"I cannot," sobbed Loveday. "This is too much. I never would have entered my Lady's service if I had known I was to be set to such as this."
"Come, come, Grace Loveday, I know too much of you for you to come the Presician over me."
"Such a sweet innocent! So tender-hearted and civil too."
"Bless you, woman, you don't know what's good for her! She will be a very queen over the black slaves on the Indies. Captain Karen will tell you how the wenches thank him for having brought 'em out. They could never do any good here, you know, poor lasses; but out there, where white women are scarce, they are ready to worship the very ground they tread upon."
"I tell you she ain't one of that sort. She is a young lady of birth, a cousin of my Lady's own, as innocent as a babe, and there are two gentlemen, if not three, a dying for her."
"I lay you anything not one of 'em is worth old Mr. Van Draagen, who turns his thousands every month. 'Send me out a lady lass,' says he, 'one that will do me credit with the governor's lady.' Why she will have an estate as big as from here to Dover, and slaves to wait on her, so as she need never stoop to pick up her glove. He has been married twice before, and his last used to send orders for the best brocades in London. He stuck at no expense. The Queen has not finer gowns!"
"But to think of the poor child's waking up out at sea."
"Oh! Mrs. Karen will let her know she may think herself well off. I never let 'em go unless there's a married woman aboard to take charge of them, and that's why I kept your lady waiting till the Red Cloud was ready to sail. You may tell her Ladyship she could not have a better berth, and she'll want for nothing. I know what is due to the real quality, and I've put aboard all the toilette, and linen, and dresses as was bespoke for the last Mrs. Van Draagen, and there's a civil spoken wench aboard, what will wait on her for a consideration."
"Nay, but mistress," said Loveday, whispering: "I know those that would give more than you will ever get from my Lady if they found her safe here."
"Of course there are, or she would not be here now," said Mrs. Darke, with a horrid grin; "but that won't do, my lass. A lady that's afraid of exposure will pay you, if she pawns her last diamond, but a gentleman-why, he gets sick of his fancy, and snaps his fingers at them that helped him!" Then, looking keenly at Loveday, "You've not been playing me false, eh?"
"O no, no," hastily exclaimed Loveday, cowering at the malignant look.
"If so be you have, Grace Loveday, two can play at that game," said Mrs. Darke composedly. "There, I have left her enough to turn back. What hair it is! Feel the weight of it! There's not another head of the mouse-colour to match your Lady's in the kingdom," she added, smoothing out the severed tresses with the satisfaction of a connoisseur. "No wonder madame could not let this be wasted on the plantations, when you and I and M. le Griseur know her own hair is getting thinner than she would wish a certain Colonel to guess. There! the pretty dear, what a baby she looks! I will tie her on a cowl, lest she should take cold on the river. See these rings. Did you Lady give no charge about them?"
"I had forgot!" said the waiting-woman, confused; "she charged me to bring them back, old family jewels, she said, that must not be carried off to foreign parts; but I cannot, cannot do it. To rob that pretty creature in her sleep."
"Never fear. She'll soon have a store much finer than these! You fool, I tell you she will not wake these six or eight hours. Afraid? There, I'll do it! Ho! A ruby? A love-token, I wager; and what's this? A carved Cupid. I could turn a pretty penny by that, when your lady finds it convenient, and her luck at play goes against her. Eh! is this a wedding-ring? Best take that off; Mr. Van Draagen might not understand it, you see. Here they are. Have you a patch- box handy for them in your pocket? Why what ails the woman? You may thank your stars there's some one here with her wits about her! None of your whimpering, I say, her comes Captain Karen."
Two seafaring men here came up the garden path, the foremost small and dapper, with a ready address and astute countenance. "All right, Mother Darkness, is our consignment ready? Aye, aye! And the freight?"
"This lady has it," said Mrs. Darke, pointing to Loveday; "I have been telling her she need have no fears for her young kinswoman in your hands, Captain."
He swore a round oath to that effect, and looking at the sleeping maiden, again swore that she was the choicest piece of goods ever confided to him, and that he knew better than let such an article arrive damaged. Mr. Van Draagen ought to come down handsomely for such an extra fine sample; but in the meantime he accepted the rouleau of guineas that Loveday handed to him, the proceeds, as she told Mrs. Darke, of my Lady's winnings last night at loo.
All was ready. Poor Aurelia was swathed from head to foot in a large mantle, like the chrysalis whose name she bore, the two sailors took her up between them, carried her to their boat, and laid her along in the stern. Then they pushed off and rowed down the river. Loveday looked up and looked down, then sank on the steps, convulsed with grief, sobbing bitterly. "She said He could deliver her from the mouth of lions! And He has not," she murmured under her breath, in utter misery and hopelessness.
CHAPTER XXXIV. DOWN THE RIVER.
The lioness, ye may move her
To give o'er her prey,
But ye'll ne'er stop a lover,
He will find out the way.
Elizabeth Delavie and her little brother were standing in the bay window of their hotel, gazing eagerly along the street in hopes of seeing the Major return, when Sir Amyas was seen riding hastily up on his charger, in full accoutrements, with a soldier following. In another moment he had dashed up stairs, and saying, "Sister, read that!" put into Betty's hand a slip of paper on which was written in pencil-
"If Sir A. B. would not have his true love kidnapped to the plantations, he had best keep watch on the river gate of Mistress Darke's garden at Greenwich. No time to lose."
"Who brought you this?" demanded Betty, as well as she could speak for horror.
"My mother's little negro boy, Syphax. He says Mrs. Loveday, her waiting-woman, gave it to him privately on the stairs, as she was about to get into a sedan, telling him I would give him a crown if he gave it me as I came off parade."
"Noon! Is there time?"
"Barely, but there shall be time. There is no time to seek your father."
"No, but I must come with you."
"The water is the quickest way. There are stairs near. I'll send my fellow to secure a boat."
"I will be ready instantly, while you tell your uncle. It might be better if he came."
Sir Amyas flew to his uncle's door, but found him gone out, and, in too great haste to inquire further, came down again to find Betty in cloak and hood. He gave her his arm, and, Eugene trotting after them, they hurried to the nearest stairs, remembering in dire confirmation what Betty had heard from the school-girl. Both had heard reports that young women were sometimes thus deported to become wives to the planters in the southern colonies or the West Indies, but that such a destiny should be intended for their own Aurelia, and by Lady Belamour, was scarcely credible. Doubts rushed over Betty, but she remembered what the school-girl had said of the captive being sent beyond seas; and at any rate, she must risk the expedition being futile when such issues hung upon it. And if they failed to meet her father, she felt that her presence might prevail when the undefined rights of so mere a lad as her companion might be disregarded.
His soldier servant had secured a boat, and they rapidly descended to the river; Sir Amyas silent between suspense, dismay and shame for his mother, and Betty trying to keep Eugene quiet by hurried answers to his eager questions about all he saw. They had to get out at London Bridge, and take a fresh boat on the other side, a much larger one, with two oarsmen, and a grizzled old coxswain, with a pleasant honest countenance, who presently relieved Betty of all necessity of attending to, or answering, Eugene's chatter.
"Do you know where this garden is?" said she, leaning across to Sir Amyas, who had engaged the boat to go to Gree
nwich.
He started as if it were a new and sudden thought, and turning to the steersman demanded whether he knew Mrs. Darke's garden.
The old man gave a kind of grunt, and eyed the trio interrogatively, the young officer with his fresh, innocent, boyish face and brilliant undisguised uniform, the handsome child, the lady neither young, gay, nor beautiful, but unmistakeably a decorous gentlewoman.
"Do you know Mrs. Darke's?" repeated Sir Amyas.
"Aye, do I? Mayhap I know more about the place than you do."
There was that about his face that moved Betty and the young man to look at one another, and the former said, "She has had to do with- evil doings?"
"You may say that, ma'am."
"Then," they cried in one breath, "you will help us!" And in a very few words Betty explained their fears for her young sister, and asked whether he thought the warning possible.
"I've heard tell of such things!" said the old man between his teeth, "and Mother Darkness is one to do 'em. Help you to bring back the poor young lass? That we will, if we have to break down the door with our fists. And who is this young spark? Her brother or her sweetheart?"
"Her husband!" said Sir Amyas. "Her husband from whom she has been cruelly spirited away. Aid me to bring her back, my good fellow, and nothing would be too much to reward you."
"Aye, aye, captain, Jem Green's not the man to see an English girl handed over to they slave-driving, outlandish chaps. But I say, I wish you'd got a cloak or summat to put over that scarlet and gold of yourn. It's a regular flag to put the old witch on her guard."
On that summer's day, however, no cloak was at hand. They went down the river very rapidly, for the tide was running out and at length Jem Green pointed out the neat little garden. On the step sat a woman, apparently weeping bitterly. Could it be the object of their search? No, but as they came nearer, and she was roused so as to catch sight of the scarlet coat, she beckoned and gesticulated with all her might; and as they approached Sir Amyas recognised her as his mother's maid.
"You will be in time yet," she cried breathlessly. "Oh! take me in, or you won't know the ship!"
So eager and terrified was she, that but for the old steersman's peremptory steadiness, her own life and theirs would have been in much peril, but she was safely seated at last, gasping out, "The Red Cloud, Captain Karen. They've been gone these ten minutes."
"Aye, aye," gruffly responded Green, and the oars moved rapidly, while Loveday with another sob cried, "Oh! sir, I thought you would never come!"
"You sent the warning?"
Yes, sir, I knew nothing till the morning, when my Lady called me up. I lie in her room, you know. She had given orders, and I was to take the sweet lady and go down the river with her to Mrs. Darke, the perfuming woman my Lady has dealings with about here hair and complexion. There I was to stay with her till-till this same sea- captain was to come and carry her off where she would give no more trouble. Oh, sir, it was too much-and my Lady knew it, for she had tied my hands so that I had but a moment to scribble down that scrip, and bid Syphax take it to you. The dear lady! she said, 'her God could deliver her out of the mouth of the lion,' and I could not believe it! I thought it too late!"
"How can we thank you," began Betty; but she was choked by intense anxiety, and Jem Green broke in with an inquiry where the ship was bound for. Loveday only had a general impression of the West Indies, and believed that the poor lady's destined spouse was a tobacconist, and as the boat was soon among a forest of shipping where it could not proceed so fast, Green had to inquire of neighbouring mariners where the Red Cloud was lying.
"The Red Cloud, Karen, weighs anchor for Carolina at flood tide to-night. Shipper just going aboard," they were told.
Their speed had been so rapid that they were in time to see the boat alongside, and preparations being made to draw up some one or something on board. "Oh! that is she!" cried Loveday in great agitation. "They've drugged her. No harm done. She don't know it. But it is she!"
Sir Amyas, with a voice of thunder, called out, "Halt, villain," at the same moment as Green shouted "Avast there, mate!" And their boat came dashing up alongside.
"Yield me up that lady instantly, fellow!" cried Sir Amyas, with his sword half drawn.
"And who are you, I should like to know," returned Karen, coolly, "swaggering at an honest man taking his freight and passengers aboard?"
"I'll soon show you!"
"Hush, sir," said Green, who had caught sight of pistols and cutlasses, "let me speak a moment. Look you here, skipper, this young gentleman and lady have right on their side. This is her sister, and he is her husband. They are people of condition, as you see."
"All's one to me on the broad seas."
"That may be," said Green, "but you see you can't weigh anchor these three hours or more; and what's to hinder the young captain here from swearing against you before a magistrate, and getting your vessel searched, eh?"
"I've no objection to hear reason if I'm spoke to reasonable," said Karen, sulkily; "but I'll not be bullied like a highwayman, when I've my consignment regularly made out, and the freight down in hand, square."
"You may keep your accursed passage-money and welcome," cried Sir Amyas, "so you'll only give me my wife!"
"Show him the certificate," whispered Betty.
Sir Amyas had it ready, and he read it loud enough for all on the Thames to hear. Karen gave a sneering little laugh. "What's that to me? My passenger here has her berth taken in the name of Ann Davis."
"Like enough," said Loveday, "but you remember me, captain, and I swear that this poor young lady is what his Honour Sir Amyas say. He is a generous young gentleman, and will make it up to you if you are at any loss in the matter."
"A hundred times over!" exclaimed Amyas hotly.
"Hardly that," said Karen. "Van Draagen might have been good for a round hundred if he'd been pleased with the commission."
"I'll give you and order-" began Sir Amyas.
"What have you got about you, sir?" interrupted Karen. "I fancy hard cash better than your orders."
The youth pulled out his purse. There was only a guinea or two and some silver. "One does not go out to parade with much money about one," he said, with a trembling endeavour for a smile, "but if you would send up to my quarters in Whitehall Barracks-"
"Never mind, sir," said Karen, graciously. "I see you are in earnest, and I'll put up with the loss rather than stand in the light of a couple of true lovers. Here, Jack, lend a hand, and we'll hoist the young woman over. She's quiet enough, thanks to Mother Darkness."
The sudden change in tone might perhaps be owing to the skipper's attention having been called by a sign from one of his men to a boat coming up from Woolwich, rowed by men of the Royal navy, who were certain to take part with an officer; but Sir Amyas and Betty were only intent on receiving the inanimate form wrapped up in its mantle. What a meeting it was for Betty, and yet what joy to have her at all! They laid her with her head in her sister's lap, and Sir Amyas hung over her, clasping one of the limp gloved hands, while Eugene called "Aura, Aura," and would have impetuously kissed her awake, but Loveday caught hold of him. "Do not, do not, for pity's sake, little master," she said; "the potion will do her no harm if you let her sleep it off, but she may not know you if you waken her before the time."
"Wretch, what have you given her?" cried Sir Amyas.
"It was not me, sir, it was Mrs. Darke, in a cup of coffee. She vowed it would do no hurt if only she was let to sleep six or eight hours. And see what a misery it has saved her from!"
"That is true," said Betty. "Indeed I believe this is a healthy sleep. See how gently she breathes, how soft and natural her colour is, how cool and fresh her cheek is. I cannot believe there is serious harm done."
"How soon can we reach a physician?" asked Sir Amyas, still anxiously, of the coxswain.
"I can't rightly say, sir," replied he; "but never you fear. They wouldn't do aught to damage such as she."
Pat
ience must perforce be exercised as, now against the tide and the stream, the wherry worked its way back. Once there was a little stir; Sir Amyas instantly hovered over Aurelia, and clasped her hand with a cry of "My dearest life!" The long dark eyelashes slowly rose, the eyes looked up for one moment from his face to her sister's, and then to her brother's, but the lids sank as if weighed down, and with a murmur, "Oh, don't wake me," she turned her face around on Betty's lap and slept again.
"Poor darling, she thinks it a dream," said Betty. "Eugene, do not. Sir, I entreat! Brother, yes I will call you so if you will only let her alone! See how happy and peaceful her dear face is! Do not rouse her into terror and bewilderment."
"If I only were sure she was safe," he sighed, hanging over, with an intensity of affection and anxiety that brought a dew even to the old steersman's eyes; and he kindly engrossed Eugene by telling about the places they passed, and setting him to watch the smart crew of the boat from the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, which was gaining on them.
Meanwhile the others interrogated Loveday, who told them of the pretext on which Lady Belamour had sent her captive down to Mrs. Darke's. No one save herself had, in my Lady's household, she said, an idea of where the young lady was, Lady Belamour having employed only hired porters except on that night when Lady Aresfield's carriage brought her. This had led to the captivity being know to Lady Belle and her brother, and Loveday had no doubt that it was the discovery of their being aware of it, as well as Jumbo's appearance in the court, that had made her mistress finally decide on this frightful mode of ridding herself of the poor girl. The maid was as adroit a dissembler as her mistress, and she held her peace as to her own part in forwarding Colonel Mar's suit, whether her lady guessed it or not, but she owned with floods of tears how the sight of the young lady's meek and dutiful submission, her quiet trust, and her sweet, simple teaching of the children, had wakened into life again a conscience long dead to all good, and made it impossible to her to carry out this last wicked commission without an attempt to save the creature whom she had learnt to reverence as a saint. Most likely her scruples had been suspected by her mistress, for there had been an endeavour to put it out of her power to give any warning to the victim. Yet after all, the waiting-maid had been too adroit for the lady, or, as she fully owned, Aurelia's firm trust had not been baulked, and deliverance from the lions had come.
Love and Life Page 28