That answer was a rejection!
Not a young lady's No, which means Yes to-morrow; or which means perhaps that you have not been on your knees in a passion of despair, like Lord Edward Fitz-Morkysh in Miss Oderose's last novel. Nothing of this kind; but a calm negative, carefully and tersely worded, as if she feared to mislead him by so much as one syllable that could leave a loophole through which hope might creep into his heart. He was rejected. For a moment it was quite as much as he could do to believe it. He was inclined to imagine that the signification of certain words had suddenly changed, or that he had been in the habit of mistaking them all his life, rather than that those words meant this hard fact; namely, that he, Talbot Raleigh Bulstrode, of Bulstrode Castle, and of Saxon extraction, had been rejected by the daughter of a Lombard-Street banker.
He paused—for an hour and a half or so, as it seemed to him—in order to collect himself before he spoke again.
"May I—venture to inquire," he said,—how horribly commonplace the phrase seemed! he could have used no worse had he been inquiring for furnished lodgings,—"may I ask if any prior attachment—to one more worthy——"
"Oh, no, no, no!"
The answer came upon him so suddenly, that it almost startled him as much as her rejection.
"And yet your decision is irrevocable?"
"Quite irrevocable."
"Forgive me if I am intrusive; but—but Mr. Floyd may perhaps have formed some higher views——"
He was interrupted by a stifled sob as she clasped her hands over her averted face.
"Higher views!" she said; "poor dear old man! no, no, indeed."
"It is scarcely strange that I bore you with these questions. It is so hard to think that, meeting you with your affections disengaged, I have yet been utterly unable to win one shadow of regard upon which I might build a hope for the future."
Poor Talbot! Talbot, the splitter of metaphysical straws and chopper of logic, talking of building hopes on shadows, with a lover's delirious stupidity.
"It is so hard to resign every thought of your ever coming to alter your decision of to-night, Aurora,"—he lingered on her name for a moment, first because it was so sweet to say it, and secondly, in the hope that she would speak,—"it is so hard to remember the fabric of happiness I had dared to build, and to lay it down here to-night for ever."
Talbot quite forgot that, up to the time of the arrival of John Mellish, he had been perpetually arguing against his passion, and had declared to himself over and over again that he would be a consummate fool if he was ever beguiled into making Aurora his wife. He reversed the parable of the fox; for he had been inclined to make faces at the grapes while he fancied them within his reach, and now that they were removed from his grasp, he thought that such delicious fruit had never grown to tempt mankind.
"If—if," he said, "my fate had been happier, I know how proud my father, poor old Sir John, would have been of his eldest son's choice."
How ashamed he felt of the meanness of this speech! The artful sentence had been constructed in order to remind Aurora whom she was refusing. He was trying to bribe her with the baronetcy which was to be his in due time. But she made no answer to the pitiful appeal. Talbot was almost choked with mortification. "I see—I see," he said, "that it is hopeless. Good night, Miss Floyd."
She did not even turn to look at him as he left the balcony; but with her red drapery wrapped tightly round her, stood shivering in the moonlight, with the silent tears slowly stealing down her cheeks.
"Higher views!" she cried bitterly, repeating a phrase that Talbot used,—"higher views! God help him!"
"I must wish you good-night and good-bye at the same time," Captain Bulstrode said, as he shook hands with Lucy.
"Good-bye?"
"Yes; I leave Brighton early to-morrow."
"So suddenly?"
"Why, not exactly suddenly. I always meant to travel this winter. Can I do anything for you—at Cairo?"
He was so pale and cold and wretched-looking, that she almost pitied him—pitied him in spite of the wild joy growing up in her heart. Aurora had refused him—it was perfectly clear—refusedhim!The soft blue eyes filled with tears at the thought that a demigod should have endured such humiliation. Talbot pressed her hand gently in his own clammy palm. He could read pity in that tender look, but possessed no lexicon by which he could translate its deeper meaning.
"You will wish your uncle good-bye for me, Lucy," he said. He called her Lucy for the first time; but what did it matter now? His great affliction set him apart from his fellow-men, and gave him dismal privileges. "Good-night, Lucy; good-night and good-bye. I—I—shall hope to see you again—in a year or two."
The pavement of the East Cliff seemed so much air beneath Talbot Bulstrode's boots as he strode back to the Old Ship; for it is peculiar to us, in our moments of supreme trouble or joy, to lose all consciousness of the earth we tread, and to float upon an atmosphere of sublime egotism.
But the captain did not leave Brighton the next day on the first stage of his Egyptian journey. He stayed at the fashionable watering-place; but he resolutely abjured the neighbourhood of the East Cliff, and, the day being wet, took a pleasant walk to Shoreham through the rain; and Shoreham being such a pretty place, he was no doubt much enlivened by that exercise.
Returning through the fog at about four o'clock, the captain met Mr. John Mellish close against the turnpike outside Cliftonville.
The two men stared aghast at each other.
"Why, where on earth are you going?" asked Talbot.
"Back to Yorkshire by the first train that leaves Brighton."
"But this isn't the way to the station!"
"No; but they're putting the horses in my portmanteau, and my shirts are going by the Leeds cattle-train; and——"
Talbot Bulstrode burst into a loud laugh, a harsh and bitter cachinnation, but affording wondrous relief to that gentleman's overcharged breast.
"John Mellish," he said, "you have been proposing to Aurora Floyd."
The Yorkshireman turned scarlet. "It—it—wasn't honourable of her to tell you," he stammered.
"Miss Floyd has never breathed a word to me upon the subject. I've just come from Shoreham, and you've only lately left the East Cliff. You've proposed, and you've been rejected."
"I have," roared John; "and it's deuced hard when I promised her she should keep a racing stud if she liked, and enter as many colts as she pleased for the Derby, and give her own orders to the trainer, and I'd never interfere;—and—and—Mellish Park is one of the finest places in the county; and I'd have won her a bit of blue ribbon to tie up her bonny black hair."
"That old Frenchman was right," muttered Captain Bulstrode: "thereisa great satisfaction in the misfortune of others. If I go to my dentist, I like to find another wretch in the waiting-room; and I like to have my tooth extracted first, and to see him glare enviously at me as I come out of the torture chamber, knowing that my troubles are over, while his are to come. Good-bye, John Mellish, and God bless you. You're not such a bad fellow after all."
Talbot felt almost cheerful as he walked back to the Ship, and he took a mutton cutlet and tomata sauce, and a pint of Moselle for his dinner: and the food and wine warmed him; and not having slept a wink on the previous night, he fell into a heavy indigestible slumber, with his head hanging over the sofa-cushion, and dreamt that he was at Grand Cairo (or at a place which would have been that city had it not been now and then Bulstrode Castle, and occasionally chambers in the Albany); and that Aurora Floyd was with him, clad in imperial purple, with hieroglyphics on the hem of her robe, and wearing a clown's jacket of white satin and scarlet spots, such as he had once seen foremost in a great race. Captain Bulstrode arose early the next morning, with the full intention of departing from Sussex by the 8.45 express; but suddenly remembering that he had but poorly acknowledged Archibald Floyd's cordiality, he determined on sacrificing his inclinations on the shrine of courtesy, and calling once more at the East Cliff to take leave of the banker. Having once resolved upon this line of action, the captain would fain have hurried that moment to Mr. Floyd's house; but finding that it was only half-past seven, he was compelled to restrain his impatience and await a more seasonable hour. Could he go at nine? Scarcely. At ten? Yes, surely, as he could then leave by the eleven o'clock train. He sent his breakfast away untouched, and sat looking at his watch in a mad hurry for the time to pass, yet growing hot and uncomfortable as the hour drew near.
At a quarter to ten he put on his hat and left the hotel. Mr. Floyd was at home, the servant told him—upstairs in the little study, he thought. Talbot waited for no more. "You need not announce me," he said; "I know where to find your master."
The study was on the same floor as the drawing-room; and close against the drawing-room door Talbot paused for a moment. The door was open; the room empty; no, not empty: Aurora Floyd was there, seated with her back towards him, and her head leaning on the cushions of her chair. He stopped for another moment to admire the back view of that small head with its crown of lustrous raven hair, then took a step or two in the direction of the banker's study; then stopped again, then turned back, went into the drawing-room, and shut the door behind him.
She did not stir as he approached her, nor answer when he stammered her name. Her face was as white as the face of a dead woman, and her nerveless hands hung over the cushions of the arm-chair. A newspaper was lying at her feet. She had quietly swooned away sitting there by herself, with no one by to restore her to consciousness.
Talbot flung some flowers from a vase on the table, and dashed the water over Aurora's forehead; then wheeling her chair close to the open window, he set her with her face to the wind. In two or three moments she began to shiver violently, and soon afterwards opened her eyes, and looked at him; as she did so, she put her hands to her head, as if trying to remember something. "Talbot!" she said, "Talbot!"
She called him by his Christian name, she who five-and-thirty hours before had coldly forbidden him to hope.
"Aurora," he cried, "Aurora, I thought I came here to wish your father good-bye; but I deceived myself. I came to ask you once more, and once for all, if your decision of the night before last was irrevocable."
"Heaven knows I thought it was when I uttered it."
"But it was not?"
"Do you wish me to revoke it?"
"Do I wish? do I——"
"Because if you really do, I will revoke it; for you are a brave and honourable man, Captain Bulstrode, and I love you very dearly."
Heaven knows into what rhapsodies he might have fallen, but she put up her hand, as much as to say, "Forbear to-day, if you love me," and hurried from the room. He had accepted the cup ofbangwhich the siren had offered, and had drained the very dregs thereof, and was drunken. He dropped into the chair in which Aurora had sat, and, absent-minded in his joyful intoxication, picked up the newspaper that had lain at her feet. He shuddered in spite of himself as he looked at the title of the journal; it was 'Bell's Life.' A dirty copy, crumpled, and beer-stained, and emitting rank odours of inferior tobacco. It was directed to Miss Floyd, in such sprawling penmanship as might have disgraced the potboy of a sporting public-house:—
"Miss Floid,fell dun wodes,kent."
The newspaper had been redirected to Aurora by the housekeeper at Felden. Talbot ran his eye eagerly over the front page; it was almost entirely filled with advertisements (and such advertisements!), but in one column there was an account headed, "Frightful Accident in Germany: an English Jockey killed."
Captain Bulstrode never knew why he read of this accident. It was in no way interesting to him, being an account of a steeple-chase in Prussia, in which a heavy English rider and a crack French horse had been killed. There was a great deal of regret expressed for the loss of the horse, and none for the man who had ridden him, who, the reporter stated, was very little known in sporting circles; but in a paragraph lower down was added this information, evidently procured at the last moment: "The jockey's name was Conyers."
Archibald Floyd received the news of his daughter's choice with evident pride and satisfaction. It seemed as if some heavy burden had been taken away, as if some cruel shadow had been lifted from the lives of father and daughter.
The banker took his family back to Felden Woods, with Talbot Bulstrode in his train; and the chintz rooms—pretty, cheerful chambers, with bow-windows that looked across the well-kept stable-yard into long glades of oak and beech—were prepared for the ex-hussar, who was to spend his Christmas at Felden.
Mrs. Alexander and her husband were established with her family in the western wing; Mr. and Mrs. Andrew were located at the eastern angle; for it was the hospitable custom of the old banker to summon his kinsfolk about him early in December, and to keep them with him till the bells of picturesque Beckenham church had heralded in the New Year.
Lucy Floyd's cheeks had lost much of their delicate colour when she returned to Felden, and it was pronounced, by all who observed the change, that the air of the East Cliff, and the autumn winds drifting across the bleak downs, had been too much for the young lady's strength.
Aurora seemed to have burst forth into some new and more glorious beauty since the morning upon which she had accepted the hand of Talbot Bulstrode. There was a proud defiance in her manner, which became her better than gentleness becomes far lovelier women. There was a haughtyinsoucianceabout this young lady which gave new brilliancy to her great black eyes, and new music to her joyous laugh. She was like some beautiful noisy, boisterous waterfall; for ever dancing, rushing, sparkling, scintillating, and utterly defying you to do anything but admire it. Talbot Bulstrode, having once abandoned himself to the spell of the siren, made no further struggle, but fairly fell into the pit-falls of her eyes, and was entangled in the meshy network of her blue-black hair. The greater the tension of the bow-string, the stronger the rebound thereof; and Talbot Bulstrode was as weak to give way at last as he had long been powerful to resist. I must write his story in the commonest words. He could not help it! He loved her; not because he thought her better, or wiser, or lovelier, or more suited to him than many other women,—indeed he had grave doubts upon every one of these points,—but because it was his destiny, and he loved her.
What is that hard word which M. Victor Hugo puts into the mouth of the priest in 'The Hunch-back of Notre Dame' as an excuse for the darkness of his sin? ΆΝΑΤΚΗ! It was his fate! So he wrote to his mother, and told her that he had chosen a wife, who was to sit in the halls of Bulstrode, and whose name was to be interwoven with the chronicles of the house; told her, moreover, that Miss Floyd was a banker's daughter, beautiful and fascinating, with big black eyes, and fifty thousand pounds for her dowry. Lady Raleigh Bulstrode answered her son's letter upon a quarter of a quire of note-paper, filled with fearful motherly prayers and suggestions; anxious hopes that he had chosen wisely; questionings as to the opinions and religious principles of the young lady,—much indeed that Talbot would have been sorely puzzled to answer. Enclosed in this was a letter to Aurora, a womanly and tender epistle, in which pride was tempered with love, and which brought big tears welling up to Miss Floyd's eyes, until Lady Bulstrode's firm penmanship grew blotted and blurred beneath the reader's vision.
And whither went poor slaughtered John Mellish? He returned to Mellish Park, carrying with him his dogs, and horses, and grooms, and phaeton, and paraphernalia; but his grief—having unluckily come upon him after the racing season—was too much for him, and he fled away from the roomy old mansion, with its pleasant surroundings of park and woodland; for Aurora Floyd was not for him, and it was all flat, stale, and unprofitable. So he went to Paris, orParry, as he called that imperial city, and established himself in the biggest chambers at Meurice's, and went backwards and forwards between that establishment and Galignani's ten times a day, in quest of the English papers. He dined drearily at Véfour's, Philippe's, the Trois Frères, the Maison Dorée, and the Café de Paris. His big voice was heard at every expensive dining place in Paris, ordering "Toos killyar de mellyour: vous savez;" but he sent the daintiest dishes away untasted, and would sit for a quarter of an hour counting the toothpicks in the tiny blue vases, and thinking of Aurora. He rode dismally in the Bois de Boulogne, and sat shivering incafés chantants, listening to songs that always seemed set to the same melody. He haunted the circuses, and was well-nigh in love with a fairmanègerider, who had black eyes, and reminded him of Aurora; till, upon buying the most powerful opera-glass that the Rue de Rivoli could afford, he discovered that the lady's face was an inch deep in a certain white wash calledblanc rosati, and that the chief glory of her eyes were the rings of Indian ink which surrounded them. He could have dashed that double-barrelled truth-revealer to the ground, and trodden the lenses to powder with his heel, in his passion of despair: better to have been for ever deceived, to have gone on believing that woman to be like Aurora, and to have gone to that circus every night until his hair grew white, but not with age, and until he pined away and died.
The party at Felden Woods was a very joyous one. The voices of children made the house pleasant; noisy lads from Eton and Westminster clambered about the balustrades of the staircases, and played battledore-and-shuttlecock upon the long stone terrace. These young people were all cousins to Aurora Floyd, and loved the banker's daughter with a childish worship, which mild Lucy could never inspire. It was pleasant to Talbot Bulstrode to see that wherever his future wife trod, love and admiration waited upon her footsteps. He was not singular in his passion for this glorious creature, and it could be, after all, no such terrible folly to love one who was beloved by all who knew her. So the proud Cornishman was happy, and gave himself up to his happiness without further protest.
Did Aurora love him? Did she make him due return for the passionate devotion, the blind adoration? She admired and esteemed him; she was proud of him—proud of that very pride in his nature which made him so different to herself; and she was too impulsive and truthful a creature to keep this sentiment a secret from her lover. She revealed, too, a constant desire to please her betrothed husband, suppressing at least all outward token of the tastes that were so unpleasant to him. No more copies of 'Bell's Life' littered the ladies' morning-room at Felden; and when Andrew Floyd asked Aurora to ride to meet with him, his cousin refused the offer which would once have been so welcome. Instead of following the Croydon hounds, Miss Floyd was content to drive Talbot and Lucy in a basket-carriage through the frost-bespangled country-side. Lucy was always the companion and confidante of the lovers; it was hard for her to hear their happy talk of the bright future stretching far away before them—stretching down, down the shadowy aisles of Time, to an escutcheoned tomb at Bulstrode, where husband and wife would lie down, full of years and honours, in the days to come. It was hard to have to help them plan a thousand schemes of pleasure, in which—Heaven pity her!—she was to join. But she bore her cross meekly, this pale Elaine of modern days; and she never told Talbot Bulstrode that she had gone mad and loved him, and was fain to die.
Talbot and Aurora were both concerned to see the pale cheeks of their gentle companion; but everybody was ready to ascribe them to a cold, or a cough, or constitutional debility, or some other bodily evil, which was to be cured by drugs and boluses; and no one for a moment imagined that anything could possibly be amiss with a young lady who lived in a luxurious house, went shopping in a carriage and pair, and had more pocket-money than she cared to spend. But the Lily Maid of Astolat lived in a lordly castle, and had doubtless ample pocket-money to buy gorgeous silks for her embroidery, and had little on earth to wish for, and nothing to do; whereby she fell sick for love of Sir Lancelot, and pined and died.
Surely the secret of many sorrows lies in this. How many a grief has been bred of idleness and leisure! How many a Spartan youth has nursed a bosom-devouring fox for very lack of better employment! Do the gentlemen who write the leaders in our daily journals ever die of grief? Do the barristers whose names appear in almost every case reported in those journals go mad for love unrequited? Did the Lady with the lamp cherish any foolish passion in those days and nights of ceaseless toil, in those long watches of patient devotion far away in the East? Do the curates of over-crowded parishes, the chaplains of gaols and convict-ships, the great medical attendants in the wards of hospitals—do they make for themselves the griefs that kill? Surely not. With the busiest of us there may be some holy moments, some sacred hour snatched from the noise and confusion of the revolving wheel of Life's machinery, and offered up as a sacrifice to sorrow and care; but the interval is brief, and the great wheel rolls on, and we have no time to pine or die.
So Lucy Floyd, having nothing better to do, nursed and made much of her hopeless passion. She set up an altar for the skeleton, and worshipped at the shrine of her grief; and when people told her of her pale face, and the family doctor wondered at the failure of his quinine mixture, perhaps she nourished a vague hope that before the spring-time came back again, bringing with it the wedding-day of Talbot and Aurora, she would have escaped from all this demonstrative love and happiness, and be at rest.
Aurora answered Lady Raleigh Bulstrode's letter with an epistle expressive of such gratitude and humility, such earnest hope of winning the love of Talbot's mother, mingled with a dim fearfulness of never being worthy of that affection, as won the Cornish lady's regard for her future daughter. It was difficult to associate the impetuous girl with that letter, and Lady Bulstrode made an image of the writer that very much differed from the fearless and dashing original. She wrote Aurora a second letter, more affectionately worded than the first, and promised the motherless girl a daughter's welcome at Bulstrode.
"Will she ever let me call her 'mother,' Talbot?" Aurora asked, as she read Lady Bulstrode's second letter, to her lover. "She is very proud, is she not?—proud of your ancient descent? My father comes from a Glasgow mercantile family, and I do not even know anything about my mother's relations."
Talbot answered her with a grave smile.
"She will accept you for your native worth, dearest Aurora," he said, "and will ask no foolish questions about the pedigree of such a man as Archibald Floyd; a man whom the proudest aristocrat in England might be glad to call his father-in-law. She will reverence my Aurora's transparent soul and candid nature, and will bless me for the choice I have made."
"I shall love her very dearly if she will only let me. Should I have ever cared about horse-racing, and read sporting-papers, if I could have called a good woman 'mother?'"
She seemed to ask this question rather of herself than of Talbot.
Complete as was Archibald Floyd's satisfaction at his daughter's disposal of her heart, the old man could not calmly contemplate a separation from this idolized daughter; so Aurora told Talbot that she could never take up her abode in Cornwall during her father's lifetime; and it was finally arranged that the young couple were to spend half the year in London, and the other half at Felden Woods. What need had the lonely widower of that roomy mansion, with its long picture-gallery and snug suites of apartments, each of them large enough to accommodate a small family? What need had one solitary old man of that retinue of servants, the costly stud in the stables, the new-fangled vehicles in the coach-houses, the hot-house flowers, the pines and grapes and peaches, cultivated by three Scottish gardeners? What need had he of these things? He lived principally in the study in which he had once had a stormy interview with his only child; the study in which hung the crayon portrait of Eliza Floyd; the room which contained an old-fashioned desk he had bought for a guinea in his boyhood, and in which there were certain letters written by a hand that was dead, some tresses of purple-black hair cut from the head of a corpse, and a pasteboard ticket, printed at a little town in Lancashire, calling upon the friends and patrons of Miss Eliza Percival to come to the theatre, for her especial benefit, upon the night of August 20, 1837.
It was decided, therefore, that Felden Woods was to be the country residence of Talbot and Aurora, till such time as the young man should succeed to the baronetcy and Bulstrode Castle, and be required to live upon his estate. In the mean time the ex-hussar was to go into Parliament, if the electors of a certain little borough in Cornwall, which had always sent a Bulstrode to Westminster, should be pleased to return him.
The marriage was to take place early in May, and the honeymoon was to be spent in Switzerland and at Bulstrode Castle. Mrs. Walter Powell thought that her doom was sealed, and that she would have to quit those pleasant pastures after the wedding-day; but Aurora speedily set the mind of the ensign's widow at rest by telling her that as she, Miss Floyd, was utterly ignorant of housekeeping, she would be happy to retain her services after marriage as guide and adviser in such matters.
The poor about Beckenham were not forgotten in Aurora Floyd's morning drives with Lucy and Talbot. Parcels of grocery and bottles of wine often lurked beneath the crimson-lined leopard-skin carriage-rug; and it was no uncommon thing for Talbot to find himself making a footstool of a huge loaf of bread. The poor were very hungry in that bright December weather, and had all manner of complaints, which, however otherwise dissimilar, were all to be benefited by one especial treatment; namely, half-sovereigns, old brown sherry, French brandy, and gunpowder tea. Whether the daughter was dying of consumption, or the father laid up with the rheumatics, or the husband in a raging fever, or the youngest boy recovering from a fall into a copper of boiling water, the above-named remedies seemed alike necessary, and were far more popular than the chicken-broths and cooling fever-drinks prepared by the Felden cook. It pleased Talbot to see his betrothed dispensing good things to the eager recipients of her bounty. It pleased him to think how even his mother must have admired this high-spirited girl, content to sit down in close cottage chambers and talk to rheumatic old women. Lucy distributed little parcels of tracts prepared by Mrs. Alexander, and flannel garments made by her own white hands; but Aurora gave the half-sovereigns and the old sherry; and I'm afraid these simple cottagers liked the heiress best; although they were wise enough and just enough to know that each lady gave according to her means.
It was in returning from a round of these charitable visits that an adventure befell the little party, which was by no means pleasing to Captain Bulstrode.
Aurora had driven further than usual, and it was striking four as her ponies dashed past Beckenham church and down the hill towards Felden Woods. The afternoon was cold and cheerless; light flakes of snow drifted across the hard road, and hung here and there upon the leafless hedges, and there was that inky blackness in the sky which presages a heavy fall. The woman at the lodge ran out with her apron over her head to open the gates as Miss Floyd's ponies approached, and at the same moment a man rose from a bank by the roadside, and came close up to the little carriage.
He was a broad-shouldered, stout-built fellow, wearing a shabby velveteen cut-away coat, slashed about with abnormal pockets, and white and greasy at the seams and elbows. His chin was muffled in two or three yards of dirty woollen comforter, after the fashion of his kind; and the band of his low-crowned felt hat was ornamented with a short clay pipe, coloured of a respectable blackness. A dingy white dog, with a brass collar, bow legs, a short nose, blood-shot eyes, one ear, a hanging jaw, and a generally supercilious expression of countenance, rose from the bank at the same moment with his master, and growled ominously at the elegant vehicle and the mastiff Bow-wow trotting by its side.
The stranger was the same individual who had accosted Miss Floyd in Cockspur Street three months before.
I do not know whether Aurora recognized this person; but I know that she touched her ponies' ears with the whip, and that the spirited animals had dashed past the man, and through the gates of Felden, when he sprang forward, caught at their heads, and stopped the light basket-carriage, which rocked under the force of his strong hand.
Talbot Bulstrode leapt from the vehicle, heedless of his stiff leg, and caught the man by the collar.
"Let go that bridle!" he cried, lifting his cane; "how dare you stop this lady's ponies?"
"Because I wanted to speak to her, that's why. Let go o' my coat, will yer?"
The dog made at Talbot's legs, but the young man whirled round his cane and inflicted such chastisement upon the snub nose of that animal as sent him into temporary retirement, howling dismally.
"You are an insolent scoundrel, and I've a good mind to——"
"Yer'd be hinserlent, p'raps, if yer was hungry," answered the man, with a pitiful whine, which was meant to be conciliating. "Such weather as this here's all very well for young swells such as you, as has your dawgs and guns and 'untin'; but the winter's tryin' to a poor man's temper, when he's industrious and willin', and can't get a stroke of honest work to do, or a mouthful of vittals. I only want to speak to the young lady; she knows me well enough."
"Which young lady?"
"Miss Floyd; the heiress."
They were standing a little way from the pony-carriage. Aurora had risen from her seat and flung the reins to Lucy; she was looking towards the two men, pale and breathless, doubtless terrified for the result of the encounter.
Talbot released the man's collar, and went back to Miss Floyd.
"Do you know this person, Aurora?" he asked.
"Yes."
"He is one of your old pensioners, I suppose?"
"He is; do not say anything more to him, Talbot. His manner is rough, but he means no harm. Stop with Lucy while I speak to him."
Rapid and impetuous in all her movements, she sprang from the carriage and joined the man beneath the bare branches of the trees before Talbot could remonstrate.
The dog, which had crawled slowly back to his master's side, fawned upon her as she approached, and was driven away by a fierce growl from Bow-wow, who was little likely to brook any such vulgar rivalry.
The man removed his felt hat, and tugged ceremoniously at a tuft of sandyish hair which ornamented his low forehead.
"You might have spoken to a cove without all this here row, Miss Floyd," he said, in an injured tone.
Aurora looked at him indignantly.
"Why did you stop me here?" she said; "why couldn't you write to me?"
"Because writin's never so much good as speakin', and because such young ladies as you are uncommon difficult to get at. How did I know that your pa mightn't have put his hand upon my letter, and there'd have been a pretty to do? though I dessay, as for that, if I was to go up to the house, and ask the old gent for a trifle, he wouldn't be back'ard in givin' it. I dessay he'd be good for a fi'-pun note; or a tenner, if it came to that."
Aurora's eyes flashed sparks of fire as she turned upon the speaker. "If ever you dare to annoy my father you shall pay dearly for it, Matthew Harrison," she said; "not thatIfear anything you can say, but I will not have him annoyed; I will not have him tormented. He has borne enough, and suffered enough, Heaven knows, without that. I will not have him harassed, and his best and tenderest feelings made a market of, by such as you. I will not!"
She stamped her foot upon the frosty ground as she spoke. Talbot Bulstrode saw and wondered at the gesture. He had half a mind to leave the carriage and join Aurora and her petitioner; but the ponies were restless, and he knew that it would not do to abandon the reins to poor timid Lucy.
"You needn't take on so, Miss Floyd," answered the man, whom Aurora had addressed as Matthew Harrison; "I'm sure I want to make things pleasant to all parties. All I ask is that you'll act a little liberal to a cove wot's come down in the world since you see him last. Lord, wot a world it is for ups and downs! If it had been the summer season, I'd have had no needs to worrit you; but what's the good of standin' at the top of Regent Street such weather as this with tarrier-pups and such likes? Old ladies has no eye for dawgs in the winter; and even the gents as cares for rat-catching is gettin' uncommon scarce. There aint nothink doin' on the turf whereby a chap can make a honest penny; nor won't be, come the Craven Meetin'. I'd never have come anigh you, miss, if I hadn't been hard up; and I know you'll act liberal."
"Act liberally!" cried Aurora. "Good heavens! if every guinea I have, or ever hope to have, could blot out the business that you trade upon, I'd open my hands and let the money run through them as freely as so much water."
"It was only good-natur'd of me to send you that ere paper, though, miss, eh?" said Mr. Matthew Harrison, plucking a dry twig from the tree nearest him, and chewing it for his delectation.
Aurora and the man had walked slowly onward as they spoke, and were by this time at some distance from the pony-carriage.
Talbot Bulstrode was in a fever of restless impatience.
"Do you know this pensioner of your cousin's, Lucy?" he asked.
"No, I can't remember his face. I don't think he belongs to Beckenham."
"Why, if I hadn't have sent you that ere 'Life,' you wouldn't have know'd; would you now?" said the man.
"No, no, perhaps not," answered Aurora. She had taken her porte-monnaie from her pocket, and Mr. Harrison was furtively regarding the little morocco receptacle with glistening eyes.
"You don't ask me about any of the particklars," he said.
"No. What should I care to know of them?"
"No, certently," answered the man, suppressing a chuckle; "you know enough, if it comes to that; and if you wanted to know any more, I couldn't tell you; for them few lines in the paper is all I could ever get hold of about the business. But I allus said it, and I allus will; if a man as rides up'ards of eleven stone——"
It seemed as if he were in a fair way of rambling on for ever so long, if Aurora had not checked him by an impatient frown. Perhaps he stopped all the more readily as she opened her purse at the same moment, and he caught sight of the glittering sovereigns lurking between leaves of crimson silk. He had no very acute sense of colour; but I am sure that he thought gold and crimson made a pleasing contrast, as he looked at the yellow coin in Miss Floyd's porte-monnaie. She poured the sovereigns into her own gloved palm, and then dropped the golden shower into Mr. Harrison's hands, which were hollowed into a species of horny basin for the reception of her bounty. The great trunk of an oak screened them from the observation of Talbot and Lucy, as Aurora gave the man this money.
"You have no claim on me," she said, stopping him abruptly, as he began a declaration of his gratitude, "and I protest against your making a market of any past events which have come under your knowledge. Remember, once and for ever, that I am not afraid of you; and that if I consent to assist you, it is because I will not have my father annoyed. Let me have the address of some place where a letter may always find you,—you can put it into an envelope and direct it to me here,—and from time to time I promise to send you a moderate remittance; sufficient to enable you to lead an honest life, if you, or any of your set, are capable of doing so; but I repeat, that if I give you this money as a bribe, it is only for my father's sake."
The man uttered some expression of thanks, looking at Aurora earnestly; but there was a stern shadow upon the dark face that forbade any hope of conciliation. She was turning from him, followed by the mastiff, when the bandy-legged dog ran forward, whining and raising himself upon his hind legs to lick her hand.
The expression of her face underwent an immediate change. She shrank from the dog, and he looked at her for a moment with a dim uncertainty in his blood-shot eyes; then, as conviction stole upon the brute mind, he burst into a joyous bark, frisking and capering about Miss Floyd's silk dress, and imprinting dusty impressions of his fore paws upon the rich fabric.
"The pore hanimal knows yer, miss," said the man, deprecatingly; "you was never 'aughty to 'im."
The mastiff Bow-wow made as if he would have torn up every inch of ground in Felden Woods at this juncture; but Aurora quieted him with a look.
"Poor Boxer!" she said; "poor Boxer! so you know me, Boxer."
"Lord, miss, there's no knowin' the faithfulness of them animals."
"Poor Boxer! I think I should like to have you. Would you sell him, Harrison?"
The man shook his head.
"No, miss," he answered, "thank you kindly; there aint much in the way of dawgs as I'd refuse to make a bargain about. If you wanted a mute spannel, or a Russian setter, or a Hile of Skye, I'd get him for you and welcome, and ask nothin' for my trouble; but this here bull-tarrier's father and mother and wife and fambly to me, and there aint money enough in your pa's bank to buy him, miss."
"Well, well," said Aurora, relentingly, "I know how faithful he is. Send me the address, and don't come to Felden again."
She returned to the carriage, and taking the reins from Talbot's hand, gave the restless ponies their head; the vehicle dashed past Mr. Matthew Harrison, who stood hat in hand, with his dog between his legs, until the party had gone by. Miss Floyd stole a glance at her lover's face, and saw that Captain Bulstrode's countenance wore its darkest expression. The officer kept sulky silence till they reached the house, when he handed the two ladies from the carriage and followed them across the hall. Aurora was on the lowest step of the broad staircase before he spoke.
"Aurora," he said, "one word before you go upstairs."
She turned and looked at him a little defiantly; she was still very pale, and the fire with which her eyes had flashed upon Mr. Matthew Harrison, dog-fancier and rat-catcher, had not yet died out of the dark orbs. Talbot Bulstrode opened the door of a long chamber under the picture-gallery—half billiard-room, half library, and almost the pleasantest apartment in the house—and stood aside for Aurora to pass him.
The young lady crossed the threshold as proudly as Marie Antoinette going to face her plebeian accusers. The room was empty.
Miss Floyd seated herself in a low easy-chair by one of the two great fireplaces, and looked straight at the blaze.
"I want to ask you about that man, Aurora," Captain Bulstrode said, leaning over aprie-dieuchair, and playing nervously with the carved arabesques of the walnut-wood framework.
"About which man?"
This might have been prevarication in some women; from Aurora it was simply defiance, as Talbot knew.
"The man who spoke to you in the avenue just now. Who is he, and what was his business with you?" Here Captain Bulstrode fairly broke down. He loved her, reader, he loved her, remember, and he was a coward. A coward under the influence of that most cowardly of all passions, LOVE!—the passion that could leave a stain upon a Nelson's name; the passion which might have made a dastard of the bravest of the three hundred at Thermopylæ, or the six hundred at Balaklava. He loved her, this unhappy young man, and he began to stammer, and hesitate, and apologize, shivering under the angry light in her wonderful eyes. "Believe me, Aurora, that I would not for the world play the spy upon your actions, or dictate to you the objects of your bounty. No, Aurora, not if my right to do so were stronger than it is, and I were twenty times your husband; but that man, that disreputable-looking fellow who spoke to you just now—I don't think he is the sort of person you ought to assist."
"I dare say not," she said; "I have no doubt I assist many people who ought by rights to die in a workhouse or drop on the high-road; but, you see, if I stopped to question their deserts, they might die of starvation while I was making my inquiries; so perhaps it's better to throw away a few shillings upon some unhappy creature who is wicked enough to be hungry, and not good enough to deserve to have anything given him to eat."
There was a recklessness about this speech that jarred upon Talbot, but he could not very well take objection to it; besides, it was leading away from the subject upon which he was so eager to be satisfied.
"But that man, Aurora—who is he?"
"A dog-fancier."
Talbot shuddered.
"I thought he was something horrible," he murmured; "but what, in Heaven's name, could he want of you, Aurora?"
"What most of my petitioners want," she answered; "whether it's the curate of a new chapel with mediæval decorations, who wants to rival our Lady of Bons-secours upon one of the hills about Norwood; or a laundress, who has burnt a week's washing, and wants the means to make it good; or a lady of fashion, who is about to inaugurate a home for the children of indigent lucifer-match sellers; or a lecturer upon political economy, or Shelley and Byron, or upon Charles Dickens and the Modern Humorists, who is going to hold forth at Croydon: they all want the same thing; money! If I tell the curate that my principles are evangelical, and that I can't pray sincerely if there are candlesticks on the altar, he is not the less glad of my hundred pounds. If I inform the lady of fashion that I have peculiar opinions about the orphans of lucifer-match sellers, and cherish a theory of my own against the education of the masses, she will shrug her shoulders deprecatingly, but will take care to let me know that any donation Miss Floyd may be pleased to afford will be equally acceptable. If I told them that I had committed half a dozen murders, or that I had a silver statue of the winner of last year's Derby erected on an altar in my dressing-room, and did daily and nightly homage to it, they would take my money and thank me kindly for it, as that man did just now."
"But one word, Aurora: does the man belong to this neighbourhood?"
"No."
"How, then, did you come to know him?"
She looked at him for a moment; steadily, unflinchingly, with a thoughtful expression in that ever-changing countenance; looked as if she were mentally debating some point. Then rising suddenly, she gathered her shawl about her, and walked towards the door. She paused upon the threshold, and said—
"This cross-questioning is scarcely pleasant, Captain Bulstrode. If I choose to give a five-pound note to any person who may ask me for it, I expect full licence to do so; and I will not submit to be called to account for my actions—even by you."
"Aurora!"
The tenderly reproachful tone struck her to the heart.
"You may believe, Talbot," she said,—"you must surely believe that I know too well the value of your love to imperil it by word or deed—youmustbelieve this."
John Mellish grew weary of the great city of Paris. Better love, and contentment, and a crust in amansarde, than stalled oxen or other costly food in the loftiest saloonsau premier, with the most obsequious waiters to do us homage, repressing so much as a smile at our insular idiom. He grew heartily weary of the Rue de Rivoli, the gilded railings of the Tuileries gardens, and the leafless trees behind them. He was weary of the Place de la Concorde, and the Champs Elysées, and the rattle of the hoofs of the troop about his Imperial Highness's carriage, when Napoleon the Third, or the baby prince, took his airing. The plot was yet a-hatching which was to come so soon to a climax in the Rue Lepelletier. He was tired of the broad Boulevards, and the theatres, and the cafés, and the glove-shops—tired of staring at the jewellers' windows in the Rue de la Paix, picturing to himself the face of Aurora Floyd under the diamond and emerald tiaras displayed therein. He had serious thoughts at times of buying a stove and a basket of charcoal, and asphyxiating himself quietly in the great gilded saloon at Meurice's. What was the use of his money, or his dogs, or his horses, or his broad acres? All these put together would not purchase Aurora Floyd. What was the good of life, if it came to that, since the banker's daughter refused to share it with him? Remember that this big, blue-eyed, curly-haired John Mellish had been from his cradle a spoiled child,—spoiled by poor relations and parasites, servants and toadies, from the first hour to the thirtieth year of his existence,—and it seemed such a very hard thing that this beautiful woman should be denied to him. Had he been an eastern potentate, he would have sent for his vizier, and would have had that official bow-strung before his eyes, and so made an end of it; but being merely a Yorkshire gentleman and landowner, he had no more to do but to bear his burden quietly. As if he had ever borne anything quietly! He flung half the weight of his grief upon his valet; until that functionary dreaded the sound of Miss Floyd's name, and told a fellow-servant in confidence that his master "made such a howling about that young woman as he offered marriage to at Brighton, that there was no bearing him." The end of it all was, that one night John Mellish gave sudden orders for the striking of his tents, and early the next morning departed for the Great Northern Railway, leaving only the ashes of his fires behind him.
It was only natural to suppose that Mr. Mellish would have gone straight to his country residence, where there was much business to be done by him: foals to be entered for coming races, trainers and stable-boys to be settled with, the planning and laying down of a proposed tan-gallop to be carried out, and a racing stud awaiting the eye of the master. But instead of going from the Dover Railway Station to the Great Northern Hotel, eating his dinner, and starting for Doncaster by the express, Mr. Mellish drove to the Gloucester Coffee-house, and there took up his quarters, for the purpose, as he said, of seeing the Cattle-show. He made a melancholy pretence of driving to Baker Street in a Hansom cab, and roamed hither and thither for a quarter of an hour, staring dismally into the pens, and then fled away precipitately from the Yorkshire gentlemen-farmers, who gave him hearty greeting. He left the Gloucester the next morning in a dog-cart, and drove straight to Beckenham. Archibald Floyd, who knew nothing of this young Yorkshireman's declaration and rejection, had given him a hearty invitation to Felden Woods. Why shouldn't he go there? Only to make a morning call upon the hospitable banker; not to see Aurora; only to take a few long respirations of the air she breathed before he went back to Yorkshire.
Of course he knew nothing of Talbot Bulstrode's happiness; and it had been one of the chief consolations of his exile to remember that that gentleman had put forth in the same vessel, and had been shipwrecked along with him.
He was ushered into the billiard-room, where he found Aurora Floyd seated at a little table near the fire, making a pencil copy of a proof engraving of one of Rosa Bonheur's pictures, while Talbot Bulstrode sat by her side preparing her pencils.
We feel instinctively that the man who cuts lead-pencils, or holds a skein of silk upon his outstretched hands, or carries lap-dogs, opera-cloaks, camp-stools, or parasols, is "engaged." Even John Mellish had learned enough to know this. He breathed a sigh so loud as to be heard by Lucy and her mother seated by the other fireplace,—a sigh that was on the verge of a groan,—and then held out his hand to Miss Floyd. Not to Talbot Bulstrode. He had vague memories of Roman legends floating in his brain, legends of superhuman generosity and classic self-abnegation; but he could not have shaken hands with that dark-haired young Cornishman, though the tenure of the Mellish estate had hung upon the sacrifice. He could not do it. He seated himself a few paces from Aurora and her lover, twisting his hat about in his hot, nervous hands until the brim was well-nigh limp; and was powerless to utter one sentence, even so much as some poor pitiful remark about the weather.
He was a great spoiled baby of thirty years of age; and I am afraid that, if the stern truth must be told, he saw Aurora Floyd across a mist, that blurred and distorted the bright face before his eyes. Lucy Floyd came to his relief, by carrying him off to introduce him to her mother; and kind-hearted Mrs. Alexander was delighted with his frank, fair English face. He had the good fortune to stand with his back to the light, so that neither of the ladies detected that foolish mist in his blue eyes.
Archibald Floyd would not hear of his visitor's returning to town either that night or the next day.
"You must spend Christmas with us," he said, "and see the New Year in, before you go back to Yorkshire. I have all my children about me at this season, and it is the only time that Felden seems like an old man's home. Your friend Bulstrode stops with us" (Mellish winced as he received this intelligence), "and I sha'n't think it friendly if you refuse to join our party."
What a pitiful coward this John Mellish must have been to accept the banker's invitation, and send the Newport Pagnell back to the Gloucester, and suffer himself to be led away by Mr. Floyd's own man to a pleasant chamber, a few doors from the chintz-rooms occupied by Talbot! But I have said before, that love is a cowardly passion. It is like the toothache; the bravest and strongest succumb to it, and howl aloud under the torture. I don't suppose the Iron Duke would have been ashamed to own that he objected to having his teeth out. I have heard of a great fighting man who could take punishment better than any other of the genii of the ring, but who fainted away at the first grip of the dentist's forceps. John Mellish consented to stay at Felden, and he went between the lights into Talbot's dressing-room, to expostulate with the captain upon his treachery.
Talbot did his best to console his doleful visitant.
"There are more women than one in the world," he said, after John had unbosomed himself of his grief—he didn't think this, the hypocrite, though he said it—"there are more women than one, my dear Mellish; and there are many very charming and estimable girls, who would be glad to win the affections of such a fellow as you."
"I hate estimable girls," said Mr. Mellish; "bother my affections! nobody will ever win my affections; but I love her, I love that beautiful black-eyed creature down-stairs, who looks at you with two flashes of lightning, and rides like young Challoner in a cloth habit; I love her, Bulstrode, and you told me that she'd refused you, and that you were going to leave Brighton by the eight o'clock express, and you didn't; and you sneaked back and made her a second offer, and she accepted you, and, damme, it wasn't fair play."
Having said which, Mr. Mellish flung himself upon a chair, which creaked under his weight, and fell to poking the fire furiously.
It was hard for poor Talbot to have to excuse himself for having won Aurora's hand. He could not very well remind John Mellish that if Miss Floyd had accepted him, it was perhaps because she preferred him to the honest Yorkshireman. To John the matter never presented itself in this light. The spoiled child had been cheated out of that toy above all other toys, upon the possession of which he had set his foolish heart. It was as if he had bidden for some crack horse at Tattersall's, in fair and open competition with a friend, who had gone back after the sale to outbid him in some underhand fashion. He could not understand that there had been no dishonesty in Talbot's conduct, and he was highly indignant when that gentleman ventured to hint to him that perhaps, on the whole, it would have been wiser to have kept away from Felden Woods.
Talbot Bulstrode had avoided any further allusion to Mr. Matthew Harrison the dog-fancier; and this, the first dispute between the lovers, had ended in the triumph of Aurora.
Miss Floyd was not a little embarrassed by the presence of John Mellish, who roamed disconsolately about the big rooms, seating himself ever and anon at one of the tables to peer into the lenses of a stereoscope, or to take up some gorgeously-bound volume and drop it on the carpet in gloomy absence of mind, and who sighed heavily when spoken to, and was altogether far from pleasant company. Aurora's warm heart was touched by the piteous spectacle of this rejected lover, and she sought him out once or twice, and talked to him about his racing stud, and asked him how he liked the hunting in Surrey; but John changed from red to white, and from hot to cold, when she spoke to him, and fled away from her with a scared and ghastly aspect, which would have been grotesque had it not been so painfully real.
But by-and-by John found a more pitiful listener to his sorrows than ever Talbot Bulstrode had been; and this gentle and compassionate listener was no other than Lucy Floyd, to whom the big Yorkshireman turned in his trouble. Did he know, or did he guess, by some wondrous clairvoyance, that her griefs bore a common likeness to his own, and that she was just the one person, of all others at Felden Woods, to be pitiful to him and patient with him? He was by no means proud, this transparent, boyish, babyish good fellow. Two days after his arrival at Felden, he told all to poor Lucy.
"I suppose you know, Miss Floyd," he said, "that your cousin rejected me. Yes, of course you do; I believe she rejected Bulstrode about the same time; but some men haven't a ha'porth of pride: I must say I think the captain acted like a sneak."
A sneak! Her idol, her adored, her demi-god, her dark-haired and gray-eyed divinity, to be spoken of thus! She turned upon Mr. Mellish with her fair cheeks flushed into a pale glow of anger, and told him that Talbot had a right to do what he had done, and that whatever Talbot did was right.
Like most men whose reflective faculties are entirely undeveloped, John Mellish was blessed with a sufficiently rapid perception; a perception sharpened just then by that peculiar sympathetic prescience, that marvellous clairvoyance of which I have spoken; and in those few indignant words, and that angry flush, he read poor Lucy's secret: she loved Talbot Bulstrode as he loved Aurora—hopelessly.
How he admired this fragile girl, who was frightened of horses and dogs, and who shivered if a breath of the winter air blew across the heated hall, and who yet bore her burden with this quiet, uncomplaining patience! while he, who weighed fourteen stone, and could ride forty miles across country with the bitterest blasts of December blowing in his face, was powerless to endure his affliction. It comforted him to watch Lucy, and to read in those faint signs and tokens, which had escaped even a mother's eye, the sad history of her unrequited affection.
Poor John was too good-natured and unselfish to hold out for ever in the dreary fortress of despair which he had built up for his habitation; and on Christmas-eve, when there were certain rejoicings at Felden, held in especial honour of the younger visitors, he gave way, and joined in their merriment, and was more boyish than the youngest of them, burning his fingers with blazing raisins, suffering his eyes to be bandaged at the will of noisy little players at blindman's-buff, undergoing ignominious penalties in their games of forfeits, performing alternately innkeepers, sheriff's officers, policemen, clergymen, and justices, in the acted charades, lifting the little ones who wanted to see "de top of de Kitmat tee" in his sturdy arms, and making himself otherwise agreeable and useful to young people of from three to fifteen years of age; until at last, under the influence of all this juvenile gaiety, and perhaps two or three glasses of Moselle, he boldly kissed Aurora Floyd beneath the branch of mistletoe, hanging, "for this night only," in the great hall at Felden Woods.
And having done this, Mr. Mellish fairly lost his wits, and was "off his head" for the rest of the evening; making speeches to the little ones at the supper-table, and proposing Mr. Archibald Floyd and the commercial interests of Great Britain, with three times three; leading the chorus of those tiny treble voices with his own sonorous bass; and weeping freely—he never quite knew why—behind his table-napkin. It was through an atmosphere of tears, and sparkling wines, and gas, and hot-house flowers, that he saw Aurora Floyd, looking, ah, how lovely! in those simple robes of white which so much became her, and with a garland of artificial holly round her head. The spiked leaves and the scarlet berries formed themselves into a crown—I think, indeed, that a cheese-plate would have been transformed into a diadem, if Miss Floyd had been pleased to put it on her head—and she looked like the genius of Christmas: something bright and beautiful; too beautiful to come more than once a year.
When the clocks were striking 2 a.m., long after the little ones had been carried away muffled up in opera-cloaks, terribly sleepy, and I'm afraid in some instances under the influence of strong drink,—when the elder guests had all retired to rest, and the lights, with a few exceptions, were fled, the garlands dead, and all but Talbot and John Mellish departed, the two young men walked up and down the long billiard-room, in the red glow of the two declining fires, and talked to each other confidentially. It was the morning of Christmas-day, and it would have been strange to be unfriendly at such a time.
"If you'd fallen in love with the other one, Bulstrode," said John, clasping his old school-fellow by the hand, and staring at him pathetically, "I could have looked upon you as a brother; she's better suited to you, twenty thousand times better adapted to you, than her cousin, and you ought to have married her—in common courtesy—I mean to say as an honourable—having very much compromised yourself by your attentions—Mrs. Whatshername—the companion—Mrs. Powell—said so—you ought to have married her."
"Married her! Married whom?" cried Talbot rather savagely, shaking off his friend's hot grasp, and allowing Mr. Mellish to sway backward upon the heels of his varnished boots in rather an alarming manner. "Who do you mean?"
"The sweetest girl in Christendom—except one," exclaimed John, clasping his hot hands and elevating his dim blue eyes to the ceiling; "the loveliest girl in Christendom, except one—Lucy Floyd."
"Lucy Floyd!"
"Yes, Lucy; the sweetest girl in——"
"Who says that I ought to marry Lucy Floyd?"
"She says so—no, no, I don't mean that! I mean," said Mr. Mellish, sinking his voice to a solemn whisper,—"I mean that Lucy Floyd loves you! She didn't tell me so—oh, no, bless your soul,—she never uttered a word upon the subject; but she loves you. Yes," continued John, pushing his friend away from him with both hands, and staring at him as if mentally taking his pattern for a suit of clothes, "that girl loves you, and has loved you all along. I am not a fool, and I give you my word and honour that Lucy Floyd loves you."
"Not a fool!" cried Talbot; "you're worse than a fool, John Mellish—you're drunk!"
He turned upon his heel contemptuously, and taking a candle from a table near the door, lighted it, and strode out of the room.
John stood rubbing his hands through his curly hair, and staring helplessly after the captain.
"This is the reward a fellow gets for doing a generous thing," he said, as he thrust his own candle into the burning coals, ignoring any easier mode of lighting it. "It's hard, but I suppose it's human nature."
Talbot Bulstrode went to bed in a very bad humour. Could it be true that Lucy loved him? Could this chattering Yorkshireman have discovered a secret which had escaped the captain's penetration? He remembered how, only a short time before, he had wished that this fair-haired girl might fall in love with him, and now all was trouble and confusion. Guinevere was lady of his heart, and poor Elaine was sadly in the way. Mr. Tennyson's wondrous book had not been given to the world in the year fifty-seven, or no doubt poor Talbot would have compared himself to the knight whose "honour rooted in dishonour stood." Had he been dishonourable? Had he compromised himself by his attentions to Lucy? Had he deceived that fair and gentle creature? The down pillows in the chintz chamber gave no rest to his weary head that night; and when he fell asleep in the late daybreak, it was to dream horrible dreams, and to see in a vision Aurora Floyd standing on the brink of a clear pool of water in a woody recess at Felden, and pointing down through its crystal surface to the corpse of Lucy, lying pale and still amidst lilies and clustering aquatic plants, whose long tendrils entwined themselves with the fair golden hair.
He heard the splash of the water in that terrible dream, and awoke, to find his valet breaking the ice in his bath in the adjoining room. His perplexities about poor Lucy vanished in the broad daylight, and he laughed at a trouble which must have grown out of his own vanity. What was he, that young ladies should fall in love with him? What a weak fool he must have been to have believed for one moment in the drunken babble of John Mellish! So he dismissed the image of Aurora's cousin from his mind, and had eyes, ears, and thought only for Aurora herself, who drove him to Beckenham church in her basket-carriage, and sat by his side in the banker's great square pew.
Alas, I fear he heard very little of the sermon that was preached that day; but, for all that, I declare that he was a good and devout man: a man whom God had blest with the gift of earnest belief; a man who took all blessings from the hand of God reverently, almost fearfully; and as he bowed his head at the end of that Christmas service of rejoicing and thanksgiving, he thanked Heaven for his overflowing cup of gladness, and prayed that he might become worthy of so much happiness.
He had a vague fear that he was too happy; too much bound up heart and soul in the dark-eyed woman by his side. If she were to die! If she were to be false to him! He turned sick and dizzy at the thought; and even in that sacred temple the Devil whispered to him that there were still pools, loaded pistols, and other certain remedies for such calamities as those,—so wicked as well as cowardly a passion is this terrible fever, Love!
The day was bright and clear, the light snow whitening the ground; every line of hedge-top and tree cut sharply out against the cold blue of the winter sky. The banker proposed that they should send home the carriages, and walk down the hill to Felden; so Talbot Bulstrode offered Aurora his arm, only too glad of the chance of atête-à-têtewith his betrothed.
John Mellish walked with Archibald Floyd, with whom the Yorkshireman was an especial favourite; and Lucy was lost amid a group of brothers, sisters, and cousins.
"We were so busy all yesterday with the little people," said Talbot, "that I forgot to tell you, Aurora, that I had had a letter from my mother."
Miss Floyd looked up at him with her brightest glance. She was always pleased to hear anything about Lady Bulstrode.
"Of course there is very little news in the letter," added Talbot, "for there is rarely much to tell at Bulstrode. And yet—yes—there is one piece of news which concerns yourself."
"Which concerns me?"
"Yes. You remember my cousin, Constance Trevyllian?"
"Y-es—"
"She has returned from Paris, her education finished at last, and she, I believe, all-accomplished, and has gone to spend Christmas at Bulstrode. Good heavens, Aurora! what is the matter?"
Nothing very much, apparently. Her face had grown as white as a sheet of letter-paper; but the hand upon his arm did not tremble. Perhaps, had he taken especial notice of it, he would have found it preternaturally still.
"Aurora, what is the matter?"
"Nothing. Why do you ask?"
"Your face is as pale as——"
"It is the cold, I suppose," she said, shivering. "Tell me about your cousin, this Miss Trevyllian; when did she go to Bulstrode Castle?"
"She was to arrive the day before yesterday. My mother was expecting her when she wrote."
"Is she a favourite of Lady Bulstrode's?"
"No very especial favourite. My mother likes her well enough; but Constance is rather a frivolous girl."
"The day before yesterday," said Aurora; "Miss Trevyllian was to arrive the day before yesterday. The letters from Cornwall are delivered at Felden early in the afternoon; are they not?"
"Yes, dear."
"You will have a letter from your mother today, Talbot."
"A letter to-day! oh, no, Aurora, she never writes two days running; seldom more than once a week."
Miss Floyd did not make any answer to this, nor did her face regain its natural hue during the whole of the homeward walk. She was very silent, only replying in the briefest manner to Talbot's inquiries.
"I am sure that you are ill, Aurora," he said, as they ascended the terrace steps.
"I am ill."
"But, dearest, what is it? Let me tell Mrs. Alexander, or Mrs. Powell. Let me go back to Beckenham for the doctor."
She looked at him with a mournful earnestness in her eyes.
"My foolish Talbot," she said, "do you remember what Macbeth said tohisdoctor? There are diseases that cannot be ministered to. Let me alone; you will know soon enough—you will know very soon, I dare say."
"But, Aurora, what do you mean by this? What can there be upon your mind?"
"Ah, what indeed! Let me alone, let me alone, Captain Bulstrode."
He had caught her hand; but she broke from him, and ran up the staircase, in the direction of her own apartments.
Talbot hurried to Lucy, with a pale, frightened, face.
"Your cousin is ill, Lucy," he said; "go to her, for Heaven's sake, and see what is wrong."
Lucy obeyed immediately; but she found the door of Miss Floyd's room locked against her; and when she called to Aurora, and implored to be admitted, that young lady cried out—
"Go away, Lucy Floyd! go away, and leave me to myself, unless you want to drive me mad!"
There was no more happiness for Talbot Bulstrode that day. He wandered from room to room, till he was as weary of that exercise as the young lady in Monk Lewis's 'Castle Spectre;' he roamed forlornly hither and thither, hoping to find Aurora, now in the billiard-room, now in the drawing-room. He loitered in the hall, upon the shallow pretence of looking at barometers and thermometers, in order to listen for the opening and shutting of Aurora's door. All the doors at Felden Woods were perpetually opening and shutting that afternoon, as it seemed to Talbot Bulstrode.
He had no excuse for passing the doors of Miss Floyd's apartments, for his own rooms lay at the opposite angle of the house; but he lingered on the broad staircase, looking at the furniture-pictures upon the walls, and not seeing one line in these Wardour-Street productions. He had hoped that Aurora would appear at luncheon; but that dismal meal had been eaten without her; and the merry laughter and pleasant talk of the family assembly had sounded far away to Talbot's ears—far away across some wide ocean of doubt and confusion.
He passed the afternoon in this wretched manner, unobserved by any one but Lucy, who watched him furtively from her distant seat, as he roamed in and out of the drawing-room. Ah, how many a man is watched by loving eyes whose light he never sees! How many a man is cared for by a tender heart whose secret he never learns! A little after dusk, Talbot Bulstrode went to his room to dress. It was some time before the bell would ring; but he would dress early, he thought, so as to make sure of being in the drawing-room when Aurora came down.
He took no light with him, for there were always wax-candles upon the chimney-piece in his room.
It was almost dark in that pleasant chintz chamber, for the fire had been lately replenished, and there was no blaze; but he could just distinguish a white patch upon the green-cloth cover of the writing-table. The white patch was a letter. He stirred the black mass of coal in the grate, and a bright flame went dancing up the chimney, making the room as light as day. He took the letter in one hand, while he lighted one of the candles on the chimney-piece with the other. The letter was from his mother. Aurora Floyd had told him that he would receive such a letter. What did it all mean? The gay flowers and birds upon the papered walls spun round him as he tore open the envelope. I firmly believe that we have a semi-supernatural prescience of the coming of all misfortune; a prophetic instinct, which tells us that such a letter, or such a messenger, carries evil tidings. Talbot Bulstrode had that prescience as he unfolded the paper in his hands. The horrible trouble was before him; a brooding shadow, with a veiled face, ghastly and undefined; but it wasthere.
"My dear Talbot,—I know that the letter I am about to write will distress and perplex you; but my duty lies not the less plainly before me. I fear that your heart is much involved in your engagement to Miss Floyd." The evil tidings concerned Aurora, then; the brooding shadow was slowly lifting its dark veil, and the face of her he loved best on earth appeared behind it. "But I know," continued that pitiless letter, "that the sense of honour is the strongest part of your nature, and that, however you may have loved this girl" (O God, she spoke of his love in the past!), "you will not suffer yourself to be entrapped into a false position through any weakness of affection. There is some mystery about the life of Aurora Floyd."