Love and Life: An Old Story in Eighteenth Century Costume Part 46

"Nay, I think you had good cause to stand on your defence, and I cannot have you grieve over it. You have shown an unshaken steadiness under trial since, such as ought indeed to be compensation."

"I deserved it all," said Aurelia; "and I do hope that I am a little wiser and less foolish for it all; a little more of a woman," she added, blushing.

"A soul trained by love and suffering, as in the old legend," said Mr.

Belamour thoughtfully.

Thoroughly pleasant was here _tete-a-tete_ with him, especially when she artlessly asked him whether her dear sister were not all she had told him, and he fervently answered that indeed she was "a perfect lesson to all so-called beauties of what true loveliness of a countenance can be."

"Oh, I am so glad," cried Aurelia. "I never saw a face--a woman's I mean--that I like as well as my dear sister's!"

She was sorry when they were interrupted by a call from Mr. Wayland, who had reported himself at the Secretary of War, but could do no more that day, and had come to inquire for her. He and Mr. Belamour drew apart into a window, and conversed in a low voice, and then they came to her, and Mr. Wayland desired to know from where she found the recipe for the cosmetic which had nearly cost her so dearly.

"It was in a shelf in the wainscoting, in a sort of little study at that house," said Aurelia.

"Among other papers?"

"Quant.i.ties of other papers."

"Of what kind?"

"Letters, and bills, and wills, and parchments! Oh, so dusty! Some were on paper tumbling to pieces, and some on tiny slips of parchment."

"And you read them all?"

"I had to read them to see what they were, as well as I could make out, and sorted them and tied them up in bundles."

"Can you tell me whether they were Delavie wills?"

"I should think they were. I know that the oldest of all were Latin, and I could make nothing out in them but something about _Manoriem_ and Carminster, and what looked like the names of some of the fields at home."

"Do you think you could show me those slips?"

"I do not suppose any one has touched them."

"Then, my dear young lady, you would confer a great favour on me if you would allow Mr. Belamour and myself to escort you to Delavie and show us these papers. I fear it may be alarming and distressing."

"Oh no, sir, I know no harm can happen to me where Mr. Belamour is," she said, smiling.

"It may be very important," he said, and she went to put on her hood.

"Surely," said Mr. Wayland, "the t.i.tle-deeds cannot have been left there?"

"No. The t.i.tle-deeds to the main body of the property are at Hargrave's.

I have seen them, at the time of my brother's marriage; but still this may be what was wanting."

"Yet the sending this child to search is presumption that no such doc.u.ment existed."

"Of course no one supposed it did," said Mr. Wayland, on the defence again.

Aurelia was quickly ready in her little hood and kerchief, and trim high-heeled shoes. She was greatly surprised to find how near she had been to her friends during these last few days of her captivity, and when Madge obeyed the summons to the door, the old woman absolutely smiled to see her safe, and the little terrier danced about her in such transports that she begged to take him back with her.

She opened the door of the little empty book room, where nothing stood except the old bureau. That, she said, had been full of letters, but all the oldest things had been within a door opening in the wainscot, which she should never have found had not Bob pushed it open in his search for rats, and then she found a tin case full of papers and parchments, much older, she thought, than the letters. She had tied them up together, and easily produced them.

Mr. Wayland handed them to Mr. Belamour, whose legal eye was better accustomed to crabbed old doc.u.ments. A conversation that had begun on the way about Fay and Letty was resumed, and interested both their father and Aurelia so much that they forgot to be impatient, until Mr. Belamour looked up from his examination, saying, "This is what was wanting. Here is a grant in the 12th year of Henry III. to Guglielmus ab Vita and the heirs male of his body to the Manor, lying without the city of Carminster, and here are three wills of successive lords of Delavie expressly mentioning heirs male. Now the deeds that I have seen do not go beyond 1539, when Henry Delavie had a grant of the Grange and lands belonging to Carminster Abbey--the place, in fact, where the Great House stands, and there is in that no exclusion of female heirs. But the Manor house can certainly be proved to be entailed in the male line alone, according to what was, I believe, the tradition of the family."

"There is no large amount of property involved, I fear," said Mr.

Wayland.

"There is an old house, much out of repair, and a few farms worth, may be, 200 pounds a year, a loss that will not be material to you, sir, I hope."

"Do you mean--?" said Aurelia, not daring to ask farther.

"I mean, my dear young lady," said Mr. Wayland, "that your researches have brought to light the means of doing tardy justice to your good father."

"His right to the Manor House is here established," explained Mr.

Belamour. "It will not be a matter of favour of my Lady's, but, as my brother supposed, he ought to have been put in possession on the old Lord's death."

"And Eugene will be a gentleman of estate," cried Aurelia, joyously.

"Nor will any one be able to drive out my dear father! Oh! how happy I am."

Both she and Mr. Belamour spared Mr. Wayland the knowledge of my Lady's many broken promises, and indeed she was anxious to get back to the _Royal York_, lest her father and sister should have returned, and think her again vanished.

They all met at the door, and much amazed were the Major and Betty to encounter her with her two squires. Mr. Wayland took the Major to show him the parchments. Betty had her explanation from her sister and Mr.

Belamour.

"You actually ventured back to that dreadful house," she said, looking at them gratefully.

"You see what protectors I had," said Aurelia, with a happy smile.

"Yes," said Betty, "I have been longing to say--only I cannot," for she was almost choked by a great sob, "how very much we owe to you, sir. I could say it better if I did not feel it so much." And she held out her hand.

"You cannot owe to me a t.i.the of what I owe to your sister," said Mr.

Belamour, "and through her to you, madam. Much as nature had done for her, never would she have been to the miserable recluse the life and light-bringing creature she was, save for the 'sister' she taught me to know and love, even before I saw her."

A wonderful revelation here burst on Aurelia, the at least half-married woman, and she fled precipitately, smiling to herself in ecstasy, behind her great fan.

Betty, never dreaming of the drift of the words, so utterly out of the reach of love did she suppose herself, replied, composedly, "Our Aurelia is a dear good girl, and I am thankful that through all her trials she has so proved herself. I am glad she has been a comfort to you, sir.

She---"

"And will not you complete the cure, and render the benefit lasting?"

said Mr. Belamour, who had never let go the hand she had given him in grat.i.tude, and now gave it a pressure that conveyed, for the first time, his meaning.

"Oh!" she cried, trying to take it away, "your kindness and grat.i.tude are leading you too far, sir. A hideous old fright like me, instead of a lovely young thing like her! It is an absurdity."

"Stay, Miss Delavie. Remember that your Aurelia's roses and lilies were utterly wasted on me; I never thought whether she was beautiful save when others raved about her. I never saw her till yesterday; but the voice, the goodness, the amiability, in fact all that I did truly esteem and prize in her I had already found matured and mellowed together with that beauty of countenance which is independent of mere skin-deep complexion and feature. You know my history, and how far I am from being able to offer you a fresh untouched young heart, such as my nephew brings to the fair Aurelia; but the devotion of my life will be yours if you will accept it."

"Sir, I cannot listen to you. You are very good, but I can never leave my father. Oh, let me go away!"