Or singst thou rather under force
Of some Divine command,
Commissioned to presage a course
Of happier days at hand?
COWPER.
Aurelia was coming down stairs in the twilight after singing her charges to sleep about three weeks after her arrival, when she saw Jumbo waiting at the bottom of the stairs.
She had long ceased to be afraid of him. Indeed he had quite amazed her by his good-nature in helping to lift down naughty little Letitia, who was clambering up to the window of his master’s chamber to look through the crevices of the shutters. He had given the children a gaily dressed rag doll, and was as delighted as they were when he played his fiddle to them and set them dancing.
Still, the whites of his eyes, his shining teeth, and the gold lace of his livery had a startling effect in the darkness, and Aurelia wished he would move away; but he was evidently waiting for her, and when she came near he addressed her thus, “Mis’r Belamour present compliment, and would Miss Delavie be good enough to honour him with her company for a short visit?”
The girl started, dismayed, alarmed, yet unwilling to be unkind to the poor recluse, while she hoped that decorum and propriety would put the visit out of the question. She replied that she would ask Mrs. Aylward whether she might, and Jumbo followed her to the still-room, saying on the way, “Mas’r heard Miss Delavie sing. He always has the window opened to hear her. It makes him hum the air—be merry. He has not asked to speak with lady since he heard the bad news—long, long, ago.”
Then Aurelia felt that nothing short of absolute impropriety ought to make her gratify her shrinking reluctance. Mrs. Aylward seemed to think her doubts uncalled for, and attributed her hesitation to fear of the dark room.
“Oh, no I am not so childish,” said the young lady with nervous dignity; “but would it be proper?”
“Bless me, madam, he is as old as your father, and as civil a gentleman as lives. I would come in with you but that I am expecting Mr. Potts with the tallies. You need have no scruples.”
There was no excuse nor escape, and Aurelia followed the negro in trepidation. Crossing the hall, he opened for her the door of the lobby corresponding to her own, and saying, “Allow me, ma’am,” passed before her, and she heard another door unclosed, and a curtain withdrawn. Beyond she only saw a gulf of darkness, but out of it came a deep manly voice, subdued and melancholy, but gentlemanlike and deferential.
“The young lady is so kind as to come and cheer the old hermit. A thousand thanks, madam. Permit me.”
Aurelia’s hand was taken by one soft for want of use, and she was led forward on a deep piled carpet, and carefully placed on a chair in the midst of the intense black darkness. There was a little movement and then the voice said, “I am most sensible of your goodness, madam.”
“I—I am glad. You are very good, sir,” murmured Aurelia, oppressed by the gloom and the peculiar atmosphere, cool—for the windows were open behind the shutters—but strangely fragrant.
“How does my excellent friend, Major Delavie?”
“I thank you, sir, he is well, though his wound troubles him from time to time.”
“Commend me to him when you write, if you are good enough to remember it.”
“I thank you, sir. He will be rejoiced to hear of you.”
“He does me too much honour.”
These conventionalities being exhausted, a formidable pause ensued, first broken by Mr. Belamour, “May I ask how my fair visitor likes Bowstead?”
“It is a fine place, sir.”
“But somewhat lonely for so youthful a lady?”
“I have the children, sir.”
“I often hear their cheerful voices.”
“I hope we do not disturb you, sir, I strive to restrain them, but I fear we are all thoughtless.”
“Nay, the innocent sounds of mirth ring sweetly on my ears, like the notes of birds. And when I have heard a charming voice singing to the little ones, I have listened with delight. Would it be too presumptuous to beg the air songstress to repeat her song for the old recluse?”
“O, sir, I have only nursery ditties, caught from our old German maid,” cried Aurelia, in dismay.
“That might not diminish the charm to me,” he said. “In especial there was one song whose notes Jumbo caught as you accompanied yourself on the spinnet.”
And Jumbo, who seemed able to see in the dark, played a bar on his violin, while Aurelia trembled with shyness.
“The Nightingale Song,” she said. “My dear mother learnt the tune abroad. And I believe that she herself made the English words, when she was asked what the nightingales say.”
“May I hear it? Nightingales can sing in the dark.” Refusal was impossible, and Jumbo’s violin was a far more effective accompaniment than her own very moderate performance on the spinnet; so in a sweet, soft, pure, untrained and trembling voice, she sang—
“O Life and Light are sweet, my dear, O life and Light are sweet;
But sweeter still the hope and cheer
When Love and Life shall meet.
Oh! then it is most sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.
“But Love puts on the yoke, my dear, But Love puts on the yoke;
The dart of Love calls forth the tear,
As though the heart were broke.
The very heart were broke, broke, broke, broke, broke, broke.
“And Love can quench Life’s Light, my dear, Drear, dark, and melancholy;
Seek Light and Life and jocund cheer,
And mirth and pleasing folly.
Be thine, light-hearted folly, folly, folly, folly, folly, folly.
“‘Nay, nay,’ she sang. ‘yoke, pain, and tear,
For Love I gladly greet;
Light, Life, and Mirth are nothing here,
Without Love’s bitter sweet.
Give me Love’s bitter sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet.’”
“Accept my fervent thanks, kind songstress. So that is the nightingale’s song, and your honoured mother’s?”
“Yes, sir. My father often makes us sing it because it reminds him of her.”
“Philomel could not have found a better interpreter,” said the grave voice, sounding so sad that Aurelia wished she could have sung something less affecting to his spirits.
“I gather from what you said that you are no longer blessed with the presence of the excellent lady, your mother,” presently added Mr. Belamour.
“No, sir. We lost her seven years ago.”
“And her husband mourns her still. Well he may. She was a rare creature. So she is gone! I have been so long in seclusion that no doubt time has made no small havoc, and my friends have had many griefs to bewail.”
Aurelia knew not what answer to make, and was relieved when he collected himself and said:—
“I will trespass no longer on my fair visitor’s complaisance, but if she have not found the gloom of this apartment insupportable, it would be a charitable action to brighten it once more with her presence.”
“O sir, I will come whenever you are pleased to send for me,” she exclaimed, all her doubts, fears, and scruples vanishing at his tone of entreaty. “My father would be so glad. I will practise my best song to sing to you to-morrow.”
“My best thanks are yours,” and her hand was taken, she was carefully conducted to the door and dismissed with a gentle pressure of her fingers, and a courteous: “Goodnight, madam; Au revoir, if I may venture to say so.”
By contrast, the hall looked almost light, and Aurelia could see the skip of joy with which Jumbo hurried to fetch a candle. As he gave it to her, he made his teeth flash from ear to ear, as he exclaimed: “Pretty missy bring new life to mas’r!”
Thus did a new element come into Aurelia’s life. She carefully prepared Harriet’s favourite song, a French romance, but Mr. Belamour did not like it equally well with the Nightingale, which he made her repeat, rewarding her by telling her of the charming looks and manners of her mother, so that she positively enjoyed her visit. The next night he made inquiries into her walks at Bowstead, asking after the favourite nooks of his childhood, and directing her to the glades where grew the largest dewberries and sweetest blackberries. This led to her recital of a portion of Midsummer Night’s Dream, for he drew her on with thanks at every pause: “I have enjoyed no such treat for many years,” he said.
“There are other pieces that I can recite another time,” said Aurelia timidly.
“You will confer a great favour on me,” he answered.
So she refreshed her memory by a mental review of Paradise Lost over her embroidery frame, and was ready with Adam’s morning hymn, which was much relished. Compliments on her elocution soon were turned by her into the praise of “sister,” and as she became more at ease, the strange man in the dark listened with evident delight to her pretty fresh prattle about sister and brother, and father and home. Thus it had become a daily custom that she should spend the time between half past seven and nine in the company of the prisoner of darkness, and she was beginning to look forward to it as the event of the day. She scarcely expected to be sent for on Sunday evening, but Jumbo came as usual with the invitation, and she was far from sorry to quit a worm-eaten Baxter’s Saints’ Rest which she had dutifully borrowed from Mrs. Aylward.
“Well, my fair visitor,” said the voice which had acquired a tone of pleased anticipation, “what mental repast has your goodness provided?”
“It is Sunday, sir.”
“Ah!” as if it had not occurred to him, and with some disappointment.
“I could say the Psalms by heart, sir, if you would like it, for it is the 20th day of the month.”
“Thank you. Your voice can make anything sweet.”
Aurelia was shocked, and knew that Betty would be more so, but she was too shy to do anything except to begin: “Praise thou the Lord, O my soul.”
It was a fortunate thing that it was a Psalm of such evident beauty, for it fell less familiarly on his ear than her passages from the poets. At the end he said: “Yes, that is true poetry. Praise fits well with happy young lips. You have been to church?”
“No, sir, Mr. Greaves does not come to-day.”
“Then how did the gentle saint perform her orisons?”
“Please do not so call me, sir! I tried to read the service, but I could not get the children to be still, so I had to tell them about Joseph, and I found a beautiful Bible full of pictures, like our Dutch one at home.”
“You found the old Bible? My mother used to show it to my brother and me—my poor mother!”
He mentioned one or two of the engravings, which he had never forgotten, but the evening was less of a success than usual, and Aurelia doubted whether we would wish for her that day se’nnight. All her dread of him was gone; she knew she had brought a ray of brightness into his solitary broken life, and her mind was much occupied with the means of affording him pleasure. Indeed she might have wearied of the lack of all companionship save that of the young children; and converse with a clever highly cultivated mind was stimulating and expanding all her faculties. When the stores or her memory were becoming exhausted, Jumbo was bidden to open a case of books which had lain untouched since they were sent sown from Mr. Belamour’s chambers at the Temple, and they were placed at her disposal. Here was Mr. Alexander Pope’s translation of the Iliad of Homer, which had appeared shortly before the fatal duel, and Aurelia eagerly learnt whole pages of it by heart for the evening’s amusement, enjoying extremely the elucidations and criticisms of her auditor, who would dwell on a passage all day, beg to have it repeated a second time in the evening, and then tell her what his memory or his reflection had suggested about it. Moreover, having heard some inexplicable report, through Jumbo, of the Porteous mob, Mr. Belamour became curious to learn the truth, and this led to his causing the newspapers to be sent weekly to be read and reported to him by Aurelia. It seemed incredible that a man of much ability should have been content to spend all these years in the negro’s sole society, but no doubt the injury done to the brain had been aggravated by grief and remorse, so that he had long lain, with suspended faculties, in a species of living death; whence he had only gradually, and as it were unconsciously, advanced to his present condition. Perhaps Mr. Wayland’s endeavours to rouse him had come too soon, or in a less simple and attractive form, for they had been reluctantly received and had proved entirely unsuccessful; while the child-like efforts of the girl, following his lead instead of leading him, were certainly awakening him, and renewing his spirits and interest in the world at large in an unlooked-for manner.
All books are sourced from Project Gutenberg