Aurora Floyd

by M. E. Braddon

  "Well, I do n't think you are over valiant," answered Mr. Conyers, "to be afraid of a woman, though she was the veriest devil that ever played fast and loose with a man."

  "Shall I tell you what it is I'm afraid of?" said Steeve Hargraves, hissing the words through his closed teeth in that unpleasant whisper peculiar to him. "It is n't Mrs. Mellish. It's myself. It's this "—he grasped something in the loose pocket of his trowsers as he spoke—"it's this. I'm afraid to trust myself anigh her, for fear I should spring upon her, and cut her throat from ear to ear. I've seen her in my dreams sometimes, with her beautiful white throat laid open, and streaming oceans of blood; but, for all that, she's always had the broken whip in her hand, and she's always laughed at me. I've had many a dream about her, but I've never seen her dead or quiet, and I've never seen her without the whip."

  The contemptuous smile died away from the trainer's lips as Steeve Hargraves made this revelation of his sentiments, and gave place to a darkly thoughtful expression, which overshadowed the whole of his face.

  "I've no such wonderful love for Mrs. Mellish myself," he said; "but she might live to be as old as Methuselah for aught I care, if she'd"—he muttered something between his teeth, and walked up the little staircase to his bedroom, whistling a popular tune as he went.

  He came down again with a dirty-looking leather desk in his hand, which he flung carelessly on to the table. It was stuffed with crumpled, untidy-looking letters and papers, from among which he had considerable difficulty in selecting a tolerably clean sheet of note-paper.

  "You'll take a letter to Mrs. Mellish, my friend," he said to Stephen, stooping over the table and writing as he spoke, "and you'll please to deliver it safely into her own hands. The windows will all be open this sultry weather, and you can watch till you see her in the drawing-room; and when you do, contrive to beckon her out, and give her this."

  He had folded the sheet of paper by this time, and had sealed it carefully in an adhesive envelope.

  "There's no need of any address," he said, as he handed the letter to Steeve Hargraves; "you know who it's for, and you won't give it to anybody else. There, get along with you. She'll say nothing to you, man, when she sees who the letter comes from."

  The softy looked darkly at his new employer; but Mr. James Conyers rather piqued himself upon a quality which he called determination, but which his traducers designated obstinacy, and he made up his mind that no one but Steeve Hargraves should carry the letter.

  "Come," he said, "no nonsense, Mr. Stephen. Remember this: if I choose to employ you, and if I choose to send you on any errand whatsoever, there's no one in that house will dare to question my right to do it. Get along with you."

  He pointed as he spoke, with the stem of his pipe, to the Gothic roof and ivied chimneys of the old house gleaming among a mass of foliage. "Get along with you, Mr. Stephen, and bring me an answer to that letter," he added, lighting his pipe, and seating himself in his favorite attitude upon the windowsill—an attitude which, like everything about him, was a half careless, half defiant protest of his superiority to his position. "You need n't wait for a written answer. Yes or no will be quite enough, you may tell Mrs. Mellish."

  The softy whispered something half inaudible between his teeth; but he took the letter, and, pulling his shabby rabbit-skin cap over his eyes, walked slowly off in the direction to which Mr. Conyers had pointed, with a half contemptuous action, a few moments before.

  "A queer fish," muttered the trainer, lazily watching the awkward figure of his attendant; "a queer fish; but it's rather hard if I can't manage him. I've twisted his betters round my little finger before to-day."

  Mr. Conyers forgot that there are some natures which, although inferior in everything else, are strong by reason of their stubbornness, and not to be twisted out of their natural crookedness by any trick of management or skilfulness of handling.

  The evening was sunless, but sultry; there was a lowering darkness in the leaden sky, and an unnatural stillness in the atmosphere that prophesied the coming of a storm. The elements were taking breath for the struggle, and lying silently in wait against the wreaking of their fury. It would come by and by, the signal for the outburst, in a long, crackling peal of thunder, that would shake the distant hills and flutter every leaf in the wood.

  The trainer looked with an indifferent eye at the ominous aspect of the heavens. "I must go down to the stables, and send some of the boys to get the horses under shelter," he said; "there'll be a storm before long." He took his stick and limped out of the cottage, still smoking; indeed, there were very few hours in the day, and not many during the night, in which Mr. Conyers was unprovided with his pipe or cigar.

  Steeve Hargraves walked very slowly along the narrow pathway which led across the Park to the flower-garden and lawn before the house. This north side of the Park was wilder and less well-kept than the rest; but the thick undergrowth swarmed with game, and the young hares flew backward and forward across the pathway, startled by the softy's shambling tread. while every now and then the partridges rose in pairs from the tangled grass, and skimmed away under the low roof of foliage.

  "If I was to meet Mr. Mellish's keeper here, he'd look at me black enough, I dare say," muttered the softy, "though I a'n't after the game. Looking at a pheasant's high treason in his mind, curse him."

  He put his hands low down in his pockets, as if scarcely able to resist the temptation to wring the neck of a splendid cock-pheasant that was strutting through the high grass, with a proud serenity of manner that implied a knowledge of the game-laws. The trees on the north side of the Park formed a species of leafy wall which screened the lawn, so that, coming from this northern side, the softy emerged at once from the shelter into the smooth grass bordering this lawn, which was separated from the Park by an invisible fence.

  As Steeve Hargraves, still sheltered from observation by the trees, approached this place, he saw that his errand was shortened, for Mrs. Mellish was leaning upon a low iron gate, with the dog Bow-wow, the dog that he had beaten, at her side.

  He had left the narrow pathway and struck in among the undergrowth, in order to make a shorter cut to the flower-garden, and as he came from under the shelter of the low branches which made a leafy cave about him, he left a long track of parted grass behind him, like the track of the footstep of a tiger, or the trail of a slow, ponderous serpent creeping toward its prey.

  Aurora looked up at the sound of the shambling footsteps, and, for the second time since she had beaten him, she encountered the gaze of the softy. She was very pale, almost as pale as her white dress, which was unenlivened by any scrap of color, and which hung about her in loose folds that gave a statuesque grace to her figure. She was dressed with such evident carelessness that every fold of muslin seemed to tell how far away her thoughts had been when that hasty toilet was made. Her black brows contracted as she looked at the softy.

  "I thought Mr. Mellish had dismissed you," she said, "and that you had been forbidden to come here."

  "Yes, ma'am, Muster Mellish did turn me out of the house I'd lived in, man and boy, nigh upon forty year, but I've got a new place now, and my new master sent me to you with a letter."

  Watching the effect of his words, the softy saw a leaden change come over the pale face of his listener.

  "What new master?" she asked.

  Steeve Hargraves lifted his hand and pointed across his shoulder. She watched the slow motion of that clumsy hand, and her eyes seemed to grow larger as she saw the direction to which it pointed.

  "Your new master is the trainer, James Conyers, the man who lives at the north lodge?" she said.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "What does he want with you?" she asked.

  "I keep his place in order for him, ma'am, and run errands for him; and I've brought a letter."

  "A letter? Ah! yes, give it me."

  The softy handed her the envelope. She took it slowly, without removing her eyes from his face, but watching him with a fixed
and earnest look that seemed as if it would have fathomed something beneath the dull red eyes which met hers—a look that betrayed some doubtful terror hidden in her own breast, and a vague desire to penetrate the secrets of his.

  She did not look at the letter, but held it half crushed in the hand hanging by her side.

  "You can go," she said.

  "I was to wait for an answer."

  The black brows contracted again, and this time a bright gleam of fury kindled in the great black eyes.

  "There is no answer," she said, thrusting the letter into the bosom of her dress, and turning to leave the gate; "there is no answer, and there shall be none till I choose. Tell your master that."

  "It was n't to be a written answer," persisted the softy; "it was to be yes or no, that's all; but I was to be sure and wait for it."

  The half-witted creature saw some feeling of hate and fury in her face beyond her contemptuous hatred of himself, and took a savage pleasure in tormenting her. She struck her foot impatiently upon the grass, and, plucking the letter from her breast, tore open the envelope, and read the few lines it contained. Few as they were, she stood for nearly five minutes with the open letter in her hand, separated from the softy by the iron fence, and lost in thought. The silence was only broken during this pause by an occasional growl from the mastiff, who lifted his heavy lip and showed his feeble teeth for the edification of his old enemy.

  She tore the letter into a hundred morsels, and flung it from her before she spoke. "Yes," she said at last; "tell your master that."

  Steeve Hargraves touched his cap, and went back through the grassy trail he had left, to carry this message to the trainer.

  "She hates me bad enough," he muttered, as he stopped once to look back at the quiet white figure on the lawn, "but she hates him worse."

  CHAPTER XVIII.

  OUT IN THE RAIN.

  The second dinner-bell rang five minutes after the softy had left Aurora, and Mr. John Mellish came out upon the lawn to look for his wife. He came whistling across the grass, and whisking the roses with his pocket-hand-kerchief in very gayety of heart. He had quite forgotten the anguish of that miserable morning after the receipt of Mr. Pastern's letter. He had forgotten all but that his Aurora was the loveliest and dearest of women, and that he trusted her with the boundless faith of his big, honest heart. "Why should I doubt such a noble, impetuous creature?" he thought; "does n't every feeling and every sentiment write itself upon, her lovely, expressive face in characters the veriest fool could read? If I please her, what bright smiles light up in her black eyes! If I vex her—as I do, poor awkward idiot that I am, a hundred times a day—how the two black arches contract over her pretty impertinent nose, while the red lips pout defiance and disdain! Shall I doubt her because she keeps one secret from me, and freely tells me I must for ever remain ignorant of it, when an artful woman would try to set my mind at rest with some shallow fiction invented to deceive me? Heaven bless her! no doubt of her shall ever darken my life again, come what may."

  It was easy for Mr. Mellish to make this mental vow, believing fully that the storm was past, and that lasting fair weather had set in.

  "Lolly, darling," he said, winding his great arm round his wife's waist, "I thought I had lost you."

  She looked up at him with a sad smile.

  "Would it grieve you much, John," she said, in a low voice, "if you were really to lose me?"

  He started as if he had been struck, and looked anxiously at her pale face.

  "Would it grieve me, Lolly!" he repeated; "not for long; for the people who came to your funeral would come to mine. But, my darling, my darling, what can have made you ask this question? Are you ill, dearest? You have been looking pale and tired for the last few days, and I have thought nothing of it. What a careless wretch I am!"

  "No, no, John," she said, "I don't mean that. I know you would grieve dear, if I were to die. But suppose something were to happen which would separate us for ever—something which would compel me to leave this place never to return to it—what then?"

  "What then, Lolly?" answered her husband, gravely. "I would rather see your coffin laid in the empty niche beside my mother's in the vault yonder"—he pointed in the direction of the parish church, which was close to the gates of the Park—"than I would part with you thus. I would rather know you to be dead and happy than I would endure any doubt about your fate. Oh, my darling, why do you speak of these things? I could n't part with you—I could n't. I would rather take you in my arms and plunge with you into the pond in the wood; I would rather send a bullet into your heart, and see you lying murdered at my feet."

  "John, John, my dearest and truest," she said, her face lighting up with a new brightness, like the sudden breaking of the sun through a leaden cloud, "not another word, dear; we will never part. Why should we? There is very little upon this wide earth that money can not buy, and it shall help to buy our happiness. We will never part, darling, never."

  She broke into a joyous laugh as she watched his anxious, half-wondering face.

  "Why, you foolish John, how frightened you look!" she said. "Have n't you discovered yet that I like to torment you now and then with such questions as these, just to see your big blue eyes open to their widest extent? Come, dear; Mrs. Powell will look white thunder at us when we go in, and make some meek conventional reply to our apologies for this delay, to the effect that she does n't care in the least how long she waits for dinner, and that, on the whole, she would rather never have any dinner at all. Is n't it strange, John, how that woman hates me?"

  "Hates you, dear, when you're so kind to her!"

  "But she hates me for being kind to her, John. If I were to give her my diamond necklace, she'd hate me for having it to give. She hates us because we're rich, and young, and handsome," said Aurora, laughing, "and the very opposite of her namby-pamby, pale-faced self."

  It was strange that from this moment Aurora seemed to regain her natural gayety of spirits, and to be what she had been before the receipt of Mr. Pastern's letter. Whatever dark cloud had hovered over her head since the day upon which that simple epistle had caused such a terrible effect, that threatening shadow seemed to have been suddenly removed. Mrs. Walter Powell was not slow to perceive this change. The eyes of love, clear-sighted though they may be, are dull indeed beside the eyes of hate. Those are never deceived. Aurora had wandered out of the drawing-room, listless and dispirited, to stroll wearily upon the lawn—Mrs. Powell, seated in one of the windows, had watched her every movement, and had seen her in the distance speaking to some one (she had been unable to distinguish the softy from her post of observation)—and this same Aurora returned to the house almost another creature. There was a look of determination about the beautiful mouth (which female critics called too wide), a look not usual to the rosy lips, and a resolute brightness in the eyes, which had some significance surely, Mrs. Powell thought, if she could only have found the key to that hidden meaning. Ever since Aurora's brief illness the poor woman had been groping for this key—groping in mazy darknesses which baffled her utmost powers of penetration. Who and what was this groom, that Aurora should write to him, as she most decidedly had written? Why was he to express no surprise, and what cause could there be for his expressing any surprise in the simple economy of Mellish Park? The mazy darknesses were more impenetrable than the blackest night, and Mrs. Powell wellnigh gave up all hope of ever finding any clew to the mystery. And now, behold, a new complication had arisen in Aurora's altered spirits. John Mellish was delighted with this alteration. He talked and laughed until the glasses near him vibrated with his noisy mirth. He drank so much sparkling Moselle that his butler Jarvis (who had grown gray in the service of the old squire, and had poured out Master John's first glass of Champagne) refused at last to furnish him with any more of that beverage, offering him in its stead some very expensive Hock, the name of which was in fourteen unpronounceable syllables, and which John tried to like, but did n't.

  "We'll fil
l the house with visitors for the shooting-season, Lolly, darling," said Mr. Mellish. "If they come on the first of September, they'll all be comfortably settled for the Leger. The dear old dad will come of course, and trot about on his white pony like the best of men and bankers in Christendom. Captain and Mrs. Bulstrode will come too; and we shall see how our little Lucy looks, and whether solemn Talbot beats her in the silence of the matrimonial chamber. Then there's Hunter, and a host of fellows; and you must write me a list of any nice people you'd like to ask down here, and we'll have a glorious autumn—won't we, Lolly?"

  "I hope so, dear," said Mrs. Mellish, after a little pause, and a repetition of John's eager question. She had not been listening very attentively to John's plans for the future, and she startled him rather by asking him a question very wide from the subject upon which he had been speaking.

  "How long do the fastest vessels take going to Australia, John?" she asked, quietly.

  Mr. Mellish stopped with his glass in his hand to stare at his wife as she asked this question.

  "How long do the fastest vessels take to go to Australia?" he repeated. "Good gracious me, Lolly, how should I know? Three weeks or a month—no, I mean three months; but, in mercy's name, Aurora, why do you want to know?"

  "The average length of the voyage is, I believe, about three months; but some fast-sailing packets do it in seventy, or even in sixty-eight days," interposed Mrs. Powell, looking sharply at Aurora's abstracted face from under cover of her white eyelashes.

  "But why, in goodness name, do you want to know, Lolly?" repeated John Mellish. "You don't want to go to Australia, and you don't know anybody who's going to Australia?"

  "Perhaps Mrs. Mellish is interested in the Female Emigration movement," suggested Mrs. Powell: "it is a most delightful work."