AURORA FLOYD,

Otago Daily Times, Issue 419, 24 April 1863, Page 6

AURORA FLOYD,

Br. the Authoress of " Lady Audley's Secret."

(From Temple Bar.)

CHAPTER VI. (Continued,) REJECTED AND ACCEPTED.

She did not stir as he approached her, nor answer when he stammered her nami. Her face wa3 as white as the face of a dead woman, and her nerveless hands hung over the cushions of the arm-chair. A newspaper was lying at her feet. She had quietly swooned away sitting there by herself, with no one by to restore her to consciousness. Talbot flung some floweis from a vase on the table ' and dashed the water over Aurora's forehead; then wheeling her chair close to the open window, he set her with her face to the wind. In two or three moments she began to shiver violently, and soon afterwards opened lier eyes, and looked.at him ;as she did so she put her hands to her head, as if trying to rem pmber something. '' Talbot!" she said, " Talbot!" She called him by his Christian name, she who five-andthii'ty hours before had coldly forbidden him to hope. " Aurora," he pried, " Aurora, T thought I came here to wish your father good by ; but I deceived myself. I came to ask you once more, and once for all, if your decision of the night before last was irrevocable." " Heaven knows I thought it was when I uttered it." "But it was not?" " Do you wish me to revoke it V "Do I wish? do I--" " Becaus? if you really do. I will revoke it; for you are a brave and honorable man, Captain Bulstrode, and I love you very dearly." Heaven knows in(o what rhapsodies he might have fallen, but she put up her hand, as much as to siy " Forbear to day, if you love me," and hurried from the room. He had accepted the cup of bhang which the syren had offered, and had drained the very dregs thereof, and was drunken. He dropped into the chair in which Aurora had sat, aud absent-minded in his joyful intoxication, picked up the newspaper that ha:l lain at her feet. He shuddered iv spite of himself as he looked at the title of the journal; it was Bell's Life. A dirty copy, crumpled, and baer-stained, aud emittinsr rank oJors of interior tobacco. It wa3 directed to Miss Floyd, in such sprawling penmanship as miiiht have disgraced the potboy of a sporuncr public-house : " Miss Fioid, fell dun wodes, kent." The newspaper had been redirected to Aurora by the housekeeper at Felden. Talbot ran his eve eagerly over the front page ; it was almost entirely filled with advertisement (and such advertisements !) but in one column there was an account headeJ, " Frightful Accident in Germany : an English Jockey Killed."

Captain Bulstrode never knew why he read of this accident. It was in no way interesting to him, being an account of a steeple chase in Prussia, in which a heavy Enzlish rider and a crack French horse had been killed. There was a great deal of regret expressed for the loss of the horse, and none for tlie man who had ridden him, who, the reporter stated, was very little known in sporting circles; but in a paragraph lower down was added this information, evidently procured at the last moment: " The jockey's name was Cony era."

CHAPTER VII. AURORA'S STRANGE PENSIONER.

Archibald Floyd received the news of his daughter's choice with evident pride and satisfaction. It seemed as if some heavy burden had been taken away, as if some cruel shadow had beeu lifted from the lives of father an 1 daughter. The hanker took his family back to Fclden Woods, with Talbot Bulstrode in his train; and the chintz rooms—pretty, cheerful chambers, with bow-windows that looked across the well-kept stnble-yurd into long flailes of oak and biech —were prepared for the exus^ar, who was to spend his Christmas at I'elden. Mrs Alexander and her husliand were established with their family in the western wing; Mr and Airs Andrew were located at the eastern angle; for it was the hospitable custom of the old banker to summon his kinifb'k about him early in December, and to keep them with him till the bells of romantic Beckenham church hud heralded in the New Year.

Lucy Floyd's cheeks had lost much of their delicate color when she returned to Felden, and it was pronounced, by all who observed the change, that the air uf Hast Cliff, and t!ie autumn winds drifting acro3S ihe bleak downs, had been too much for the young lady's strength. Aurora seemed to have burst forth into some new and more glorious beauty since the morning upon which she had accepted the hand of Talbot Ualstrode. There was a proud defiance in her manner, which became her better than gentleness becomes far lovelier women. There was a h nighty insouciance about this young lady which gave new brilliancy to her great black eyes, and new music to her joyous laugh. She was like some beautiful, noisy, boiste-r rous waterfall; for ever dancing, rushing, sparkling, scintillating, and utterly defying you to do any thing: but admire it. Talbot Bulstrode, having once abandoned himself to the spell of the siren, made no further struggle, but fairly fell into the pitfalls of her

•*>•«••!, nrjfl w:im eutimgle'l i'l the meshy network of her bluc-bl-iefc h lir. The greater the ten-ion of the bow-st'-iiKr, thi? stronger the hound thereof; and 'l'albot bulstrode was as weak to give way at last as he had lonir been powerful to resist. I must write his story in the commonest words. He could not help it! He loved her: tjo't. because he thought her better, or wiser, or lovelier, or more, (suited to him than many other women, —indeed he had grave doubts upon every one of th»se points, rrbut bacause it was hia destiny, and ho loved her. What, is th-it, Iruvl word;! which M. Victor Hujo puts into the mouth of the priest in " tin? Ilunrhbiiejc of Notre Dsune" as an cx.eus;s for the darkness of h's sin 'I Anuklhcl It mm? hi* fate. .So he wrote to hi* mother, and toll her that lie had chosen a wife, whe was to sit in the halls of Bulstrode. and wh; se name was to be interwoven with the chronicles of the hou'e; told her, moreover, tint Miss Floyd was a banker's daughter, beautiful and fascinating, with big black eyes, ann fifty thousand pounds for her dowry., Lady .Raleigh Bulstrode answered her spin's letter upon a quarter of a quire of note-wiper, filled with fearful mother'v and sugaestionsj anxious hopes that he had chosen wisely; questionings as to the opinions and religions principles of the young lady,— miir-h indeed that f.il'iot would have been sorely pnzz'.od to answer. Enclosed in this was a letter to Aurora, a womanly and tsn/ler epistle in which pride was tempered with love, arid which brought big tears welling up to Miss Floyd'ii eyes, until Lady Bulstrode':? firm penmanship grew blotted and blurred beneath the r ader's vWon.

Anil whither went poor slaughtered John Mellish ? lie returned to Mellish Park, carrying with him his dogs, anil horses, find gr.ooms, and phaeton, and other pwirphernalih ; but his.grief—having unluckily come uiion him after the raeuig season —was too"much for him, and h,e'fl-*d awayyfrom the roomy old mansion, with its pleasant surroundings of park and woodland; for Aurora. Floyd was. not for him, and it wjis all flat, stale, and unprofitable. So he- went, to 'Earis, or Pnm/, a? he called that imperial, city, and established himself in the biucost clr-iin'ier at Meuriee's, and went backward* and forwards between that fgkib'ishment and'Galignani's ten1 times a day, in quest of the English papers. He dined drearily at Vefbu|i's, the Trois Freres, and ■ the Cafe-" de Parts- His

big voice was heard at every expensive diiiiiig-plsic". in Paris, ordering " T«os killt/ar de mulh/our; vous savez: " but he sent the daintiest dishes awny untast?cl, and would sit for a quarte1- of nn liour counting the toofbp'cks in the tiny blue vase*, ami thinking- of Aurora. He rode dismally in the Boh Ue Houlogne, and sat shivering in cafes c/iantantu, Jisteuitig to songs that always seemed'set to the same nieloHy. Ha haunted the circuses, and was veil nigh id love with a fair maneyu rider, who had Wac'< eyes, and reminded him of Aurora.; till, upon buying the most powerful opera-glass that the line de ftivoli could afford, ho discovered that the lady's face wa; an inch deep in a certain whitewash culie.l blanc rosati, and that the chief glory in her eyes were the rings of Indian ink which surrounded them. He could have dashed that doulile-barrelled trath-revealcr to the ground, and trodden ttie lenses to powder with his heel, in his passion of despair : bettor to have been f-r ever deceived, to have gone on believing that woman to be like Aurori.. and to have jrdne to that circus every T»>-'it until his hair grew white, but not with age, nd until he pined nwny and died. . i'ne party at Feldon Woods w;s a very joyous one. The voices of children imulij tlie house plens.mt; noisy lads from K\on and Westminister clambered about the balustrades of the staircases, and played batfcle-dore-aad-slmttlecock tipon the long stone terrace. The?e youn? peKnle were all cousins to Aurora Floyd, and loved the banker's daughter with a dullish worsliip, which mild f-ucy could never inspire. X was pleasant to T.dbot Bulstrode to see that wherever his future wife trod, love and admiration waited i.ip>u her foottep-*. He was not singular in his passion for tliis glorious creature, and it could be, after all, no EUiih terrible fjlly to love one who wa-i beloved by nil who knew her. So the proud C> luiishman was happy, and gave himself up to his happiness without furthe.- protest. Did Aurora love him 1 l)id she make him due retarn for the passionate devotion, the blind adoration ? She admired and. esteemed him ; shn was proud of him—pioud of that very pride-in his nature which made him so different to ha: self, and she was too impulsive and truthful a creatu c to keep this sentiment a secret, from her lover. She revealed, too, a constant de?irc to please her betrothed husband, suppressing at least all outward token of the tastes that were so unpleasant to him. No more copies of Bell's Life littered tlie ladies' mornirg-room at Felden: and when Andrew Floyd asked Aurora to ride to meet with him, his cousin refused the offer, which would once have been so welcome. Instead of following the Uroydon hounds, Miss Floyd was content to drive Talbot and Lucy in a basket-carriage through the frost-bespangled country-side. Lucy was always the companion and confidante of the lovers ; itwas hard for her.to hear their happy, talk nf the bright: future stretching far a>vay before, them —stretching down, down the'shadowy aisles of Time, to an eseutcheoned tomb at Jiulstrode. where husband and wife would lie down, full of years and honors, in the days to come. It was ■ hard to have to help them, plan a thousand schemes of pleasure, in which—Heaven pit.l: her! she was to join; but she bore her c;os3 meekly, this pale Elaine of modern days, and she never told Talbot Bulstrode that she had gone mad and loved him, and was fain to die.

Talbot and Aurora were both concerned to see the pale checks of their gentle companion ; but every body was ready to ascribe them to a cold, or a cough, or constitutional debility, or some other bodily evil, which was to be cured by drugs and boluses; and no one for a moment imagined that any thing could possibly be amiss with a young lady who lived in a luxurious house, went shopping in a carriage and pair, aud had more pocket-money than she cared to spend. But thn lily maid of Astolat lived in a lordly c istle, and had doubtless ample pocket-money to buy gorgeous silks Cor her embroidery, and had little on earth 10 wish for, and nothing to do; whereby shs fell sick for love of Sir Lancelot, mid pined and tiiecl.

Surely the secret of many sorrows lies in this. How many a grief Ims been bred of idleness aud leisure. How many a {Spartan youth has nursed a bosom - devouring fox for very lack of better employment.; Do the gentlemm who write the leaders iv our daily journals ever dio ufgrijf?,' Do tha barristers whose names appear in almost every case reported ia those journals go mad for love unrequited ? Did the Lady with the Lamp cherish any foolish passion in those days and nigh s of ceaseless toil, in those long watches of patient devotion far away in the ea<t 1 Do the curates of over-crowded parishes, the chaplaius of gaols anil convict-ships, the gro:it medical atfendantsin the wards of hospitals—do they make fur themselves the griefs that kill 1 Purely not. With the busiest of us there may be some holy moments, some sacred hour snatched from the noi<e and coufusion of the revolving wheel of Life's machinery, and offered up as a sacrifice to sorrow and care; but the interval is brief, and the great wheel rolls on, aud we have no time to pine or die. So Lucy Floyd, having nothing better to do, nursed and made much other hopsless passion. She setup an altar for the skeleton, and worshipped at the shrine of her grief; and when people told her of her pale face, and the family doctor wondered at the failure of hi* quinine mixture, perhaps she nourished a vague hope that before the spring-time came ba;k again, bringing with it the wedding-lay of Talbot and Aurora, she would have escape! from all this demonstrative lpye and happiness, and le-i'fcrest.

Auro:a answered JLad.yßaleigh. Bulstrode's letter with an euistle expressive of such gratitude and humility, such earnest hope of \vi ming tlie lore of Talbot's mother, mingled with a dim tan-fulness of never being worthy of that affection, as won the Cornish lady's regard for her future daughter It was difSeult to associate the impetuous girl with th it letter, and Lady Bulstnxle wade an image of the writer tfhat very much differed from the fearless aud d shing original. She wro'e Aurora a second letter, more affeetionntelywodtd than the first, and promised the jnctheriess girl a daughter's welcome at Bulstrodr.

'• Will she ever let me call her' mother,' Talbot!" Aurora asked, as she read Lady Bulsti ode's second letter to her lover: "She is very proud, ia she not —proud of your ancient descent? My father comes from a Glasgow mercantile family, and I do not even know any tiling about my mother's relations." Talbot answered her with a grave smile. •' She will accept you far your native worth, dearest Aurora," he said, "and will ask no foolish questions about the pedigree of such a man as Archibald Floyd; a man whom tlie proudest aristocrat in Knglaud might be glad to call his father-in-law. She will reverence my Aurora's transpaient soul and eanrliri nature, and will bless me for the choice. I have made."

"i shall love her very deary if she will only let me. Should I have ever cared about horse-racin" ami read sporting papers, if I could have called "a goad woman ' mother'!"

bhe seemed to ask this, question rather of herself than of Taibot.

Complete as was Arcliitia'd Floyd's satisfaction at h's daughter's disposal, of liir" heart' the old man could not calmly coutemplata a separation from this idolised daughter j so Aurora told Talbot that -he could never lake up her 'abode in Cornwall duriu" beriathero' lifetime.; und it was finally arranged that the young conple vfcre to spend half the year in London, and the other, half at Feldon Woods What need had (the lonely widower of t'hnt roo . y mansion, with its Jong picture, gallery and snug suite's of apartments, each of them'large enough to accommodate a small tamily %\ What need had one solitary old man of that retinue of servants/the costly stud in the stables, the new fangled vehicles in the coach-

houses, the hot house ttowvr^ the pinei and grapes and peaches, cultivate:! hy three Scottish garde-ierx ? What need had he nf tlvfM things 1 IU lived principally in the study, in which he uaiJ once had astirmy interview with his only child; the study in which hung the crayon pirtra't of Klizi Fljyd ; the room which contained an oM-fiishioned desx' he inul bought for a guinea in hi 3 boyhood, ani in which there were certain letters written by a hand th-it was di:ad, some tresses of purple bla<:khair out fron tin hsad of a corpip, and a pastel)-i-ird tiok t. printed at a little town in liinca-shire, calling inoi the friends and patroni of'Mi<s. Klizi Perciral to cime to the theatre, f >r her especial benefit, upon the night of August 20. 18*7.

It wai decided, therefore, that Feldon Wools was to he the country resilience of Talbot and Aurora, till such time as the young man should succeed to the bironetcy and Bulstrode Castle, and be required to live upon his estate. In the meantime the ex-hussar was to g.i into Pa-liament, if the electors of a certain little horough in Cornwall, which had always sent a Rnlstro/le to Westminster, should be pleased to return him.

The marriage was to take place eirly in May, and the honeymoon was to be spent in Switzerland and at Bulstroile Castle. Mrs Walter Powell thought that her doom was sealed, and that, she would have to quit those pleasant pastures afcer the weddiug-day : but Aurora speedily set ihe mind of the ensign's widow at rest by telling her that as she, Miss Floyd, was utterly ignorant of housekeeping, she would be happy to retain her service? after marriage as guide and adviser in such mutters.

FheAKS op LioaTNixG—ibslji .ay, a Rirvere thunder shower visited this district, and at Sandy Greek the lightning wa* well nicrh doing serious injury. If. struck the coltige of Mr Hughes, manager to the Welsh and Knglish Comi'iiiiy, knocking down part of tlie brick chimney, displacing several weatherhoards, shattering the window, making a clean breach throush the roof and sotting tire to the lining of the Mttage. Mrs Hushes, who was inside, was dreadfully frightened, but fortunately not struck, and the blazing lining was promptly extinguished by the netehbors, who rushed to the rescue. One curious circumstance was that the stock of a revolver was cleanly separated from the barrel. The storm while it lasted was one of the sharpest we have yet noticed in the colony. We have not yet heard of any other dama-re having been done.— Tarrangownr Times, 31st Much.