Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume

“The little misses will be down directly, ma’am,” she said, “that is, two on ‘em. The little one, she won’t leave Jenny Bowles, but Dame Wheatfield, she’ll bring down the other two. You see, ma’am, they be only just taken home from being out at nurse, and don’t know one another, nor the place, and a pretty handful we shall have of ‘em.”

Here came a call for Molly, and the girl with a petulant exclamation, sped away, leaving Aurelia to the society of the tapestry. It was of that set of Gobelin work which represents the four elements personified by their goddesses, and Aurelia’s mythology, founded on Fenelon, was just sufficient to enable her to recognise the forge of Vulcan and the car [chariot—D.L.] of Venus. Then she looked at the work prepared for her, a creamy piece of white satin, and a most elaborate pattern of knots of roses, lilacs, hyacinths, and laburnums, at which her heart sank within her. However, at that moment the stout woman she had seen in the morning appeared at the open door with a little girl in each hand, both in little round muslin caps, long white frocks, and blue sashes.

One went up readily to Aurelia and allowed herself to be kissed, and lifted to a chair; the other clung to Dame Wheatfield, in spite of coaxing entreaties. “Speak pretty, my dear; speak to the pretty lady. Don’t ye see how good your sister is? It won’t do, miss,” to Aurelia; “she’s daunted, is my pretty lamb. If I might just give her her breakwist—for it is the last time I shall do it—then she might get used to you before my good man comes for me.”

Aurelia was only too glad to instal Dame Wheatfield in a chair with her charge in her lap. The other child was feeding herself very tidily and independently, and Aurelia asked her if she were the eldest.

“Yes,” she said.

“And what shall I call you, my dear?”

“I’m Missy.”

“No, Missy, me—me eldest,” cried the other.

“Bless the poor children!” exclaimed Mrs. Wheatfield, laughing, “they be both of ‘em eldest, as one may say.”

“They are twins, then?” said Aurelia.

“More than that—all three of them came together! I’ve heard tell of such a thing once or twice, but never of all living and thriving. Folk said it was a judgment on my Lady that she spoke sharp and hard to a poor beggar woman with a child on each arm. It was not a week out before my Lady herself was down, quite unexpected, as I may say, for she was staying here for a week, with a lot of company, when these three was born. They do say she was nigh beside herself that the like of that should have happened to her. Mr. Wayland, he was not so ill pleased, but the poor little things had to be got out of the house any way, for she could not abear to hear of them. Mrs. Rolfe, as was an old servant of the family, took that one, and I was right glad to have you, my pretty one, for I had just lost my babe at a fortnight old, and the third was sent to Goody Bowles, for want of a better. They says as how my Lady means to bring them out one by one, and to make as this here is bigger, and the other up stairs is lesser, and never let on that they are all of an age.”

The good gossip must have presumed greatly on the children’s want of comprehension if she did not suppose that they understood her at least as well as the young lady to whom her dialect was strange.

“And has she not seen them?”

“Never till last Monday, if you’ll believe me miss, when she drove down in her coach, and the children were all brought home. I thought she might have said something handsome, considering the poor little babe as my Missy here was when I had her—not so long as my hand—and scarce able to cry enough to show she was alive. The work I and my good man had with her! He would walk up and down half the night with her. Not as we grudged it. He is as fond of the child as myself; and Mr. Wayland, he knew it. ‘She has a good nurse, dame,’ says he to me, with the water in his eyes, before he went to foreign parts. But my Lady! When the little one as had been with Goody Bowles—an ignorant woman, you see—cried and clung to her, and kicked, ‘Little savages all,’ says my Lady. There was thanks to them that had had more work to rear her children than ever with one of her own! ‘Perfect little rustics!’ she said, even when you made your curtsey as pretty as could be, didn’t you, my little lammie?”

“Mammy Rolfe taught me to make my curtsey like a London lady,” said the other child, the most advanced in manners.

“Aha! little pitchers have long ears; but, bless you, they don’t know what it means,” said Dame Wheatfield, too glad to talk to check herself on any account; “Not so much as a kiss for them, poor little darlings! Folks say she does not let even Master Wayland kiss aught but her hands for fear of her fine colours. A plague on such colours, I say.”

“Poor little things!” whispered Aurelia.

“You’ll be good to them, won’t you miss?”

“Indeed I hope so! I am only just come from home, and they will be all I have to care for here.”

“Ay, you must be lonesome in this big place; but I’m right glad to have seen you, miss; I can part with the little dear with a better heart, for Mrs. Aylward don’t care for children, and Jenny Bowles is a rough wench, wrapped up in her own child, and won’t be no good to the others. Go to the lady, my precious,” she added, trying to put the little girl into her cousin’s lap, but this was met with struggles, and vehement cries of—

“No; stay with mammy!”

The little sister, who had not brought her nurse, was, however, well contented to be lifted to Aurelia’s knee, and returned her caresses.

“And have you not a name, my dear? We can’t call you all missie.”

“Fay,” the child lisped; “Fayfiddly Wayland.”

“Lawk-a-daisy!” and Mrs. Wheatfield fell back laughing. “I’ll tell you how it was, ma’am. When no one thought they would live an hour, Squire Wayland he sent for parson and had ‘em half baptised Faith, Hope, and Charity. They says his own mother’s was called Faith, and the other two came natural after it, and would do as well to be buried by as aught. So that’s what she means by Fay, and this here is Miss Charity.”

“She said something besides Faith.”

“Well, when my lady got about again, they say if she was mad at their coming all on a heap, she was madder still at their name. Bible wasn’t grand enough for her! I did hear tell that she throwed her slipper at her husband’s head, and was like to go into fits. So to content her he came down, and took each one to Church, and had a fine London name of my Lady’s choosing tacked on in parson’s register for them to go by; but to my mind it ain’t like their christened name. Mine here got called for her share Amoretta.”

“A little Love,” cried Aurelia. “Oh, that is pretty. And what can your name be, my dear little Fay? Will you tell me again?”

When repeated, it was plainly Fidelia, and it appeared that Hope had been also called Letitia. As to age, Mrs. Wheatfield knew it was five years last Michaelmas since the child had been brought to her from whom she was so loth to part that she knew not how to go when her husband came for her in his cart. He was a farmer, comfortably off, though very homely, and there were plenty of children at home, so that she had been ill spared to remain at the Park till Aurelia’s arrival. Thus she took the opportunity of going away while the little one was asleep.

Aurelia asked where she lived now. At Sedhurst, in the next parish, she was told; but she would not accept a promise that her charge should soon be brought to visit her. “Better not, ma’am, thank you all the same, not till she’s broke in. She’ll pine the less if she don’t see nor hear nothing about the old place, nor Daddy and Sally and Davie. If you bring her soon, you’ll never get her away again. That’s the worst of a nurse-child. I was warned. It just breaks your heart!”

So away went the good foster-mother sobbing; and Aurelia’s charge began. Fay claimed her instantly to explore the garden and house. The child had been sent home alone on the sudden illness of her nurse, and had been very forlorn, so that her cousin’s attention was a great boon to her. Hope was incited to come out; but Jenny Bowles kept a jealous watch over her, and treated every one else as an enemy; and before Aurelia’s hat was on, came the terrible woe of Amoret’s awakening. Her sobs and wailings for her mammy were entirely beyond the reach of Aurelia’s soothings and caresses, and were only silenced by Molly’s asseveration that the black man was at the door ready to take her into the dark room. That this was no phantom was known to the poor child, and was a lurking horror to Aurelia herself. No wonder that the little thing clung to her convulsively, and would not let her hand go for the rest of the day, every now and then moaning out entreaties to go home to mammy.

With the sad little being hanging to her hand, Aurelia was led by Fay round their new abiding place. The house was of brick, shaped like the letter H, Dutch, and with a tall wing, at each end of the main body, projecting, and finishing in fantastic gables edged with stone. One of these square wings was appropriated to Aurelia and her charges, the other to the recluse Mr. Belamour. The space that lay between the two wings, on the garden front, was roofed over, and paved with stone, descending in several broad shallow steps at the centre and ends, guarded at each angle by huge carved eagles, the crest of the builder, of the most regular patchwork, and kept, in spite of the owner’s non-residence, in perfect order. The strange thing was that this fair and stately place, basking in the sunshine of early June, should be left in complete solitude save for the hermit in the opposite wing, the three children, and the girl, who felt as though in a kind of prison.

The sun was too hot for Aurelia to go out of doors till late in the day, when the shadow of the house came over the steps. She was sitting on one, with Amoret nestled in her lap, and was crooning an old German lullaby of Nannerl’s, which seemed to have a wonderful effect in calming the child, who at last fell into a doze. Aurelia had let her voice die away, and had begun to think over her strange situation, when she was startled by a laugh behind her, and looking round, hardly repressed a start or scream, at the sight of Fay enjoying a game at bo-peep, with—yes—it actually was—the negro—over the low-sashed door.

“I beg pardon, ma’am,” said Jumbo, twitching his somewhat grizzled wool; “I heard singing, and little missy—”

Unfortunately Amoret here awoke, and with a shriek of horror cowered in her arms.

“I am so sorry,” said Aurelia, anxious not to hurt his feelings. “She knows no better.”

Jumbo grinned, bowed, and withdrew, Fay running after him, for she had made friends with him during her days of solitude, being a fearless child, and not having been taught to make a bugbear of him. “The soot won’t come off,” she said.

Aurelia had not a moment to herself till Fay had said the Lord’s prayer at her knee, and Amoret, with much persuasion, had been induced to lisp out—

                  “Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,                   Bless the bed I sleep upon;                   Four corners to by bed,                   Four angles round my head,                   One to read and one to write,                   And two to guard my soul at night.”

Another agony for mammy ensued, nor could Aurelia leave the child till sleep had hushed the wailings. Then only could she take her little writing-case to begin her letter to Betty. It would be an expensive luxury to her family, but she knew how it would be longed for; and though she cried a good deal over her writing, she felt as if she ought to make the best of her position, for had not Betty said it was for her father’s sake? No, her tears must not blot the paper, to distress those loving hearts. Yet how the drops would come, gathering fast and blinding her! Presently, through the window, came the sweet mysterious strains of the violin, not terrifying her as before, but filling her with an inexpressible sense of peace and calmness. She sat listening almost as one in a dream, with her pen suspended, and when the spell was broken by Molly’s entrance with her supper, she went on in a much more cheerful strain than she had begun. It was dull, and it was a pity that her grand wardrobe, to say nothing of Betty’s good advice, should be wasted, but her sister would rejoice in her seclusion from the grand, fashionable world, and her heart went out to the poor little neglected children, whose mother could not bear the sight of them.

CHAPTER IX. THE TRIAD

    “I know sisters, sisters three.”

Ere many days had passed Aurelia had drifted into what would now be regarded as the duties of a nursery governess to her little companions.

Fay and Amoret were always with her, and depended on her for everything. Jenny Bowles, with a sort of animal jealousy, tried to monopolise her charge, Letitia. The child was attracted by the sounds of her sister’s sports, and there was no keeping her from them, or from their cousin. Then the rude untaught Jenny became cross, moped, showed spite to the other children, and insolence to the young lady, and was fortunately overheard by Mrs. Aylward, and dismissed. Letty did not seem to mind the loss as Amoret had felt that of her foster-mother, for indeed Jenny had been almost as disagreeable to her as to the others during these days of jealousy.

The triad were not much alike: Amoret was the largest of the three, plump, blue-eyed, golden-haired, rosy-cheeked, a picture of the cherub-type of child; Letitia had the delicate Delavie features and complexion; and Fidelia, the least pretty, was pale, and rather sallow, with deep blue eyes set under a broad forehead and dark brows, with hair also dark. Though the smallest, she was the most advanced, and showed signs of good training. She had some notion of good manners, and knew as much of her hornbook [a child’s primer consisting of a sheet of parchment or paper protected by a sheet of transparent horn—D.L.] and catechism as little girls of five were wont to know. The other two were perfectly ignorant, but Mrs. Aylward procured hornbooks, primers, and slates, and Aurelia began their education in a small way.

It was a curious life. There was the great empty house, through whose long corridors and vacant rooms the children might wander at will, peeping at the swathed curtains of velvet pile, the rolls of carpet, and the tapestry pictures on the walls, running and shouting in the empty passages, or sometimes, in a fit of nameless fright, taking refuge in Aurelia’s arms. Or they might play in the stately garden, provided they trod on no borders, and meddled with neither flower nor fruit. The old gardener began by viewing them as his natural enemies, but soon relaxed in amusement at their pretty sportive ways, gave them many precious spoils, and forgave more than one naughty little inroad, which greatly alarmed their guardian.

Or if the little party felt enterprising, there lay beyond, the park, its slopes covered with wild strawberries, and with woods where they could gather flowers unchecked. Further, there was no going, except on alternate Sundays, when there was service in the tumble-down Church at the park gate. It was in far worse condition than the Church at home, and was served by a poor forlorn-looking curate, who lived at Brentford, and divided his services between four parishes, each of which was content to put up with a fortnightly alternate morning and evening service. The Belamour seat was a square one, without the comfortable appliances of the Delavie closet, and thus permitting a much fuller view, but there was nothing to be seen except a row of extremely gaudy Belamour hatchments, displaying to the full, the saltir-wise sheafs of arrows on the shields or lozenges, supported by grinning skulls. The men’s shields preserved their eagle crest, the women had only lozenges, and the family motto, Amo et Amabo, was exchanged for the more pious “Resurgam.”

Aurelia found that the family seat, whither she was marshalled by Mrs. Aylward, was already occupied by two ladies, who rose up, and made her stately curtsies with a decidedly disgusted air, although there was ample space for her and Fidelia, the only one of her charges whom she had ventured to take with her. They wore the black hoods, laced boddices, long rolls of towering curl and open upper skirts, of Queen Anne’s day, and in the eyes of thirty years’ later, looked so ridiculous that Fay could not but stare at them the whole time, and whenever Aurelia turned her glances from her book to see whether her little companion was behaving herself, the big blue considering eyes were always levelled full upon the two forms before her.

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