Aurelia’s silvery peal of laughter fell sadly upon Betty’s ears in front, and her father and Mr. Arden turned to ask what made them so merry. Aurelia blushed in embarrassment, but Harriet was ready.
“You will think us very rude, Sir, but my little brother has been reading the life of Friar Bacon, and he thinks you an equally great philosopher.”
“Indeed, my little master, you do me too much honour. You will soon be a philosopher yourself. I did not expect so much attention in so young an auditor,” said mr. Arden, thinking this the effect of his sermon on the solar system.
Whereupon Eugene begged to inspect the grave he was digging with his own nails.
They were at home by this time, and Betty was aware that they had been followed at a respectful distance by Palmer and the coachman. Anxious as she was, she could not bear that her father’s dinner should be spoilt, or that he, in his open-hearted way, should broach the matter with Mr. Arden; so she repaired to the garden gate, and on being told that Mr. Dove had a packet from my Lady for the Major, she politely invited him to dinner with the servants, and promised that her father should see him afterwards.
This gave a long respite, since the servants had the reversion of the beef, so the Mr. Arden had taken leave, and gone to see a bedridden pauper, and the Major had time for his forty winks, while Betty, though her heart throbbed hard beneath her tightly-laced boddice, composed herself to hear Eugene’s catechism, and the two sisters, each with a good book, slipped out to the honeysuckle arbour in the garden behind the house. Harriet had Sherlock in Death, her regular Sunday study, though she never got any further than the apparition of Mrs. Veal, over which she gloated in a dreamy state; Aurelia’s study was a dark-covered, pale-lettered copy of the Ikon Basilike, with the strange attraction that youth has to pain and sorrow, and sat musing over the resigned outpourings of the perplexed and persecuted king, with her bright eyes fixed on the deep blue sky, and the honeysuckle blossoms gently waving against it, now and then visited by bee or butterfly, while through the silence came the throbbing notes of the nightingale, followed by its jubilant burst of glee, and the sweet distant chime of the cathedral bells rose and fell upon the wind. What peace and repose there was in all the air, even in the gentle breeze, and the floating motions of the swallows skimming past.
The stillness was first broken by the jangle of their own little church bell, for Mr. Arden was a more than usually diligent minister, and always gave two services when he was not in course at the cathedral. The young ladies always attended both, but as Harriet and Aurelia crossed the lawn, their brother ran to meet them, saying, “We are not to wait for sister.”
“I hope my papa is well,” said Aurelia.
“Oh yes,” said Eugene, “but the man in the gold-laced hat has been speaking with him. Palmer says it is Mrs. Dove’s husband, and he is going to take Lively Tom and Brown Bet and the two other colts to London. He asked if I should like to ride a-cockhorse there with him. ‘Dearly,’ I said, and then he laughed and said it was not my turn, but he should take Miss Aurelia instead.”
Aurelia laughed, and Harriet said, “Extremely impudent.”
Little she guessed what Betty was at that moment reading.
“I am astonished,” wrote Lady Belamour to her cousin, “that you should decline so highly advantageous an Offer for your Daughter. I can only understand it as a Token that you desire no further Connection with, nor Favour from me; and I shall therefore require of you to give up the Accounts, and vacate the House by Michaelmas next ensuing. However, as I am willing to allow some excuse for the Weakness of parental Affection, if you change your Mind within the next Week and send up your Daughter with Dove and his Wife, I will overlook your first hasty and foolish Refusal, ungrateful as it was, and will receive your Daughter and give her all the Advantages I promised. Otherwise your Employment is at an end, and you had better prepare your Accounts for Hargrave’s Inspection.”
“There is no help for it then,” said Betty.
“And if it be for the child’s advantage, we need not make our moan,” said her father. “‘Tis like losing the daylight out of our house, but we must not stand in the way of her good.”
“If I were only sure it is for her good!”
“Why, child, there’s scarce a wench in the county who would not go down on her knees for such a chance. See what Madam Duckworth would say to it for Miss Peggy!”
Betty said no more. The result of her cogitations had been that since Aurelia must be yielded for the sake of her father and Eugene, it was better not to disturb him with fears, which would only anger him at the moment and disquiet him afterwards. She was likewise reassured by Mrs. Dove’s going with her, since that good woman had been nurse to the little Belamour cousins now deceased, and was well known as an excellent and trustworthy person, so that, if she were going to act in the same capacity to my Lady’s second family, Aurelia would have a friend at hand. So the Major cheated his grief by greeting the church-goers with the hilarious announcement—
“Here’s great news! What says my little Aura to going London to my Lady’s house.”
“O Sir! are you about to take us.”
“Not I! My Lady wants pretty young maidens, not battered old soldiers.”
“Nor my sisters? O then, if you please, Sir, I would rather not go!”
“Silly children cannot choose! No, no, Aura, you must go out and see the world, and come back to us such a belle that your poor old father will scarce know you.”
“I do not wish to be a belle,” said the girl. “O Sir, let me stay with you and sister.”
“Do not be so foolish, Aura,” put in Harriet. “It will be the making of you. I wish I had the offer.”
“O Harriet, could not you go instead?”
“No, Aurelia,” said Betty. “There is no choice, and you must be a good girl and not vex my father.”
The gravity of her eldest sister convinced Aurelia that entreaties would be vain, and there was soon a general outburst of assurances that she would see all that was delightful in London, the lions in the Tower, the new St. Paul’s, the monuments, Ranelagh, the court ladies, may be, the King and Queen themselves; until she began to feel exhilarated and pleased at the prospect and the distinction.
Then came Monday and the bustle of preparing her wardrobe. The main body of it was to be sent in the carrier’s waggon, for she was to ride on a pillion behind Mr. Dove, and could only take a valise upon a groom’s horse. There was no small excitement in the arrangement, and in the farewells to the neighbours, who all agreed with Harriet in congratulating the girl on her promotion. Betty did her part with all her might, washed lace, and trimmed sleeves, and made tuckers, giving little toilette counsels, while her heart ached sorely all the time.
When she could speak to Mrs. Dove alone, she earnestly besought that old friend to look after the child, her health, her dress, and above all to supply here lack of experience and give her kind counsel and advice.
“I will indeed, ma’am, as though she were my own,” promised Mrs. Dove.
“O nurse, I give my sweet jewel to your care; you know what a great house in London is better than I do. You will warn her of any danger.”
“I will do my endeavour, ma’am. We servants see and hear much, and if any harm should come nigh the sweet young miss, I’ll do my best for her.”
“Thank you, nurse, I shall never, never see her more in her free artless childishness,” said Betty, sobbing as if her heart would break; “but oh, nurse, I can bear the thought better since I have known that you would be near her.”
And at night, when her darling nestled for the last time in her arms, the elder sister whispered her warnings. Her knowledge of the great world was limited, but she believed it to be a very wicked place, and she profoundly distrusted her brilliant kinswoman; yet her warnings took no shape more definite than—“My dearest sister will never forget