Aurora Floyd. Volume 1

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Braddon Mary Elizabeth. Aurora Floyd. Volume 1

CHAPTER I. HOW A RICH BANKER MARRIED AN ACTRESS

CHAPTER II. AURORA

CHAPTER III. WHAT BECAME OF THE DIAMOND BRACELET

CHAPTER IV. AFTER THE BALL

CHAPTER V. JOHN MELLISH

CHAPTER VI. REJECTED AND ACCEPTED

CHAPTER VII. AURORA'S STRANGE PENSIONER

CHAPTER VIII. POOR JOHN MELLISH COMES BACK AGAIN

CHAPTER IX. HOW TALBOT BULSTRODE SPENT HIS CHRISTMAS

CHAPTER X. FIGHTING THE BATTLE

CHAPTER XI. AT THE CHÂTEAU D'ARQUES

CHAPTER XII. STEEVE HARGRAVES, THE "SOFTY."

CHAPTER XIII. THE SPRING MEETING

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Faint streaks of crimson glimmer here and there amidst the rich darkness of the Kentish woods. Autumn's red finger has been lightly laid upon the foliage – sparingly, as the artist puts the brighter tints into his picture: but the grandeur of an August sunset blazes upon the peaceful landscape, and lights all into glory.

The encircling woods and wide lawn-like meadows, the still ponds of limpid water, the trim hedges, and the smooth winding roads; undulating hill-tops, melting into the purple distance; labouring men's cottages gleaming white from the surrounding foliage; solitary roadside inns with brown thatched roofs and moss-grown stacks of lop-sided chimneys; noble mansions hiding behind ancestral oaks; tiny Gothic edifices; Swiss and rustic lodges; pillared gates surmounted by escutcheons hewn in stone, and festooned with green wreaths of clustering ivy; village churches and prim school-houses: every object in the fair English prospect is steeped in a luminous haze, as the twilight shadows steal slowly upward from the dim recesses of shady woodland and winding lane, and every outline of the landscape darkens against the deepening crimson of the sky.

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Eliza laughed at her conquest; it was only one amongst many such, which had all ended alike, – leading to nothing better than the purchase of a box on her benefit night, or a bouquet left for her at the stage-door. She did not know the power of first love upon a man of seven-and-forty. Before the week was out, Archibald Floyd had made her a solemn offer of marriage.

He had heard a great deal about her from her fellow-performers, and had heard nothing but good. Temptations resisted; insidious proffers of jewels and gewgaws indignantly declined; graceful acts of gentle womanly charity done in secret; independence preserved through all poverty and trial; – they told him a hundred stories of her goodness, that brought the blood to his face with proud and generous emotion. And she herself told him the simple history of her life: told him that she was the daughter of a merchant-captain called Prodder; that she was born at Liverpool; that she remembered little of her father, who was almost always at sea – nor of a brother, three years older than herself, who quarrelled with his father, the merchant-captain, and ran away, and was never heard of again – nor of her mother, who died when she, Eliza, was four years old. The rest was told in a few words. She was taken into the family of an aunt who kept a grocer's shop in Miss Prodder's native town. She learnt artificial flower-making, and did not take to the business. She went often to the Liverpool theatres, and thought she would like to go upon the stage. Being a daring and energetic young person, she left her aunt's house one day, walked straight to the stage-manager of one of the minor theatres, and asked him to let her appear as Lady Macbeth. The man laughed at her, but told her that, in consideration of her fine figure and black eyes, he would give her fifteen shillings a week to "walk on," as he technically called the business of the ladies who wander on to the stage, sometimes dressed as villagers, sometimes in court costume of calico trimmed with gold, and stare vaguely at whatever may be taking place in the scene. From "walking on," Eliza came to play minor parts, indignantly refused by her superiors; from these she plunged ambitiously into the tragic lead, – and thus for nine years pursued the even tenour of her way; until, close upon her nine-and-twentieth birthday, Fate threw the wealthy banker across her pathway, and in the parish church of a small town in the Potteries the black-eyed actress exchanged the name of Prodder for that of Floyd.

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