 CHAPTER V. JOHN MELISH The house which the banker hired at Brighton for the month of October was perched high up on the east cliff, towering loftily above the wind-driven waves. The rugged coast of Dieppe was dimly visible from the upper windows in the clear autumn mornings, and the chain pier looked like a strip of ribbon below the cliff. A pleasanter situation to my mind than those level terraces toward the west, from the windows of which the sea appears of small extent, and the horizon within half a mile or so of the parade. Before Mr. Floyd took his daughter and her cousin to Brighton, he entered into an arrangement, which he thought, no doubt, a very great evidence of his wisdom. This was the engagement of a lady who was to be a compound governess, companion, and chaperone to Aurora, who, as her aunt said, was sadly in need of some accomplished and watchful person whose care it would be to train and prune those exuberant branches of her nature which had been suffered to grow as they would from her infancy. The beautiful shrub was no longer to trail its wild stems along the ground, or shoot upward to the blue skies at its own sweet will. It was to be trimmed and clipped, and fastened primely to the stony wall of society with cruel nails and galling strips of cloth. In other words, an advertisement was inserted in the Times newspaper, setting forth that a lady by birth and education was required as finishing governess and companion in the household of a gentleman to whom salary was no object, provided the aforesaid lady was perfect mistress of all the accomplishments under the sun, and was altogether such an exceptional and extraordinary being as could only exist in the advertising columns of a popular journal. But if the world had been filled with exceptional beings, Mr. Floyd could scarcely have received more answers to his advertisement than came pelting in upon the unhappy little postmaster at Beckenham. The man had serious thoughts of hiring a cart in which to convey the letters to Felden. If the banker had advertised for a wife, and had stated the amount of his income, he could scarcely have had more answers. It seemed as if the female population of London with one accord was seized with the desire to improve the mind and form the manners of the daughter of the gentleman to whom terms were no object. Officers widows, clergymen's widows, lawyers and merchants' widows, daughters of gentlemen of high family but reduced means, orphaned daughters of all sorts of noble and distinguished people, declared themselves each and every one to be the person who, out of all living creatures upon this earth, was best adapted for the post. Mrs. Alexander Floyd selected six letters, threw the rest into the waste paper basket, ordered the banker's carriage, and drove into town to see the six writers thereof. She was a practical and energetic woman, and she put the six applicants through their pacing so severely that when she returned to Mr. Floyd it was to announce that only one of them was good for anything, and that she was coming down to Felden Woods the next day. The chosen lady was the widow of an ensign, who had died within six months of his marriage, and about an hour and a half before he would have succeeded to some enormous property, the particulars of which were never rightly understood by the friends of his unfortunate relict. But, vague as the story might be, it was quite clear enough to establish Mrs. Walter Powell in life as a disappointed woman. She was a woman with straight light hair and a ladylike droop of the head. A woman who had left school to marry, and after six months of wedded life, had gone back to the same school as in Structress of the Junior Pupils, a woman whose whole existence had been spent in teaching and being taught, who had exercised in her earlier years a species of hand-to-mouth tuition, teaching in the morning that which she learned overnight, who had never lost an opportunity of improving herself, who had grown mechanically proficient as a musician and an artist, who had a certain parrot-like skill in foreign languages, who had read all the books incumbent upon her to read, and who knew all things imperative for her to know, and who, beyond all this, and outside the boundary of the schoolroom wall, was ignorant and soulless and low-minded and vulgar. Aurora swallowed the bitter pill as best she might, and accepted Mrs. Powell as the person chartered for her improvement, a kind of ballast to be flung into the wandering bark, to steady its erratic course, and keep it off rocks and quicksands. "'I must put up with her, Lucy, I suppose,' she said, and I must consent to be improved and formed by the poor, faded creature. I wonder whether she will be like Miss Drummond, who used to let me off for my lesson and read novels while I ran wild in the gardens and stables. I can put up with her, Lucy, as long as I have you with me, but I think I should go mad if I were to be chained up alone with that grim, pale-faced watchdog.' Mr. Floyd and his family drove from Felden to Brighton in the banker's roomy travelling carriage, with auroras made in the rumble, a pile of imperials upon the roof, and Mrs. Powell with her young charge in the interior of the vehicle. Mrs. Alexander had gone back to Fulham, having done her duty, as she considered, in securing a protectress for aurora. But Lucy was to stay with her cousin at Brighton, and to ride with her on the downs. The saddle-horses had gone down the day before with aurora's groom, a grey-haired and rather surly old fellow who had served Archibald Floyd for thirty years, and the mastiff called Bow-Wow, in the carriage, with his mistress. About a week after the arrival at Brighton, aurora and her cousin were walking together on the west cliff, when a gentleman with a stiff leg rose from a bench upon which she had been seated, listening to the band, and slowly advanced to them. Lucy dropped her eyelids with a faint blush, but aurora held out her hand in answer to Captain Bolstrode's salute. I thought I should be sure to meet you down here, Miss Floyd. He said, I only came this morning, and I was going to call at full-thorps for your papa's address. Is he quite well? Quite. Yes, that is, pretty well. A shadow stole over her face as she spoke. It was a wonderful face for fitful lights and shades. But we did not expect to see you at Brighton, Captain Bolstrode. We thought your regiment was still quartered at Windsor. Yes, my regiment, that is, the eleventh is still at Windsor, but I have sold out. Sold out? Both aurora and her cousin opened their eyes at this intelligence. Yes, I was tired of the army. It dull work now that the fighting is all over. I might have exchanged and gone to India, certainly. He added, as if an answer to some argument of his own. But I am getting middle-aged, and I am tired of roaming about the world. I should like to go to India," said aurora, looking seaward as she spoke. You, aurora, but why? exclaimed Lucy. Because I hate England. I thought it was France you disliked. I hate them both. What is the use of this big world, if we are to stop forever in one place, chained to one set of ideas, fettered to one narrow circle of people, seeing and hearing of the persons we hate forever and ever, and unable to get away from the odious sound of their names? I should like to turn female missionary, and go to the centre of Africa with Dr. Livingston, and his family, and I would go if it wasn't for papa. Before Lucy stared at her cousin in helpless amazement, Talbot Balstrode found himself falling back into that state of bewilderment in which this girl always threw him. What did she mean, this heiress of nineteen years of age, by her fits of despondency and outbursts of bitterness? Was it not, perhaps, after all, only an affectation of singularity? Aurora looked at him with her brightest smile, while he was asking himself this question. You will come and see papa," she said. Captain Balstrode declared that he desired no greater happiness than to pay his respects to Mr. Floyd. In token whereof he walked with the young ladies toward the east cliff. From that morning the officer became a constant visitor at the bankers. He played chess with Lucy, accompanied her on the piano when she sang, assisted her with valuable hints when she painted in watercolours, put in lights here and glimpses of sky there, deepened autumnal browns, and intensified horizon purples, and made himself altogether useful to the young lady, who was, as we know, accomplished in all ladylike arts. Mrs. Powell, seated in one of the windows of the pleasant drawing-room, shed the menignant light of her faded countenance and pale blue eyes upon the two young people, and represented all the proprieties in her own person. Aurora, when the weather prevented her riding, occupied herself more restlessly than profitably by taking up books and tossing them down, pulling bow-wow's ears, staring out of the windows, drawing caricatures of the promenaders on the cliff, and dragging out a wonderful little watch, with a bunch of dangling inexplicable golden absurdities, to see what a clock it was. Talbot Balstrode, while leaning over Lucy's piano or drawing-board, or pondering about the next move of his queen, had ample leisure to watch the movements of Miss Floyd, and to be shocked at the purposeless manner in which that young lady spent the rainy mornings. Sometimes he saw her pouring over Bell's life, much to the horror of Mrs. Walter Powell, who had a vague idea of the iniquitous proceedings recited in that terrible journal, but he was afraid to stretch her authority so far as to forbid its perusal. Mrs. Powell looked with silent approbation upon the growing familiarity between gentle Lucy Floyd and the captain. She had feared at first that Talbot was an admirer of Aurora's, but the manner of the two soon dispelled her alarm. Nothing could be more cordial than Miss Floyd's treatment of the officer, but she displayed the same indifference to him that she did to everything else except her dog and her father. Was it possible that well-nigh perfect face and those haughty graces had no charm for the banker's daughter? Could it be that she could spend hour after hour in the society of the handsomest and most aristocratic man she had ever met, and yet be as heart whole as when the acquaintance began? There was one person in the little party who was forever asking that question, and never able to answer it to her own satisfaction, and that person was Lucy Floyd. Poor Lucy Floyd, who was engaged night and day in mentally playing that old German game which Faust and Margaret played together with the full-blown rose in the garden, he loves me, he loves me not. Mrs. Walter Powell's shallow-sighted blue eyes might behold in Lucy Captain Balstrode's attraction to the East Cliff, but Lucy herself knew better, bitterly, cruelly better. Captain Balstrode's attentions to Miss Lucy Floyd were most evident. Mrs. Powell said one day when the Captain left, after a long morning's music and singing and chess, how Lucy hated the prim phrase. None knew so well as she the value of those attentions. They had been at Brighton six weeks, and for the last five the Captain had been with them nearly every morning. He had ridden with them on the downs, and driven with them to the dyke, and lounged beside them listening to the band, and stood behind them in their box at the pretty little theatre, and crushed with them into the pavilion to hear Greasy, and Mario, and Alboni, and poor Bossio. He had attended them through the whole round of Brighton amusements, and had never seemed weary of their companionship. But for all this Lucy knew what the last leaf upon the rose would tell her when the many petals should be plucked away, and the poor stem be left bare. She knew how often he forgot to turn over the leaf in the Beethoven sonatas, how often he put streaks of green into a horizon that should have been purple, and touched up the trees in her foreground with rose pink, and suffered himself to be ignominiously checkmated from sheer inattention, and gave her wandering random answers when she spoke to him. She knew how restless he was when Aurora read Bell's life, and how the very crackle of the newspaper made him wince with nervous pain. She saw how tender he was of the purblind Mastiff, how eager to be friends with him, how almost sycophantic in his attentions to the big stately animal. Lucy knew, in short, that which Talbot as yet did not know himself. She knew that he was fast falling, head over heels, and love with her cousin. And she had, at the same time, a vague idea that he would much rather have fallen in love with herself, and that he was blindly struggling with the growing passion. It was so. He was falling in love with Aurora. The more he protested against her, the more determinedly he exaggerated her follies, and argued with himself upon the folly of loving her, so much the more surely did he love her. The very battle he was fighting kept her forever in his mind, until he grew the various slave of the lovely vision which he only evoked in order to endeavor to exercise. How could he take her down to Bulstrode, and introduce her to his father and mother? he thought. And at the thought she appeared to him illuminating the old Cornish mansion by the radiance of her beauty, fascinating his father, bewitching his mother, riding across the moorland on her thorough red mare, and driving all the parish mad with admiration of her. He felt that his visits to Mr. Floyd's house were fast compromising him in the eyes of its inmates. Sometimes he felt himself bound in honor to make Lucy an offer of his hand. Sometimes he argued that no one had any right to consider his attentions more particular to one than to the other of the young ladies. If he had known of that weary game which Lucy was forever mentally playing with the imaginary rose, I am sure he would not have lost an hour in proposing to her. But Mrs. Alexander's daughter had been far too well educated to betray one emotion of her heart, and she bore her girlish agonies and concealed her hourly tortures with the quiet patience common to these simple womanly martyrs. She knew that the last leaf must soon be plucked, and the sweet pain of uncertainty be forever ended. Heaven knows how long Talbot Bulstrode might have done battle with his growing passion, had it not been for an event which put an end to his indecision, and made him desperate. This event was the appearance of a rival. He was walking with Aurora and Lucy upon the West Cliff one afternoon in November, when a male faton and Pear suddenly drew up against the railings that separated them from the road, and a big man, with huge masses of scotch plaid twisted about his waist and shoulders, sprang out of the vehicle, splashing the mud upon his legs, and rushed up to Talbot, taking off his hat as he approached, and bowing apologetically to the ladies. Why Bulstrode? he said. Who on earth would have thought of seeing you here? I heard you were an India man, but what have you done to your leg? He was so breathless with hurry and excitement that he was utterly indifferent to punctuation, and it seemed as much as he could do to keep silence while Talbot introduced him to the ladies as Mr. Mellish, an old friend and school-fellow. The strangers stared with such open-mouthed admiration at Miss Floyd's black eyes that the captain turned round upon him almost savagely, as he asked what had brought him to Brighton. The hunting-season, my boy. Tired of Yorkshire? No ivory field, ditch, hedge, ponds, sunk-fent, and scrap of timber in the three ridings. I'm staying at the Bedford. I've got my stud with me. Give you a mount to-morrow morning, if you like. Harriers meet at eleven, Dyke Road. I have a grey that'll suit you to a nicety, carry my weight, and as easy to sit as your armchair. Talbot hated his friend for talking of horses. He felt a jealous terror of him. This perhaps was the sort of man whose society would be agreeable to Aurora, this big, empty-headed Yorkshireman, with his babble about his stud and hunting-appointments. But turning sharply round to scrutinize Miss Floyd, he was gratified to find that young lady looking vacantly upon the gathering mists upon the sea, and apparently unconscious of Mr. John Mellish of Mellish Park, Yorkshire. This John Mellish was, as I have said, a big man, looking even bigger than he was by reason of about eight yards' length of thick shepherd's plaid, twisted scientifically about his shoulders. He was a man of thirty years of age at least, but having with all such a boyish exuberance in his manner such a youthful and innocent joyousness in his face that he might have been a youngster of eighteen just let loose from some public academy of the muscular Christianity school. I think the reverent Charles Kingsley would have delighted in this big, hearty, broad-chested young Englishman, with brown hair brushed away from an open forehead, and a thick, brown moustache, bordering a mouth for ever ready to expand into a laugh. Such a laugh, too. Such a hearty and sonorous peal that the people on the parade turned round to look at the owner of those sturdy lungs, and smiled good-naturedly for very sympathy with his honest merriment. Talbot Bulstrode would have given a hundred pounds to get rid of the noisy Yorkshiremen. What business had he at Brighton? Wasn't the biggest county in England big enough to hold him, that he must needs bring his north country bluster to Sussex for the annoyance of Talbot's friends? Captain Bulstrode was not any better pleased, when, strolling a little farther on, the party met with Archibald Floyd, who had come out to look for his daughter. The old man begged to be introduced to Mr. Mellish, and invited the honest Yorkshiremen to dine at the East Cliff that very evening, much to the aggravation of Talbot, who fell sulkily back, and allowed John to make the acquaintance of the ladies. The familiar brute ingratiated himself into their good graces in about ten minutes, and by the time they reached the banker's house, was more at his ease with aurora than the air of Bulstrode after two months' acquaintance. He accompanied them to the doorstep, shook hands with the ladies and Mr. Floyd, patted the mastiff bow-owl, gave Talbot a playful sledgehammer-like slap upon the shoulder, and ran back to the Bedford to dress for dinner. His spirits were so high that he knocked over little boys and tumbled against fashionable young men, who drew themselves up in stiff amazement as the big fellow dashed past them. He sang a scrap of a hunting song as he ran up this great staircase to his ivory at the Bedford, and shattered to his valet as he dressed. He seemed a creature especially created to be prosperous, to be the owner and dispenser of wealth, the distributor of good things. People who were strangers to him ran after him and served him on speculation, knowing instinctively that they would get an ample reward for their trouble. Waiters in a coffee-room deserted other tables to attend upon that at which he was seated. Boxkeepers would leave parties of six shivering in the dreary corridors while they found a seat for John Melish. Mendicants picked him out from the crowd in a busy thoroughfare and hung about him, and would not be driven away without a doll from the pocket of his roomy waistcoat. He was always spending his money for the convenience of other people. He had an army of old servants at Melish Park who adored him, and tyrannized over him after the manner of their kind. His stables were crowded with horses that were lame, or wallied, or otherwise disqualified for service, but that lived on his bounty like a set of jolly equine paupers, and consumed as much corn as would have supplied a racing-stud. He was perpetually paying for things he neither ordered nor had, and was forever being cheated by the dear honest creatures about him, who, for all they did their best to ruin him, would have gone through typical fire and water to serve him, and would have clung to him and worked for him, and supported him out of those very savings for which they had robbed him when the ruin came. If Muster John had a headache, every creature in that disorderly household was unhappy and uneasy till the ailment was cured. Every lad in the stables, every servant made in the house, was eager that his or her remedy should be tried for his restoration. If you had said at Melish Park that John's fair face and broad shoulders were not the highest forms of manly beauty and grace, you would have been set down as a creature devoid of all taste and judgment. To the mind of that household John Melish in pink and pipe-clayed tops was more beautiful than the Apollo Belvedere, whose bronze image in little adorned a niche in the hall. If you had told them that fourteen-stone weight was not indispensable to manly perfection, or that it was possible there were more lofty accomplishments than driving unicorns, or shooting forty-seven head of game in a morning, or pulling the bay mare's shoulder into joint that time she got a sprain in the hunting field, or vanquishing Joe Millings, the East Riding Smasher, without so much as losing breath, those simple-hearted Yorkshire servants would have fairly laughed in your face. Talbot Bulstrode complained that everybody respected him, and nobody loved him. John Melish might have uttered the reverse of this complaint, had he been so minded. Who could help loving the honest, generous squire, whose house and purse were open to all the countryside? Who could feel any chilling amount of respect for the friendly and familiar master who sat up on the table in the big kitchen at Melish Park, with his dogs and servants round him, and gave them the history of the day's adventures in the hunting field, till the old, blind fox hounded his feet, lifted his big head, and set up a feeble music? No. John Melish was well content to be beloved, and never questioned the quality of the affection bestowed upon him. To him it was all the purest virgin gold, and you might have talked to him for twelve hours at a sitting without convincing him that men and women were vile and mercenary creatures, and that of his servants, and his tenantry, and the poor about his estate loved him. It was for the sake of the temporal benefits they received of him. He was as unsuspicious as a child, who believes that the fairies in a pantomime are fairies for ever and ever, and that the harlequin is borne in patches and a mask. He was as open to flattery as a schoolgirl who distributes the contents of her hamper among a circle of toadies. When people told him he was a fine fellow, he believed them, and agreed with them, and thought that the world was altogether a hearty, honest place, and that everybody was a fine fellow. Never having an arrière-pensée himself, he looked for none in the words of other people, but thought that everyone blurted out their real opinions, and offended or pleased their fellows as frankly and blunderingly as himself. If he had been a vicious young man, he would no doubt have gone altogether to the bad, and fallen among thieves. But being blessed with a nature that was inherently pure and innocent, his greatest follies were no worse than those of big schoolboy, who heirs from very exuberance of spirit. He had lost his mother in the first year of his infancy, and his father had died some time before his majority, so there had been none to restrain his actions. And it was something, at thirty years of age, to be able to look back upon a stainless boyhood and youth which might have been befouled with the slime of the gutters, and infected with the odor of villainous haunts. Had he not reasoned to be proud of this? Is there anything after all so grand as a pure and unsellied life, a fair picture, with no ugly shadows lurking in the background, a smooth poem, with no crooked halting line to mar the verse, a noble book with no unholy page, a simple story such as our children may read? Can any greatness be greater? Can any nobility be more truly noble? When a whole nation mourned with one voice but a few weeks since, when we drew down our blinds and shut out the dull light of the December day, and listened sadly to the far booming of the guns, when the poorest put aside their workaday troubles to weep for a widowed queen and orphaned children in a desolate palace, when rough omnibus drivers forgot to blaspheme at each other, and tied decent scraps of crepe upon their whips, and went sorrowfully about their common business, thinking of that great sorrow at Windsor. The words that rose simultaneously to every lip, dwelt most upon the spotless character of him who was lost, the tender husband, the watchful father, the kindly master, the liberal patron, the temperate advisor, the stainless gentleman. It is many years since England mourned for another royal personage who was called a gentleman, a gentleman who played practical jokes, and held infamous orgies, and persecuted a wretched foreign woman whose chief sin and misfortune it was to be his wife, a gentleman who cut out neither his own nether garments, and left the companion of his gayest revels, the genius whose brightness had flung a spurious luster upon the dreary Saturnalia of vice to die destitute and despairing. Only there is some hope that we have changed for the better within the last thirty years, inasmuch as we attach a new meaning to this simple title of gentleman. I take some pride, therefore, in the two young men of whom I write, for the simple reason that I have no dark patches to gloss over in the history of either of them. I may fail in making you like them, but I can promise that you shall have no cause to be ashamed of them. Talbot's balstrode may offend you with his sulky pride. John Melish may simply impress you as a blundering, contrived ignoramus, but neither of them shall ever shock you by an ugly word or an unholy thought. THE DINNER PARTY AT MR. FLOIDS WAS A VERY MERRY ONE, AND WHEN JOHN MELISH AND TALBOT BOLSTRODE LEFT THE EAST CLIFF TO WALK WESTWARD AT 11 O'CLOCK AT NIGHT, THE YORK SHERMAN TOLD HIS FRIEND THAT HE HAD NEVER ENJOYED HIMSELF SO MUCH IN HIS LIFE. This declaration must, however, be taken with some reserve, for it was one which John was in the habit of making about three times a week. But he really had been very happy in the society of the banker's family and, what was more, he was ready to adore Aurora Floyd without any further preparation whatever. A few bright smiles and sparkling glasses, a little animated conversation about the hunting field and the race course, combined with a few glasses of those effervescent wines which Archibald Floyd imported from the fair Moselle country had been quite enough to turn the head of John Melish and to cause him to hold wildly forth in the moonlight upon the merits of the beautiful heiress. I verily believe I shall die a bachelor, Talbot, he said. Unless I can get that girl to marry me, I've only known her half a dozen hours, and I'm head over heels in love with her already. What is it that has knocked me over like this, Bolstrode? I've seen other girls with black eyes and hair, and she knows no more about horses than half the women in Yorkshire. So it isn't that. What is it then, hey? He came to a full stop against the lamppost and stared fiercely at his friend as he asked this question. Talbot gnashed his teeth in silence. It was no use battling with his fate, then. He thought the fascination of this woman had the same effect upon others as upon himself, and while he was arguing with and protesting against his passion, some brainless fellow like this Melish would step in and win the prize. He wished his friend good night upon the steps of the old ship hotel and walked straight to his room, where he sat with his window open to the mild November night, staring out at the moonlit sea. He determined to propose to Aurora Floyd before 12 o'clock the next day. Why should he hesitate? He had asked himself that question a hundred times before and had always been unable to answer it, and yet he had hesitated. He could not dispossess himself of a vague idea that there was some mystery in this girl's life, some secret known only to herself and her father, some one spot upon the history of the past which cast a shadow on the present. And yet how could that be? How could that be, he asked himself, when her whole life only amounted to 19 years, and he had heard the history of those years over and over again. How often he had artfully led Lucy to tell him the simple story of her cousin's childhood, the governesses and masters that had come and gone at Felden Woods, the ponies and dogs, and puppies and kittens, and petted foals, the little scarlet riding habit that had been made for the heiress when she rode after the hounds with her cousin Andrew Floyd. The worst blots that the officer could discover in those early years were a few broken China vases, and a great deal of angst spilled over badly written French exercises, and after being educated at home until she was nearly 18, Aurora had been transferred to a Parisian finishing school, and that was all. Her life had been the everyday life of other girls of her own position, and she differed from them only in being a great deal more fascinating and a little more willful than the majority. Talbot laughed at himself for his doubts and hesitations. What a suspicious brood I must be, he said. When I imagine I have fallen upon the clue to some mystery simply because there is a mournful tenderness in the old man's voice when he speaks to his only child. If I were sixty-seven years of age and had such a daughter as Aurora, would there not always be a shuddering terror mingled in my love, a horrible dread that something would happen to take her away from me? I will propose to Miss Floyd tomorrow. Had Talbot been thoroughly candid with himself, he would perhaps have added, or John Millish will make her an offer the day after. Captain Bolsteroid presented himself at the house on the east cliff sometime before noon on the next day, but he found Mr. Millish on the doorstep talking to Miss Floyd's groom and inspecting the horses, which were waiting for the young ladies, for the young ladies were going to ride, and John Millish was going to ride with them. But if you'll join us, Bolsteroid, the Yorkshireman said, good-naturedly, you can ride the gray I spoke of yesterday. Saunders shall go back and fetch him. Talbot rejected this offer rather sulkily. I've my own horses here, thank you, he answered. But if you'll let your groom ride down to the stables and tell my man to bring them up, I shall be obliged to you. After which condescending request Captain Bolsteroid turned his back upon his friend, crossed the road and folding his arms upon the railings, stared resolutely at the sea. But in five minutes more the ladies appeared upon the doorstep, and Talbot, turning at the sound of their voices, was feigned across the road once more for the chance of taking Aurora's foot in his hand as she sprang into her saddle. But John Millish was before him again, and Miss Floyd's mare was curving under the touch of her right hand before the captain could interfere. He allowed the groom to attend to Lucy, and mounting as quickly as his stiff leg would allow him, he prepared to take his place by Aurora's side. Again he was too late. Miss Floyd had cantered down the hill, attended by Millish, and it was impossible for Talbot to leave poor Lucy, who was a timid horsewoman. The captain never admired Lucy so little as on horseback. His pale saint with the halo of golden hair seemed to him, sadly out of place in a side saddle. He looked back at the day of his morning visit to Felden, and remembered how he had admired her and how exactly she corresponded with his ideal, and how determined he was to be bewitched with her rather than by Aurora. If she had fallen in love with me, he thought, I would have snapped my fingers at the black-browed heiress and married this fair-haired angel out of hand. I meant to do that when I sold my commission. It was not for Aurora's sake I left the army. It was not Aurora whom I followed down here. Which did I follow? What did I follow? I wonder. My destiny, I suppose, which is leading me through such a witch's dance as I never thought to tread at the sober age of three and thirty. If Lucy had only loved me, it might have been all different. He was so angry with himself that he was half inclined to be angry with poor Lucy for not extracting him from the snares of Aurora. If he could have read that innocent heart as he rode in sulky silence across the stunted turf on the wide downs, if he could have known the slow, sick pain in that gentle breast, as the quiet girl by his side lifted her blue eyes every now and then to steal a glance at his hard profile and moody brow, if he could have read her secret later, when, talking to Aurora, he for the first time clearly betrayed the mystery of his own heart. If he could have known how the landscape grew dim before her eyes and how the brown moorland reeled beneath her horse's hoofs and till they seemed going down, down, down into some fathomless depth of sorrow and despair. But he knew nothing of this and he thought Lucy floyd a pretty, inanimate girl who would no doubt be delighted to wear a becoming dress as rides made at her cousin's wedding. There was a dinner party that evening upon the east cliff, at which both John Mellish and Talbot were to assist, and the captain savagely determined to bring matters to an issue before the night was out. Talbot Raleigh Bolstrode would have been very angry with you had you watched him too closely that evening as he fastened the golden solitaire in his narrow cravat before his looking glass in the bow window at the old ship. He was ashamed of himself for being causelessly savage with his valet whom he dismissed abruptly before he began to dress and had not the courage to call the man back again when his own hot hands refused to do their office. He spilled half a bottle of perfume upon his varnished booths and smeared his face with a terrible waxy compound which promised to lister sans gracia his mustache. He broke one of the crystal boxes in his dressing case and put the bits of broken glass in his waistcoat pocket from sheer absence of mind. He underwent semi-strangulation with the unbending circular collar in which, as a gentleman, it was his duty to invest himself. And he could have beaten the ivory backs of his brushes upon his head in blind excretion of that short, stubborn black hair which only curled at the other ends. And when at last he emerged from his room it was with a spiteful sensation that every waiter in the place knew his secret and had a perfect knowledge of every emotion in his breast. And that the very Newfoundland dog lying on the doorstep had an inkling of the truth as he lifted his big head to look at the captain and then dropped it again with a contemptuously lazy yawn. Captain Bolster had offered a handful of broken glass to the man who drove him to the East Cliff and then confusedly substituted about 15 shillings worth of silver coins for that abnormal species of payment. There must have been two or three earthquakes and an eclipse or so going on in some part of the globe he thought. For this jog trot planet seemed all tumult and confusion to Talbot Bolstrode. The world was all brightened and brightened was all blue moonlight and steel colored sea and glancing dazzling gaslight and hair soup and cod and oysters and Aurora Floyd. Yes, Aurora Floyd who wore a white silk dress and a thick circlet of dull gold upon her hair who looked more like Cleopatra tonight than ever and who suffered Mr. John Melish to take her down to dinner. How Talbot hated the Yorkshireman's big fair face and blue eyes and white teeth as he watched the two young people across the phalanx of glass and silver and flowers and wax candles and pickles and other fortum and masonware. Here was a golden opportunity lost, thought the discontented captain, forgetful that he could scarcely have proposed to Ms. Floyd at the dinner table amid the jingle of glasses and popping of corks and with a big powdered footman charging at him with a side dish or a sauce terrine while he put the fatal question. The desired moment came a few hours afterward and Talbot had no longer any excuse for delay. The November evening was mild and the three windows in the drawing room were open from floor to ceiling. It was pleasant to look out from the hot gaslight upon that wide sweep of moonlit ocean with a white sail glimmering here and there against the purple night. Captain Bulstrode sat near one of the windows watching that tranquil scene with I fear very little appreciation of its beauty. He was wishing that the people would drop off and leave him alone with Aurora. It was close upon 11 o'clock and high time they went. John Melish would of course insist upon waiting for Talbot. This was what a man had to endure on account of some old school boy acquaintance. All rugby might turn up against him in a day or two and dispute with him for Aurora's smiles but John Melish was engaged in a very animated conversation with Archibald Floyd having contrived with consummate artifice to ingratiate himself in the old man's favor and the visitors having one by one dropped off Aurora with a listless yawn that she took little pains to conceal strolled out into the broad iron balcony. Lucy was sitting at a table at the other end of the room looking at a book of beauty. Oh my poor Lucy, how much did you see of the honorable Miss Brown Smith's high forehead and Roman nose? Did not that young lady's handsome face stare up at you dimly through a blinding mist of tears that you were a great deal too well educated to shed? The chance had come at last if life had been a haymarket comedy and the experience by Mr. Buckstone himself it could have fallen out no better than this. Talbot Bolstrud followed Aurora onto the balcony. John Melish went on with his story about the Beverly Fox Hounds and Lucy holding her breath at the other end of the room knew as well what was going to happen as the captain himself. Is not life altogether a long comedy with fate and pleasure and passion, inclination, love, hate, revenge, ambition and avarice by turns in the prompter's box? A tiresome comedy sometimes with dreary talky, talky front scenes which come to nothing but only serve to make the audience more impatient as they wait while the stage is set and the great people change their choices. Or a sensation comedy with unlooked for tableau and unexpected deniments but a comedy to the end of the chapter. For the sorrows which seem tragic to us are very funny when seen from the other side of the footlights. And our friends in the pit are as much amused with our trumpery griefs as the haymarket when Mr. Box finds his gridiron empty or Mr. Cox misses his rashor. What can be funnier than other people's anguish? Why do we enjoy Mr. Madison Morton's farces and laugh till the tears run down our cheeks at the comedian who enacts them? Because there is scarcely a farce upon the British stage which is not from the rising to the dropping of the curtain, but the record of human anguish and undeserved misery. Yes, undeserved and unnecessary torture. There is a special charm of the entertainment. If the man who was weak enough to send his wife to Camberwell had crushed a baby behind the chest of drawers, his sufferings wouldn't be half so delightful to an intellectual audience. If the gentleman who became embroiled murdered the young lady in the green boots, where would the fun be of that old Adelphi farce in which poor right was want to delight us? And so it is with our friends on the other side of the footlights who enjoy our troubles all the more because we have not always deserved them and whose sorrows we shall gloat over by and by when the bell for the next piece begins to act. Talbot Bulstrode went out onto the balcony and the earth stood still for ten minutes or so and every steel-blue star in the sky glared watchfully down upon the young man in this the supreme crisis of his life. Aurora was leaning against a slender iron pilaster looking a slant into the town and across the town into the sea. She was wrapped in an opera cloak, no stiff embroidered young, latified garment but a voluminous drapery of soft scarlet woolen stuff such as samaramide herself might have worn. She looks like samaramide, Talbot thought. How did this Scotch banker and his Lancashire wife come to have an Assyrian for their daughter? He began brilliantly this young man as lovers generally do. You must have fatigued yourself this evening, Miss Floyd, he remarked. Aurora stifled a yawn as she answered him. I am rather tired, she said. It wasn't very encouraging. How was he to begin an eloquent speech when she might fall asleep in the middle of it? But he did. He dashed at once into the heart of his subject and he told her how he loved her, how he had done battle with his passion, which had been too strong for him, how he loved her as he never thought to love any creature upon this earth, and how he cast himself before her in all humility to take his sentence of life or death from her dear lips. She was silent for some moments. Her profile sharply distinct to him in the moonlight and those dear lips trembling visibly. Then with a half averted face and in words that seemed to come slowly and painfully from a stifled throat she gave him his answer. That answer was rejection. Not a young lady's know, which means yes tomorrow or which means perhaps that you have not been on your knees in a passion of despair like Lord Edward Fitt's Marcus and Miss Rose'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 reflect himself before he spoke again. May I venture to inquire, he said. How horribly commonplace that phrase seemed. He could have used no worse had he been inquiring for furnished lodgings. May I ask of 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 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 you ever coming to alter your decision of tonight, Aurora. He lingered on her name for a moment, first because it was so sweet to say it, and secondly, and 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 tonight forever. 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 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 at 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 the Baron at sea, 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 wrath tightly around 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 goodbye at the same time, Captain Bolstra had said as he shook hands with Lucy. Goodbye. Yes, I leave Brighton early tomorrow. 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 in spite of the wild joy growing up in her heart. Aurora had refused him. It was perfectly clear, refused him. 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 goodbye for me, Lucy, he said. He called for 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 goodbye. 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 the atmosphere of sublime egotism. But the captain did not leave the next day on the first stage of his Egyptian journey. He stayed at the fashionable watering place, but he resolutely abjured the neighborhood 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 Kalash 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 portman too, and my shirts are going back by the Leeds cattle train, and Talbot Bulstrode burst into a loud laugh, like a nation, but affording wondrous relief to that gentleman's overcharged breast. John Millish, he said, you have been proposing to Aurora Floyd. The Yorkshireman turned scarlet. It wasn't honorable 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 been proposed, and you've been rejected. I have, roared John, and it deused hard when I promised her she could keep a racing stud if she liked, and enter as many cults as she pleased for the derby, and give her own orders to the trainer, and I'd never interfere, and Millish 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 Balstrode. There is a great satisfaction in the misfortune of others. If I go to my dentist, I like to find another wrench 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. Goodbye, John Millish, and God bless you. You're not such a bad fellow, after all. Talbert felt almost cheerful as he walked back to the ship, and he took a mutton collet and tomato 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 and digestible slumber, with his head hanging over the sofa cushion, and dreamed that he was at Grand Cairo, or 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 a 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 a full intention of departing from Sussex by the 845 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 feign have hurried that moment to 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 to 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 and turned back, went into the drawing room, and brought 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 nervous hands hung over the cushions of the armchair. A newspaper was lying at her feet. She had quietly swung away, sitting there by herself with no one 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. Talbot. She called him by his Christian name. She who five and thirty hours before had coldly forbid 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 was irrevocable. Heaven knows I thought it was when I said, 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 honorable man, Captain Bolstrode, 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 today if you love me, and hurried from the room. He had accepted the cup of bang which 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 odors of inferior tobacco. It was directed to Miss Floyd in such sprawling penmanship as might have disgraced the pot-boy of a sporting public house. Miss Floyd Felden-Wodes Kent The newspaper had been redirected to Aurora by a housekeeper at Felden. Talbot ran his eye eagerly over the front stage. It was almost entirely filled with advertisements and such advertisements. But in one column there was an account headed frightful accident in Germany and English jockey killed. Captain Bolstero 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 writer and a 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 Kanyers. End of chapter 6 Recording by Tom Lennon Chapter 7 of Aurora Floyd This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Drew Mack Aurora Floyd by Mary Elizabeth Bratton Chapter 7 Aurora's Strange Pensioner 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 Bulls droat in his train and the chinch 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-husar who was to spend his Christmas at Felden. Mrs. Alexander and her husband were established with their 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 Romantic 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 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 haughty insouciance about 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 forever 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 pitfalls of her eyes entangled in the meshy network of her blue black hair. The greater the tension of the boistering, 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 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 that Mishir Victor Hugo puts in the mouth of the priest in the hunchback of Notre Dame as an excuse for the darkness of his sin? Ankatha 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. He 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 Rolly Bulstrode answered her son's letter upon a quarter of a choir 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 letter 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 wither went poor slaughtered John Mellish. He returned to Mellish Park carrying with him his dogs and horses and grooms and phaeton and other paraphernalia but his grief having unluckily came 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 or Paris as he called that imperial city and established himself in the biggest chambers at Maurice's and went backward and forward between that establishment and Guainani's ten times a day in quest of the English papers he dined drearily at Vefours the Trois-Fraire and the Café de Paris his big voice was heard at every expensive dining place in Paris ordering 2 quillards de Melior through Xavier but he sent the daintiest dishes away untasted 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 in Café Chantant listening to songs that all were seen set to the same melody he haunted the circuses and was well-nigh in love with the Thurmanage rider who had black eyes and a pair of glasses and a pair of glasses that the Rue de Rively could afford he discovered that the lady's face was an inch deep in a certain whitewash called Blanc Rosetti and that the chief glory of her eyes were the rings of Indian ink that surrounded them he could have diced that double-barrelled truth-revealer to the ground and trodden the lenses to powder with his heel the passion of despair better to have been forever 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 Feldenmoods was a very joyous one the voices of children made the house pleasant noisy lads from Eton and Westminster clambered about the ballast raids of the staircases and played battle-door and shuttle-cock 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 Bilstrode 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 Cornish man was happy and gave himself to his happiness without father 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 character to keep this gentleman a secret from her lover she revealed to 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 Belle's life littered the lady's 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 countryside Lucy was always the companion and confident 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 escutcheon tomb at Bullstroad where husband and wife would lie down full of years and honors in the days to come it was hard to have to help them to plan a thousand schemes of pleasure in which heaven pity her she was to join but she bore her cross meekly this pale elane of modern days and she never told Talbot Bullstroad that she had gone mad and loved him and was feigned 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 a constitutional debility or some other bodily veil which was to be cured by drugs and beluces and no one for a moment imagined that anything could possibly be amiss with a young lady who lived in a luxurious house when shopping in a carriage and pair and had more pocket money than she could to spend but the lily maid of Astelut lived in a lordly castle with a sample 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 had been bred of idleness and leisure how many a Spartan youth has nursed a bosom a boring fox for very lack of better employment do the gentlemen who write the leaders in our daily journals every 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 knights of ceaseless toil in those long watches of patient devotion far away in the east do the curates of overcrowded parishes the chaplains of jails 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 springtime 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 Rolly Bilstrode's letter with an epistle expressive of such gratitude and humility which earnest hope of winning the love of Talbot's mother mingled with a dim fearfulness of never being worthy of that affection as one the cornish ladies regard for her future daughter it was difficult to associate the impetuous girl with that letter and Lady Bilstrode 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 a motherless girl a daughter's welcome at Bilstrode will she ever let me call her mother Talbot Aurora asked as she read Lady Bilstrode's second letter to her lover she is very proud and she's 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 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 reading 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 satisfaction at his daughter's disposal of her heart the old man could not calmly contemplate a separation from this idolised 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 snugged suites and 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 newfangled 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 what need had he in this 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 paste board ticket printed at its little town in Lancashire calling upon the friends and patrons of Miss Eliza Perseful to come to the theatre for her special benefit upon the night of August the 20th 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 baronet sea and bolstered castle and be required to live upon his estate in the meantime the ex-husar was to go into Parliament if the electors of a certain little borough in Cornwall which had always sent a bolstered 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 bolstered 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 ensigns 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 advisor in such matters the poor about Beckinham were not forgotten in Aurora by morning drives with Lucy and Talbot parcels of groceries 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 special treatment namely half sovereigns old brown cherry French brandy and gung powder tea whether the daughter was dying of consumption or the father led up with romatics 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 romantic 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 in the old cherry and I'm afraid those simple cottagers like the heiress best although there were wise enough 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 farther than usual and it was striking for 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 lifeless 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 cutaway 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 feltrat was ornamented with a short clay pipe coloured of a respectable blackness a dingy white dog with a brass colour bow legs a short nose, bloodshot 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 massive bow-wow trotting by its side the stranger was the same individual who had accosted Miss Floyd three months before I do not know whether Miss Floyd recognised this person but I know that she touched her pony's ears with the whip and the spirited animals had diced past the man and threw 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 leaped 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 my coat, will you the dog made it Talbot's legs but the young man world-round his cane and inflicted such agistisement on the snub-nose of that animal a sentiment of temporary retirement howling dismally you are an insolent scoundrel and I have a good mind too you would be insolent perhaps if you're was hungry answered the man with a pitiful wine which was meant to be conciliating such weather is this here's all very well for young swells such as you as as your dogs and guns and unten but the winters try into a poor man's temper when he's industrious and willing and can't get a stroke of honest work to do or a mouth for the vitals I only want to speak to the young lady she knows me well enough which young lady Miss Fly, the heiress they were standing a little way from the pony carriage an aurora had risen from her seat and flung the reins to Lucy she was looking toward the two men pale and breathless doubtless terrified for the result of the injury 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 fond 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 took ceremoniously at a tuft of sandy shire 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 writing is never so much good as speaking and because such young ladies as you were uncommon difficult to get at why did I know that your pa might have put his hand upon my letter and there have been a pretty to do though I'd say as for that if I was to go up to the house and ask the old gentleman for a trifle he wouldn't be backward and given it I'd say that he'd be good for a five pound note or a tenner if it came to that aurora's eyes flashed sparks of fire as she turned to the speaker if ever you dare to annoy my father you shall pay dearly for it Matthew Harrison she said not that I fear anything you can say but I will not have him annoyed I will not have him tormented he has born 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 Tobit Bull Strode saw and wondered the digester he had half a mind to leave the carriage and join aurora and her petitioner but the ponies were restless and he knew it would not do to abandon the reins to pour timid Lucy you needn't take on so miss Floyd answered the man whom aurora had dressed as Matthew Harrison I'm sure I want to make things into all parties all I ask is that you'll act a little liberal to a cove what's come down in the world since you've seen him last Lord what a world it is for ups and downs if it had been the summer season I'd have had no needs to worry you but what's the good of standing at the top of Regent Street such weather is this with terrier pups and such likes old ladies has no eyes for dogs in the winter and even the gents' curse for rat-catching is getting uncommon scurs there ain't nothing doing on the turf whereby a chap can make an honest penny nor won't be come the Craven meeting I'd never have come all right you miss if I hadn't been hard up and I know you'll act liberal act liberal we cried aurora good heavens if every guinea I have or ever hope to have could blossom 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 natured of me to send you that your paper though miss hey said Matthew Harrison plucking a dry tweak 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 carriage Tobit Bulstrode was in a fever of restless impatience do you know this pensioner of your cousins Lucy he asked no I can't remember his face I don't think he belongs to beckon him why if I hadn't have sent you that air life you wouldn't have known it would you now said the man no no perhaps not answer aurora she had taken her port of money from her pocket Mr. Harrison was furtively regarding the little marocco receptacle with glistening eyes you don't ask me about any of the particulars he said no why should I care to know of them no certainly answered the man suppressing a chuckle you know enough of it if it comes to that and you if you wanted to know any more I couldn't tell you for them few lines in the paper was all I could ever get a hold of without the business but I always said it and I always will if a man is rides upward of 11 stone it seemed as if he was in a fair way of rambling on forever 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 color but I am sure he thought gold and crimson made a pleasing contrast as he looked at the yellow coin and miss Floyd's Port Monet 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 the money you have no claim upon me she said stopping him abruptly as he began a declaration of his gratitude and I protest against you making a market of any past events which have come under your knowledge remember once and forever 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 in 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 only as a bribe it is only for my father's sake the man muttered some expression of thanks looking at aurora earnestly but there was a stern shadow upon that 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 chain she shrank from the dog and he looked at her for a moment with a dim uncertainty in his bloodshot eyes then as conviction stole upon this brute mind he burst into a joyous bark frisking and capering about Miss Floyd's silk dress and imprinting dusty impressions of his forepaws upon the rich fabric the poor animal knows your miss said the man deprecatingly he was never oughty to him the mastiff bow-wow made as if he would have torn up every inch of ground and felled in woods at this juncture but aurora quietened him with a look poor boxer she said poor boxer so you know me boxer lard miss there's no no on 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 nah miss he answered think it kindly there ain't much in the way of dogs as I'd refuse to make a bargain about if you wanted a mute spaniel or a russian setter or a hoiley of sky I'd get him for you and welcome and ask you nothing for my trouble but this here bull terriers father mother and wife and family to me and there ain't money enough in your pa's bank to boy and 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 Bilstrode's countenance wore its darkest expression the officer kept silky silence to lay reach 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 those dark orbs Talbot bolstered open 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 bolstered said leaning over a pre-deer chair and playing nervously with the carved arabesques of the walnut wood framework about which man this might have been prevarication in some from aurora it was simply defiance as Talbot knew the man who spoke to you on the avenue just now who is he and what was his business you here captain bolstered fairly broke down he loved her he loved her remember reader 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 300 at thermopoli or the 600 at balaclava 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 in times your husband but that man that this reputable looking fellow who spoke to you just now I don't think he is the sort of person you ought to know 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 stop to question their deserts they might die of starvation whilst I was making my inquiries perhaps it's better to throw away a few shillings upon some unhappy creature who was 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-fans here 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 medieval decorations who wants to rival our lady of Bonsecure upon one of the hills about Norwood or a laundress who has burnt a week's washing who 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 Matt sellers or a lecturer upon political economy or Shelly in Byron or 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 praise 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 Matt sellers and cherish a theory of my own against the education of the masses she will shrug her shoulders deprecatingly but will take her to let me know that any donation Miss Floyd may be pleased to afford will be equally acceptable if I tell 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 neighborhood no how then did you come to know him she looked at him steadingly unflinchingly with a thoughtful expression in that ever-changing countenance she looked as if she were mentally debasing some point and then rising suddenly she gathered her shawl about her and walked forward to the door she paused upon the threshold and said questioning is scarcely pleasant Kelton Bulls Road if I choose to give a £5 note to any person who may ask me for it I expect full license 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 to her heart you may believe Talbot she said you must surely believe that you know too well the value of your love to imperil it by word or deed you must believe this end of chapter 7 this recording is in the public domain