Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume

His soldier servant had secured a boat, and they rapidly descended to the river; Sir Amyas silent between suspense, dismay and shame for his mother, and Betty trying to keep Eugene quiet by hurried answers to his eager questions about all he saw. They had to get out at London Bridge, and take a fresh boat on the other side, a much larger one, with two oarsmen, and a grizzled old coxswain, with a pleasant honest countenance, who presently relieved Betty of all necessity of attending to, or answering, Eugene’s chatter.

“Do you know where this garden is?” said she, leaning across to Sir Amyas, who had engaged the boat to go to Greenwich.

He started as if it were a new and sudden thought, and turning to the steersman demanded whether he knew Mrs. Darke’s garden.

The old man gave a kind of grunt, and eyed the trio interrogatively, the young officer with his fresh, innocent, boyish face and brilliant undisguised uniform, the handsome child, the lady neither young, gay, nor beautiful, but unmistakeably a decorous gentlewoman.

“Do you know Mrs. Darke’s?” repeated Sir Amyas.

“Aye, do I? Mayhap I know more about the place than you do.”

There was that about his face that moved Betty and the young man to look at one another, and the former said, “She has had to do with—evil doings?”

“You may say that, ma’am.”

“Then,” they cried in one breath, “you will help us!” And in a very few words Betty explained their fears for her young sister, and asked whether he thought the warning possible.

“I’ve heard tell of such things!” said the old man between his teeth, “and Mother Darkness is one to do ‘em. Help you to bring back the poor young lass? That we will, if we have to break down the door with our fists. And who is this young spark? Her brother or her sweetheart?”

“Her husband!” said Sir Amyas. “Her husband from whom she has been cruelly spirited away. Aid me to bring her back, my good fellow, and nothing would be too much to reward you.”

“Aye, aye, captain, Jem Green’s not the man to see an English girl handed over to they slave-driving, outlandish chaps. But I say, I wish you’d got a cloak or summat to put over that scarlet and gold of yourn. It’s a regular flag to put the old witch on her guard.”

On that summer’s day, however, no cloak was at hand. They went down the river very rapidly, for the tide was running out and at length Jem Green pointed out the neat little garden. On the step sat a woman, apparently weeping bitterly. Could it be the object of their search? No, but as they came nearer, and she was roused so as to catch sight of the scarlet coat, she beckoned and gesticulated with all her might; and as they approached Sir Amyas recognised her as his mother’s maid.

“You will be in time yet,” she cried breathlessly. “Oh! take me in, or you won’t know the ship!”

So eager and terrified was she, that but for the old steersman’s peremptory steadiness, her own life and theirs would have been in much peril, but she was safely seated at last, gasping out, “The Red Cloud, Captain Karen. They’ve been gone these ten minutes.”

“Aye, aye,” gruffly responded Green, and the oars moved rapidly, while Loveday with another sob cried, “Oh! sir, I thought you would never come!”

“You sent the warning?”

Yes, sir, I knew nothing till the morning, when my Lady called me up. I lie in her room, you know. She had given orders, and I was to take the sweet lady and go down the river with her to Mrs. Darke, the perfuming woman my Lady has dealings with about here hair and complexion. There I was to stay with her till—till this same sea-captain was to come and carry her off where she would give no more trouble. Oh, sir, it was too much—and my Lady knew it, for she had tied my hands so that I had but a moment to scribble down that scrip, and bid Syphax take it to you. The dear lady! she said, ‘her God could deliver her out of the mouth of the lion,’ and I could not believe it! I thought it too late!”

“How can we thank you,” began Betty; but she was choked by intense anxiety, and Jem Green broke in with an inquiry where the ship was bound for. Loveday only had a general impression of the West Indies, and believed that the poor lady’s destined spouse was a tobacconist, and as the boat was soon among a forest of shipping where it could not proceed so fast, Green had to inquire of neighbouring mariners where the Red Cloud was lying.

“The Red Cloud, Karen, weighs anchor for Carolina at flood tide to-night. Shipper just going aboard,” they were told.

Their speed had been so rapid that they were in time to see the boat alongside, and preparations being made to draw up some one or something on board. “Oh! that is she!” cried Loveday in great agitation. “They’ve drugged her. No harm done. She don’t know it. But it is she!”

Sir Amyas, with a voice of thunder, called out, “Halt, villain,” at the same moment as Green shouted “Avast there, mate!” And their boat came dashing up alongside.

“Yield me up that lady instantly, fellow!” cried Sir Amyas, with his sword half drawn.

“And who are you, I should like to know,” returned Karen, coolly, “swaggering at an honest man taking his freight and passengers aboard?”

“I’ll soon show you!”

“Hush, sir,” said Green, who had caught sight of pistols and cutlasses, “let me speak a moment. Look you here, skipper, this young gentleman and lady have right on their side. This is her sister, and he is her husband. They are people of condition, as you see.”

“All’s one to me on the broad seas.”

“That may be,” said Green, “but you see you can’t weigh anchor these three hours or more; and what’s to hinder the young captain here from swearing against you before a magistrate, and getting your vessel searched, eh?”

“I’ve no objection to hear reason if I’m spoke to reasonable,” said Karen, sulkily; “but I’ll not be bullied like a highwayman, when I’ve my consignment regularly made out, and the freight down in hand, square.”

“You may keep your accursed passage-money and welcome,” cried Sir Amyas, “so you’ll only give me my wife!”

“Show him the certificate,” whispered Betty.

Sir Amyas had it ready, and he read it loud enough for all on the Thames to hear. Karen gave a sneering little laugh. “What’s that to me? My passenger here has her berth taken in the name of Ann Davis.”

“Like enough,” said Loveday, “but you remember me, captain, and I swear that this poor young lady is what his Honour Sir Amyas say. He is a generous young gentleman, and will make it up to you if you are at any loss in the matter.”

“A hundred times over!” exclaimed Amyas hotly.

“Hardly that,” said Karen. “Van Draagen might have been good for a round hundred if he’d been pleased with the commission.”

“I’ll give you and order—” began Sir Amyas.

“What have you got about you, sir?” interrupted Karen. “I fancy hard cash better than your orders.”

The youth pulled out his purse. There was only a guinea or two and some silver. “One does not go out to parade with much money about one,” he said, with a trembling endeavour for a smile, “but if you would send up to my quarters in Whitehall Barracks–”

“Never mind, sir,” said Karen, graciously. “I see you are in earnest, and I’ll put up with the loss rather than stand in the light of a couple of true lovers. Here, Jack, lend a hand, and we’ll hoist the young woman over. She’s quiet enough, thanks to Mother Darkness.”

The sudden change in tone might perhaps be owing to the skipper’s attention having been called by a sign from one of his men to a boat coming up from Woolwich, rowed by men of the Royal navy, who were certain to take part with an officer; but Sir Amyas and Betty were only intent on receiving the inanimate form wrapped up in its mantle. What a meeting it was for Betty, and yet what joy to have her at all! They laid her with her head in her sister’s lap, and Sir Amyas hung over her, clasping one of the limp gloved hands, while Eugene called “Aura, Aura,” and would have impetuously kissed her awake, but Loveday caught hold of him. “Do not, do not, for pity’s sake, little master,” she said; “the potion will do her no harm if you let her sleep it off, but she may not know you if you waken her before the time.”

“Wretch, what have you given her?” cried Sir Amyas.

“It was not me, sir, it was Mrs. Darke, in a cup of coffee. She vowed it would do no hurt if only she was let to sleep six or eight hours. And see what a misery it has saved her from!”

“That is true,” said Betty. “Indeed I believe this is a healthy sleep. See how gently she breathes, how soft and natural her colour is, how cool and fresh her cheek is. I cannot believe there is serious harm done.”

“How soon can we reach a physician?” asked Sir Amyas, still anxiously, of the coxswain.

“I can’t rightly say, sir,” replied he; “but never you fear. They wouldn’t do aught to damage such as she.”

Patience must perforce be exercised as, now against the tide and the stream, the wherry worked its way back. Once there was a little stir; Sir Amyas instantly hovered over Aurelia, and clasped her hand with a cry of “My dearest life!” The long dark eyelashes slowly rose, the eyes looked up for one moment from his face to her sister’s, and then to her brother’s, but the lids sank as if weighed down, and with a murmur, “Oh, don’t wake me,” she turned her face around on Betty’s lap and slept again.

“Poor darling, she thinks it a dream,” said Betty. “Eugene, do not. Sir, I entreat! Brother, yes I will call you so if you will only let her alone! See how happy and peaceful her dear face is! Do not rouse her into terror and bewilderment.”

“If I only were sure she was safe,” he sighed, hanging over, with an intensity of affection and anxiety that brought a dew even to the old steersman’s eyes; and he kindly engrossed Eugene by telling about the places they passed, and setting him to watch the smart crew of the boat from the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, which was gaining on them.

Meanwhile the others interrogated Loveday, who told them of the pretext on which Lady Belamour had sent her captive down to Mrs. Darke’s. No one save herself had, in my Lady’s household, she said, an idea of where the young lady was, Lady Belamour having employed only hired porters except on that night when Lady Aresfield’s carriage brought her. This had led to the captivity being know to Lady Belle and her brother, and Loveday had no doubt that it was the discovery of their being aware of it, as well as Jumbo’s appearance in the court, that had made her mistress finally decide on this frightful mode of ridding herself of the poor girl. The maid was as adroit a dissembler as her mistress, and she held her peace as to her own part in forwarding Colonel Mar’s suit, whether her lady guessed it or not, but she owned with floods of tears how the sight of the young lady’s meek and dutiful submission, her quiet trust, and her sweet, simple teaching of the children, had wakened into life again a conscience long dead to all good, and made it impossible to her to carry out this last wicked commission without an attempt to save the creature whom she had learnt to reverence as a saint. Most likely her scruples had been suspected by her mistress, for there had been an endeavour to put it out of her power to give any warning to the victim. Yet after all, the waiting-maid had been too adroit for the lady, or, as she fully owned, Aurelia’s firm trust had not been baulked, and deliverance from the lions had come.

CHAPTER XXXV. THE RETURN

    And now the glorious artist, ere he yet    Had reached the Lemnian Isle, limping, returned;    With aching heart he sought his home.                                      Odyssey—COWPER.

How were they to get the slumbering maiden home? That was the next question. Loveday advised carrying her direct to her old prison, where she would wake without alarm; but Sir Amyas shuddered at the notion, and Betty said she could not take her again into a house of Lady Belamour’s.

The watermen, who were enthusiastic in the cause, which they understood as that of one young sweetheart rescued by the other, declared that they would carry the sweet lady between them on the cushions of their boat, laid on stretchers; and as they knew of a land-place near the Royal York, with no need of crossing any great thoroughfare, Betty thought this the best chance of taking her sister home without a shock.

The boat from Woolwich had shot London Bridge immediately after them, and stopped at the stairs nearest that where they landed; and just as Sir Amyas, with an exclamation of annoyance at his unserviceable arm, had resigned Aurelia to be lifted on to her temporary litter, a hand was laid on his shoulder, a voice said “Amyas, what means this?” and he found himself face to face with a small, keen-visaged, pale man, with thick grizzled brows overhanging searching dark grey eyes, shaded by a great Spanish hat.

“Sir! oh sir, is it you?” he cried, breathlessly; “now all will be well!”

“I am very glad you think so, Amyas,” was the grave answer; “for all this has a strange appearance.”

“It is my dearest wife, sir, my wife, whom I have just recovered after—Oh, say, sir, if you think all is well with her, and it is only a harmless sleeping potion. Sister—Betty—this is my good father, Mr. Wayland. He is as good as a physician. Let him see my sweetest life.”

Mr. Wayland bent over the slumbering figure still in the bottom of the boat, heard what could be told of the draught by Loveday, whom he recognized as his wife’s attendant, and feeling Aurelia’s pulse, said, “I should not think there was need for fear. To the outward eye she is a model of sleeping innocence.” “Well you may say so,” and “She is indeed,” broke from the baronet and the waiting-maid at the same instant; but Mr. Wayland heeded them little as he impatiently asked, “Where and how is your mother, Amyas?”

“In health sir, at home, I suppose,” said Sir Amyas; “but oh, sir, hear me, before you see her.”

“I must, if you walk with me,” said Mr. Wayland, turning for a moment to bid his servant reward and dismiss the boat’s crew, and see to the transport of his luggage; and in the meantime Aurelia was lifted by her bearers.

Sir Amyas again uttered a rejoicing, “We feared you were in the hands of the pirates, sir.”

“So I was; but the governor of Gibraltar obtained my release, and was good enough to send me home direct in a vessel on the king’s service,” said Mr. Wayland, taking the arm his stepson offered to assist his lameness. “Now for your explanation, Amyas; only let me hear first that my babes are well.”

“Yes, sir, all well. You had my letter?”

“Telling of that strange disguised wedding? I had, the very day I was captured.”

By the time they had come to the place where their ways parted, Mr. Wayland had heard enough to be so perplexed and distressed that he knew not that he had been drawn out of the way to Hanover Square, till at the entrance of the Royal York, they found Betty asseverating to the landlady that she was bringing no case of small pox into the house; and showing, as a passport of admittance, two little dents on the white wrist and temple.

At that instant the sound brought Major Delavie hurrying from his sitting-room at his best speed. There was a look of horror on his face as he saw his daughter’s senseless condition, but Betty sprang to his side to prevent his wakening her, and Aurelia was safely carried up stairs and laid upon her sister’s bed, still sleeping, while Betty and Loveday unloosed her clothes. Her bearers were sent for refreshment to the bar, and the gentlemen stood looking on one another in the sitting-room, Mr. Wayland utterly shocked, incredulous of the little he did understand, and yet unable to go home until he should hear more; and the Major hardly less horrified, in the midst of his relief. “But where’s Belamour!” he cried, “Your uncle, I mean.”

“Where?” said Sir Amyas. “They said he was gone out.”

“So they told me! And see here!”

Major Delavie produced Lady Belamour’s note.

“A blind!” cried Sir Amyas, turning away under a strange stroke of pain and sham. “Oh! mother, mother!” and he dashed out of the room.

Poor Mr. Wayland sat down as one who could stand no longer. “Of what do they suspect her?” he said hoarsely.

“Sir,” said the good Major, “I grieve sincerely for and with you. Opposition to this match with my poor child seems to have transported my poor cousin to strange and frantic lengths, but you may trust me to shield and guard her from exposure as far as may be.”

Her husband only answered by a groan, and wrung Major Delavie’s hand, but their words were interrupted by Sir Amyas’s return. He had been to his uncle’s chamber, and had found on the table a note addressed to the Major. Within was a inclosure directed to A. Belamour, Esq.

  “If you have found the way to the poor captive, for pity’s sake come to her rescue.  Be in the court with your faithful black by ten o’clock, and you may yet save on who loves and looks to you.”

On the outer sheet was written—

“I distrust this handwriting, and suspect a ruse.  In case I do not return, send for Hargrave, Sandys, Godfrey, as witnesses to my sanity, and storm the fair one’s fortress in person.   A. B.”

“It is not my Aurelia’s writing,” said the Major. “Bravest of friends, what has he not dared on her account!”

“This is too much!” cried Mr. Wayland, striving in horror against his convictions. “I cannot hear my beloved wife loaded with monstrous suspicions in her absence!”

“I am sorry to say this is no new threat ever since poor Belamour has crossed her path,” said the Major.

“What have you done, sir!” asked Sir Amyas.

“I fear I have but wasted time,” said the Major. “I have been to Hanover Square, and getting no admittance there, I came back in the hope you might be on the track with Betty—as, thank God, you were! The first thing to be done now is to find what she has done with Belamour,” he added, rising up.

“That must fall to my share,” said Mr. Wayland, pale and resolute. “Come with me, Amyas, your young limbs will easily return before the effect of the narcotic has passed, and I need fuller explanation.”

Stillness than came on the Delavie party. The Major went up stairs, and sat by Aurelia’s bed gazing with eyes dazzled with tears at the child he had so longed to see, and whom he found again in this strange trance. A doctor came, and quite confirmed Mr. Wayland’s opinion, that the drug would not prove deleterious, provided the sleep was not disturbed, and Betty continued her watch, after hearing what her father knew of Mr. Belamour. She was greatly struck with the self-devotion that had gone with open eyes into so dreadful a snare as a madhouse of those days rather than miss the least chance of saving Aurelia.

“If we go by perils dared, the uncle is the true knight-errant,” said she to her father. “I wonder which our child truly loves the best!”

“Betty!” said her father, scandalised.

“Ay, I know, Sir Amyas is a charming boy, but what a boy he is! And she has barely spoken with him or seen him, whereas Mr. Belamour has been kind to her for a whole twelvemonth. I know what I should do if I were in her place. I would declare that I intended to be married to the uncle, and would keep it!”

“He would think it base to put the question.”

“He would; but indeed, dear sir, I think it would be but right and due to the dear child herself that she should have here free choice, and not be bound for ever by a deception! Yes, I know the poor boy’s despair would be dreadful, but it would be better for them both than such a mistake.”

“Hush! I hear him knocking at the door, you cruel woman.”

The bedroom opened into the parlour the party had hired, so that both could come out and meet Sir Amyas with the door ajar, without relaxing their watch upon the sleeper. The poor young man looked pale, shocked, and sorrowful. “Well,” said he, after having read in their looks that there was no change, “he knows the worst.” Then on a further token of interrogation, “It may have been my fault; I took him, unannounced, through the whole suite of rooms, and in the closet at the end, with all the doors open, she was having an altercation with Mar. He was insisting on knowing what she had done with”—(he signed towards the other room) “she, upbraiding him with faithlessness. They were deaf to an approach, till Mr. Wayland, in a loud voice, ordered me back, saying ‘it was no scene for a son.’”

“I trust it will not end in a challenge?” asked the Major, gravely.

“No, my father’s infirmity renders him no fighting man, and I—I may not challenge my superior officer.”

“But your uncle?” said Betty, much fearing that such a scene might have led to his being forgotten.

“I should have told you. We had not made many steps from hence before we met poor Jumbo wandering like a dog that had lost his master. Mr. Belamour had taken the precaution of giving Jumbo the pass-key, and not taking him into that house (some day I will pull every brick of it down), so he watched till by and by he saw a coach come out with all the windows closed, and as his master had bidden him in such a case, he kept along on the pavement near, and never lost sight of it till he had tracked it right across the City to a house with iron-barred windows inside a high wall. There it went in, and he could not follow, but he asked the people what place it was, and though they jeered at him, he made out that it was as we feared. Nay, do not be alarmed, sister, he will soon be with us. My poor father shut me out, and I know not what passed with my mother, but just as I could wait no longer to return to my dearest, he came out and told me that he had found out that my uncle was in a house at Moorfields, and he is gone himself to liberate him. He is himself a justice of the peace, and he will call for Dr. Sandys by the way, that there may be no difficulty. He is gone in the coach-and-four, with Jumbo on the box, so that matters will soon be righted.”

“And a heroic champion set free,” said Betty moving to return to her sister, when the others would not be denied having another look at the sweet slumberer, on whose face there was now a smile as if her dreams were marvellously lovely; or, as Betty thought, as if she knew their voices even in her sleep.

Sir Amyas had not seen his mother again. He only knew that Mr. Wayland had come out with a face as of one stricken to the heart, a sad contrast to that which had greeted him an hour before, and while the carriage was coming round, had simply said, “I did wrong to leave her.”

It would not bear being talked over, and both son and kinsman took refuge in silence. Two hours more of this long day had passed, and then a coach stopped at the door. Sir Amyas hurried down in his eager anxiety, and came back with his uncle, holding him by the hand like a child, in his gladness, and Betty came out to meet them in the outer room with a face of grateful welcome and outstretched hands.

“Sir! sir! you have done more than all of us.”

“Yet you and your young champion here were the victors,” said Mr. Belamour.

“Ah, we dared and suffered nothing like you.”

“I hope you did not suffer much,” said the major, looking at the calm face and neatly-tied white hair, which seemed to have suffered no disarrangement.

“No,” said Mr. Belamour, smiling, “my little friend Eugene, ay, and my nephew himself, are hoping to hear I was released from fetters and a heap of straw, but I took care to give them no opportunity. I merely told them they were under a mistake, and had better take care. I gave them a reference or two, but I saw plainly that was of no use, though they promised to send, and then I did exactly as they bade me, so as to deprive them of all excuse for meddling with me, letting them know that I could pay for decent treatment so long as I was in their hands.”

“Did you receive it?”

“I was told in a mild manner, adapted to my intelligence, that if I behaved well, I might eat at the master’s table, and have a room with only one inmate. Of the former I have not an engaging experience, either as to the fare, the hostess, or the company. Of the latter, happily I know little, as I only know that my comrade was to be a harmless gibbering idiot; of good birth, poor fellow. However, the sounds I heard, and the court I looked into, convinced me that my privileges were worth paying for.”