Aurora Floyd

by M. E. Braddon

  While Aurora was thinking of these things, as well as a little of the bay filly, and while Talbot, half choked by a thousand confused emotions, tried to appear preternaturally at his ease, John Mellish, having refreshed his spirits with bottled beer, came suddenly upon the party, and slapped the captain on the back.

  He was not jealous, this happy John. Secure in his wife's love and truth, he was ready to face a regiment of her old admirers; indeed, he rather delighted in the idea of avenging Aurora upon this cowardly lover. Talbot glanced involuntarily at the members of the York constabulary on the course below, wondering how they would act if he were to fling John Mellish over the stone balcony, and do a murder then and there. He was thinking this while John was nearly wringing off his hand in cordial salutation, and asking what the deuce had brought him to the York Spring.

  Talbot explained rather lamely that, being knocked up by his Parliamentary work, he had come down to spend a few days with an old brother-officer, Captain Hunter, who had a place between York and Leeds.

  Mr. Mellish declared that nothing could be more lucky than this. He knew Hunter well; the two men must join them at dinner that day! and Talbot must give them a week at the Park after he left the captain's place.

  Talbot murmured some vague protestation of the impossibility of this, to which John paid no attention whatever, hustling his sometime rival away from the ladies in his eagerness to get back to the ring, where he had to complete his book for the next race.

  So Captain Bulstrode was gone once more, and throughout the brief interview no one had cared to notice Lucy Floyd, who had been pale and red by turns half a dozen times within the last ten minutes.

  John and Talbot returned after the start, with Captain Hunter, who was brought on to the stand to be presented to Aurora, and who immediately entered into a very animated discussion upon the day's racing. How Captain Bulstrode abhorred this idle babble of horse-flesh, this perpetual jargon, alike in every mouth, from Aurora's rosy Cupid's bow to the tobacco-tainted lips of the bookmen in the ring! Thank Heaven, this was not his wife, who knew all the slang of the course, and, with lorgnette in hand, was craning her swan-like throat to catch sight of a wind in the Knavesmire and the horse that had a lead of half a mile.

  Why had he ever consented to come into this accursed horse-racing county? Why had he deserted the Cornish miners even for a week? Better to be wearing out his brains over Dryasdust pamphlets and Parliamentary minutes than to be here, desolate among this shallow-minded, clamorous multitude, who have nothing to do but to throw up caps and cry huzza for any winner of any race. Talbot, as a by-stander, could not but remark this, and draw from this something of a philosophical lesson on life. He saw that there was always the same clamor and the same rejoicing in the crowd, whether the winning jockey wore blue and black belt, yellow and black cap, white with scarlet spots, or any other variety of color, even to dismal sable; and he could but wonder how this was. Did the unlucky speculators run away and hide themselves while the uplifted voices were rejoicing? When the welkin was rent with the name of Kettledrum, where were the men who had backed Dundee unflinchingly up to the dropping of the flag and the ringing of the bell? When Thormanby came in with a rush, where were the wretched creatures whose fortunes hung on Umpire or Wizard? They were voiceless, these poor unlucky ones, crawling away with sick white faces, to gather in groups and explain to each other, with stable jargon intermingled with oaths, how it ought not to have been, and never could have been, but for some unlooked-for and preposterous combination of events never before witnessed upon any mortal course. How little is ever seen of the losers in any of the great races run upon this earth? For years and years the name of Louis Napoleon is an empty sound, signifying nothing; when, lo! a few master-strokes of policy and finesse, a little juggling with those pieces of pasteboard out of which are built the shaky card-palaces men call empires, and creation rings with the same name; the outsider emerges from the ruck, and the purple jacket, spotted with golden bees, is foremost in the mighty race.

  Talbot Bulstrode leaned with folded arms upon the stone balustrade, looking down at the busy life below him, and thinking of these things. Pardon him for his indulgence in dreary platitudes and wornout sentimentalities. He was a desolate, purposeless man; entered for no race himself; scratched for the matrimonial stakes; embittered by disappointment; soured by doubt and suspicion. He had spent the dull winter months upon the Continent, having no mind to go down to Bulstrode to encounter his mother's sympathy and his cousin Constance Trevyllian's chatter. He was unjust enough to nourish a secret dislike to that young lady for the good service she had done him by revealing Aurora's flight.

  Are we ever really grateful to the people who tell us of the iniquity of those we love? Are we ever really just to the kindly creatures who give us friendly warning of our danger? No, never. We hate them; always involuntarily reverting to them as the first cause of our anguish; always repeating to ourselves that, had they been silent, that anguish need never have been; always ready to burst forth in one wild rage with the mad cry that "it is better to be much abused than but to know 't a little." When the friendly Ancient drops his poisoned hints into poor Othello's ear, it is not Mrs. Desdemona, but Iago himself, whom the noble Moor first has a mind to strangle. If poor, innocent Constance Treyvellian had been born the veriest cur in the county of Cornwall, she would have had a better chance of winning Talbot's regard than she had now.

  Why had he come into Yorkshire? I left that question unanswered just now, for I am ashamed to tell the reasons which actuated this unhappy man. He came, in a paroxysm of curiosity, to learn what kind of life Aurora led with her husband, John Mellish. He had suffered horrible distractions of mind upon this subject, one moment imagining her the most despicable of coquettes, ready to marry any man who had a fair estate and a good position to offer her, and by and by depicting her as some white-robed Iphigenia, led a passive victim to the sacrificial shrine. So, when happening to meet this good-natured brother-officer at the United Service Club, he had consented to run down to Captain Hunter's country place for a brief respite from Parliamentary minutes and red tape, the artful hypocrite had never owned to himself that he was burning to hear tidings of his false and fickle love, and that it was some lingering fumes of the old intoxication that carried him down to Yorkshire. But now—now that he met her—met her, the heartless, abominable creature, radiant and happy—mere simulated happiness and feverish mock radiance, no doubt, but too well put on to be quite pleasing to him—now he knew her. He knew her at last, the wicked enchantress, the soulless siren. He knew that she had never loved him; that she was, of course, powerless to love; good for nothing but to wreathe her white arms and flash the dark splendor of her eyes for weak man's destruction; fit for nothing but to float in her beauty above the waves that concealed the bleached bones of her victims. Poor John Mellish! Talbot reproached himself for his hardness of heart in nourishing one spiteful feeling toward a man who was so deeply to be pitied.

  When the race was done Captain Bulstrode turned and beheld the black-eyed sorceress in the midst of a group gathered about a grave patriarch, with gray hair, and the look of one accustomed to command.

  This grave patriarch was John Pastern.

  I write his name with respect, even as it was reverentially whispered there, till, travelling from lip to lip, every one present knew that a great man was among them. A very quiet, unassuming veteran, sitting with his womankind about him—his wife and daughter, as I think—self-possessed and grave, while men were busy with his name in the crowd below, and while tens of thousands were staked in trusting dependence on his acumen. What golden syllables might have fallen from those oracular lips had the veteran been so pleased! What hundreds would have been freely bidden for a word, a look, a nod, a wink, a mere significant pursing-up of the lips from that great man! What is the fable of the young lady who discoursed pearls and diamonds to a truth such as this! Pearls and diamonds must be of a large size which would be worth the secr
ets of those Richmond stables, the secrets which Mr. Pastern might tell if he chose. Perhaps it is the knowledge of this which gives him a calm, almost clerical gravity of manner. People come to him, and fawn upon him, and tell him that such and such a horse from his stable has won, or looks safe to win; and he nods pleasantly, thanking them for the kind information, while perhaps his thoughts are far away on Epsom Downs or Newmarket Flats, winning future Derbys and two thousands with colts that are as yet unfoaled.

  John Mellish is on intimate terms with the great man, to whom he presents Aurora, and of whom he asks advice upon a matter that has been troubling him for some time. His trainer's health is failing him, and he wants assistance in the stables—a younger man, honest and clever. Does Mr. Pastern know such a one?

  The veteran tells him, after due consideration, that he does know of a young man—honest, he believes, as times go—who was once employed in the Richmond stables, and who had written to him only a few days before, asking for his influence in getting him a situation. "But the lad's name has slipped my memory," added Mr. Pastern; "he was but a lad when he was with me; but, bless my soul, that's ten years ago! I'll look up his letter when I go home, and write to you about him. I know he's clever, and I believe he's honest; and I shall be only too happy," concluded the old gentleman, gallantly, "to do anything to oblige Mrs. Mellish."

  CHAPTER XIV.

  "LOVE TOOK UP THE GLASS OF TIME AND

  TURNED IT IN HIS GLOWING HANDS."

  Talbot Bulstrode yielded at last to John's repeated invitations, and consented to pass a couple of days at Mellish Park.

  He despised and hated himself for the absurd concession. In what a pitiful farce had the tragedy ended! A visitor in the house of his rival—a calm spectator of Aurora's everyday, commonplace happiness. For the space of two days he had consented to occupy this most preposterous position. Two days only; then back to the Cornish miners, and the desolate bachelor's lodgings in Queen's Square, Westminster; back to his tent in life's great Sahara. He could not, for the very soul of him, resist the temptation of beholding the inner life of that Yorkshire mansion. He wanted to know for certain—what was it to him, I wonder—whether she was really happy, and had utterly forgotten him. They all returned to the Park together—Aurora, John, Archibald Floyd, Lucy, Talbot Bulstrode, and Captain Hunter. The last-named officer was a jovial gentleman, with a hook nose and auburn whiskers; a gentleman whose intellectual attainments were of no very oppressive order, but a hearty, pleasant guest in an honest country mansion, where there is cheer and welcome for all.

  Talbot could but inwardly confess that Aurora became her new position. How everybody loved her! What an atmosphere of happiness she created about her wherever she went! How joyously the dogs barked and leaped at sight of her, straining their chains in the desperate effort to approach her! How fearlessly the thorough-bred mares and foals ran to the paddock-gates to bid her welcome, bending down their velvet nostrils to nestle upon her shoulder, or respond to the touch of her caressing hand! Seeing all this, how could Talbot refrain from remembering that the same sunlight might have shone upon that dreary castle far away by the surging Western Sea? She might have been his, this beautiful creature; but at what price? At the price of honor; at the price of every principle of his mind, which had set up for himself a holy and perfect standard—a pure and spotless ideal for the wife of his choice. Forbid it, manhood! He might have weakly yielded; he might have been happy, with the blind happiness of a lotus-eater, but not the reasonable bliss of a Christian. Thank Heaven for the strength which had been given him to escape from the silken net! Thank Heaven for the power which had been granted to him to fight the battle!

  Standing by Aurora's side in one of the wide windows at Mellish Park, looking far out over the belted lawn to the glades in which the deer lay basking drowsily in the April sunlight, he could not repress the thought uppermost in his mind.

  "I am—very glad—to see you so happy, Mrs. Mellish."

  She looked at him with frank, truthful eyes, in whose brightness there was not one latent shadow.

  "Yes," she said, "I am very, very happy. My husband is very good to me. He loves—and trusts me."

  She could not resist that one little stab—the only vengeance she ever took upon him, but a stroke that pierced him to the heart.

  "Aurora! Aurora! Aurora!" he cried.

  That half-stifled cry revealed the secret of wounds that were not yet healed. Mrs. Mellish turned pale at the traitorous sound. This man must be cured. The happy wife, secure in her own strong-hold of love and confidence, could not bear to see this poor fellow still adrift.

  She by no means despaired of his cure, for experience had taught her that although love's passionate fever takes several forms there are very few of them incurable. Had she not passed safely through the ordeal herself, without one scar to bear witness of the old wounds?

  She left Captain Bulstrode staring moodily out of the window, and went away to plan the saving of this poor shipwrecked soul.

  She ran, in the first place, to tell Mr. John Mellish of her discovery, as it was her custom to carry to him every scrap of intelligence, great and small.

  "My dearest old Jack," she said—it was another of her customs to address him by every species of exaggeratedly endearing appellation; it may be that she did this for the quieting of her own conscience, being well aware that she tyrannized over him—"my darling boy, I have made a discovery."

  "About the filly?"

  "About Talbot Bulstrode."

  John's blue eyes twinkled maliciously. He was half prepared for what was coming.

  "What is it, Lolly?"

  Lolly was a corruption of Aurora, devised by John Mellish.

  "Why, I'm really afraid, my precious darling, that he has n't quite got over—"

  "My taking you away from him!" roared John. "I thought as much. Poor devil—poor Talbot! I could see that he would have liked to fight me on the stand at York. Upon my word, I pity him!" and, in token of his compassion, Mr. Mellish burst into that old joyous, boisterous, but musical laugh, which Talbot might almost have heard at the other end of the house.

  This was a favorite delusion of John's. He firmly believed that he had won Aurora's affection in fair competition with Captain Bulstrode, pleasantly ignoring that the captain had resigned all pretensions to Miss Floyd's hand nine or ten months before his own offer had been accepted.

  The genial, sanguine creature, had a habit of deceiving himself in this manner. He saw all things in the universe just as he wished to see them—all men and women good and honest; life one long, pleasant voyage, in a well-fitted ship, with only first-class passengers on board. He was one of those men who are likely to cut their throats or take prussic acid upon the day they first encounter the black visage of Care.

  "And what are we to do with this poor fellow, Lolly?"

  "Marry him!" exclaimed Mrs. Mellish.

  "Both of us?" said John, simply.

  "My dearest pet, what an obtuse old darling you are! No; marry him to Lucy Floyd, my first cousin once removed, and keep the Bulstrode estate in the family."

  "Marry him to Lucy!"

  "Yes; why not? She has studied enough, and learned history, and geography, and astronomy, and botany, and geology, and conchology, and entomology enough; and she has covered I don't know how many China jars with impossible birds and flowers; and she has illuminated missals, and read High-Church novels; so the next best thing she can do is to marry Talbot Bulstrode."

  John had his own reasons for agreeing with Aurora in this matter. He remembered that secret of poor Lucy's which he had discovered more than a year before at Felden Woods—the secret which had been revealed to him by some mysterious sympathetic power belonging to hopeless love. So Mr. Mellish declared his hearty concurrence in Aurora's scheme, and the two amateur match-makers set to work to devise a complicated man-trap, in the which Talbot was to be entangled; never for a moment imagining that, while they were racking their brains in the endeav
or to bring this piece of machinery to perfection, the intended victim was quietly strolling across the sunlit lawn toward the very fate they desired for him.

  Yes, Talbot Bulstrode lounged with languid step to meet his destiny in a wood upon the borders of the Park—a part of the Park, indeed, inasmuch as it was within the boundary fence of John's domain. The wood-anemones trembled in the spring breezes deep in those shadowy arcades; pale primroses showed their mild faces amid their sheltering leaves; and in shady nooks, beneath low spreading boughs of elm and beech, oak and ash, the violets hid their purple beauty from the vulgar eye. A lovely spot, soothing by its harmonious influence; a very forest sanctuary, without whose dim arcades man cast his burden down, to enter in a child. Captain Bulstrode had felt in no very pleasant humor as he walked across the lawn, but some softening influence stole upon him on the threshold of that sylvan shelter which made him feel a better man. He began to question himself as to how he was playing his part in the great drama of life.