Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume. Yonge Charlotte Mary

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СКАЧАТЬ I said, and then he laughed and said it was not my turn, but he should take Miss Aurelia instead.”

      Aurelia laughed, and Harriet said, “Extremely impudent.”

      Little she guessed what Betty was at that moment reading.

      “I am astonished,” wrote Lady Belamour to her cousin, “that you should decline so highly advantageous an Offer for your Daughter. I can only understand it as a Token that you desire no further Connection with, nor Favour from me; and I shall therefore require of you to give up the Accounts, and vacate the House by Michaelmas next ensuing. However, as I am willing to allow some excuse for the Weakness of parental Affection, if you change your Mind within the next Week and send up your Daughter with Dove and his Wife, I will overlook your first hasty and foolish Refusal, ungrateful as it was, and will receive your Daughter and give her all the Advantages I promised. Otherwise your Employment is at an end, and you had better prepare your Accounts for Hargrave’s Inspection.”

      “There is no help for it then,” said Betty.

      “And if it be for the child’s advantage, we need not make our moan,” said her father. “‘Tis like losing the daylight out of our house, but we must not stand in the way of her good.”

      “If I were only sure it is for her good!”

      “Why, child, there’s scarce a wench in the county who would not go down on her knees for such a chance. See what Madam Duckworth would say to it for Miss Peggy!”

      Betty said no more. The result of her cogitations had been that since Aurelia must be yielded for the sake of her father and Eugene, it was better not to disturb him with fears, which would only anger him at the moment and disquiet him afterwards. She was likewise reassured by Mrs. Dove’s going with her, since that good woman had been nurse to the little Belamour cousins now deceased, and was well known as an excellent and trustworthy person, so that, if she were going to act in the same capacity to my Lady’s second family, Aurelia would have a friend at hand. So the Major cheated his grief by greeting the church-goers with the hilarious announcement—

      “Here’s great news! What says my little Aura to going London to my Lady’s house.”

      “O Sir! are you about to take us.”

      “Not I! My Lady wants pretty young maidens, not battered old soldiers.”

      “Nor my sisters? O then, if you please, Sir, I would rather not go!”

      “Silly children cannot choose! No, no, Aura, you must go out and see the world, and come back to us such a belle that your poor old father will scarce know you.”

      “I do not wish to be a belle,” said the girl. “O Sir, let me stay with you and sister.”

      “Do not be so foolish, Aura,” put in Harriet. “It will be the making of you. I wish I had the offer.”

      “O Harriet, could not you go instead?”

      “No, Aurelia,” said Betty. “There is no choice, and you must be a good girl and not vex my father.”

      The gravity of her eldest sister convinced Aurelia that entreaties would be vain, and there was soon a general outburst of assurances that she would see all that was delightful in London, the lions in the Tower, the new St. Paul’s, the monuments, Ranelagh, the court ladies, may be, the King and Queen themselves; until she began to feel exhilarated and pleased at the prospect and the distinction.

      Then came Monday and the bustle of preparing her wardrobe. The main body of it was to be sent in the carrier’s waggon, for she was to ride on a pillion behind Mr. Dove, and could only take a valise upon a groom’s horse. There was no small excitement in the arrangement, and in the farewells to the neighbours, who all agreed with Harriet in congratulating the girl on her promotion. Betty did her part with all her might, washed lace, and trimmed sleeves, and made tuckers, giving little toilette counsels, while her heart ached sorely all the time.

      When she could speak to Mrs. Dove alone, she earnestly besought that old friend to look after the child, her health, her dress, and above all to supply here lack of experience and give her kind counsel and advice.

      “I will indeed, ma’am, as though she were my own,” promised Mrs. Dove.

      “O nurse, I give my sweet jewel to your care; you know what a great house in London is better than I do. You will warn her of any danger.”

      “I will do my endeavour, ma’am. We servants see and hear much, and if any harm should come nigh the sweet young miss, I’ll do my best for her.”

      “Thank you, nurse, I shall never, never see her more in her free artless childishness,” said Betty, sobbing as if her heart would break; “but oh, nurse, I can bear the thought better since I have known that you would be near her.”

      And at night, when her darling nestled for the last time in her arms, the elder sister whispered her warnings. Her knowledge of the great world was limited, but she believed it to be a very wicked place, and she profoundly distrusted her brilliant kinswoman; yet her warnings took no shape more definite than—“My dearest sister will never forget her prayers nor her Bible.” There was a soft response and fresh embrace at each pause. “Nor play cards of a Sunday, nor ever play high. And my Aura must be deaf to rakish young beaux and their compliments. They never mean well by poor pretty maids. If you believe them, they will only mock, flout, and jeer you in the end. And if the young baronet should seek converse with you, promise me, oh, promise me, Aurelia, to grant him no favour, no, not so much as to hand him a flower, or stand chatting with him unknown to his mother. Promise me again, child, for naught save evil can come of any trifling between you. And, Aurelia, go to Nurse Dove in all your difficulties. She can advise you where your poor sister cannot. It will ease my heart if I know that my child will attend to her. You will not let yourself be puffed up with flattery, nor be offended if she be open and round with you. Think that your poor sister Betty speaks in her. Pray our old prayers, go to church, and read your Psalms and Lessons daily, and oh! never, never cheat your conscience. O may God, in His mercy, keep my darling!”

      So Aurelia cried herself to sleep, while Betty lay awake till the early hour in the morning when all had to be prepared for the start. There was to be a ride of an hour and a half before breakfast so as to give the horses a rest. It was a terrible separation, in many respects more complete than if Aurelia had been going, in these days, to America; for communication by letter was almost as slow, and infinitely more expensive.

      No doubt the full import of what he had done had dawned even on Major Delavie during the watches of that last sorrowful night, for he came out a pale, haggard man, looking as if his age had doubled since he went to bed, wrapped in his dressing gown, his head covered with his night-cap, and leaning heavily on his staff. He came charged with one of the long solemn discourses which parents were wont to bestow on their children as valedictions, but when Aurelia, in her camlet riding cloak and hood, brought her tear-stained face to crave his blessing, he could only utter broken fragments. “Bless thee my child! Take heed to yourself and your ways. It is a bad world, beset with temptations. Oh! heaven forgive me for sending my innocent lamb out into it. Oh! what would your blessed mother say?”

      “Dear sir,” said Betty, who had wept out her tears, and was steadily composed now, “this is no time to think of that. We must only cheer up our darling, and give her good counsel. If she keep to what her Bible, her catechism and her conscience tell her, she will be a good girl, and God will protect her.”

      “True, true, your sister is right; Aura, my little sweetheart, I had much to say to you, but it is all driven out of my poor old head.”

      “Aura! СКАЧАТЬ