AT THE CHÂTEAU D'ARQUES.
John Mellish made himself entirely at home in the little Leamington
circle after this interview with Mr. Floyd. No one could have been more
tender in his manner, more respectful, untiring, and devoted, than was
this rough Yorkshireman to the broken old man. Archibald must have
been less than human had he not in somewise returned this devotion,
and it is therefore scarcely to be wondered that he became very warmly
attached to his daughter's adorer. Had John Mellish been the most
designing disciple of Machiavelli, instead of the most transparent and
candid of living creatures, I scarcely think he could have adopted
a truer means of making for himself a claim upon the gratitude of
Aurora Floyd than by the affection he evinced for her father. And this
affection was as genuine as all else in that simple nature. How could
he do otherwise than love Aurora's father? He was her father. He had
a sublime claim upon the devotion of the man who loved her; who loved
her as John loved,--unreservedly, undoubtingly, childishly; with such
blind, unquestioning love as an infant feels for its mother. There may
be better women than that mother, perhaps; but who shall make the child
believe so?
John Mellish could not argue with himself upon his passion, as Talbot
Bulstrode had done. He could not separate himself from his love, and
reason with the wild madness. How could he divide himself from that
which was himself; more than himself; a diviner self? He asked no
questions about the past life of the woman he loved. He never sought
to know the secret of Talbot's departure from Felden. He saw her,
beautiful, fascinating, perfect; and he accepted her as a great and
wonderful fact, like the round midsummer moon shining down on the
rustic flower-beds and espaliered garden-walks in the balmy June nights.
So the tranquil days glided slowly and monotonously past that quiet
circle. Aurora bore her silent burden; bore her trouble with a grand
courage, peculiar to such rich organizations as her own; and none
knew whether the serpent had been rooted from her breast, or had made
for himself a permanent home in her heart. The banker's most watchful
care could not fathom the womanly mystery; but there were times when
Archibald Floyd ventured to hope that his daughter was at peace, and
Talbot Bulstrode well-nigh forgotten. In any case, it was wise to
keep her away from Felden Woods; so Mr. Floyd proposed a tour through
Normandy to his daughter and Mrs. Powell. Aurora consented, with a
tender smile and gentle pressure of her father's hand. She divined the
old man's motive, and recognized the all-watchful love which sought
to carry her from the scene of her trouble. John Mellish, who was
not invited to join the party, burst forth into such raptures at the
proposal, that it would have required considerable hardness of heart
to have refused his escort. He knew every inch of Normandy, he said,
and promised to be of infinite use to Mr. Floyd and his daughter;
which, seeing that his knowledge of Normandy had been acquired in his
attendance at the Dieppe steeple-chases, and that his acquaintance
with the French language was very limited, seemed rather doubtful.
But for all this he contrived to keep his word. He went up to Town and
hired an all-accomplished courier, who conducted the little party from
town to village, from church to ruin, and who could always find relays
of Normandy horses for the banker's roomy travelling-carriage. The
little party travelled from place to place until pale gleams of colour
returned in transient flushes to Aurora's cheeks. Grief is terribly
selfish. I fear that Miss Floyd never took into consideration the havoc
that might be going on in the great honest heart of John Mellish. I
dare say that if she had ever considered the matter, she would have
thought that a broad-shouldered Yorkshireman of six feet two could
never suffer seriously from such a passion as love. She grew accustomed
to his society; accustomed to have his strong arm handy for her to lean
upon when she grew tired; accustomed to his carrying her sketch-book
and shawls and camp-stools; accustomed to be waited upon by him all
day, and served faithfully by him at every turn; taking his homage as a
thing of course, but making him superlatively and dangerously happy by
her tacit acceptance of it.
September was half gone when they bent their way homeward, lingering
for a few days at Dieppe, where the bathers were splashing about in
semi-theatrical costume, and the Etablissement des Bains was all aflame
with coloured lanterns, and noisy with nightly concerts.
The early autumnal days were glorious in their balmy beauty. The best
part of a year had gone by since Talbot Bulstrode had bade Aurora that
adieu which, in one sense at least, was to be eternal. They two, Aurora
and Talbot, might meet again, it is true. They might meet, ay, and even
be cordial and friendly together, and do each other good service in
some dim time to come; but the two lovers who had parted in the little
bay-windowed room at Felden Woods could _never_ meet again. Between
_them_ there was death and the grave.
Perhaps some such thoughts as these had their place in the breast of
Aurora Floyd as she sat, with John Mellish at her side, looking down
upon the varied landscape from the height upon which the ruined walls
of the Château d'Arques still rear the proud memorials of a day that is
dead. I don't suppose that the banker's daughter troubled herself much
about Henry the Fourth, or any other dead-and-gone celebrity who may
have left the impress of his name upon that spot. She felt a tranquil
sense of the exquisite purity and softness of the air, the deep blue
of the cloudless sky, the spreading woods and grassy plains, the
orchards, where the trees were rosy with their plenteous burden, the
tiny streamlets, the white villa-like cottages and straggling gardens,
outspread in a fair panorama beneath her. Carried out of her sorrow
by the sensuous rapture we derive from nature, and for the first time
discovering in herself a vague sense of happiness, she began to wonder
how it was she had outlived her grief by so many months.
She had never during those weary months heard of Talbot Bulstrode.
Any change might have come to him without her knowledge. He might
have married; might have chosen a prouder and worthier bride to share
his lofty name. She might meet him on her return to England with that
happier woman leaning upon his arm. Would some good-natured friend
tell the bride how Talbot had loved and wooed the banker's daughter?
Aurora found herself pitying this happier woman, who would, after
all, win but the second love of that proud heart; the pale reflection
of a sun that has set; the feeble glow of expiring embers when the
great blaze has died out. They had made her a couch with shawls and
carriage-rugs, outspread upon a rustic seat, for she was still far from
strong; and she lay in the bright September sunshine, looking down at
the fair landscape, and listening to the hum of beetles and the chirp
of grasshoppers upon the smooth turf.
Her father had walked to some distance with Mrs. Powell, who explored
every crevice and cranny of the ruins with the dutiful perseverance
peculiar to commonplace people; but faithful John Mellish never stirred
from Aurora's side. He was watching her musing face, trying to read its
meaning--trying to gather a gleam of hope from some chance expression
flitting across it. Neither he nor she knew how long he had watched her
thus, when, turning to speak to him about the landscape at her feet,
she found him on his knees imploring her to have pity upon him, and to
love him, or to let him love her; which was much the same.
"I don't expect you to love _me_, Aurora," he said passionately; "how
should you? What is there in a big clumsy fellow like me to win your
love? I don't ask that. I only ask you to let me love you, to let me
worship you, as the people we see kneeling in the churches here worship
their saints. You won't drive me away from you, will you, Aurora,
because I presume to forget what you said to me that cruel day at
Brighton? You would never have suffered me to stay with you so long,
and to be so happy, if you had meant to drive me away at the last! You
never could have been so cruel!"
Miss Floyd looked at him with a sudden terror in her face. What was
this? What had she done? More wrong, more mischief? Was her life to be
one of perpetual wrong-doing? Was she to be for ever bringing sorrow
upon good people? Was this John Mellish to be another sufferer by her
folly?
"Oh, forgive me!" she cried, "forgive me! I never thought----"
"You never thought that every day spent by your side must make the
anguish of parting from you more cruelly bitter. O Aurora, women should
think of these things! Send me away from you, and what shall I be for
the rest of my life?--a broken man, fit for nothing better than the
race-course and the betting-rooms; a reckless man, ready to go to the
bad by any road that can take me there; worthless alike to myself and
to others. You must have seen such men, Aurora; men whose unblemished
youth promised an honourable manhood; but who break up all of a sudden,
and go to ruin in a few years of mad dissipation. Nine times out of ten
a woman is the cause of that sudden change. I lay my life at your feet,
Aurora; I offer you more than my heart--I offer you my destiny. Do with
it as you will."
He rose in his agitation, and walked a few paces away from her. The
grass-grown battlements sloped away from his feet; an outer and
inner moat lay below him, at the bottom of a steep declivity. What a
convenient place for suicide, if Aurora should refuse to take pity upon
him! The reader must allow that he had availed himself of considerable
artifice in addressing Miss Floyd. His appeal had taken the form of an
accusation rather than a prayer, and he had duly impressed upon this
poor girl the responsibility she would incur in refusing him. And
this, I take it, is a meanness of which men are often guilty in their
dealings with the weaker sex.
Miss Floyd looked up at her lover with a quiet, half-mournful smile.
"Sit down there, Mr. Mellish," she said, pointing to a camp-stool at
her side.
John took the indicated seat, very much with the air of a prisoner in a
criminal dock about to answer for his life.
"Shall I tell you a secret?" asked Aurora, looking compassionately at
his pale face.
"A secret?"
"Yes; the secret of my parting with Talbot Bulstrode. It was not I
who dismissed him from Felden; it was he who refused to fulfil his
engagement with me."
She spoke slowly, in a low voice, as if it were painful to her to say
the words which told of so much humiliation.
"He did!" cried John Mellish, rising, red and furious, from his seat,
eager to run to look for Talbot Bulstrode then and there, in order to
inflict chastisement upon him.
"He did, John Mellish, and he was justified in doing so," answered
Aurora, gravely. "You would have done the same."
"O Aurora, Aurora!"
"You would. You are as good a man as he, and why should your sense
of honour be less strong than his? A barrier arose between Talbot
Bulstrode and me, and separated us for ever. That barrier was a secret."
She told him of the missing year in her young life; how Talbot had
called upon her for an explanation, and how she had refused to give
it. John listened to her with a thoughtful face, which broke out into
sunshine as she turned to him and said--
"How would you have acted in such a case, Mr. Mellish?"
"How should I have acted, Aurora? I should have trusted you. But I can
give you a better answer to your question, Aurora. I can answer it by a
renewal of the prayer I made you five minutes ago. Be my wife."
"In spite of this secret?"
"In spite of a hundred secrets. I could not love you as I do, Aurora,
if I did not believe you to be all that is best and purest in woman. I
cannot believe this one moment, and doubt you the next. I give my life
and honour into your hands. I would not confide them to the woman whom
I could insult by a doubt."
His handsome Saxon face was radiant with love and trustfulness as he
spoke. All his patient devotion, so long unheeded, or accepted as a
thing of course, recurred to Aurora's mind. Did he not deserve some
reward, some requital for all this? But there was one who was nearer
and dearer to her, dearer than even Talbot Bulstrode had ever been; and
that one was the white-haired old man pottering about amongst the ruins
on the other side of the grassy platform.
"Does my father know of this, Mr. Mellish?" she asked.
"He does, Aurora. He has promised to accept me as his son; and Heaven
knows I will try to deserve that name. Do not let me distress you,
dearest. The murder is out now. You know that I still love you; still
hope. Let time do the rest."
She held out both her hands to him with a tearful smile. He took those
little hands in his own broad palms, and bending down kissed them
reverently.
"You are right," she said; "let time do the rest. You are worthy of the
love of a better woman than me, John Mellish; but, with the help of
Heaven, I will never give you cause to regret having trusted me."