared you were in the hands of
the pirates, sir.”
“So I was; but the governor of Gibraltar obtained my release, and was
good enough to send me home direct in a vessel on the king’s service,”
said Mr. Wayland, taking the arm his stepson offered to assist his
lameness. “Now for your explanation, Amyas; only let me hear first that
my babes are well.”
“Yes, sir, all well. You had my letter?”
“Telling of that strange disguised wedding? I had, the very day I was
captured.”
By the time they had come to the place where their ways parted, Mr.
Wayland had heard enough to be so perplexed and distressed that he knew
not that he had been drawn out of the way to Hanover Square, till at
the entrance of the _Royal York_, they found Betty asseverating to the
landlady that she was bringing no case of small pox into the house;
and showing, as a passport of admittance, two little dents on the white
wrist and temple.
At that instant the sound brought Major Delavie hurrying from his
sitting-room at his best speed. There was a look of horror on his face
as he saw his daughter’s senseless condition, but Betty sprang to his
side to prevent his wakening her, and Aurelia was safely carried up
stairs and laid upon her sister’s bed, still sleeping, while Betty and
Loveday unloosed her clothes. Her bearers were sent for refreshment
to the bar, and the gentlemen stood looking on one another in the
sitting-room, Mr. Wayland utterly shocked, incredulous of the little he
did understand, and yet unable to go home until he should hear more;
and the Major hardly less horrified, in the midst of his relief. “But
where’s Belamour!” he cried, “Your uncle, I mean.”
“Where?” said Sir Amyas. “They said he was gone out.”
“So they told me! And see here!”
Major Delavie produced Lady Belamour’s note.
“A blind!” cried Sir Amyas, turning away under a strange stroke of pain
and sham. “Oh! mother, mother!” and he dashed out of the room.
Poor Mr. Wayland sat down as one who could stand no longer. “Of what do
they suspect her?” he said hoarsely.
“Sir,” said the good Major, “I grieve sincerely for and with you.
Opposition to this match with my poor child seems to have transported
my poor cousin to strange and frantic lengths, but you may trust me to
shield and guard her from exposure as far as may be.”
Her husband only answered by a groan, and wrung Major Delavie’s hand,
but their words were interrupted by Sir Amyas’s return. He had been to
his uncle’s chamber, and had found on the table a note addressed to the
Major. Within was a inclosure directed to A. Belamour, Esq.
“If you have found the way to the poor captive, for pity’s sake
come to her rescue. Be in the court with your faithful black
by ten o’clock, and you may yet save on who loves and looks to
you.”
On the outer sheet was written--
“I distrust this handwriting, and suspect a ruse. In case I do
not return, send for Hargrave, Sandys, Godfrey, as witnesses to
my sanity, and storm the fair one’s fortress in person. A. B.”
“It is not my Aurelia’s writing,” said the Major. “Bravest of friends,
what has he not dared on her account!”
“This is too much!” cried Mr. Wayland, striving in horror against
his convictions. “I cannot hear my beloved wife loaded with monstrous
suspicions in her absence!”
“I am sorry to say this is no new threat ever since poor Belamour has
crossed her path,” said the Major.
“What have you done, sir!” asked Sir Amyas.
“I fear I have but wasted time,” said the Major. “I have been to Hanover
Square, and getting no admittance there, I came back in the hope you
might be on the track with Betty--as, thank God, you were! The first
thing to be done now is to find what she has done with Belamour,” he
added, rising up.
“That must fall to my share,” said Mr. Wayland, pale and resolute. “Come
with me, Amyas, your young limbs will easily return before the effect of
the narcotic has passed, and I need fuller explanation.”
Stillness than came on the Delavie party. The Major went up stairs, and
sat by Aurelia’s bed gazing with eyes dazzled with tears at the child he
had so longed to see, and whom he found again in this strange trance.
A doctor came, and quite confirmed Mr. Wayland’s opinion, that the drug
would not prove deleterious, provided the sleep was not disturbed, and
Betty continued her watch, after hearing what her father knew of Mr.
Belamour. She was greatly struck with the self-devotion that had gone
with open eyes into so dreadful a snare as a madhouse of those days
rather than miss the least chance of saving Aurelia.
“If we go by perils dared, the uncle is the true knight-errant,” said
she to her father. “I wonder which our child truly loves the best!”
“Betty!” said her father, scandalised.
“Ay, I know, Sir Amyas is a charming boy, but what a boy he is! And she
has barely spoken with him or seen him, whereas Mr. Belamour has been
kind to her for a whole twelvemonth. I know what I should do if I were
in her place. I would declare that I intended to be married to the
uncle, and would keep it!”
“He would think it base to put the question.”
“He would; but indeed, dear sir, I think it would be but right and due
to the dear child herself that she should have here free choice, and
not be bound for ever by a deception! Yes, I know the poor boy’s despair
would be dreadful, but it would be better for them both than such a
mistake.”
“Hush! I hear him knocking at the door, you cruel woman.”
The bedroom opened into the parlour the party had hired, so that both
could come out and meet Sir Amyas with the door ajar, without relaxing
their watch upon the sleeper. The poor young man looked pale, shocked,
and sorrowful. “Well,” said he, after having read in their looks that
there was no change, “he knows the worst.” Then on a further token of
interrogation, “It may have been my fault; I took him, unannounced,
through the whole suite of rooms, and in the closet at the end, with all
the doors open, she was having an altercation with Mar. He was insisting
on knowing what she had done with”--(he signed towards the other room)
“she, upbraiding him with faithlessness. They were deaf to an approach,
till Mr. Wayland, in a loud voice, ordered me back, saying ‘it was no
scene for a son.’”
“I trust it will not end in a challenge?” asked the Major, gravely.
“No, my father’s infirmity renders him no fighting man, and I--I may not
challenge my superior officer.”
“But your uncle?” said Betty, much fearing that such a scene might have
led to his being forgotten.
“I should have told you. We had not made many steps from hence before
we met poor Jumbo wandering like a dog that had lost his master. Mr.
Belamour had taken the precaution of giving Jumbo the pass-key, and
not taking him into that house (some day I will pull every brick of it
down), so he watched till by and by he saw a coach come out with all the
windows closed, and as his master had bidden him in such a case, he
kept along on the pavement near, and never lost sight of it till he had
tracked it right across the City to a house with iron-barred windows
inside a high wall. There it went in, and he could not follow, but he
asked the people what place it was, and though they jeered at him, he
made out that it was as we feared. Nay, do not be alarmed, sister, he
will soon be with us. My poor father shut me out, and I know not what
passed with my mother, but just as I could wait no longer to return to
my dearest, he came out and told me that he had found out that my uncle
was in a house at Moorfields, and he is gone himself to liberate him.
He is himself a justice of the peace, and he will call for Dr. Sandys
by the way, that there may be no difficulty. He is gone in the
coach-and-four, with Jumbo on the box, so that matters will soon be
righted.”
“And a heroic champion set free,” said Betty moving to return to her
sister, when the others would not be denied having another look at the
sweet slumberer, on whose face there was now a smile as if her dreams
were marvellously lovely; or, as Betty thought, as if she knew their
voices even in her sleep.
Sir Amyas had not seen his mother again. He only knew that Mr. Wayland
had come out with a face as of one stricken to the heart, a sad contrast
to that which had greeted him an hour before, and while the carriage was
coming round, had simply said, “I did wrong to leave her.”
It would not bear being talked over, and both son and kinsman took
refuge in silence. Two hours more of this long day had passed, and
then a coach stopped at the door. Sir Amyas hurried down in his eager
anxiety, and came back with his uncle, holding him by the hand like a
child, in his gladness, and Betty came out to meet them in the outer
room with a face of grateful welcome and outstretched hands.
“Sir! sir! you have done more than all of us.”
“Yet you and your young champion here were the victors,” said Mr.
Belamour.
“Ah, we dared and suffered nothing like you.”
“I hope you did not suffer much,” said the major, looking at the calm
face and neatly-tied white hair, which seemed to have suffered no
disarrangement.
“No,” said Mr. Belamour, smiling, “my little friend Eugene, ay, and my
nephew himself, are hoping to hear I was released from fetters and a
heap of straw, but I took care to give them no opportunity. I merely
told them they were under a mistake, and had better take care. I gave
them a reference or two, but I saw plainly that was of no use, though
they promised to send, and then I did exactly as they bade me, so as to
deprive them of all excuse for meddling with me, letting them know that
I could pay for decent treatment so long as I was in their hands.”
“Did you receive it?”
“I was told in a mild manner, adapted to my intelligence, that if I
behaved well, I might eat at the master’s table, and have a room with
only one inmate. Of the former I have not an engaging experience, either
as to the fare, the hostess, or the company. Of the latter, happily
I know little, as I only know that my comrade was to be a harmless
gibbering idiot; of good birth, poor fellow. However, the sounds I
heard, and the court I looked into, convinced me that my privileges were
worth paying for.”
He spoke very quietly, but he shuddered involuntarily, and Betty, unable
to restrain her tears, retreated to her sister’s side.