Mrs. Aylmer

“ I wonder who the girl is who is to be brought to Aylmer's Court on purpose to be wooed by Maurice Trevor."
The dinner-gong sounded, and soon Mrs. Aylmer, Trevor, and Bertha sat around the board. He chatted gaily, telling both the ladies some amusing adventures, and causing Mrs. Aylmer to laugh heartily several times.
"You are a very bad boy to stay away from me so long," she said; "but now you are not to stir: your work is cut out for you. I mean you to take complete control of the estate. To-morrow you and I will have a long conversation on the subject." ”

“ I have had a talk with Miss Aylmer, and find that she is my friend's niece. My benefactress, the lady who has adopted me, is aunt by marriage to the girl, who is now struggling hard to earn a living in London. Between that girl and starvation there is but a very thin wall. I am in a false position. I ought to have nothing to do with Mrs. Aylmer. Florence Aylmer is her rightful heiress; I am in the wrong place. ”

“ She went to the shop and even committed the great extravagance of getting a new white widow's front for her bonnet, and also a pair of new black silk gloves, and then she waited restlessly until the arrival of Mrs. Aylmer.
Mrs. Aylmer arrived in state by a train which reached Dawlish about noon, and the other Mrs. Aylmer—the poor one—and her daughter Florence watched her from afar.
"There she is," said Mrs. Aylmer the less, as she might truly be called, "there she is, Flo. She's grown stouter than ever, she promises to be a very large woman in her old age ”

“ With the morning twilight Aylmer opened his eyes upon his wife's face and recognized the symbol of imperfection, and when they sat together at the evening hearth his eyes wandered stealthily to her cheek, and beheld, flickering with the blaze of the wood-fire, the spectral hand that wrote mortality where he would fain have worshipped, Georgiana soon learned to shudder at his gaze. ”

“ Aylmer poured a small quantity of the liquid upon the soil in which it grew. In a little time, when the roots of the plant had taken up the moisture, the unsightly blotches began to be extinguished in a living verdure.
"There needed no proof," said Georgiana, quietly. "Give me the goblet. I joyfully stake all upon your word."
"Drink, then, thou lofty creature!" exclaimed Aylmer, with fervid admiration. "There is no taint of imperfection on thy spirit. Thy sensible frame, too, shall soon be all perfect." ”

“ Aylmer laughed.
"Girls always say that," she remarked, "but in the end they yield to the inevitable. It would be a splendid [Pg 18] coup; it would serve her right. She would be forced to have you living with her after all. I am told she has made the young man the heir of all she possesses, and—but what is the matter, my dear?"
"I really won't listen to another word," cried Florence, and she jumped up and ran out of the room.
Mrs. Aylmer's eyes now filled with tears. She looked full at Kitty. ”

“ Kathleen had always trusted Aylmer implicitly, and his quiet firmness had the effect of allaying her excitement, but she said with decision, "He must be carried to the Hall. No one must care for him but myself. For my sake he risked his life, dear, loving-hearted child!" ”

“ He conducted her back and took leave of her with a solemn tenderness which spoke far more than his words how much was now at stake. After his departure Georgiana became rapt in musings. She considered the character of Aylmer, and did it completer justice than at any previous moment. Her heart exulted, while it trembled, at his honorable love,—so pure and lofty that it would accept nothing less than perfection nor miserably make itself contented with an earthlier nature than he had dreamed of. ”

“ Do not repent that, with so high and pure a feeling, you have rejected the best the earth could offer. Aylmer, dearest Aylmer, I am dying!"
Alas! it was too true! The fatal hand had grappled with the mystery of life, and was the bond by which an angelic spirit kept itself in union with a mortal frame. As the last crimson tint of the birthmark—that sole token of human imperfection—faded from her cheek, the parting breath of the now perfect woman passed into the atmosphere, and her soul, lingering a moment, near her husband, took its heavenward flight. ”

“ Meanwhile Trevor went slowly back to the hotel. He had enjoyed his talk with Florence; he liked her brusque way, she did not flatter him, and she was, he considered, a particularly attractive-looking girl. In Mrs. Aylmer's society he was made a great deal of and fussed over, and when that happens to a young man he always enjoys the sort of girl who snubs him by way of contrast. He thought Mrs. Aylmer the less one of the most extraordinary women he had ever met ”

“ Only one thing remains to be tried. If that fail us, we are ruined!"
"Why did you hesitate to tell me this?" asked she.
"Because, Georgiana," said Aylmer, in a low voice, "there is danger!"
"Danger? There is but one danger—that this horrible stigma shall be left upon my cheek!" cried Georgiana. "Remove it! remove it!—whatever be the cost—or we shall both go mad!"
"Heaven knows, your words are too true," said Aylmer, sadly. "And now, dearest, return to your boudoir. In a little while, all will be tested." ”

“ Aylmer, "little Jo may be singing with the angels now."
"We must hope not, ma'am, for I want that little Jo of yours to live. She has got to live for our Miss Maggie's sake, and there is not a moment to lose; so come away, ma'am, at once."
Mrs. Aylmer stared at Waters; then, because she felt very weak, and feeble, and wretched [Pg 148] herself, she allowed the stronger woman to guide her, and the two went out without another word being said on either side. ”

“ But what chiefly, indeed almost solely, drew her attention, was the aspect of Aylmer himself.
He was pale as death, anxious and absorbed, and hung over the furnace as if it depended upon his utmost watchfulness whether the liquid which it was distilling should be the draught of immortal happiness or misery. How different from the sanguine and joyous mien that he had assumed for Georgiana's encouragement!
"Carefully now, Aminadab; carefully, thou human machine; carefully, thou man of clay," muttered Aylmer, more to himself than his assistant. ”

“ As he led her over the threshold of the laboratory, Georgiana was cold and tremulous. Aylmer looked cheerfully into her face, with intent to reassure her, but was so startled with the intense glow of the birth-mark upon the whiteness of her cheek, that he could not restrain a strong convulsive shudder. His wife fainted.
"Aminadab! Aminadab!" shouted Aylmer, stamping violently on the floor.
Forthwith, there issued from an inner apartment a man of low stature, but bulky frame, with shaggy hair hanging about his visage, which was grimed with the vapours of the furnace. ”

“ Aylmer came up in high good humour, and made the necessary introductions.
[Pg 41]
CHAPTER VI. MRS. AYLMER'S STRATEGY.
"Now, this is cosy," said the widow, "quite what I call friendly. I love these impromptu little meetings; all the stiffness which generally surrounds a first introduction must vanish when four human creatures find themselves face to face with Nature in her grandest aspects. Look at those great rolling waves, Mr. Trevor, and tell me if you ever saw anything finer in its way."
"Oh, mother, don't be a goose," said Florence. Try as she would, she could not help laughing. ”

“ When Georgiana recovered consciousness, she found herself breathing an atmosphere of penetrating fragrance, the gentle potency of which had recalled her from her death-like faintness. The scene around her looked like enchantment. Aylmer had converted those smoky, dingy, sombre rooms, where he had spent his brightest years in recondite pursuits, into a series of beautiful apartments, not unfit to be the secluded abode of a lovely woman. ”

“ In this old world of ours, however, bad people do not always receive their punishment, and it came to pass that Bertha Keys, although she had failed in the case of Cherry Court School, did manage to feather her nest and to secure a very comfortable post for herself.
So daring an adventuress was this young woman that she absolutely made up her mind to lay siege to no less a person than Mrs. Aylmer the great.
It was easy for her to do this. Mrs. Aylmer had not noticed her on that auspicious occasion when all the girls of the school were collected in Sir John Wallis's fine old house. ”

“ Aylmer raised his eyes hastily, and at first reddened, then grew paler than ever, on beholding Georgiana. He rushed towards her and seized her arm with a gripe that left the print of his fingers upon it.
"Why do you come hither? Have you no trust in your husband?" cried he, impetuously. "Would you throw the blight of that fatal birthmark over my labors? It is not well done. Go, prying woman! go!"
"Nay, Aylmer," said Georgiana with the firmness of which she possessed no stinted endowment, "it is not you that have a right to complain. You mistrust your wife ”

“ Aylmer—that Aunt Susan is staying at Dawlish?" continued Florence.
"She probably knows it by this time. Mrs. Aylmer has written her a note asking her to call to see her. She won't see you, so don't imagine it."
"I don't want to see her."
"Before your mother accepts that invitation, I want you to secure her silence; or, stay," continued Bertha briskly, "I will see her myself." She thought for a moment over a new idea which had come to her. Her lips then broke into smiles.
"How stupid of me!" she said. "I never thought of [Pg 30] your mother before; she is the very person. ”

“ That's just like Susan. Come, Flo, we'll go toward and speak to her; there's no good in having relations and keeping one's self in the background. Follow me, my dear, and pull yourself up and look as nice as you can. Everything depends on your aunt's first impression of you. Just push your hat straight—there, that's better; now come along."
Mrs. Aylmer and Florence pushed their way through a crowd of people who had just arrived, and a moment later Mrs. Aylmer the less and Mrs. Aylmer the great were shaking hands in greeting.
"How do you do, Mabel?" ”

“ For aught Georgiana knew, it might be a pavilion among the clouds. And Aylmer, excluding the sunshine, which would have interfered with his chemical processes, had supplied its place with perfumed lamps, emitting flames of various hue, but all uniting in a soft, empurpled radiance. He now knelt by his wife's side, watching her earnestly, but without alarm; for he was confident in his science, and felt that he could draw a magic circle round her, within which no evil might intrude. ”

“ Aylmer was pale; but it seemed rather the consequence of a highly wrought state of mind, and tension of spirit, than of fear or doubt.
"The concoction of the draught has been perfect," said he, in answer to Georgiana's look. "Unless all my science have deceived me, it cannot fail."
"Save on your account, my dearest Aylmer," observed his wife, "I might wish to put off this birth-mark of mortality by relinquishing mortality itself, in preference to any other mode. Life is but a sad possession to those who have attained precisely the degree of moral advancement at which I stand. ”

“ As they grew to be men, they were more or less a protection. Boys, of course, had none of the small ways of girls. A deceitful boy was a creature almost unknown."
So Mrs. Aylmer thought, and she began to look around for a suitable boy to adopt and leave her money to. No sooner did she seriously contemplate this idea than the opportunity to adopt a very special boy occurred to her. [Pg 58] She had an old friend, a great friend, a woman whom as a girl she had really loved. This woman was now a widow: she was a certain Mrs. Trevor. She had married an army man, who had died gloriously in battle. ”

“ Aylmer began.
A crimson flush overspread Geraldine's face as she pleaded, "Please do not go on. Surely, in such a case, a man should not ask more than he can give, and a woman ought to refuse anything less than an equivalent for what she bestows."
Then, as if realizing the implied confession she had made, Geraldine covered her face with her hands to hide tears of mingled pain and humiliation.
"Forgive me that I have offered you less than the best, dear Ger," said Aylmer. "Be my friend still. In friendship we shall owe each other nothing." ”

“ I can’t find any one; all the great elders have vanished. You know them of old, do not you, Lily?’
‘Of old? Yes; but of so old that I do not suppose they will know me. You must introduce me.’
He hastened them to the drawing-room, where they found Miss Aylmer, a sensible, lady-like looking person, and two brothers, of about fifteen and thirteen.
‘Well, Miss Aylmer, I have brought you two old friends; so old, that they think you have forgotten them—my cousin Lilias, and my sister Florence.’
‘We have not forgotten you, Miss Aylmer,’ said Florence, warmly shaking hands with her. ”

“ The next day, Aylmer apprised his wife of a plan that he had formed, whereby he might have opportunity for the intense thought and constant watchfulness which the proposed operation would require; while Georgiana, likewise, would enjoy the perfect repose essential to its success. They were to seclude themselves in the extensive apartments occupied by Aylmer as a laboratory, and where, during his toilsome youth, he had made discoveries in the elemental powers of nature, that had roused the admiration of all the learned societies in Europe. ”