Sophia: A Romance
by Stanley John Weyman · English · Gutenberg #39168 · 616,188 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Sophia: A Romance
Author: Stanley John Weyman
Release date: March 16, 2012 [eBook #39168]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39168
Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SOPHIA: A ROMANCE ***
Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books
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2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
SOPHIA
By STANLEY J. WEYMAN
* * *
THE HOUSE OF THE WOLF. A Romance. With Frontispiece and Vignette.
Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25.
THE STORY OF FRANCIS CLUDDE. A Romance. With four Illustrations. Crown
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A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE. Being the Memoirs of Gaston de Bonne, Sieur de
Marsac. With Frontispiece and Vignette. Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25.
UNDER THE RED ROBE. With twelve full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo,
cloth, $1.25.
MY LADY ROTHA. A Romance of the Thirty Years' War. With eight
Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25.
FROM THE MEMOIRS OF A MINISTER OF FRANCE. With thirty-six
Illustrations. Crown 8vo, cloth, $1.25.
SHREWSBURY. A Romance. With twenty-four Illustrations. Crown 8vo,
$1.50.
THE RED COCKADE. A Novel. With 48 Illustrations by R. Caton Woodville.
Crown 8vo, $1.50.
THE CASTLE INN. A Novel. With six full-page Illustrations by Walter
Appleton Clark. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
SOPHIA. A Romance. With twelve full-page Illustrations. Crown 8vo,
$1.50.
New York: Longmans, Green, And Co.
[Illustration: "ONE MINUTE!" SHE CRIED. P. 118.]
SOPHIA
A ROMANCE
BY
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
AUTHOR OF "THE CASTLE INN," "A GENTLEMAN OF FRANCE," "UNDER THE
RED ROBE," "MY LADY ROTHA," ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
LONDON AND BOMBAY.
1900
Copyright, 1899
BY
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
* * *
Copyright, 1900
BY
STANLEY J. WEYMAN
TROW DIRECTORY
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY
NEW YORK
To
THE GRACIOUS MEMORY
OF
JAMES PAYN
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. A Little Toad.
II. At Vauxhall.
III. The Clock-maker.
IV. A Discovery.
V. The World Well Lost.
VI. A Chair and a Coach.
VII. In Davies Street.
VIII. Unmasked.
IX. In Clarges Row.
X. Sir Hervey Takes the Field.
XI. The Tug of War.
XII. Don Quixote.
XIII. The Welcome Home.
XIV. The First Stage.
XV. A Squire of Dames.
XVI. The Paved Ford.
XVII. In the Valley.
XVIII. King Smallpox.
XIX. Lady Betty's Fate.
XX. A Friend In Need.
XXI. The Strolling Players.
XXII. 'Tis Go or Swim.
XXIII. Two Portraits.
XXIV. Who Plays, Pays.
XXV. Repentance at Leisure.
XXVI. A Dragon Disarmed.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
'One Minute!' she cried.
'Sir!' Sophia cried, her cheeks burning.
Grocott ... stole forward, and ... leant over the flushed features of
the unconscious lad.
'This must be--must be stopped at once!'
'Oh, la! I don't want to stay!' Mrs. Martha cried.
'He cannot!'
'About the two guineas--you stole this morning.'
He stood, grinning in his finery, unable to say a word.
Lady Betty wasted no time on words. She was already in the water and
wading across.
'Why, Betty,' Sophia cried in astonishment, 'What is it?'
'Do you sit, and I'll make you a posy.'
Her hair ... hung undressed on her neck. He touched it gently. It was
the first caress he had ever given her.
SOPHIA
CHAPTER I
A LITTLE TOAD
In the dining-room of a small house on the east side of Arlington
Street, which at that period--1742--was the Ministerial street, Mr.
and Mrs. Northey sat awaiting Sophia. The thin face of the honourable
member for Aldbury wore the same look of severity which it had worn a
few weeks earlier on the eventful night when he had found himself
called upon to break the ties of years and vote in the final division
against Sir Robert; his figure, as he sat stiffly expecting his
sister-in-law, reflected the attitudes of the four crude portraits of
dead Northeys that darkened the walls of the dull little room. Mrs.
Northey on the other hand sprawled in her chair with the carelessness
of the fine lady fatigued; she yawned, inspected the lace of her
negligee, and now held a loose end to the light, and now pondered the
number of a lottery ticket. At length, out of patience, she called
fretfully to Mr. Northey to ring the bell. Fortunately, Sophia entered
at that moment.
"In time, and no more, miss," madam cried with temper. Then as the
girl came forward timidly, "I'll tell you what it is," Mrs. Northey
continued, "you'll wear red before you're twenty! You have no more
colour than a china figure this morning! What's amiss with you?"
Sophia, flushing under her brother-in-law's eyes, pleaded a headache.
Her sister sniffed. "Eighteen, and the vapours!" she cried scornfully.
"Lord, it is very evident raking don't suit you! But do you sit down
now, and answer me, child. What did you say to Sir Hervey last night?"
"Nothing," Sophia faltered, her eyes on the floor.
"Oh, nothing!" Mrs. Northey repeated, mimicking her. "Nothing! And
pray, Miss Modesty, what did he say to you?"
"Nothing; or--or at least, nothing of moment," Sophia stammered.
"Of moment! Oh, you know what's of moment, do you? And whose fault was
that, I'd like to know? Tell me that, miss!"
Sophia, seated stiffly on the chair, her sandalled feet drawn under
her, looked downcast and a trifle sullen, but did not answer.
"I ask, whose fault was that?" Mrs. Northey continued impatiently. "Do
you think to sit still all your life, looking at your toes, and
waiting for the man to fall into your lap? Hang you for a natural, if
you do! It is not that way husbands are got, miss!"
"I don't want a husband, ma'am!" Sophia cried, stung at length into
speech by her sister's coarseness.
"Oh, don't you?" Mrs. Northey retorted. "Don't you, Miss Innocence?
Let me tell you, I know what you want. You want to make a fool of
yourself with that beggarly, grinning, broad-shouldered oaf of an
Irishman, that's always at your skirts! That's what you want. And he
wants your six thousand pounds. Oh, you don't throw dust into my
eyes!" Mrs. Northey continued viciously, "I've seen you puling and
pining and making Wortley eyes at him these three weeks. Ay, and half
the town laughing at you. But I'd have you to know, miss, once for
all, we are not going to suffer it!"
"My life, I thought we agreed that I should explain matters," Mr.
Northey said gently.
"Oh, go on then!" madam cried, and threw herself back in her seat.
"Only because I think you go a little too far, my dear," Mr. Northey
said, with a cough of warning; "I am sure that we can count on
Sophia's prudence. You are aware, child," he continued, directly
addressing himself to her, "that your father's death has imposed on us
the--the charge of your person, and the care of your interests. The
house at Cuckfield being closed, and your brother wanting three years
of full age, your home must necessarily be with us for a time, and we
have a right to expect that you will be guided by us in such plans as
are broached for your settlement. Now I think I am right in saying,"
Mr. Northey continued, in his best House of Commons manner, "that your
sister has communicated to you the very advantageous proposal with
which my good friend and colleague at Aldbury, Sir Hervey Coke, has
honoured us? Ahem! Sophia, that is so, is it not? Be good enough to
answer me."
"Yes, sir," Sophia murmured, her eyes glued to the carpet.
"Very good. In that case I am sure that she has not failed to point
out to you also that Sir Hervey is a baronet of an old and respectable
family, and possessed of a competent estate. That, in a word, the
alliance is everything for which we could look on your behalf."
"Yes, sir," Sophia whispered.
"Then, may I ask," Mr. Northey continued, setting a hand on each knee,
and regarding her majestically, "in what respect you find the match
not to your taste? If that be so?"
The young girl slid her foot to and fro, and for a moment did not
answer. Then, "I--I do not wish to marry him," she said, in a low
voice.
"You do not wish?" Mrs. Northey cried, unable to contain herself
longer. "_You_ do not wish? And why, pray?"
"He's--he's as old as Methuselah!" the girl answered with a sudden
spirit of resentment; and she moved her foot more quickly to and fro.
"As old as Methuselah?" Mr. Northey answered, staring at her in
unfeigned astonishment; and then, in a tone of triumphant refutation,
he continued, "Why, child, what are you dreaming of? He is only
thirty-four! and I am thirty-six."
"Well, at any rate, he is old enough--he is nearly old enough to be my
father!" Sophia muttered rebelliously.
Mrs. Northey could no longer sit by and hear herself flouted. She knew
very well what was intended. She was twenty-nine, Sophia's senior by
eleven years, and she felt the imputation that bounded harmlessly off
her husband's unconsciousness. "You little toad!" she cried. "Do you
think I do not know what you mean? I tell you, miss, you would smart
for it, if I were your mother! Thirty-four, indeed; and you call him
as old as Methuselah! Oh, thank you for nothing, ma'am! I understand
you."
"He's twice as old as I am!" Sophia whimpered, bending before the
storm. And in truth to eighteen thirty-four seems elderly; if not old.
"You! You're a baby!" Mrs. Northey retorted, her face red with
passion. "How any man of sense can look at you or want you passes me!
But he does, and if you think we are going to sit by and see our plans
thwarted by a chit of a girl of your years, you are mistaken, miss.
Sir Hervey's vote, joined to the two county votes which my lord
commands, and to Mr. Northey's seat, will gain my lord a step in the
peerage; and when Coke is married to you, his vote will be ours. As
for you, you white-faced puling thing, I should like to know who you
are that you should not be glad of a good match when it is offered
you? It is a very small thing to do for your family."
"For _your_ family!" Sophia involuntarily exclaimed; the next moment
she could have bitten off her tongue.
Fortunately a glance from Mr. Northey, who prided himself on his
diplomacy, stayed the outburst that was on his wife's lips. "Allow me,
my dear," he said. "And do you listen to me, Sophia. Apart from his
age, a ridiculous objection which could only come into the mind of a
schoolgirl, is there anything else you have to urge against Sir
Hervey?"
"He's as--as grave as death!" Sophia murmured tearfully.
Mr. Northey shrugged his shoulders. "Is that all?" he said.
"Yes, but--but----"
"But what? But what, Sophia?" Mr. Northey repeated, with a fine show
of fairness. "I suppose you allow him to be in other respects a
suitable match?"
"Yes, but--I do not wish to marry him, sir. That is all."
"In that," Mr. Northey said firmly, "you must be guided by us. We have
your interests at heart, your best interests. And--and that should be
enough for you."
Sophia did not answer, but the manner in which she closed her lips,
and kept her gaze fixed steadfastly on the floor, was far from boding
acquiescence. Every feature indeed of her pale face--which only a mass
of dark brown hair and a pair of the most brilliant and eloquent eyes
redeemed from the commonplace--expressed a settled determination. Mrs.
Northey, who knew something of her sister's disposition, which was
also that of the family in general, discerned this, and could restrain
herself no longer.
"You naughty girl!" she cried, with something approaching fury. "Do
you think that I don't know what is at the bottom of this? Do you
think I don't know that you are pining and sulking for that hulking
Irish rogue that's the laughing-stock of every company his great feet
enter? Lord, miss, by your leave I'd have you to know we are neither
fools nor blind. I've seen your sighings and oglings, your pinings and
sinkings. And so has the town. Ay, you may blush"--in truth, Sophia's
cheeks were dyed scarlet--"my naughty madam! Blush you should, that
can fancy a raw-boned, uncouth Teague a fine woman would be ashamed to
have for a footman. But you shan't have him. You may trust me for
that, as long as there are bars and bolts in this house, miss."
"Sophia," Mr. Northey said in his coldest manner, "I trust that there
is nothing in this? I trust that your sister is misinformed?"
The girl, under the lash of her sister's tongue, had risen from her
chair; she tried in vain to recover her composure.
"There was nothing, sir," she cried hysterically. "But after
this--after the words which my sister has used to me, she has only
herself to thank if--if I please myself, and take the gentleman she
has named--or any other gentleman."
"Ay, but softly," Mr. Northey rejoined, with a certain unpleasant
chill in his tone. "Softly, Sophia, if you please. Are you aware that
if your brother marries under age and without his guardian's consent,
he forfeits ten thousand pounds in your favour? And as much more to
your sister? If not, let me tell you that it is so."
Sophia stared at him, but did not answer.
"It is true," Mr. Northey continued, "that your father's will contains
no provision for your punishment in the like case. But this clause
proves that he expected his children to be guided by the advice of
their natural guardians; and for my part, Sophia, I expect you to be
so guided. In the meantime, and that there may be no mistake in the
matter, understand, if you please, that I forbid you to hold from this
moment any communication with the person who has been named. If I
cannot prescribe a match for you, I can at least see that you do not
disgrace your family."
[Illustration: "SIR!" SOPHIA CRIED, HER CHEEKS BURNING]
"Sir!" Sophia cried, her cheeks burning.
But Mr. Northey, a man of slow pulse and the least possible
imagination, returned her fiery look unmoved. "I repeat it," he said
coldly. "For that and nothing else an alliance with this--this person
would entail. Let there be no misunderstanding on that point. You are
innocent of the world, Sophia, and do not understand these
distinctions. But I am within the truth when I say that Mr.
Hawkesworth is known to be a broken adventurer, moving upon sufferance
among persons of condition, and owning a character and antecedents
that would not for a moment sustain inquiry."
"How can that be?" Sophia cried passionately. "It is not known who he
is."
"He is not one of us," Mr. Northey answered with dignity. "For the
rest, you are right in saying that it is not known who he is. I am
told that even the name he bears is not his own."
"No, it is not!" Sophia retorted; and then stood blushing and
convicted, albeit with an exultant light in her eyes. No, his name was
not his own! She knew that from his own lips; and knew, too, from his
own lips, in what a world of romance he moved, what a future he was
preparing, what a triumph might be, nay, would be, his by-and-by--and
might be hers! But her mouth was sealed; already, indeed, she had said
more than she had the right to say. When Mr. Northey, surprised by her
acquiescence, asked with acerbity how she knew that Hawkesworth was
not the man's name, and what the man's name was, she stood mute. Wild
horses should not draw that from her.
But it was natural that her brother-in-law should draw his
conclusions, and his brow grew darker. "It is plain, at least, that
you have admitted him to a degree of intimacy extremely improper," he
said, with more heat than he had yet exhibited. "I fear, Sophia, that
you are not so good a girl as I believed. However, from this moment
you will see that you treat him as a stranger. Do you hear me?"
"Yes, sir. Then--then I am not to go with you this evening?"
"This evening! You mean to Vauxhall? And why not, pray?"
"Because--because, if I go I must see him. And if I see him I--I must
speak to him," Sophia cried, her breast heaving with generous
resentment. "I will not pass him by, and let him think me--everything
that is base!"
For a moment Mr. Northey looked a little nonplussed. Then, "Well, you
can--you can bow to him," he said, pluming himself on his discretion
in leaving the rein a trifle slack to begin. "If he force himself upon
you, you will rid yourself of him with as little delay as possible.
The mode I leave to you, Sophia; but speech with him I absolutely
forbid. You will obey in that on pain of my most serious displeasure."
"On pain of bread and water, miss!" her sister cried venomously. "That
will have more effect, I fancy. Lord, for my part, I should die of
shame if I thought that I had encouraged a nameless Irish rogue not
good enough to ride behind my coach. And all the town to know it."
Rage dried the tears that hung on Sophia's lids. "Is that all?" she
asked, her head high. "I should like to go if that is all you have to
say to me?"
"I think that is all," Mr. Northey answered.
"Then--I may go?"
He appeared to hesitate. For the first time his manner betrayed doubt;
he looked at his wife and opened his mouth, then closed it. At length,
"Yes, I think so," he said pompously. "And I trust you will regain our
approbation by doing as we wish, Sophia. I am sorry to say that your
brother's conduct at Cambridge has not been all that we could desire.
I hope that you will see to it, and show yourself more circumspect. I
truly hope that you will not disappoint us. Yes, you may go."
Sophia waited for no second permission. Her heart bursting, her cheeks
burning, she hurried from the room, and flew up the stairs to shut
herself in her chamber. Here, on the second floor, in a room
consecrated to thoughts of _him_ and dreams of _him_, where in a
secret nook behind the bow-fronted drawer of her toilet table lay the
withered flower he had given her the day he stole her glove, she felt
the full wretchedness of her lot. She would see him no more! Her tears
gushed forth, her bosom heaved at the thought. She would see him no
more! Or worse, she would see him only in public, at a distance;
whence his eyes would stab her for a jilt, a flirt, a cold, heartless,
worldly creature, unworthy to live in the same world, unworthy to
breathe the same air with Constancy.
And he had been so good to her! He had been so watchful, so assiduous,
so delicate, she had fondly, foolishly deemed his court a secret from
all.
The way to her heart had not been difficult. Her father's death had
cast her, a timid country girl, into the vortex of the town, where for
a time she had shrunk from the whirl of routs and masquerades, the
smirking beaux and loud-voiced misses, among whom she found herself.
She had sat mum and abashed in companies where her coarser sister
ruled and ranted; where one had shunned and another had flouted the
silent, pale-faced girl, whose eyes and hair and tall slender shape
just redeemed her from insignificance. Only Mr. Hawkesworth, the
Irishman, had discerned in her charms that in a remarkably short time
won his regards and fixed his attentions. Only he, with the
sensibility of an unspoiled Irish heart, had penetrated the secret of
her loneliness; and in company had murmured sympathy in her ear, and
at the opera, where he had not the entree to her sister's box, had
hung on her looks from afar, speaking more sweetly with his fine eyes
than Monticelli or Amorevoli sang on the stage.
For Sir Hervey, his would-be rival, the taciturn, middle-aged man, who
was Hervey to half the men about town, and Coke to three-fourths of
the women; who gamed with the same nonchalance with which he made his
court--he might be the pink of fashion in his dull mooning way, but he
had nothing that caught her eighteen-year-old fancy. On the contrary
he had a habit of watching her, when Hawkesworth was present, at the
mere remembrance of which her cheek flamed. For that alone, and in any
event, she hated him; and would never, never marry him. They might rob
her of her dear Irishman; they might break her heart--so her thoughts
ran to the tremolo of a passionate sob; they might throw her into a
decline; but they should never, never compel her to take _him!_ She
would live on bread and water for a year first. She was fixed, fixed,
fixed on that, and would ever remain so.
Meanwhile downstairs the two who remained in the room she had left
kept silence until her footsteps ceased to sound on the stairs. Then
Mr. Northey permitted his discontent to appear. "I wish, after all, I
had told her," he said, moving restlessly in his chair. "Hang it,
ma'am, do you hear?" he continued, looking irritably at his wife, "I
wish I had taken my own line, and that is a fact."
"Then you wish you had been a fool, Mr. Northey!" the lady answered
with fine contempt. "Do you think that this silly girl would rest
content, or let us rest, until you had followed her dear brother Tom,
and brought him back from his charmer? Not she! And for him, if you
are thinking of him, he was always a rude cub, and bound for the dogs
one day or other. What does it matter whether he is ruined before he
is of age or after? Eh, Mr. Northey?"
"It matters to us," Mr. Northey answered.
"It may matter ten thousand to us, if we mind our own business," his
wife answered coolly. "So do you let him be for a day or two."
"It matters as much to Sophia," he said, trying to find excuses for
himself and his inaction.
"And why not? There will be so much the more to bind Coke to us."
"He has plenty now."
"Much wants more, Mr. Northey."
"Of course the thing may be done already," he argued, striving to
convince himself. "For all we know, the match is made, and 'tis too
late to interfere. Your brother was always wilful; and it is not
likely the woman would let him go for a word. On the other hand----"
"There is no other hand!" she cried, out of patience with his
weakness. "I tell you, let be. Let the boy marry whom he pleases, and
when he pleases. 'Tis no matter of ours."
"Still I wish this tutor had not written to us."
"If the knot was not tied yesterday, there are persons enough will tie
it to-day for half a guinea!" she said. "It is not as if you were his
only guardian. His father chose another elsewhere. Let him look to it.
The girl is charge enough for us; and, for her, she benefits as much
as we do if he's foolish. I wish that were the worst of it. But I
scent danger, Mr. Northey. I am afraid of this great Teague of hers.
He's no Irishman if he doesn't scent a fortune a mile off. And once
let him learn that she is worth sixteen thousand pounds instead of six
thousand, and he'll off with her from under our very noses."
"It's that Irish Register has done the mischief!" Mr. Northey cried,
jumping up with an oath. "She's in there, in print!"
"Under her own name?"
"To be sure, as a fortune. And her address."
"Do you mean it, Mr. Northey? Printed in the book, is it?"
"It is; as I say."
"Hang their impudence!" his wife cried in astonishment. "They ought to
be pilloried! But there is just this, we can show the entry to the
girl. And if it don't open her eyes, nothing will. Do you get a copy
of the book, Mr. Northey, and we'll show it to her to-morrow, and put
her on the notion every Irishman has it by heart. And as soon as we
can we must get her married to Coke. There'll be no certainty till
she's wedded. 'Twould have been done this fortnight if he were not
just such a mumchance fool as the girl herself. He may look very wise,
and the town may think him so. But there's more than looking wanted
with a woman, Mr. Northey; and for what I see he's as big a fool as
many that never saw Pall Mall."
"I have never found him that," Mr. Northey answered with a dry cough.
He spoke with reason, for he had more than once, as heir to a peerage,
taken on himself to set Sir Hervey right; with so conspicuous a lack
of success that he had begun to suspect that his brother member's
silence was not dulness; nay, that he himself came late into that
secret. Or why was Coke so well with that great wit and fashionable,
Hanbury Williams? With Henry Fox, and my lord Chesterfield? With young
Lord Lincoln, the wary quarry of match-making mothers, no less than
with Tom Hervey, against whom no young virgin, embarking on life,
failed of a warning? Mr. Northey knew that in the company of these,
and their like, he was no favourite, whilst Coke was at home; and he
hid with difficulty a sneaking fear of his colleague.
What a man so highly regarded and so well received saw in a girl who,
in Mr. Northey's eyes, appeared every way inferior to her loud, easy,
fashionable sister, it passed the honourable member to conceive. But
the thing was so. Sir Hervey had spoken the three or four words beyond
which he seldom went--the venture had been made; and now if there was
one thing upon which Mr. Northey's dogged mind was firmly fixed, it
was that an alliance so advantageous should not be lost to the family.
"But Sophia is prudent," he said, combating his own fears. "She has
always been obedient and--and well-behaved. I am sure she's--she's a
good girl, and will see what is right when it is explained to her."
"If she does not, she will see sorrow!" his wife answered truculently.
She had neither forgotten nor forgiven the sneer about Methuselah.
"I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Northey," madam continued, "she takes
you in with her pale, peaky face and her round eyes. But if ever there
was a nasty, obstinate little toad, she is one. And you'll find it out
by-and-by. And so will Coke to his cost some day."
"Still you think--we can bend her this time?"
"Oh, she'll marry him!" Mrs. Northey retorted confidently. "I'll
answer for that. But I would not be Coke afterwards."
CHAPTER II
AT VAUXHALL
In a year when all the world was flocking to the new Rotunda in
Ranelagh Gardens, Mrs. Northey would be particular, and have her
evening party to Vauxhall. Open air was the fashion of the time, and
it was from her seat at the open window in Arlington Street that she
welcomed her guests. Thence, as each new-comer appeared she shouted
her greeting, often in terms that convulsed the chairmen at the
corner; or now and again, hanging far out, she turned her attention
and wit to the carpenters working late on Sir Robert's house next
door, and stated in good round phrases her opinion of the noise they
made. When nearly all her company were assembled, and the room was
full of women languishing and swimming, and of men mincing and
prattling, and tapping their snuff-boxes, Sophia stole in, and,
creeping into a corner, hid herself behind two jolly nymphs, who, with
hoops six feet wide and cheeks as handsome as crimson could make them,
were bandying jokes and horse-play with a tall admirer. In this
retreat Sophia fancied that she might hide her sad looks until the
party set out; and great was her dismay, when, venturing at last to
raise her eyes, she discovered that she had placed herself beside,
nay, almost touching the man whom of all others she wished to avoid,
the detested Coke; who, singularly enough, had sought the same
retirement a few moments earlier.
In the confusion of the moment she recoiled a step; the events of the
day had shaken her nerves. Then, "I beg your pardon, sir, I did not
see that you were there," she stammered.
"No," he said with a smile, "I know you did not, child. Or you would
have gone to the other end of the room. Now, confess. Is it not so?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "As you please, sir," she said, "I would
not venture to contradict you," and curtseying satirically she turned
away her face. At any rate he should lie in no doubt of her feelings.
He did not answer. And, welcome as his silence was, something like
contempt of a suitor who aspired to have without daring to speak took
possession of her. Under the influence of this feeling, embittered by
the rating she had received that morning, she fell to considering him
out of the tail of her eye, but, in spite of herself, she could not
deny that he was personable; that his features, if a trifle set and
lacking vivacity, were good, and his bearing that of a gentleman at
ease in his company. Before she had well weighed him, however, or done
more than compare him with the fop who stood before her, and whose
muff and quilted coat, long queue and black leather stock were in the
extreme of the fashion, Sir Hervey spoke again.
"Why does it not please you?" he asked, almost listlessly.
"To do what, sir?"
"To be beside me."
"I did not say it did not," she answered, looking stiffly the other
way.
"But it does not," he persisted. "I suppose, child, your sister has
told you what my views are?"
"Yes, sir."
"And what do you say?" he murmured. "That--that I am much obliged to
you, but they are not mine!" Sophia answered, with a rush of words and
colour; and, punished as she had been that morning, it must be
confessed, she cruelly enjoyed the stroke.
For a moment only. Then to her astonishment and dismay Sir Hervey
laughed. "That is what you say now," he answered lightly. "What will
you say if, by-and-by, when we know one another better, we get on as
well together as--as Lady Sophia there, and----"
"And Lord Lincoln?" she cried, seeing that he hesitated. "Never!"
"Indeed!" he retorted. "But, pray, what do you know about Lord
Lincoln?"
"I suppose you think I know no scandal?" she cried.
"I would prefer you to know as little as possible," he answered
coolly; in the tone she fancied which he would have used had she been
already his property. "And there is another thing I would also prefer
you did not know," he continued.
"Pray, what is that?" she cried, openly scornful; and she flirted her
fan a little faster.
"Mr. Hawkesworth."
The blood rushed to her cheeks. This was too much. "Are you jealous?
or only impertinent?" she asked, her voice not less furious because it
was low and guarded. "How noble, how chivalrous, to say behind a
gentleman's back what you would not dare to say to his face!"
Sir Hervey shrugged his shoulders. "He is not a gentleman," he said.
"He is not one of us, and he is not fit company for you. I do not know
what story he has told you, nor what cards he has played, but I know
that what I say is true. Be advised, child," he continued earnestly,
"and look on him coldly when you see him next. Be sure if you do
not----"
"You will speak to my sister?" she cried. "If you have not done it
already? Lord, sir, I congratulate you. I'm sure you have discovered
quite a new style of wooing. Next, I suppose, you will have me sent to
my room, and put on bread and water for a week? Or buried in a
parsonage in the country with Tillotson's Sermons and the 'Holy
Living'?"
"I spoke to you as I should speak to my sister," Sir Hervey said, with
something akin to apology in his tone.
"Say, rather, as you would speak to your daughter!" she replied, quick
as lightning; and, trembling with rage, she drove home the shaft with
a low curtsey. "To be sure, sir, now I think of it, the distance
between us justifies you in giving me what advice you please."
He winced at last, and was even a trifle out of countenance. But he
did not answer, and she, furiously angry, turned her back on him, and
looked the other way. Young as she was, all the woman in her rose in
revolt against the humiliation of being advised in such a matter by a
man. She could have struck him. She hated him. And they were all in
the same story. They were all against her and her dear Irishman, who
alone understood her. Tears rose in Sophia's eyes as she pictured her
present loneliness and her happiness in the past; as she recalled the
old home looking down the long avenue of chestnut trees, the dogs, the
horses, the boisterous twin brother, and the father who by turns had
coarsely chidden and fondly indulged her. In her loss of all this, in
a change of life as complete as it was sudden, she had found one only
to comfort her, one only who had not thought the whirl of strange
pleasures a sufficient compensation for a home and a father. One only
who had read her silence, and pitied her inexperience. And him they
would snatch from her! Him they would----
But at this point her thoughts were interrupted by a general movement
towards the door. Bent on an evening's frolic the party issued into
Arlington Street with loud laughter and louder voices, and in a moment
were gaily descending St. James's Street. One or two of the elder
ladies took chairs, but the greater part walked, the gentlemen with
hats under their arms and canes dangling from their wrists, the more
foppish with muffs. Passing down St. James's, where Betty, the fruit
woman, with a couple of baskets of fruit, was added to the company,
they crossed the end of Pall Mall, now inviting a recruit, after the
easy fashion of the day, and now hailing a friend on the farther side
of the street. Thence, by the Mall and the Horse Guards, and so to the
Whitehall Stairs, where boats were waiting for them on the grey
evening surface of the broad river.
Sophia found herself compelled to go in the same boat with Sir Hervey,
but she took good heed to ensconce herself at a distance from him;
and, successful in this, sat at her end, moody, and careless of
appearances. There was singing and a little romping in the stern of
the boat, where the ladies principally sat, and where their hoops
called for some arrangement. Presently a pert girl, Lady Betty
Cochrane, out at sixteen, and bent on a husband before she was
seventeen, marked Sophia's silence, nudged those about her, and took
on herself to rally the girl.
"La, miss, you must have been at a Quakers' meeting!" she cried,
simpering. "It is easy to see where your thoughts are."
"Where?" Sophia murmured, abashed by this public notice.
"I believe there is very good acting in--_Doblin!_" the provoking
creature answered, with her head on one side, and a sentimental air;
and the ladies tittered and the gentlemen smiled. "Have you ever been
to--Doblin, miss?" she continued, with a look that winged the
innuendo.
Sophia, her face on fire, did not answer.
"Oh, la, miss, you are not offended, I hope!" the tormentor cried
politely. "Sure, I thought the gentleman had spoken, and all was
arranged. To be sure--
"O'Rourke's noble fare
Will ne'er be forgot
By those who were there,
And those who were not!
_And those who were not!_" she hummed again, with a wink that drove
the ladies to hide their mirth in their handkerchiefs. "A fine man,
O'Rourke, and I have heard that he was an actor in--Doblin!" the
little tease continued.
Sophia, choking with rage, and no match for her town-bred antagonist,
could find not a word to answer; and worse still, she knew not where
to look. Another moment and she might even have burst into tears, a
mishap which would have disgraced her for ever in that company. But at
the critical instant a quiet voice at the stern was heard, quoting--
"Whom Simplicetta loves the town would know,
Mark well her knots, and name the happy beau!"
On which it was seen that it is one thing to tease and another to be
teased. Lady Betty swung round in a rage, and without a word attacked
Sir Hervey with her fan with a violence that came very near to
upsetting the boat. "How dare you, you horrid man?" she cried, when
she thought she had beaten him enough. "I wish there were no men in
the world, I declare I do! It's a great story, you ugly thing! If Mr.
Hesketh says I gave him a knot, he is just a----"
A shout of laughter cut her short. Too late she saw that she had
betrayed herself, and she stamped furiously on the bottom of the boat.
"He cut it off!" she shrieked, raising her voice above the laughter.
"He cut it off! He would cut it off! 'Tis a shame you will not believe
me. I say----"
A fresh peal of laughter drowned her voice, and brought the boat to
the landing-place.
"All the same, Lady Betty," the nearest girl said as they prepared to
step out, "you'd better not let your mother hear, or you'll go milk
cows, my dear, in the country! Lord, you little fool, the boy's not
worth a groat, and should be at school by rights!"
Miss Betty did not answer, but cocking her chin with disdain, which
made her look prettier than ever, stepped out, sulking. Sophia
followed, her cheeks a trifle cooler than they had been; and the
party, once more united, proceeded on foot from the river to the
much-praised groves of Pleasure; where ten thousand lamps twinkled and
glanced among the trees, or outlined the narrowing avenue that led to
the glittering pavilion. In the wide and open space before this Palace
of Aladdin a hundred gay and lively groups were moving to and fro to
the strains of the band, or were standing to gaze at the occupants of
the boxes; who, sheltered from the elements, and divided from the
humbler visitors by little gardens, supped _al fresco_, their ears
charmed by music, and their eyes entertained by the ever-changing
crowd that moved below them.
Two of the best boxes had been retained for Mrs. Northey's party, but
before they proceeded to them her company chose to stroll up and down
a time or two, diverting themselves with the humours of the place and
the evening. More than once Sophia's heart stood still as they walked.
She fancied that she saw Hawkesworth approaching, that she
distinguished his form, his height, his face amid the crowd; and
conscious of the observant eyes around her, as well as of her sister's
displeasure, she knew not where to look for embarrassment. On each
occasion it turned out that she was mistaken, and to delicious tremors
succeeded the chill of a disappointment almost worse to bear. After
all, she reflected, if she must dismiss him, here were a hundred
opportunities of doing so in greater freedom than she could command
elsewhere. The turmoil of the press through which they moved, now in
light and now in shadow, now on the skirts of the romantic, twilit
grove, and now under the blaze of the pavilion lamps, favoured the
stolen word, the kind glance, the quick-breathed sigh. But though he
knew that she was to be there, though of late he had seldom failed her
in such public resorts as this, he did not appear; and by-and-by her
company left the parade, and, entering the boxes, fell to mincing
chickens in china bowls, and cooking them with butter and water over a
lamp, all with much romping and scolding, and some kissing and
snatching of white fingers, and such a fire of jests and laughter as
soon drew a crowd to the front of the box, and filled the little
gardens on either side of them with staring groups.
Gayest, pertest, most reckless of all, Lady Betty was in her glory.
Never was such a rattle as she showed herself. Her childish treble and
shrill laugh, her pretty flushed face and tumbled hair were
everywhere. Apparently bent on punishing Coke for his interference she
never let him rest, with the result that Sophia, whose resentment
still smouldered, was free to withdraw to the back of the box, and
witness rather than share the sport that went forward. To this a new
zest was given when Lord P----, who had been dining at a tavern on the
river, arrived very drunk, and proceeded to harangue the crowd from
the front of the box.
Sophia's seat at the back was beside the head of the half-dozen stairs
that descended to the gardens. The door at her elbow was open. On a
sudden, while the hubbub was at its height, and a good half of the
party were on their feet before her--some encouraging his lordship to
fresh vagaries, and others striving to soothe him--she heard a
stealthy hist! hist! in the doorway beside her, as if some one sought
to gain her attention. With Hawkesworth in her mind she peered that
way in trembling apprehension; immediately a little white note dropped
lightly at her feet, and she had a glimpse of a head and shoulders,
withdrawn as soon as seen.
With a tumultuous feeling between shame and joy, Sophia, who, up to
this moment, had had nothing clandestine on her conscience, slipped
her foot over the note? and glanced round to see if any one had seen
her. That moment an eager childish voice cried in her ear, "Give me
that! Give it me!" And then, more urgently, "Do you hear? It is mine!
Please give it me!"
The voice was Lady Betty's; and her flushed pleading face backed the
appeal. At which, and all it meant, it is not to be denied that a
little malice stirred in Sophia's breast. The chit had so tormented
her an hour earlier, had so held her up to ridicule, so shamed her. It
was no wonder she was inclined to punish her now. "Yours, child," she
said, looking coldly at her. "Impossible."
"Yes, miss. Please--please give it me--at once, please, before it is
too late."
"I do not know that I shall," Sophia answered virtuously, from the
height of her eighteen years. "Children have no right to receive
notes. I ought to give it to your mother." Then, with an unexpected
movement, she stooped and possessed herself of the folded scrap of
paper. "I am not sure that I shall not," she continued.
Lady Betty's face was piteous. "If you do, I--I shall be sent into the
country," she panted. "I--I don't know what they'll do to me. Oh,
please, please, will you give it me!"
Sophia had a kindly nature, and the girl's distress appealed to her.
But it appealed in two ways.
"No, I shall not give it you," she answered firmly. "But I shall not
tell your mother, either. I shall tear it up. You are too young, you
little baby, to do this!" And suiting the action to the word, she tore
the note into a dozen pieces and dropped them.
Lady Betty glared at her between relief and rage. At last "Cat! Cat!"
she whispered with childish spite. "Thank you for nothing, ma'am. I'll
pay you by-and-by, see if I don't!" And with a spring, she was back at
the front of the box, her laugh the loudest, her voice the freshest,
her wit the boldest and most impertinent of all. Sophia, who fancied
that she had made an enemy, did not notice that more than once this
madcap looked her way; nor that in the midst of the wildest outbursts
she had an eye for what happened in her direction.
Sophia, indeed, had food for thought more important than Lady Betty,
for the girl had scarcely left her side when Mrs. Northey came to her,
shook her roughly by the shoulder--they had direct ways in those
days--and asked her in a fierce whisper if she were going to sulk
there all the evening. Thus adjured, Sophia moved reluctantly to a
front seat at the right-hand corner of the box. Lord P---- had been
suppressed, but broken knots of people still lingered before the
garden of the box expecting a new escapade. To the right, in the open,
fireworks were being let off, and the grounds in that direction were
as light as in the day. Suddenly, Sophia's eyes, roving moodily hither
and thither, became fixed. She rose to her feet with a cry of
surprise, which must have been heard by her companions had they not
been taken up at that moment with the arrest of a cutpurse by two
thief-takers, a drama which was going forward on the left.
"There's--there's Tom!" she cried, her astonishment extreme, since Tom
should have been at Cambridge. And raising her voice she shouted "Tom!
Tom!"
Her brother did not hear. He was moving across the open lighted space,
some fifteen paces from the box; a handsome boy, foppishly dressed,
moving with the affected indifference of a very young dandy. Sophia
glanced round in an agony of impatience, and found that no one was
paying any attention to her; there was no one she could send to call
him. She saw that in a twinkling he would be lost in the crowd, and,
acting on the impulse of the moment, she darted to the stairs, which
were only two paces from her, and flew down them to overtake him.
Unfortunately, she tripped at the bottom and almost fell, lost a
precious instant, and lost Tom. When she reached the spot where she
had last seen him, and looked round, her brother was not to be seen.
Or yes, there he was, in the act of vanishing down one of the dim
alleys that led into the grove. Half laughing, half crying, innocently
anticipating his surprise when he should see her, Sophia sped after
him. He turned a corner--the place was a maze and dimly lighted--she
followed him; she thought he met some one, she hurried on, and the
next moment was all but in the arms of Hawkesworth.
"Sophia!" the Irishman cried, pressing his hat to his heart as he
bowed before her. "Oh, my angel, that I should be so blest! This is
indeed a happy meeting."
But she was far at the moment from thinking of him. Her brother
occupied her whole mind. "Where is he," she cried, looking every way.
"Where is Tom? Mr. Hawkesworth, you must have seen him. He must have
passed you."
"Seen whom, ma'am?" her admirer asked with eager devotion. He was
tall, with a certain florid grace of carriage; and ready, for his hand
was on his heart, and his eyes expressed the joy he felt, almost
before she knew who stood before her. "If it is any one I know, make
me happy by commanding me. If he be at the ends of the earth, I will
bring him back."
"It is my brother!"
"Your brother?"
"Yes--but you would not know him," she cried, stamping her foot with
impatience. "How annoying!"
"Not know him?" he answered gallantly. "Oh, ma'am, how little you know
me!" And Hawkesworth extended his arm with a gesture half despairing,
half reproachful. "How little you enter into my feelings if you think
that I should not know _your_ brother! My tongue I know is clumsy, and
says little, but my eyes"--and certainly they dwelt boldly enough on
her blushing face, "my eyes must inform you more correctly of my
feelings."
"Please, please do not talk like that!" she cried in a low voice, and
she wrung her hands in distress. "I saw my brother, and I came down to
overtake him, and--and somehow I have missed him."
"But I thought that he was at Cambridge?" he said.
"He should be," she replied. "But it was he. It was he indeed. I ran
to catch him, and I have missed him, and I must go back at once. If
you please, I must go back at once."
"In one moment you shall!" he cried, barring the road, but with so
eloquent a look and a tone so full of admiration that she could not
resent the movement. "In one moment you shall. But, my angel, heaven
has sent you to my side, heaven has taken pity on my passion, and
given me this moment of delight--will you be more cruel and snatch it
from me? Nay, but, sweet," he continued with ardour, making as if he
would kneel, and take possession of her hand, "sweetest one, say that
you, too, are glad! Say----"
"Mr. Hawkesworth, I am glad," she murmured, trembling; while her face
burned with blushes. "For it gives me an opportunity I might otherwise
have lacked of--of--oh, I don't know how I can say it!"
"Say what, madam?"
"How I can take--take leave of you," she murmured, turning away her
head.
"Take leave of me?" he cried. "Take leave of me?"
"Yes, oh, yes! Believe me, Mr. Hawkesworth," Sophia continued,
beginning to stammer in her confusion, "I am not ungrateful for your
attentions, I am not, indeed, ungrateful, but we--we must part."
"Never!" he cried, rising and looking down at her. "Never! It is not
your heart that speaks now, or it speaks but a lesson it has learned."
Sophia was silent.
"It is your friends who would part us," he continued, with stern and
bitter emphasis. "It is your cold-blooded, politic brother-in-law; it
is your proud sister----"
"Stay, sir," Sophia said unsteadily. "She _is_ my sister."
"She is; but she would part us!" he retorted. "Do you think that I do
not understand that? Do you think that I do not know why, too? They
see in me only a poor gentleman. I cannot go to them, and tell them
what I have told you! I cannot," he continued, with a gesture that in
the daylight might have seemed a little theatrical, but in the dusk of
the alley and to a girl's romantic perceptions commended itself
gallantly enough, "put my life in their hands as I have put it in
yours! I cannot tell them that the day will come when Plomer
Hawkesworth will stand on the steps of a throne and enjoy all that a
king's gratitude can confer. When he who now runs daily, nightly,
hourly the risk of Layer's fate, whose head may any morning rot on
Temple Bar and his limbs on York Gates----"
Sophia interrupted him; she could bear no more. "Oh, no, no!" she
cried, shuddering and covering her eyes. "God forbid! God forbid, sir!
Rather----"
"Rather what, sweet?" he cried, and he caught her hand in rapture.
"Rather give up this--this dangerous life," she sobbed, overcome by
the horror of the things his words had conjured up. "Let others tread
such dangerous ways and run such risks. Give up the Jacobite cause,
Mr. Hawkesworth, if you love me as you say you do, and I----"
"Yes? Yes?" he cried; and across his handsome face, momentarily turned
from her as if he would resist her pleading, there crept a look half
of derision, half of triumph. "What of you, sweet?"
But her reply was never spoken, for as he uttered the word the
fireworks died down with startling abruptness, plunging the alley in
which they stood into gloom. The change recalled the girl to a full
and sudden sense of her position; to its risks and to its
consequences, should her absence, even for a moment, be discovered.
Wringing her hands in distress, in place of the words that had been on
her lips, "Oh, I must go!" she cried. "I must get back at once!" And
she looked for help to her lover.
He did not answer her, and she turned from him, fearing he might try
to detain her. But she had not taken three steps before she paused in
agitation, uncertain in the darkness which way she had come. A
giggling, squealing girl ran by her into the grove, followed by a man;
at the same moment a distant fanfare of French horns, with the
confused noise of a multitude of feet trampling the earth at once,
announced that the entertainment was over, and that the assembly was
beginning to leave the gardens.
Sophia's heart stood still. What if she were missed? Worse still, what
if she were left behind? "Oh," she cried, turning again to him, her
hands outstretched, "which is the way? Mr. Hawkesworth, please, please
show me the way! Please take me to them!"
But the Irishman did not move.
CHAPTER III
THE CLOCK-MAKER
It even seemed to Sophia that his face, as he stood watching her, took
on a smirk of satisfaction, faint, but odious; and in that moment, and
for the moment, she came near to hating him. She knew that in the set
in which she moved much might be overlooked, and daily and hourly was
overlooked, in the right people. But to be lost at Vauxhall at
midnight, in the company of an unauthorised lover--this had a horribly
clandestine sound; this should be sufficient to blacken the fame of a
poor maid--or her country education was at fault. And knowing this,
and hearing the confused sounds of departure rise each moment louder
and more importunate, the girl grew frantic with impatience.
"Which way? Which way?" she cried. "Do you hear me? Which way are the
boxes, Mr. Hawkesworth? You know which way I came. Am I to think you a
dolt, sir, or--or what?"
"Or what?" he repeated, grinning feebly. To be candid, the occasion
had not been foreseen, and the Irishman, though of readiest wit, could
not on the instant make up his mind how he would act.
"Or a villain?" she cried, with a furious glance. And in the effort to
control herself, the ivory fan-sticks snapped in her small fingers as
if they had been of glass. "Take me back this instant, sir," she
continued, her head high, "or never presume to speak to me again!"
What he would have said to this is uncertain, for the good reason that
before he answered, two men appeared at the end of the alley. Catching
the sheen of Sophia's hoop skirt, where it glimmered light against the
dark of the trees, they espied the pair, took them for a pair of
lovers, and with a whoop of drunken laughter came towards them. One
was Lord P----, no soberer than before; the other a brother buck
flushed with wine to the same pitch of insolence, and ready for any
folly or mischief. Crying "So ho! A petticoat! A petticoat!" the two
Mohocks joined hands, and with a tipsy view-halloa! swept down the
green walk, expecting to carry all before them.
But it was in such an emergency as this that the Irishman was at his
best. Throwing himself between the shrinking, frightened girl and the
onset of the drunken rakes, he raised his cane with an air so
determined that the assailants thought better of their plan, and,
pausing with a volley of drunken threats, parted hands and changed
their scheme of attack. While one prepared to rush in and overturn the
man, the other made a feint aside, and, thrusting himself through the
shrubs, sprang on the girl. Sophia screamed, and tried to free
herself; but scream and effort were alike premature. With a rapid
twirl Hawkesworth avoided my lord's rush, caught him by the waist as
he blundered by, and, swinging him off his legs, flung him crashing
among the undergrowth. Then, whipping out his sword, he pricked the
other who had seized Sophia, in the fleshy part of the shoulder, and
forced him to release her; after which, plying his point before the
bully's eyes, he drove him slowly back and back. Now the man shrieked
and flinched as the glittering steel menaced his face; now he poured
forth a volley of threats and curses, as it was for a moment
withdrawn. But Hawkesworth was unmoved by either, and at length the
fellow, seeing that he was not to be intimidated either by his
lordship's name or his own menaces, thought better of it--as these
gentlemen commonly did when they were resisted; and springing back
with a parting oath, he took to his heels, and saved himself down a
bypath.
The Irishman, a little breathed by his victory, wasted no time in
vaunting it. The girl had witnessed it with worshipping eyes; he could
trust her to make the most of it. "Quick," he cried, "or we shall be
in trouble!" And sheathing his sword, he caught the trembling Sophia
by the hand, and ran with her down the path. They turned a corner; a
little way before her she saw lights, and the open space near the
booths which she had seen her brother cross. But now Hawkesworth
halted; his purpose was still fluid and uncertain. But the next moment
a shrill childish voice cried "Here she is; I've found her!" and Lady
Betty Cochrane flew towards them. A little behind her, approaching at
a more leisurely pace, was Sir Hervey Coke.
Lady Betty stared at Hawkesworth with all her eyes, and giggled. "Oh,
lord, a man!" she cried, and veiled her face, pretending to be
overcome.
"I saw my brother," Sophia faltered, covered with confusion, "and ran
down--ran down to--to meet him."
"Just so! But see here, _brother!_" Lady Betty answered with a wink.
"Go's the word, now, if you are not a fool."
Hawkesworth hesitated an instant, looking from Sophia to Sir Hervey
Coke; but he saw that nothing more could be done on the occasion, and
muttering "Another time," he turned away, and in a moment was lost in
the grove.
"She was with her brother," Lady Betty cried, turning, and
breathlessly explaining the matter to Coke, who had seen all. "Think
of that! She saw him, and followed him. That's all. Lord, I wonder,"
she continued, with a loud giggle, "if they would make such a fuss if
I were missing. I declare to goodness I'll try." And, leaving Sophia
to follow with Sir Hervey, she danced on in front until they met Mrs.
Northey, who, with her husband and several of her party, was following
in search of the culprit. Seeing she was found, the gentlemen winked
at one another behind backs, while the ladies drew down the corners of
their mouths. One of the latter laughed, maliciously expecting the
scene that would follow.
But Lady Betty had the first word, and kept it. "Lord, ma'am, what
ninnies we are!" she cried. "She was with her brother. That's all!"
"Hee, hee!" the lady tittered who had laughed before. "That's good!
Her brother!"
"Yes, she was!" Betty cried, turning on her, a very spitfire. "I
suppose seeing's believing, ma'am, though one is only fifteen, and not
forty. She saw her brother going by the--the corner there, and ran
after him while we were watching--watching the---- But oh, I beg your
pardon, ma'am, you were otherwise engaged, I think!" with a derisive
curtsey.
Unfortunately the lady who had laughed had a weakness for one of the
gentlemen in company; which was so notorious that on this even her
friends sniggered. With Mrs. Northey, however, Lady Betty's advocacy
was less effective. That pattern sister, from the moment she
discovered Sophia's absence, and divined the cause of it, had been fit
to burst with spleen. Fortunately, the coarse rating which she had
prepared, and from which neither policy nor mercy could have persuaded
her to refrain, died on her shrewish lips at the word "brother."
"Her brother?" she repeated mechanically, as she glowered at Lady
Betty. "Her brother here? What do you mean?"
"To be sure, ma'am, what I say. She saw him."
"But how did she know--that he was in London?" Mrs. Northey stammered,
forgetting herself for the moment.
"She didn't know! That's the strange part of it!" Lady Betty replied
volubly. "She saw him, ma'am, and ran after him."
"Well, anyway, you have given us enough trouble!" Mrs. Northey
retorted, addressing her sister; who stood before them trembling with
excitement, and overcome by the varied emotions of the scene through
which she had passed in the alley. "Thank you for nothing, and Master
Tom, too! Perhaps if you have quite done you'll come home. Sir Hervey,
I'll trust her to you, if you'll be troubled with her. Now, if your
ladyship will lead the way? I declare it's wondrous dark of a sudden."
The party, taking the hint, turned, and quickly made its way along the
deserted paths towards the entrance. As they trooped by twos and
threes down the Avenue of Delight many of the lamps had flickered out,
and others were guttering in the sockets, fit images of wit and
merriment that had lost their sparkle, and fell dull on jaded ears.
Coke walked in silence beside his companion until a little interval
separated them from the others. Then, "Child," he said in a tone grave
and almost severe, "are you fixed to take no warning? Are you
determined to throw away your life?"
It was his misfortune--and hers--that he chose his seasons ill. At
that moment her heart was filled to overflowing with her lover, and
her danger; his prowess, and his brave defence of her. Her eyes were
hot with joyful, happy tears hardly pent back. Her limbs trembled with
a delicious agitation; all within her was a tumult of warm feelings,
of throbbing sensibilities.
For Sir Hervey to oppose himself to her in that mood was to court
defeat; it was to associate himself with the worldliness that to her
in her rapture was the most hateful thing on earth; and he had his
reward. "Throw away my life," she cried, curtly and contemptuously,
"'tis just that, sir, I am determined not to do!"
"You are going the way to do it," he retorted.
"I should be going the way--were I to entertain the suit of a spy!"
she cried, her voice trembling as she hurled the insult at him. "Were
I to become the wife of a man who, even before he has a claim on me,
dogs my footsteps, watches my actions, defames my friends! Believe me,
sir, I thank you for nothing so much as for opening my eyes to your
merits."
"Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed in despair almost comic.
"Thank you," she said. "I see your conduct is of a piece, sir. From
the first you treated me as a child; a chattel to be conveyed to you
by my friends, with the least trouble to yourself. You scarcely
stooped to speak to me until you found another in the field, and then
'twas only to backbite a gentleman whom you dared not accuse to his
face?"
As she grew hotter he grew cool. "Well, well," he said, tapping his
snuff-box, "be easy; I sha'n't carry you off against your will."
"No, you will not!" she cried. "You will not! Don't think, if you
please, that I am afraid of you. I am afraid of no one!"
And in the fervour of her love she felt that she spoke the truth. At
that moment she was afraid of no one.
"'Tis a happy state; I hope it may continue," Coke answered placidly.
"You never had cause to fear me. After this you shall have no cause to
reproach me. I ask only one thing in return."
"You will have nothing," she said rudely.
"You will grant me this, whether you will or no!"
"Never!"
"Yes," he said, "for it is but this, and you cannot help yourself.
When you have been married to that man a month think of this moment
and of me, and remember that I warned you."
He spoke soberly, but he might have spoken to the winds for all the
good he did. She was in air, picturing her lover's strength and
prowess, his devotion, his gallantry. Once again she saw the drunken
lord lifted and flung among the shrubs, and Hawkesworth's figure as he
stood like Hector above his fallen foe. Again she saw the other bully
flinching before his steel, cursing, reviling and hiccoughing by
turns, and Hawkesworth silent, inexorable, pressing on him. She forgot
the preceding moment of dismay when she had turned to her lover for
help, and read something less than respect in his eyes; that short
moment during which he had hung in the wind uncertain what course he
would take with her. She forgot this, for she was only eighteen, and
the scene in which he had championed her had cast its glamour over
her, distorting all that had gone before. He had defended her; he was
her hero, she was his chosen. What girl of sensibility could doubt it?
Coke, who left them at the door of the house in Arlington Street,
finished the evening at White's, where, playing deep for him, he won
three hundred at hazard without speaking three unnecessary words.
Returning home with the milk in the morning, he rubbed his eyes,
surprised to find himself following Hawkesworth along Piccadilly. The
Irishman had a companion, a young lad who reeled and hiccoughed in the
cool morning air; who sung snatches of tipsy songs, and at the corner
of Berkeley Street would have fought with a night chairman if the
elder man had not dragged him on by force. The two turned up Dover
Street and Sir Hervey, after following them with his eyes, lost sight
of them, and went on, wondering why a drunken boy's voice, heard at
haphazard in the street, reminded him of Sophia.
He would have wondered less and known more had he followed them
farther. At the bottom of Hay Hill the lad freed himself from his
companion's arm, propped his shoulders against the wall of Berkeley
Gardens, and with drunken solemnity proceeded to argue a point. "I
don't understand," he said. "Why shouldn't I speak to S'phia, if I
please. Eh? S'phia's devilish good girl, why do you go and drag her
off? That's what I want to know."
"My dear lad," Hawkesworth answered with patience, "if she saw you
she'd blow the whole thing."
"Not she!" the lad hiccoughed obstinately. "She's a good little girl.
She's my twin, I tell you."
"But the others were with her."
"What others?"
"Northey."
"I shall kick Northey, when I am married," the lad proclaimed with
drunken solemnity. "That's all."
"Well, you'll be married to-morrow."
"Why not to-day? That's what I want to know. Eh? Why not to-day?"
"Because the fair Oriana is at Ipswich, and you are here," the
Irishman answered with a trace of impatience in his tone. Then under
his breath he added, "D--n the jade! This is one of her tricks. She's
never where she is wanted."
In the meantime the lad had been set in motion again, and the two had
reached the end of Davies Street at the north-west corner of the
square. Here, perceiving the other mutter, Tom--for Sophia's brother,
Tom, it was--stopped anew. "Eh? What's that?" he said. "What's that
you are saying, old tulip?"
"I was saying you were a monstrous clever fellow to win her--to-day or
to-morrow," Hawkesworth answered coolly. "And I am hanged if I know
how you did it. I can tell you a hundred gay fellows in the town are
dying to marry her. And no flinchers, either."
"'Pon honour?"
"Ay, and a hundred more would give their ears for a kiss. But lord,
out of all she must needs choose you! I vow, lad," Hawkesworth
continued with enthusiasm, "it is the most extraordinary thing that
ever was. The finest shape this side of Paris, eyes that would melt a
stone, ankles like a gossamer, a toast wherever she goes, and the
prettiest wit in the world; sink me, lad, she might have had the
richest buck in town, and she chooses you."
"Might she really? Honest now, might she?"
"That she might!"
Tom was so moved by this picture of his mistress's devotion and his
own bliss that he found it necessary to weep a little, supporting
himself by the huge link-extinguisher at the corner of Davies Street.
His wig awry, and his hat clapped on the back of it, he looked as
abandoned a young rake as the five o'clock sun ever shone upon; and
yet under his maudlin tears lay a real if passing passion. "She's an
angel!" he sobbed presently. "I shall never forget it! Never! And to
think that but for you, if your chaise had not broken down at my
elbow, just when you had picked her up after the accident at
Trumpington, I should never have known her! And--and I might have been
smugging at Cambridge now, instead of waiting to be made the happiest
of men. Oriana," he continued, clinging to the railings in a tipsy
rhapsody, "most beautiful of your sex, I vow----"
A couple of chairmen and a milk-girl were looking on grinning. "There,
bed's the word now!" Hawkesworth cried, seizing him and dragging him
on. "Bed's the word! I said we would make a night of it, and we have.
What's more, my lad," he continued in a tone too low for Tom's ear,
"if you're not so cut to-morrow, you're glad to keep the house--I'm a
Dutchman!"
This time his efforts were successful. His lodging, taken a week
before in the name of Plomer, was only a few doors distant. In two
minutes he had got Tom thither; in three, the lad, divested of his
coat, boots and neckcloth, was snoring heavily on the bed; while the
Irishman, from an armchair on the hearth, kept dark watch over him. At
length he too fell asleep, and slumbered as soundly as an innocent
child, until a muffled hammering in the parlour roused him, and he
stood up yawning and looked about him. The room, stiflingly close, lay
in semi-darkness; on the bed sprawled the young runagate, dead asleep,
his arms tossed wide. Hawkesworth stared awhile, still half asleep; at
last, thirsting for small beer, he opened the door and went into the
parlour. Here the windows were open: it was high noon. The noise the
Irishman had heard was made by a man whose head and, shoulders were
plunged in a tall clock that stood in one corner. The man was kneeling
at his task mending something in the works of the clock. The Irishman
touched him roughly with his foot.
"Sink that coffin-making!" he cried coarsely. "Do you hear? Get up!"
The clock-maker withdrew his head, looked up meekly to see who
disturbed him, and--and swore. Simultaneously Hawkesworth drew back
with a cry, and the two glared at one another. Then the man on the
floor--he wore a paper cap, and below it his fat elderly face shone
with sweat--rose quickly to his feet. "You villain!" he cried, in a
voice tremulous and scarcely articulate, so great was his passion. "I
have found you at last, have I? Where's my daughter?" and he stretched
out his open hands, crook-fingered, and shook them in the younger
man's face. "Where is my daughter?"
"Lord, man, how do I know?" Hawkesworth answered. He tried to speak
lightly, but with all his impudence he was taken aback, and showed it.
"How do you know?" the clock-maker retorted, again shaking his hands
in his face. "If you don't know, who should? Who should? By heaven, if
you don't tell me, and truly, I'll rouse the house on you. Do you
hear! I'll make you known here, you scoundrel, for what you are. This
is a respectable house, and they'll have none of you. I'll so cry you,
you shall trick no man of his daughter again. No, for I'll set the
crowd on you, and mark you."
"Hush, man, hush!" Hawkesworth answered, with an anxious glance at the
door of the chamber he had left. "You do yourself no good by this."
"No; but by heaven I can do you harm!" the other replied, and nimbly
stepping to the door that led to the stairs, he opened it, and held it
ajar. "I can do you harm! A silver tankard and twenty-seven guineas
she took with her, and I'll swear them to you. By God, I will!"
Hawkesworth's face turned a dull white. Unwelcome as the meeting and
the recognition were, he had not realised his danger until now. The
awkward circumstances connected with the tankard and the guineas had
escaped his memory. Now it was clear he must temporise. "You need not
threaten," he said doggedly. "I'll tell you all I know. She's--she's
not with me; she is on the stage. She's not in London."
"She's not with you?"
"No."
"You're a liar!" the clock-maker cried, brutally.
"I swear it is true!" Hawkesworth protested.
"She is not living with you?"
"No."
"Did you marry her?"
"Ye--ye--No!" Hawkesworth answered, uncertain for a moment which reply
would be the better taken. "No; I--she left me, I tell you," he
continued hurriedly, "and went on the stage against my will."
The clock-maker laughed cunningly, and his face was not pleasant to
see. "She's not with you," he said, "she's not married to you, and
she's not in London? You deceived her, my fine fellow, and left her.
That's the story, is it? That's the story I've waited two years to
hear."
"She left me," Hawkesworth answered. "Against my will, I tell you."
"Anyway she's gone, and 'twill make no difference to her what happens
to you. So I'll hang you, you devil," the old man continued, with a
cold chuckling determination, that chilled Hawkesworth's blood. "No,
you don't," he continued, withdrawing one half of his body through the
doorway, as Hawkesworth took a step towards him. "You don't pinch me
that way! Another step, and I give the alarm."
Hawkesworth recalled the opinion he had held of this grasping old
curmudgeon, his former landlord--who had loved his gay, flirty
daughter a little, and his paltry savings more; and his heart misgave
him. The alarm once given, the neighbourhood roused, at the best, and
if no worse thing befel him, he would be arrested. Arrest meant the
ruin of his present schemes. "Oh, come, Mr. Grocott," he faltered.
"You will not do it. You'll not be so foolish."
"Why not?" the other snarled, in cruel enjoyment of his fears. "Eh!
Tell me that. Why not?"
But even as he spoke Hawkesworth saw the way out of his dilemma.
"Because you'll not do a thing you will repent all your life," he
said, his brazen assurance returning as quickly as it had departed.
"Because you'll not ruin your daughter. Have done, hold your hand,
man, and in two days I'll make her a grand lady."
"You'll marry her, I suppose," old Grocott answered with a savage
sneer.
"Yes, to a man of title and property."
"You're a great liar."
Hawkesworth spread out his hands in remonstrance. "Judge for
yourself," he said. "Have a little patience. Listen to me two minutes,
my good fellow; and then say if you'll stand in your daughter's
light."
"Hang the drab! She's no daughter of mine," the old man cried
fiercely. Nevertheless he listened, and Hawkesworth, sinking his
voice, proceeded to tell in tones, always earnest, and at times
appealing, a story that little by little won the hearer's attention.
First Grocott, albeit he listened with the same apparent incredulity,
closed the door. Later, his interest growing, he advanced into the
room. Then he began to breathe more quickly; at length, with an oath,
he struck his hand on the table beside him.
"And you say the lad is here?" he cried.
"He is here."
"Where?"
"In that room."
"By gole, let me see him!"
"If he is asleep," Hawkesworth answered, assenting with reluctance. He
crossed the room and cautiously opened the door of the chamber in
which Tom lay snoring. Beckoning the old man to be wary, he allowed
him to peer in. Grocott looked and listened, stole forward, and, like
some pale-faced ghoul, leant over the flushed features of the
unconscious lad. Then he stealthily returned to the parlour, and the
door between the two rooms was shut.
"Well," the Irishman asked, "are you satisfied?"
"What do you say his name is?"
"Maitland--Sir Thomas Maitland of Cuckfield."
"She'll be Lady Maitland?"
"To be sure."
"And what do you call--her now?" the clock-maker asked. He seemed to
find a difficulty in pronouncing the last words.
"Clark--Mistress Oriana Clark," Hawkesworth answered. "She's at
Ipswich, or was, and should be here to-morrow."
Grocott's nose curled at the name. "And what are you going to get out
of this?" he continued, eyeing the other with intense suspicion.
The Irishman hesitated, but in the end determined to tell the truth,
and trust to the other's self-interest. "A wife, and a plum," he said
jauntily. "There's a girl, his sister, I'm going to marry; she takes
ten thousand out of his share if he marries without his guardians'
consent. That's it."
[Illustration: GROCOTT ... STOLE FORWARD, AND ... LEANT OVER THE
FLUSHED FEATURES OF THE UNCONSCIOUS LAD]
"Lord, you're a rascal!" Grocott ejaculated, and stared in admiration
of the other's roguery. "To take ten thousand of my son-in-law's
money, and tell me of it to my face. By gole, you're a cool one!"
"You can choose between that and nothing," Hawkesworth answered,
confident in his recovered mastery. "You can do nothing without me,
you see. No more can Oriana."
The old man winced. Somehow the name--her name had been Sarah--hurt
him. "What's the name of--of the other one?" he said. "His
sister--that you're going to marry?"
"Sophia," the Irishman answered.
CHAPTER IV.
A DISCOVERY
The scene in the gardens had moved Sophia's feelings so deeply that,
notwithstanding the glamour Hawkesworth's exploit had cast over her, a
word of kindness addressed to her on her arrival in Arlington Street
might have had far-reaching results. Unfortunately her sister's temper
and Mr. Northey's dulness gave sweet reasonableness small place.
Scarcely had the chairmen been dismissed, the chairs carried out, and
the door closed on them before Mr. Northey's indignation found vent.
"Sophia, I am astonished!" he said in portentous tones; and, dull as
he was, he _was_ astonished. "I could not have believed you would
behave in this way!"
"The more fool you!" Mrs. Northey snapped; while the girl, white and
red by turns, too proud to fly, yet dreading what was to come, hung
irresolute at the foot of the stairs, apparently fumbling with her
hood, and really growing harder and harder with each reproach that was
levelled at her.
"After all I said to you this morning!" Mr. Northey continued, glaring
at her as if he found disobedience to orders such as his a thing
beyond belief. "When I had prohibited in the most particular manner
all communications with that person, to go and--and meet him in a
place of all places the most scandalous in which to be alone with a
man."
"La, Northey, it was that made her do it!" his wife rejoined sourly.
"Go to bed, miss, and we will talk to you to-morrow. I suppose you
thought we were taken in with your fine tale of your brother?"
"I never said it was my brother!" Sophia cried, hotly.
"Go to bed. Do you hear? I suppose you have sense enough to do that
when you are told," her sister rejoined. "We will talk to you
to-morrow."
Sophia choked, but thought better of it, and turning away, crept
upstairs. After all, she whispered, as her hands squeezed convulsively
the poor hood that had not offended her, it mattered little. If he
were good to her what recked it of others, their words, or their
opinion? What had they ever done for her that she should be guided by
them, or what, that she should resign the happiness of her life at
their bidding? They had no real care for her. Here was no question of
father or mother, or the respect due to their wishes; of kindness,
love, or gratitude. Of her brother-in-law, who bullied her in his
dull, frigid fashion, she knew little more than she knew of a man in
the street; and her sister spared her at the best a cold selfish
affection, the affection of the workman for the tools by which he
hopes he may some day profit.
Naturally, her thoughts reverted to the lover who that evening had
shown himself in his true colours, a hero worthy of any poor girl's
affection. Sophia's eyes filled with tears, and her bosom rose and
fell with soft emotion as she thought of him and pictured him; as she
flushed anew beneath his ardent glances, as she recalled the past and
painted a future in which she would lie safe in the haven of his love,
secured from peril by the strength of his arm. What puny figures the
beaux and bloods of town looked beside him! With what grace he moved
among them, elbowing one and supplanting another. It was no wonder
they gazed after him enviously, or behind his back vented their petty
spite in sneers and innuendos, called him Teague, and muttered of
Murphies and the bog of Arran. The time would come--and oh, how she
prayed it might come quickly--when the world would discover the part
he had played; when, in a Stuart England, he would stand forward the
friend of Cecil, the agent of Ormonde, and the town would recognise in
the obscurity in which he now draped himself and at which they
scoffed, the cloak of the most daring and loyal conspirator that ever
wrought for the rightful king!
For this was the secret he had whispered in Sophia's ear; this was the
explanation he had given of the cold looks men cast on him in public.
Nor was it too incredible for the belief of a romantic girl. In that
year, 1742, the air in London was full of such rumours, and London,
rumour said, was full of such men. The close of Sir Robert Walpole's
long and peaceful administration, and the imminence of war with
France, had raised the hopes of the Jacobites to the highest pitch.
Though the storm did not break in open war until three years later, it
already darkened the sky, and filled the capital with its rumblings.
Alike in the Cabinet, where changes were frequent and great men few,
and in the country where people looked for something, they hardly knew
what, unrest and uneasiness prevailed. Many a sturdy squire in
Lancashire and Shropshire, many a member at Westminster, from Shippon
and Sir Watkyn downwards, passed his glass over the water-jug as he
drank the King; and if Sophia, as she drew her withered flower from
its hiding-place, that it might lie beneath her pillow through the
night, prayed for King James and his cause, she did only what many a
pretty Jacobite, and some who passed for Whigs, were doing at the same
hour.
In the meantime, and pending the triumph for which she longed so
passionately, her dear hero's pretensions helped her not a whit; on
the contrary, were they known, or suspected, they would sink him lower
than ever in the estimation of her family. This thought it was that,
as she lay revolving matters, raised in her mind an increasing barrier
between her and her sister. The Northeys were firm Whigs, pledged not
less by interest than by tradition to the White Horse of Hanover. They
had deserted Sir Robert at his utmost need, but merely to serve their
own turn; because his faction was drooping, and another, equally
Whiggish, was in the ascendant, certainly with no view to a Stuart
Restoration. Her Hawkesworth's success, therefore, meant their defeat
and downfall; his triumph must cost them dear. To abide by them, and
abide by him, were as inconsistent as to serve God and Mammon.
Sophia, drawn to her lover by the strength of maiden fancy, saw this;
she felt the interval between her and her family increase the longer
she dwelt on the course to which her mind was being slowly moved. The
consciousness that no compromise was possible had its effect upon her.
When she was summoned to the parlour next day, a change had come over
her; she went not shyly and shamefacedly, open to cajolery and
kindness, as she had gone the previous day, when her opinion of her
lover's merit had fallen short of the wrapt assurance that this
morning uplifted her. On the contrary, she went armed with
determination as solemn in her own sight as it was provoking in the
eyes of older and more sagacious persons.
Mrs. Northey discerned the change the moment Sophia entered the room;
and she was proportionately exasperated. "Oh, miss, so you'll follow
Miss Howe, will you?" she sneered, alluding to a tale of scandal that
still furnished the text for many a sermon to the young and flighty.
"You'll take no advice!"
"I hope I shall know how to conduct myself better, ma'am," Sophia said
proudly.
Mr. Northey was less clear-sighted than his wife. He saw no change; he
thought in all innocence that the matter was where he had left it.
After clearing his throat, therefore, "Sophia," he said with much
majesty, "I hope you have recovered your senses, and that conduct such
as that of which you were guilty last night will not be repeated while
you are in our charge. Understand me; it must not be repeated. You are
country bred, and do not understand that what you did is a very
serious matter, and quite enough to compromise a young girl."
Sophia, disdaining to answer, spent her gaze on the picture above his
head. The withered flower was in her bosom; the heart that beat
against it was full of wondering pity for her sister, who had been
compelled to marry this man--this man, ugly, cold, stiff, with no
romance in his life, no secret--this man, at the touch of whose hand
she, Sophia, shuddered.
"I consider it so--so serious a transgression," Mr. Northey resumed
pompously--little did he dream what she was thinking of him--"that the
only condition on which I can consent to overlook it is that you at
once, Sophia, do your duty by accepting the husband on whom we have
fixed for you."
"No," Sophia said, in a low but determined tone, "I cannot do that!"
Mr. Northey fancied that he had not heard aright. "Eh," he said,
"you----"
"I cannot do that, sir; my mind is quite made up," she repeated.
From her chair Mrs. Northey laughed scornfully at her husband's
consternation. "Are you blind?" she said. "Cannot you see that the
Irishman has turned the girl's head?"
"Impossible!" Mr. Northey said.
"Don't you hear her say that her mind is made up?" Mrs. Northey
continued contemptuously. "You may talk till you are hoarse, Northey,
you'll get nothing; I know that. She's a pig when she likes."
Mr. Northey glowered at the girl as if she had already broken all
bounds. "But does she understand," he said, breathing hard, "that
marriage with a person of--of that class, is impossible? And surely no
modest girl would continue to encourage a person whom she cannot
marry?"
Still Sophia remained silent, her eyes steadily fixed on the picture
above his head.
"Speak, Sophia!" he cried imperatively. "This is impertinence."
"If I cannot marry him," she said in a low voice, "I shall marry no
one!"
"If you cannot marry that--that Irish footman?" he gasped, bursting
into rage. "A penniless adventurer, who has not even asked you."
"He has asked me," she retorted.
"Oh, by Gad, ma'am, I've done with you," Mr. Northey cried, striking
his fist on the table; and he added an expletive or two. "I hand you
over to madam, there. Perhaps she can bring you to your senses. I
might have known it," he continued bitterly, addressing his wife.
"Like and like, madam! It's bred in the bone, I see!"
"I don't know what you mean, Northey," his wife answered with a sneer
of easy contempt. "If you had left the matter to me from the
beginning, 'twould have been done by now. Listen to me, Miss
Obstinate. Is that the last word you'll give us?"
"Yes," Sophia said, pluming herself a little on her victory.
"Then you'll go into the country to-morrow! That's all!" was Mrs.
Northey's reply. "We'll see how you like that!"
The blow was unexpected. The girl's lips parted, and she looked wildly
at her sister. "Into the country?" she stammered.
"Ay, sure."
"To--to Cuckfield?" she asked desperately. After all, were she sent to
her old home all was not lost. He had heard her speak of it; he knew
where it was; he could easily trace her thither.
"No, miss, not to Cuckfield," her sister replied, triumphing cruelly,
for she read the girl's thoughts. "You'll go to Aunt Leah at
Chalkhill, and I wish you joy of her tantrums and her scraping. You'll
go early to-morrow; Mr. Northey will take you; and until you are away
from here I'll answer there shall be no note-palming. When you are in
a better mind, and your Teague's in Bridewell, you may come back. I
fancy you'll be tamed by that time. It will need mighty little
persuasion, I'm thinking, to bring you to marry Sir Hervey when you've
been at Aunt Leah's for three months."
Sophia's lip began to tremble; her eyes roved piteously. Well might
the prospect terrify her, for it meant not only exile from her lover,
but an exile which she saw might be permanent. For how was he to find
her? To Cuckfield, the family seat, he might trace her easily; but in
the poor hamlet on the Sussex coast, where her aunt, who had tripped
in her time and paid the penalty, dragged on a penurious existence as
the widow of a hedge-parson, not so easily. There a poor girl might
eat out her heart, even as her aunt had eaten out hers, and no redress
and no chance of rescue. Even had she the opportunity of writing to
her lover she did not--unhappy thought--know where he lived.
Mrs. Northey read her dismay, saw the colour fade in her cheek, and
the tears gather in her eyes, and with remorseless determination, with
cruel enjoyment, drove the nail home.
"There'll be no Vauxhall there," she sneered, "and mighty few drums or
routs, my dear! It's likely your first masquerade will be your last;
and for the wine-merchant actor that you were to see at Goodman's
Fields tomorrow, you may whistle for him; and for your dear Amorevoli.
It's to be hoped, Miss Lucy, you'll find your Thomas worth it," she
continued, alluding to the farce that held the town, "when you get
him." And then, changing her ground, with no little skill, "See here,
child," she said, in the tone of one willing to argue, "are you going
on with this silliness? Think, my dear, think, while it is time, for
'twill be too late at Chalkhill. You don't want to go and be buried in
that hole till your brother comes of age?"
Sophia, resentful but terrified, subdued both by the prospect and by
the appeal to her reasonableness, had hard work to refrain from tears
as she uttered her negative. "No, I--I don't want to go," she
stammered.
"I thought not; then you shall have one more chance," Mrs. Northey
answered, with a fair show of good nature. "If you'll give me your
word not to write to him, you shall have a week to think of it before
you go. But you'll keep your room--on that I must insist; there you'll
have time to think, and I hope by the end of the week you'll have come
to your senses, my dear. If not, you'll go to Aunt Leah."
The mixture of severity and kindness was clever, and it had its effect
upon poor Sophia, who stood weighing the alternatives with a rueful
face. While she remained in town, if she might not see him, she was
still near him, and he near her. She would not be lost to him nor he
to her; and then, what might not happen in a week? "I will promise,"
she murmured, in a low uncertain tone.
"Good," Mrs. Northey answered; "then you may go to your room."
And to her room Sophia would have gone, in a mood fairly open to the
influence of reason and solitude. But in an evil moment for himself
Mr. Northey, smarting under a defeat which his wife's victory rendered
the more humiliating, thought he espied an opportunity of restoring
his dignity.
"Yes, you may go," he said sourly; "but take this with you. You will
see there," he continued, fussily selecting a letter from a pile on
the table, and handing it to her, "what are the terms in which a
gentleman seeks an alliance with a lady. It is from Sir Hervey, and I
shall be much surprised if it does not produce a very different
impression on you from that which that person has made."
"I do not want it," Sophia answered; and held out the letter between
her finger and thumb, as if it had an evil odour.
"But I insist on your taking it," Mr. Northey replied with temper; and
in spite of the warnings which his wife's contemptuous shrugs should
have conveyed to him, he repeated the command.
"Then I will read it now," the girl answered, standing very upright,
"if you order me to do so."
"I do order you," he said; and still holding the folded sheet a little
from her, she opened it, and with a curling lip and half averted eye,
began to read the contents. Suddenly Mrs. Northey took fright; Mr.
Northey even was surprised by the change. For the girl's face grew red
and redder; she stared at the letter, her lips parting widely, as in
astonishment. At last, "What? What is this?" she cried, "Tom? Then it
was--it was Tom I saw last night."
"Tom!" Mr. Northey exclaimed.
"Yes, it was Tom!" Sophia cried; "and--oh, but this is dreadful! This
must be--must be stopped at once!" she continued, looking from the
paper to them and back again with distended eyes. "He is mad to think
of such a thing at his age; he is only a boy; he does not know what he
is doing." Her voice shook with agitation.
"What the deuce do you mean, miss?" her brother-in-law thundered,
rising furious from his chair. "Have you taken leave of your senses?
What do you mean by this--this nonsense."
[Illustration: "THIS MUST BE--MUST BE STOPPED AT ONCE!"]
"Mean?" his wife answered with bitter emphasis. "She means that,
instead of giving her Coke's letter, you have given her the Cambridge
letter; the letter from Tom's tutor. You have done it, like the fool
you always are, Northey."
Mr. Northey swore violently. "Give it me!" he cried harshly. "Do you
hear, girl? Give it me!" And he stretched out his hand to recover the
letter.
But something in the excess of his chagrin, or in the words of the
reproach Mrs. Northey had flung at him roused suspicion in the girl's
mind. She recoiled, holding the paper from him. "It is five days old!"
she gasped; "you have had it four days--three at least; and you have
said nothing about it. You have not told me! And you have done
nothing!" she continued, her mind jumping instinctively to the truth,
at which Mr. Northey's guilty face hinted not obscurely. "He is on the
brink of ruining himself with this woman, and you stand by though you
are told what she is, and were told three days ago. Why? Why?" Sophia
cried, as Mr. Northey, with an oath, snatched the letter from her.
"What does it mean?"
"Mean? Why, that one unruly child is enough to manage at a time!" Mrs.
Northey answered, rising to the occasion. She spoke with venom, and no
wonder; her hands tingled for her husband's ears. He had improved
matters with a vengeance. "It's fine talking, you little toad," she
continued, with a show of reason; "but if you don't listen to sense
who are here, how are we to persuade him, and he not here? Tell me
that, miss. A nice pattern of discretion and prudence you are to talk.
Hang your impudence!"
"But you have done nothing," Sophia wailed, her affection for her
brother keeping her to the point. "And I saw him last night; it was he
whom I saw at Vauxhall. I could have spoken to him, and I am sure he
would have listened to me."
"Listened to his grandmother!" Mrs. Northey retorted, with acrid
contempt. "We have done what we think right, and that is enough for
you, you baby. A nasty disobedient little toad, running into the very
same folly yourself, and then prating of us, and what we should do!
Hang your fine talking; I've no patience with you, and so I tell you,
miss."
"But," Sophia said slowly, her voice grown timid, "I don't
understand----"
"Who cares whether you understand!"
"Why--why you make so much of marrying me the way you wish, and yet
let him go his way? If he does this, you'll get some of his money I
know, but it cannot be that. It couldn't be that. And yet--and
yet--" she cried, with a sudden flush of generous indignation, as
conviction was borne in upon her by Mr. Northey's hang-dog
face--"yes, it is that! Oh, for shame! for shame! Are you his sister,
and will ruin him? Will ruin him for the sake of--of money!"
"Silence, you minx!" Mrs. Northey cried; and she rose, her face white
with rage, and seizing her sister's arm, she shook her violently. "How
dare you say such things? Do you hear? Be silent!"
But Sophia was beside herself with passion, she would not be silent.
Neither the dead Northeys on the walls, nor the living sister should
stifle the expression of her feelings.
"I take back my promise," she cried, panting with excitement; her
words were scarcely coherent. "Do you hear? Do you understand? I
promise nothing after this. You may beat me if you like; you may lock
me up, it will be all the same. I'll go into the country to-morrow,
but I'll make no promise. I shall see Hawkesworth if I can! I shall
run away to him if I can! I'd rather do anything--anything in the
world after this, than go on living with you."
"You'll not go on living with me!" Mrs. Northey answered through
pinched lips, and her eyes glittered after an ugly fashion. "I'll see
to that, you little scald-tongue! You'll go to Aunt Leah and feed
pigs, and do plain-stitch; I hope it may agree with those dainty hands
of yours. And you'll run away from there if you can. She'll see to
that. I'll be bound she'll break some of that pretty spirit of yours,
grand as you think yourself. So because your precious Tom chooses to
take up with some drab or other, you put it on us, do you? Go, you
little vixen," Mrs. Northey continued harshly, "go to your room before
I do you a mischief! You'll not promise, but the key shall. Up, miss,
up, we will have no more of your tantrums!"
Reduced to tears, and broken down by the violence of her emotions,
Sophia asked nothing better than to escape, and be alone with her
misery. She turned, and as quickly as she could she hurried from the
room. Fast as she went, however, Mrs. Northey pushed after her,
treading on her heels, and forcing her on. What passed between them
Mr. Northey could not hear, but in no long time Mrs. Northey was down
again, and flung a key on the table. "There," she cried, her nose
twitching with the constraint she put upon her rage. "And what do you
think of your management now, Mr. Imbecile?"
"I always said," he answered sullenly, "that we ought to tell her."
"You always said."
"Yes, I did."
"_You_ always said!" his wife cried, her eyes flashing with the scorn
she made no attempt to hide. "And was not that a very good reason for
doing the other thing? Wasn't it, Mr. Northey? Wasn't it? Oh, Lord!
why did God give me a fool for a husband?"
CHAPTER V
THE WORLD WELL LOST
Mrs. Northey was no novice. She knew something of intrigue, something
of her sex. Her first step was to discharge Sophia's woman, a village
maid, who had come with her young mistress from the country. The key
of the offender's chamber was then intrusted to madam's own woman,
Mrs. Martha, a sour spinster, matured not by years only, but by an
unfortunate experience of the other sex, which secured her from the
danger of erring on the side of leniency where they were concerned.
Mr. Northey could not immediately leave London, therefore it was
necessary that arrangements for the culprit's transport to the surer
custody of Aunt Leah at Chalkhill should be postponed, but all that
Mrs. Northey could do short of this she did. And these dispositions
made, she prepared to await events with a mind tolerably at ease.
In every net, however, there are meshes, and small is the mesh through
which a large fish cannot escape. It is probable that poor blubbering
Dolly, the dismissed maid, innocent as she declared herself, was in
somebody's pay, and knew where information could be sold. For before
Sophia had been confined to her room for four hours, before the first
passionate tears were dried on her cheeks, a clock-maker, who had come
in to regulate the tall clock on the stairs, made the odd mistake of
mounting, when no one was looking, to the second floor. A moment later
a fingernail scraped Sophia's door, a note was thrust under it, and
deftly as he had come, the workman, a pale, fat, elderly man, crept
down again. He made little noise, for, to save his honour's drugget,
he had left his boots in the hall.
Sophia, recovering from a momentary astonishment, pounced on the note,
opened it and read it; and, alas for her discretion, her eyes sparkled
through her tears as she did so. Thus it ran:--
"Sweetest and Best Beloved of your Sex,--
"The raptures of my heart when my eyes dwell on yours cannot be
hidden, and must have convinced you that on you depends the life or
death, happiness or misery, of your Hector. If you will, you can
plunge me into an abyss of hopelessness, in which I must spend the
rest of my existence; or if you will, you can make me in possessing
you the happiest, as I am already in aspiring to you the boldest, of
mankind. Oh, my Sophia, dare I call you that? Can such bliss be
reserved for me? Can it be my lot to spend existence in the worship of
those charms, for which the adoration of the longest life passed in
thinking of you and serving you were an inadequate price! May I dream
that I shall one day be the most enviable of men? If so, there is but
one course to be taken. Fly, dearest, fly, your cruel relatives, who
have already immured you, and will presently sacrifice you, innocent
and spotless, on the vile altar of their ambition. Hold a white
handkerchief against your window at six this evening, and the rest is
easy. At dusk the day after to-morrow--so much time I need--I will
find means to remove you. A few minutes later, Dr. Keith, of Mayfair
Chapel, a reverend divine, who will be in waiting at my lodging, will
unite you in indissoluble bonds to one whose every thought
thenceforth--not given to his King--will be consecrated to the
happiness of his Sophia.
"Already my heart beats with rapture; I swoon at the thought. The pen
falls from the hand of your humble, adoring lover,
"HECTOR (Count Plomer)."
Need we wonder that Sophia held the letter from her and held it to
her, scanned it this way, and scanned it that way, kissed it, and
kissed it again; finally, with a glance at the door, hid it jealously
within her dress? She would have done these things had she been as
much in the dark about Tom, and the machinations formed to rob him, as
she had been when she rose that morning. But she would have halted
there. She would have pardoned her lover his boldness, perhaps have
liked him the better for it; but she would not have granted his
prayer. Now, her one aspiration was for the moment when she might take
the leap. Her one feeling was impatience for the hour when she might
give the signal of surrender. The pillars of her house were shaken;
her faith in her sister, in her friends, in her home was gone. Only
her lover remained, and if he were not to be trusted she had no one.
She did not tell herself that girls had done this thing before, maiden
modesty notwithstanding, and had found no cause to repent their
confidence; for her determination needed no buttressing. Her cheek
flamed, and she thrilled and trembled from head to foot as she
pictured the life to which she was flying; but the cheek flamed as
hotly when she painted the past and the intolerable craft and coldness
of the world on which she turned her back.
The window of her room looked into Arlington Street. She stood at it
gazing down on the stand of chairmen and sedans that stretched up to
Portugal Street, a thoroughfare now part of Piccadilly. The end of the
scaffolding outside Sir Robert Walpole's new house--the house next
door--came within a few feet of the sill on which she leaned; the
hoarse, beery voices of the workmen, and the clangour of the hammers,
were destined to recall that day to her as long as she lived. Yet for
the time she was scarcely conscious of the noise, so close was the
attention with which she surveyed the street. Below, as on other days,
beaux sauntered round the corner of Bennet Street on their way to
White's, or stood to speak to a pretty woman in a chair. Country folk
paused to look at Sir Bluestring's new house; a lad went up and down
crying the _Evening Post_, and at the corner at the lower end of
Arlington Street, then open at the south, a group of boys sat gambling
for half-pence.
Sophia saw all this, but she saw no sign of him she sought, though St.
James's clock tolled the three quarters after five. Eagerly she looked
everywhere, her heart beating quickly. Surely Hawkesworth would be
there to see the signal, and to learn his happiness with his own eyes?
She leaned forward, then on a sudden she recoiled; Sir Hervey Coke,
passing on the other side, had looked up; he knew, then, that she was
a prisoner! Her woman's pride rebelled at the thought, and hot with
anger she stood awhile in the middle of the room. Whereon St. James's
clock struck six; it was the hour appointed. Without hesitation,
without the loss of a moment, Sophia sprang to the window, and with a
steady hand pressed her handkerchief to the pane. The die was cast.
She thought that on that something would happen; she felt sure that
she would see him, would catch his eye, would receive some mark of his
gratitude. But she was disappointed; and in a minute or two, after
gazing with a bold bashfulness this way and that, she went back into
the room, her spirits feeling the reaction. For eight and forty hours
from this she had naught to do but wait; for all that time she was
doomed to inaction. It seemed scarcely possible that she could wait so
long; scarcely possible that she could possess herself in patience.
The first hour indeed tried her so sharply that when Mrs. Martha
brought her supper she was ready to be humble even to her, for the
sake of five minutes' intercourse.
But Mrs. Martha's conversation was as meagre as the meal she brought,
and the girl had to pass the night as best she could. Next morning,
however, when the woman--after jealously unlocking the door and
securing it behind her after a fashion that shook the girl with
rage--set down her breakfast, the crabbed old maid was more
communicative.
"Thank the Lord, it is a'most the last time I shall have to climb
those stairs," she grumbled. "Aye, you may look, miss"--for Sophia was
gazing at her resentfully enough--"and think yourself mighty clever!
It's little you think of the trouble your fancies give such as me.
There!" putting down the tray. "You may take your fill of that and not
burst, either. Maybe 'tain't delicate enough for your stomach, but
'twas none of my putting."
Sophia was hungry and the meal was scanty, but pride made her avert
her eyes. "Why is it almost the last time?" she asked sharply. "If
they think they can break my spirit by starving me----"
"Hoity toity!" the woman said, with more than a smack of insolence.
"I'd keep my breath to cool my porridge if I were you! Lord, I
wouldn't have your hot temper, miss, for something. But 'twon't help
you much with your Aunt Leah, from all I hear. They say she was just
such a one as you once, and wilful is no word for her."
Sophia's heart began to beat. "Am I to go to her?" she asked.
"Aye, that you are, and the sooner the better for my legs, miss!"
"When?" Sophia's voice was low.
"To-morrow, no later. The chaise is ordered for six. His honour will
take you himself, and I doubt you'll wish you'd brought your pigs to
another market before you've been there many days. Leastways, from
what I hear. 'Tis no place for a decent Christian, I'm told," the
woman continued, spitefully enjoying the dismay which Sophia could not
conceal. "Just thatch and hogs and mud to your knees, and never a
wheeled thing, John says, in the place, nor a road, nor a mug of beer
to be called beer. All poor as rats, and no one better than the other,
as how should they be and six miles of a pack-road to the nearest
highway? You'll whistle for your lover there, miss."
Sophia swallowed her rage. "Go down!" she said.
[Illustration: "OH, LA! I DON'T WANT TO STAY!" MRS. MARTHA CRIED]
"Oh, la! I don't want to stay!" Mrs. Martha cried, tossing her head.
"It's not for my own amusement I've stayed so long. And no thanks for
my kindness, either! I've my own good dinner downstairs, and the
longer I'm here the cooler it'll be. Which some people like their
dinner hot and behave themselves accordingly. But I know my duty, and
by your leave, miss, I shall do it."
She bounced out of the room with that and turned the key on the
outside with a noisy care that hurt the ear if it did not wound the
spirit. "Nasty proud-stomached thing!" she muttered as she descended
the stairs. "I hope Madam Leah will teach her what's what! And for all
she's monstrous high now, I warrant she'll come to eating breast of
veal as well as another. And glad to get it. What Sir 'Ervey can see
in her passes me, but men and fools are all one, and it takes mighty
little to tickle them if it be red and white. For my part I'm glad to
be rid of her. One's tantrums is as much as I can put up with, duty or
no duty."
Mrs. Martha might have taken the matter more easily had she known what
was passing in the locked room she had left. Sophia's indifference was
gone; she paced the floor in a fever of uncertainty. How was she to
communicate with her lover? How tell him that his plans were
forestalled, and that on the morrow, hours before his arrangements
were mature, she would be whisked away and buried in the depths of the
country, in a spot the most remote from the world? True, at the foot
of his letter was the address of his lodging--at Mr. Wollenhope's in
Davies Street, near Berkeley Square. And Dolly--though Sophia had
never yet stooped to use her--might this evening have got a letter to
him. But Dolly was gone; Dolly and all her friends were far away, and
Mrs. Martha was stone. Sophia wrung her hands as she walked feverishly
from door to window.
She knew nothing of the hundred channels through which a man of the
world could trace her. To her eyes the door of Chalkhill bore the
legend Dante had made famous. To her mind, to go to Aunt Leah was to
be lost to her lover, to be lost to the world. And yet what chance of
escape remained? Vainly thinking, vainly groping, she hung at the
window tearing a handkerchief to pieces, while her eyes raked the
street below for the least sign of him she sought. There were the same
beaux strutting round the same corner, hanging on the same arms,
bowing to the same chairs, ogled from the shelter of the same fans.
The same hackney-coachmen quarrelled, the same boys gambled at the
corner. Even Sir Hervey paused at the same hour of the afternoon,
looked up as he had looked up yesterday, seemed to hesitate, finally
went on. But Hawkesworth--Hawkesworth was nowhere.
Her eyes aching with long watching, the choke of coming tears in her
throat, Sophia drew back at last, and was in the act of casting
herself on her bed in a paroxysm of despair, when a shrill voice
speaking outside her door reached her ears. The next moment she heard
her name.
She sprang to the door, the weight lifted from her heart. Any
happening was better than none. "Here!" she cried. "Here!" And she
struck the panels with her hands.
"Where? Oh, I see," the voice answered. Then "Thank you, my good
woman," it went on, "I'll trouble you no farther. I can open for
myself. I see the key is in the lock."
But on that Mrs. Martha's voice was raised, loudly remonstrant.
"My lady," she cried, "you don't understand! I've the strictest
orders----"
"To keep her in? Just so, you foolish thing. And so you shall. But not
to keep me out. Still--just to be sure I'll take the key in with me!"
On which Sophia heard the key turn sharply in the lock, the door flew
open, and in bounced Lady Betty. To insert the key on the inside and
secure the door behind her was the work of a moment. Then she dropped
the astonished Sophia an exaggerated curtsey.
"La, miss, I crave your pardon, I'm sure," she said, "for calling your
name so loud on the stairs, but that silly thing would do nothing but
her orders. So as she would not show me the way, I ran up myself."
"You're very kind!" Sophia said. And she stood, trembling, and feeling
sudden shame of her position.
Lady Betty seemed to see this. "La! is it true they won't let you
out?" she said.
Sophia muttered that it was.
The visitor's eyes roved from the meagre remains of the midday meal to
the torn shreds of handkerchief that strewed the floor. "Then it's a
shame! It's a black monstrous shame!" she cried, stamping on the
floor. "I know what I should do if they did it to me! I should break,
I should burn, I should tear! I should tear that old fright's wig off
to begin! But I suppose it's your sister?"
"Yes."
Lady Betty made a face. "Horrid thing!" she exclaimed. "I never did
like her! Is it because you won't--is it because you have a lover,
miss?"
Sophia hesitated. "La, don't mind me. I have five!" the child cried
naively. "I'll tell you their names if you like. They are nothing to
me, the foolish things, but I should die if I hadn't as many as other
girls. To see them glare at one another is the finest sport in the
world."
"But you love one of them?" Sophia said shyly.
"La, no, it's for them to love me!" Lady Betty cried, tossing her
head. "I _should_ be a fool if I loved them!"
"But the letter--that I tore up?" Sophia ventured.
The child blushed, and with a queer laugh flung herself on the other's
neck and kissed her. "That was from a--a lover I ought not to have,"
she said. "If it had been found, I should have had my ears boxed, and
been sent into the country. You saved me, you duck, and I'll never
forget it!"
Sophia bent on the most serious imprudence could be wise for another.
"From a lover whom you ought not to have?" she said gravely. "You'll
not do it again, will you? You'll not receive a second?"
"La, no, I promise you," Lady Betty cried, volubly insistent.
"He's--well, he's a nobody, but he writes such dear, darling, charming
notes! There, now you know. Oh, yes, it was horrid of me. But I hate
him. So that's enough."
"You promise?" Sophia said, almost severely.
"I vow I do," Lady Betty cried, hugging her. "The creature's a wretch.
Now tell me, you poor thing, all about _him_. I've told you my
affair."
Here was indeed a blind leader of the blind, but after a little
hesitation Sophia told her story. She was too proud to plead the
justification her sister's treatment of Tom supplied; nor was there
need of this. Even in the bud, Lady Betty found the story beautiful;
and when Sophia went on to her lover's letter, and blushing and
faltering owned that he had pressed her to elope, the listener could
contain herself no longer. "Elope!" she cried, springing up with
sparkling eyes. "Oh, the dear bold man! Oh, how I envy you!"
"Envy me?"
"Yes! To be locked in your room and starved--I hope they starve
you--and scolded and threatened and perhaps carried into the country.
And all the time to be begged and prayed and entreated to elope, and
the dear creature wailing and sighing and consuming below. Oh, you
lucky, lucky, lucky, girl!" And Lady Betty flung herself on Sophia's
neck and embraced her again and again. "You lucky thing! And then
perhaps to be forced to escape down a ladder----"
"Escape?" Sophia said, shaking her head piteously. And she explained
how far she was from escaping. "By this time to-morrow," she
continued, choked by the bitter feelings the thought of to-morrow
begot, "I shall be at Chalkhill!"
"No, you will not!" Lady Betty cried, her eyes sparkling. "You will
not!" she repeated. "By good luck 'tis between lights. Put on your
hoop and sacque. Take my hat and laced jacket. Bend your knees as you
go down the stairs, you gawk, and no one will be a bit the wiser."
Sophia stared at her. "What do you mean?" she said.
"Northey's at the House, your sister's at Lady Paget's," the girl
explained breathlessly. "There is only the old fright outside, and
she's had a taste of my tongue and won't want another. You may walk
straight out before they bring candles. I shall wait ten minutes until
you are clear, and then, though they'll know it's a bite, they won't
dare to stop my ladyship, and--oh, you darling, it will be the purest,
purest fun. It will be all over the town to-morrow, and I shall be
part of it!"
Sophia shuddered. "Fun?" she said. "Do you call it fun?"
"Why, of course it will be the purest, purest fun!" the other cried.
"The prettiest trick that ever was played! You darling, we shall be
the talk of the town!" And in the gaiety of her heart, Lady Betty
lifted her sacque, and danced two or three steps of a minuet. "We
shall--but how you look, miss! You are not going to disappoint me?"
Sophia stood silent. "I am afraid," she muttered.
"Afraid? Afraid of what?"
"I am afraid."
"But you were going to him to-morrow?"
Sophia blushed deeply. "He was coming for me," she murmured.
"Well, and what is the difference?"
The elder girl did not answer, but her cheeks grew hotter and hotter.
"There is a difference," she said.
"Then you'll go to Chalkhill!" Lady Betty cried in derision, her voice
betraying her chagrin. "La, miss, I vow I thought you'd more spirit!
or I would not have troubled you!"
Sophia did not retort; indeed, she did not hear. In her heart was
passing a struggle, the issue of which must decide her lot. And she
knew this. She was young, but she knew that as her lover showed
himself worthy or unworthy of her trust so must her fate be happy or
most miserable, if she went to him. And she trembled under the
knowledge. Chalkhill, even Chalkhill and Aunt Leah's stinging tongue
and meagre commons seemed preferable to a risk so great. But then she
thought of Tom, and of the home that had grown cold; of the
compensations for home in which others seemed to find pleasure, the
flippant existence of drums and routs, the card-table and the
masquerade. And in dread, not of Chalkhill, but of a loveless life, in
hope, not of her lover, but of love, she wrung her hands. "I don't
know!" she cried, the burden of decision forcing the words from her as
from one in pain. "I don't know!"
"What?"
"Whether I dare go!"
"Why," Lady Betty asked eagerly, "there is no risk."
"Child! child, you don't understand," poor Sophia wailed. "Oh, what,
oh, what am I to do? If I go it is for life. Don't you understand?"
she added feverishly. "Cannot you see that? It is for life!"
Lady Betty, startled by the other's passion, could only answer, "But
you were going to-morrow, miss? If you were not afraid to go
to-morrow----"
"Why to-day?" Sophia asked bitterly. "If I could trust him to-morrow,
why not to-day? Because--because--oh, I cannot tell you!" And she
covered her face with her hands.
The other saw that she was shaking from head to foot, and reluctantly
accepted a situation she only partly understood. "Then you won't go?"
she said.
The word "No" trembled on Sophia's lips. But then she saw as in a
glass the life to which she condemned herself if she pronounced it;
the coldness, the worldliness, the lovelessness, the solitude in a
crowd, all depicted, not with the compensating lights and shadows
which experience finds in them, but in crude lines such as they wear
in a young girl's fancy. In the past was nothing to retain her; in the
future her lover beckoned; only maiden modesty and dread of she knew
not what withstood a natural impulse. She would and she would not.
Painfully she twisted and untwisted her fingers, while Lady Betty
waited and looked.
On a sudden in Arlington Street a small-coalman raised his shrill cry;
she had heard it a score of times in the last two days; now she felt
that she could not bear to hear it again. It was a small thing, but
her gorge rose against it. "I will go!" she cried hoarsely. "Give me
the clothes."
Lady Betty clapped her hands like a child at play. "You will? Oh,
brave!" she cried. "Then there's not a minute to be lost, miss. Take
my laced jacket and hat. But stay--you must put on your sacque and
hoop. Where are they? Let me help you. And won't you want to take
some--la, you'll have nothing but what you stand up in!"
Sophia winced, but pursued her preparations as if she had not heard.
In feverish haste she dragged out what she wanted, and in five minutes
stood in the middle of the room, arrayed in Lady Betty's jacket and
hat, which, notwithstanding the difference in height, gave her such a
passing resemblance to the younger girl as might deceive a person in a
half light.
"You'll do!" Lady Betty cried; all to her was sport. "And you'll just
take my chair: it's a hack, but they know me. Mutter 'home,' and stop
'em where you like--and take another! D'you see?"
The two girls--their united ages barely made up thirty-four--flung
themselves into one another's arms. Held thus, the younger felt the
wild beating of Sophia's heart, and put her from her and looked at her
with a sudden qualm of doubt and fear and perception.
"Oh," she cried, "if he is not good to you! If he--don't! don't!" she
continued, trembling herself in every limb. "Let me take off your
things. Let me! Don't go!"
But Sophia's mind was now made up. "No," she said firmly; and then,
looking into the other's eyes, "Only speak of me kindly, child, if--if
they say things."
And before Lady Betty, left standing in the middle of the darkening
room--where the reflection of the oil lamps in the street below was
beginning to dance and flicker on the ceiling--had found words to
answer, Sophia was half-way down the stairs. The staircase was darker
than the room, and detection, as Lady Betty had foreseen, was almost
impossible. Mrs. Martha, waiting spitefully outside her mistress's
door on the first floor landing, saw as she thought, "that little
baggage of a ladyship" go down; and she followed her muttering, but
with no intention of intercepting her. John in the hall, too, saw her
coming, and threw wide the door, then flew to open the waiting chair.
"Home, my lady?" he asked obsequiously, and passed the word; finally,
when the chair moved off, he looked up and down, and came in slowly,
whistling. Another second, and the door of the house in Arlington
Street slammed on Sophia.
"And a good riddance!" muttered Mrs. Martha, looking over the
balusters. "I never could abear her!"
CHAPTER VI
A CHAIR AND A COACH
The glasses of the chair, which had been standing some time at the
door, were dimmed by moisture, and in the dusk of the evening its
trembling occupant had no cause to fear recognition. But as the men
lifted and bore her from the door, every blurred light that peeped in
on her, and in an instant was gone, every smoking shop-lamp that
glimmered a moment through the mist, and betrayed the moving forms
that walked the sideway, was, to Sophia, an eye noting and condemning
her. As the chairmen swung into Portugal Street, and, turning
eastwards, skirted the long stand of coaches and the group of link-men
that waited before Burlington House, she felt that all eyes were upon
her, and she shrank farther and farther into the recesses of the
chair.
A bare-footed orange girl, who ran beside the window waving ballads or
bills of the play, a coach rattling up behind and bespattering the
glass as it passed, a link-boy peering in and whining to be hired,
caused her a succession of panics. On top of these, the fluttering
alarms of the moment, pressed the consciousness of a step taken that
could never be retraced; nor was it until the chairmen, leaving
Piccadilly behind them, had entered the comparative quiet of Air
Street, and a real difficulty rose before her, that she rallied her
faculties.
The men were making for Soho, and if left to take their course, would,
in a quarter of an hour set her down at the door of Lady Betty's home
in King's Square. That would not do. But to stay them, and to vary the
order from "Home" to Mr. Wollenhope's house in Davies Street, where
her lover lodged, did not now seem the simple and easy step it had
appeared a few minutes earlier, when the immediate difficulty was to
escape from the house. Lady Betty had said that the men knew her. In
that case, as soon as Sophia spoke to them they would scent something
wrong, and, apprised of the change of fares, might wish to know more.
They might even decline to take her whither she bade them!
The difficulty was real, but for that very reason Sophia's courage
rose to meet it. At present she knew where she was; a minute or two
later she might not know. The sooner she took the route into her own
hands, therefore, the better it would be; and as the men turned from
the narrow street of Air into Brewer Street and swung to the right
towards Soho, she tapped the glass. The chair moved on. With
impatience, natural in the circumstances, Sophia tapped again and more
sharply. This time the front bearer heard, and gave the word. The
chair was set down, and the man, wiping his brow, raised the lid.
"What is it, my lady?" he said, with a rich Irish accent. "Shure, and
isn't it right ye are? If we went by Windmill Street, which some would
be for going, there's a sight of coaches that way."
"I don't want to go to King's Square," Sophia answered firmly.
"Eh, my lady, no? But you said 'Home.'"
"I want to go to the West End again," Sophia said.
"I've remembered something; I want to go to Davies Street."
"Faith, but it's a fine trate your ladyship's had," the Irishman
cried good-humouredly, "and finely I should be scolded if his noble
lordship your father knew 'twas with us you went; but it's home now
you must go; you've played truant long enough, my lady! And--holy
Mother!"--with a sudden exclamation--"'Tis not your ladyship! Oh, the
saints, Micky, she's changed!"
The second chairman came round the chair, stared, and rubbed his head;
and the two gazed in perplexity at poor Sophia, whose face alone
appeared above the side of the conveyance. "Take me to Davies Street
by Berkeley Square," she commanded, tapping the front impatiently. "To
Mr. Wollenhope's house. What does it matter to you where I go?"
"To Davies Street?"
"Yes; cannot you hear?"
"Faith, and I hear," the Irishman answered, staring. "But then, the
saints help us, 'tis not yourself. 'Twas her ladyship hired me to go
to Arlington Street, and to take her home, and it's not leaving her
I'll be!"
"But her ladyship lent me the chair!" Sophia cried desperately.
"She'll take another. Cannot you understand? She knows all about it.
Now take me to Davies Street."
Her voice trembled with anxiety, for at any moment she might be seen
and recognised. A lamp in an oilman's window, one of the few lights
that at long intervals broke the dull gloom of Brewer Street, shone on
the group. Already a couple of chairs had swung by, the carriers
casting, as they passed, a curious look at the stationary chair; and
now a coach, approaching from the Soho direction, was near at hand.
Every second she delayed there was a second on the rack. What would
Sir Hervey or Lord Lincoln, what would any of the hundred
acquaintances she had made since she came to town say of a girl found
unprotected, after nightfall, astray in the public streets?
Alas, the men still hesitated, and while they stood staring the coach
came up. Before Sophia could add reproaches to her commands, it was
checked opposite the group. The coachman leant down, and in a tone of
disappointment--as if it were only then he saw that the chair was
occupied--"You've a fare, have you?" he said. "You can't take a lady
to Crown Court, King Street?"
Before the Irishman could answer, "Here my man," a woman's voice cried
from the coach, "I want to go to Crown Court, St. James's, and the
coach can't enter. Double fare if you are quick! Here, let me out!"
"But, faith, ma'am, I've a fare," Mick cried.
"They've a fare," the coachman explained, leaning down anew.
"The fare can take my coach," the voice answered imperiously; and in a
twinkling, a smartly dressed woman, wearing red and white and plenty
of both, yet handsome after a fashion, had pushed, first her hoop and
then herself out of the coach. "See here, ma'am," she cried, seeing
Sophia's scared face, "the coach is paid, and will take you anywhere
in reason. 'Twill make no difference to you and all to me, and a mite
of good nature is never thrown away! I've to go where a coach cannot
go. Up a court, you understand."
Sophia hesitated. Why did not the lady, whose bold eyes did not much
commend her, pursue her way to Portugal Street, and descend there,
where chairs might be had in plenty? Or why, again, was she in such a
clamorous hurry and so importunate? On the other hand, if all were
right, nothing could have fallen out more happily for herself; it was
no wonder that, after a momentary hesitation, she gave a grudging
assent. One of the chairmen, who seemed willing enough to make the
change, opened the door; she stepped out and mechanically climbed into
the coach. "To Davies Street, Mayfair," she said, sinking back. "To
Mr. Wollenhope's, if you please."
Quickly as she took her part, the strange lady was quicker; in a
second she was in the chair and the chair was gone. It seemed to
vanish. A moment and the coach also started, and lumbered westwards
along Brewer Street. Now at last Sophia was at liberty to
consider--with no obstacle short of Mr. Wollenhope's door--how she
should present herself to her lover, and how it behoved him to receive
her.
She found it more easy to answer the second question than the first.
Well indeed she knew how it became him to receive her. If in men
survived any delicacy, any reverence, any gratitude, these were her
due who came to him thus; these must appear in his greeting, or the
worst guided, the most hapless of maids, was happy beside her. He must
show himself lover, brother, parent, friend, in his one person; for he
was her all. The tenderest homage, the most delicate respect, a tact
that foreran offence, a punctilio that saw it everywhere, the devotion
of a Craven, the gratitude of a Peterborough, were her right who came
to him thus, a maiden trusting in his honour. She was clear on this;
and not once or twice, but many times, many times as she pressed one
hand on the other and swallowed the tell-tale lump that rose and rose
in her throat, she swore that if she did not meet with these, if he
did not greet her with them, plain in eye and lip--aye, and with a
thousand dainty flowers of love, a thousand tender thoughts and
imaginings, not of her, but for her--she had better have been the mud
through which the wheels of her coach rolled!
It was natural enough that, so near, so very near the crisis, she
should feel misgiving. The halt in the dark street, the chill of the
night air, had left her shivering; had left her with an overwhelming
sense of loneliness and homelessness. The question was no longer how
to escape from a prison, but how, having escaped, she would be
received by him, who must be her all. The dice were on the table, the
throw had been made, and made for life; it remained only to lift the
box. For a little, a very little while, since a matter of minutes only
divided her from Davies Street, she hung between the old life and the
new, her heart panting vaguely for the sympathy that had been lacking
in the old life, for the love that the new life had in store. Would
she find them? Child as she was, she trembled now that she stood on
the brink. A few minutes and she would know. A few minutes, and----
The coach stopped suddenly, with a jerk that flung her forward. She
looked out, her heart beating. She was ready to descend. But surely
this was not Davies Street? The road was very dark. On the left, the
side on which the door opened, a dead wall, overhung by high trees,
confronted her.
"Where am I?" she cried, her hand on the fastening of the door, her
voice quivering with sudden fright. "We are not there?"
"You are as far as you'll go, mistress," a rough voice answered from
the darkness. "Sorry to alter your plans. A fine long chase you've
given us." And from the gloom at the horses' heads, two men advanced
to the door of the coach.
She took them for footpads. The dead wall had much the appearance of
the wall of Burlington Gardens, where it bounds Glasshouse Street; at
that spot, she remembered, a coach had been robbed the week before.
She prepared to give up her money, and was groping with a trembling
hand for a little knitted purse, when the men, still grumbling, opened
the door.
"I suppose you know what's what," the foremost said. "At suit of
Margott's of Paul's Churchyard. You'll go to my house, I take it?
You'll be more genteel there."
"I don't understand," Sophia muttered, her heart sinking.
"Oh, don't come the innocent over us!" the man answered coarsely.
"Here's the _capias_. Forty-eight, seven, six, debt and costs. It's my
house or the Marshalsea. One or the other, and be quick about it. If
you've the cash you'd better come to me."
"There's some mistake," Sophia gasped, involuntarily retreating into
the furthest corner of the coach. "You take me for some one else."
The bailiffs--for such they were--laughed at the joke. "I take you for
Mrs. Clark, alias Grocott, alias anything else you please," the
spokesman answered. "Come, no nonsense, mistress; it's not the first
time you've been behind bars. I warrant with that face you'll soon
find some one to open the door for you."
"But I'm not Mrs. Clark," Sophia protested. "I'm not indeed."
"Pooh, pooh!"
"I tell you I am not Mrs. Clark!" she cried. "Indeed, indeed, I am
not! It has nothing to do with me," she continued desperately. "Please
let me go on." And in great distress she tried to close the door on
them.
The bailiff prevented her. "Come, no nonsense, mistress," he repeated.
"These tricks won't serve you. We were waiting for you at the Ipswich
stage; you got the start there, and very cleverly, I will allow. But
my mate got the number of the coach, and if we had not overtaken you
here we'd have nabbed you in Davies Street. You see we know all about
you, and where you were bound. Now where's it to be?"
Sophia, at the mention of Davies Street, began to doubt her own
identity; but still repeated, with the fierceness of despair, that she
was not the person they sought. "I am not Mrs. Clark!" she cried. "I
only took this coach in Brewer Street. You can ask the coachman."
"Ah, I might, but I shouldn't get the truth!"
"But it is the truth!" Sophia cried piteously; truly punishment had
fallen on her quickly! "It is the truth! It is indeed!"
The bailiff seemed to be a little shaken by her earnestness. He
exchanged a few words with his fellow. Then, "We'll take the risk," he
said. "Will you come out, ma'am, or shall I come in?"
Sophia trembled. "Where are you going to take me?" she faltered.
"To my house, where it's ten shillings a day and as genteel company as
you'd find in St. James's!" the fellow answered. "S'help me, you'll be
at home in an hour! I've known many go in all of a shake, that with a
glass of mulled wine and cheerful company were as jolly by nightfall
as Miss at a fair!" And without waiting for more, the man climbed into
the coach and plumped down beside her.
Sophia recoiled with a cry of alarm. "La!" he said, with clumsy good
nature, "you need not be afraid. I'm a married man. You sit in your
corner, ma'am, and I'll sit in mine. Bless you, I'm sworn to do my
duty. Up you get, Trigg!"
The second bailiff mounted beside the coachman, the coach was turned,
and in a trice Sophia was once more trundling eastwards through the
streets. But in what a condition!
In the power of a vulgar catchpoll, on her way to a low sponging
house, she saw herself borne helpless past the house that, until
to-day, she had called her home! True, she had only to prove who she
was in order to be released. She had only to bid them turn aside and
stop at Mr. Northey's mansion, and a single question and answer would
set her free. But at what a cost! Overwhelmed and terrified, at her
wits' end how to bear herself, she yet shrank from such a return as
that!
Gladly would she have covered her face with her hands and wept tears
of bitter mortification. But the crisis was too sharp, the difficulty
too urgent for tears. What was she to do? Allow herself to be carried
to her destination, and there incarcerated with vile persons in a
prison which her ignorance painted in the darkest colours? Or avow the
truth, bid them take her to her brother-in-law's, and there drain the
cup of ignominy to the dregs? In either case decision must be speedy.
Already Arlington Street lay behind them; they were approaching St.
James's Church. They were passing it. Another minute and they would
reach the end of the Haymarket.
Suddenly she clapped her hands. "Stop!" she cried. "Tell them to stop!
There's Lane's. They know me there. They'll tell you that I am not the
person you think. Please stop!"
The bailiff nodded, put out his head, and gave the order. Then, as the
coach drew up to the shop, he opened the door, "Now, no tricks!
ma'am," he said. "If you go a yard from me I nab you. Smooth's my name
when I'm well treated; but if Mr. Lane knows you I'll take his word,
and ask your pardon. I'm not unreasonable."
Sophia did not pause to reply, but descended, and with hot cheeks
hurried across the roadway into the well-known silk-mercer's.
Fortunately, the shop, at certain times of the day the resort of
Piccadilly bloods, was deserted at this late hour. All the lamps but
one were extinguished, and by the light of this one, Mr. Lane and two
apprentices were stowing goods under the counter. A third young man
stood looking on and idly swinging a cane; but to Sophia's relief he
retired through the open door at the back, which revealed the cosy
lights of a comfortable parlour.
The tradesman advanced, bowing and rubbing his hands. "Dear me," he
said, "you are rather late, ma'am, but anything we can do--William,
relight the lamps."
"No," Sophia cried. "I do not want anything. I only--Mr. Lane," she
continued, blushing deeply, "will you be good enough to tell this
person who I am."
"Dear, dear, my lady," Mr. Lane exclaimed, becoming in a moment a very
Hector, "you don't mean that--what is this, my man, what does it mean?
Let me tell you I've several stout fellows on the premises, and----"
"No need," the bailiff answered gruffly. "I only want to know who
the--who the lady is." He looked crestfallen already. He saw by the
lamp-light that his prisoner was too young; a mere girl in her teens.
And his heart misgave him.
"This is Miss Maitland, sister-in-law to the honourable Mr. Northey,
of Arlington Street, and the House," the tradesman answered
majestically. "Now, my man, what is it?"
"You are sure that she is not a--a Mrs. Oriana Clark?" the bailiff
asked, consulting his writ for the name.
"No more than I am!" Mr. Lane retorted, sniffing contemptuously. "What
do you mean by such nonsense?"
"Nothing now," the discomfited bailiff answered; and muttering "I am
sure I beg her ladyship's pardon! Beg her pardon! No offence!" he bent
his head with ready presence of mind and hurried out of the shop; his
retreat facilitated by the fact that Sophia, overcome by her sudden
release, was seized with a fit of giddiness, which compelled her to
cling to the shop-board.
In a moment the good Lane was all solicitude. He placed a chair for
her, called for volatile salts, and bade them close the door into the
street. Sending the staring apprentices about their business, he
hustled out to procure some water; but in this he was anticipated by
the young man whom she had seen in the shop when she entered. Too
faint at the moment to remark from what hand she took it, Sophia
drank, and returned the glass. Then, a little revived by the draught,
and sensible of the absurdity of the position, she tried to rise, with
a smile at her weakness. But the young man who had brought the water,
and who had something of the air of a gentleman, foppishly and
effeminately dressed, implored her to sit awhile.
"Sure, ma'am, you can't be rested yet!" he cried, hanging over her
with a solicitude that seemed a little excessive. "Such an outrage on
divine beauty merits--stap me! the severest punishment. I shall not
fail, ma'am, to seek out the low beast and chastise him as he
deserves."
"There is no need," Sophia answered, looking at the spark with mild
surprise: she was still too faint to resent his manner. "I am better
now, I thank you, sir. I will be going."
"Stap me, not yet!" he cried effusively. "A little air, ma'am?" and he
fell to fanning her with his hat, while his black eyes languished on
hers. "'Twill bring back the colour, ma'am. Has your ladyship ever
tried Florence water in these attacks? It is a monstrous fine
specific, I am told."
"I am not subject to them," Sophia answered, forced to avert her eyes.
This movement, as it happened, brought her gaze to the open door of
the parlour; where, to her astonishment, she espied Mr. Lane,
standing, as it were, in ambush, dwelling on the scene in the shop
with a face of childish pleasure. Now he softly rubbed his hands; now
he nodded his head in an ecstasy. A moment Sophia watched him, her own
face in shadow; then she rose a little displeased, and more puzzled.
"I must go now," she said, bowing stiffly. "Be good enough to see if
my coach is there."
The beau, taken aback by her manner, turned to the silk mercer, who
came slowly forward. "Is her ladyship's coach there?" the young
gentleman cried with great stateliness.
Mr. Lane hurried obsequiously to the door, looked out, and returned.
"Dear, dear, ma'am," he said, "I fear those wretches took it. But I
can send for a chair."
"Call one, call one!" the gentleman commanded. "I shall see the lady
to her door."
"Oh, no, no!" Sophia answered quickly. "It is not necessary."
"It is very necessary at this hour," Mr. Lane interposed; and then
apologised for his intervention by rubbing his hands. "I could not
think of--of letting you go from here, ma'am, without an escort!" he
continued, with another low bow. "And this gentleman, Mr.----"
"Fanshaw, man, Fanshaw," the young spark said, stroking his cravat and
turning his head with an absurd air of importance. "Your humble
servant to command, ma'am. Richard Fanshaw, Esquire, of Warwickshire.
'Tis certain I must attend you so far; and--and oh, hang this!" he
continued, breaking off in a sudden fit of rage. For in the act of
bowing to her, he had entangled his sword in a roll of Lyons that
stood behind him. "Fellow, what the deuce do you mean by leaving
rubbish in a gentleman's way?" and he struggled furiously with it.
Sophia could scarcely forbear a smile as Mr. Lane ran to the rescue.
Yet with all his efforts
The bold knight was red
And the good stuff was shred
before the little beau was freed. He cursed all tailors, and, to hide
his confusion, hastened rather clumsily to hand her to the chair.
She was now in a new difficulty. Lane would give the order "Arlington
Street"; Mr. Fanshaw, smirking and tip-tapping at the side, would
insist on seeing her home. And she herself for an instant, as the cold
night air met her on the threshold of the oil-lit street, and she
shivered under its touch, hesitated. For an instant her fears pleaded
with her, bade her take warning from the thing that had already
befallen her, whispered "Home!" At that hour the future, mirrored on
the gloomy surface of the night-street, on the brink of which she
stood, seemed dark, forlorn, uncertain.
But her pride was not yet conquered; and without a vast sacrifice of
pride she could not return. Her escapade would be remembered against
her; she would be condemned for the attempt, and despised for its
failure. Home, in her case, meant no loving mother longing to forgive,
no fond tears, no kisses mingled with reproaches; but sneers and
stinging words, disgrace and exile, a child's punishment. Little
wonder that she grew hard again, since, on the other side, a girl's
first fancy beckoned roseate; or that, when she announced with an easy
air that she had to go to Davies Street, Mr. Lane detected nothing
suspicious in her tone.
"Dear, dear, ma'am, it's rather late," he said. "And the streets not
too secure. But Rich--Mr. Fanshaw will see you safe. Much honoured.
Oh, much honoured, I am sure, ma'am. Delighted to be of service. My
humble obedience to your sister and Mr. Northey."
A last backward glance as she was lifted and borne from the door
showed her Mr. Lane standing in his shop-entrance. He was looking
after her with the same face of foolish admiration which she had
before surprised; and she wondered afresh what it meant. Soon,
however, her thoughts passed from him to the over-dressed little fop
who had added himself to her train, and whose absurd attempts to
communicate with her as he strutted beside the glass, his sword under
his arm and his laced hat cocked, were almost as amusing as the air of
superb protection which he assumed when he caught her eye. Really, he
was too ridiculous. Moreover, she did not want him. His presence was
uncalled for now; and when she reached Davies Street, might involve
her in new embarrassment. She would have dismissed him, but she
doubted if he would go; and to open the glass and make the attempt
might only incite him to greater freedoms. Sophia bit her lip to
repress a smile; the little beau took the smile for encouragement, and
kissed his hand through the glass.
CHAPTER VII
IN DAVIES STREET
The chairmen pushed on briskly through Piccadilly and Portugal Street
until they reached the turnpike on the skirts of the town. There,
turning to the right by Berkeley Row, they reached Berkeley Square, at
that time a wide, implanted space, surrounded on three sides by new
mansions, and on the fourth by the dead wall of Berkeley House. For
lack of lighting, or perhaps by reason of the convenience the building
operations afforded, it was a favourite haunt of footpads. Sophia was
a prey to anxieties that left no room in her mind for terrors of this
class; and neither the dark lane, shadowed by the dead wall of
Berkeley Gardens nor the gloomy waste of the square, held any tremors
for her; but the chairmen hastened over this part of their journey,
and for a time her attendant squire was so little in evidence that in
the agitation into which the prospect of arrival at her lover's threw
her, she forgot his presence. She strained her eyes through the
darkness to distinguish the opening of Davies Street, and at once
longed and feared to see it. When at last the chair halted, and,
pressing her hand to her heart to still the tumult that almost stifled
her, she prepared to descend, it was with a kind of shock that she
discovered the little dandy mincing and bowing on the pavement, his
hand extended to aid her in stepping from the chair.
The vexation she had suppressed before broke out at the sight. She
bowed slightly, and avoided his hand. "I am obliged to you, sir," she
said ungraciously; "I won't trouble you farther. Good night, sir."
"But--I shall see you back to Arlington Street, ma'am?" he lisped.
"Surely at this hour an escort is more than ever necessary. I declare
it is past eight, ma'am."
It was; but the fact put in words stung her like a whip. She winced
under all that the lateness of the hour implied. It seemed intolerable
that in a crisis in which her whole life lay in the balance, in which
her being was on the rack until she found the reception that should
right her, converting her boldness into constancy, her forwardness
into courage--when she trembled on the verge of the moment in which
her lover's eyes should tell her all--it was intolerable that she
should be harassed by this prating dandy. "I shall find an escort
here," she cried harshly. "I need you no longer, sir. Good night."
"Oh, but ma'am," he protested, bowing like a Chinese mandarin, "it is
impossible I should leave you so. Surely, there is something I can do
for your ladyship."
"You can pay the chairmen!" she cried contemptuously; and turning from
him to the door before which the chair had halted, she found it half
open. In the doorway a woman, her back to the light, stood blocking
the passage. Doubtless, she had heard what had passed.
Sophia's temper died down on the instant. "Is this Mr. Wollenhope's?"
she faltered.
"Yes, ma'am."
An hour before it had seemed simple to ask for her lover. Now the
moment was come she could not do it. "May I come in?" she muttered, to
gain time.
"You wish to see me?"
"Yes."
"Is the chair to wait, ma'am?"
Sophia trembled. It was a moment before she could find her voice.
Then, "No," she answered faintly.
The woman looked hard at her, and having the light at her back, had
the advantage. "Oh!" she said at last, addressing the men, "I think
you had better wait a minute." And grudgingly making way for Sophia to
enter, she closed the door. "Now, ma'am, what is it?" she said,
standing four-square to the visitor. She was a stout, elderly woman,
with a bluff but not unkindly face.
"Mr. Hawkesworth lodges here?"
"He does, ma'am."
"Is he at home?" Sophia faltered. Under this woman's gaze she felt a
sudden overpowering shame. She was pale and red by turns. Her eyes
dropped, her confusion was not to be overlooked.
"He is not at home," the woman said shortly. And her look, hostile
before, grew harder.
Sophia caught her breath. She had not thought of this, and for a
moment she was so overpowered by the intelligence, that she had to
support herself against the wall. "When will he return, if you
please?" she asked at length, her lip quivering.
"I'm sure I couldn't say. I couldn't say at all," Mrs. Wollenhope
answered curtly. "All I know is he went out with the young gentleman
at five, and as like as not he won't be home till morning."
Sophia had much ado not to burst into tears. Apparently the woman
perceived this, and felt a touch of pity for her, for, in an altered
tone, "Is it possible," she asked, "you're the young lady he's to
marry to-morrow?"
The words were balm to the girl's heart. Here was sure footing at
last; here was something to go upon. "Yes," she said, more boldly. "I
am."
"Oh!" Mrs. Wollenhope ejaculated. "Oh!" After which she stared at the
girl, as if she found a difficulty in fitting her in with notions
previously formed. At last, "Well, miss," she said, "I think if you
could call tomorrow?" with a dry cough. "If you are to be married
to-morrow--it seems to me it might be better."
Sophia shivered. "I cannot wait," she said desperately. "I must see
him. Something has happened which he does not know, and I must see
him, I must indeed. Can I wait here? I have no where to go."
"Well, you can wait here till nine o'clock," Mrs. Wollenhope answered
less dryly. "We shut up at nine." Then, after glancing behind her, she
laid her hand on Sophia's sleeve. "My dear," she said, lowering her
voice, "begging pardon for the liberty, for I see you are a lady,
which I did not expect--if you'll take my advice you'll go back. You
will indeed. I am sure your father and mother----"
"I have neither!" Sophia said.
"Oh, dear, dear! Still, I can see you've friends, and if you'll take
my advice----"
She was cut short. "There you are again, Eliza!" cried a loud voice,
apparently from an inner room. "Always your advice! Always your
advice! Have done meddling, will you, and show the lady upstairs."
Mrs. Wollenhope shrugged her shoulders as if the interruption were no
uncommon occurrence. "Very well," she said curtly; and turning, led
the way along the passage. Sophia followed, uncertain whether to be
glad or sorry that the good woman's warning had been cut short. As she
passed the open door of a room at the foot of the stairs she had a
glimpse of a cheery sea-coal fire, and a bald-headed man in his shirt
sleeves, who was sitting on a settle beside it, a glass of punch in
his hand. He rose and muttered, "Your servant, ma'am!" as she passed;
and she went on and saw him no more. But the vision of the snug
back-parlour, with its fire and lights, and a red curtain hanging
before the window, remained with her, a picture of comfort and quiet,
as far as possible removed from the suspense and agitation in which
she had passed the last two hours.
And in which she still found herself, for as she mounted the stairs
her knees quaked under her. She was ashamed, she was frightened. At
the head of the flight, when the woman opened the door of the room and
by a gesture bade her enter, she paused and felt she could sink into
the ground. For the veriest trifle she would have gone down again. But
behind her--behind her, lay nothing that had power to draw her; to
return was to meet abuse and ridicule and shame, and that not in
Arlington Street only, for the story would be over the town: Lane the
mercer, whose shop was a hotbed of gossip, the little dandy who had
thrust himself into her company, and tracked her hither, the coachman
who had witnessed the arrest, even her own friend Lady Betty--all
would publish the tale. Girls whom she knew, and from whose
plain-spoken gossip she had turned a prudish ear, would sneer in her
face. Men like Lord Lincoln would treat her with the easy familiarity
she had seen them extend to Lady Vane, or Miss Edwards. Women she
respected, Lady Pomfret, the duchess, would freeze her with a look.
Girls, good girls like Lady Sophia, or little Miss Hamilton--no longer
would these be her company.
No, she had gone too far; it was too late to turn back; yet she felt,
as she crossed the threshold, it was the one thing she longed to do.
Though Mrs. Wollenhope hastened to light two candles that stood on a
table, the parlour and the shapes of the furniture swam before
Sophia's eyes. The two candles seemed to be four, six, eight; nay, the
room was all candles, dancing before her. She had to lean on a chair
to steady herself.
By-and-by Mrs. Wollenhope's voice, for a time heard droning dully,
became clear. "He was up above," the good woman was saying. "But he's
not here much. He lives at the taverns of the quality, mostly. 'Twas
but yesterday he told me, ma'am, he was going to be married. You can
wait here till nine, and I'll come and fetch you then, if he has not
come in. But you'd best be thinking, if you'll take my advice, what
you'll do."
"Now, Eliza!" Mr. Wollenhope roared from below; to judge from the
sound of his voice he had come to the foot of the stairs. "Advising
again, I'm bound. Always advising! Some day your tongue will get you
into trouble, my woman. You come down and leave the young lady to
herself."
"Oh, very well," Mrs. Wollenhope muttered, tossing her head
impatiently. "I'm coming. Coming!" And shielding her light with her
hand, she went out and left Sophia alone.
The girl remained where she had paused on entering, a little within
the door, her hand resting on a chair. And presently, as she looked
about her, the colour began to creep into her face. This was his home,
and at the thought she forgot the past; she dreamed of the future. His
home! Here he had sat thinking of her. Here he had written the letter!
Here, perhaps in that cupboard set low in the wainscot beside the
fire, lay the secret papers of which he had told her, the Jacobite
lists that held a life in every signature, the Ormonde letters, the
plans for the Scotch Rising, the cipher promises from France! Here,
surrounded by perils, he wrote and studied far into the night, the
pistol beside the pen, the door locked, the keyhole stopped. Here he
had lain safe and busy, while the hated Whig approvers drew their nets
elsewhere. Sophia breathed more quickly as she pictured these things;
as she told herself the story Othello told the Venetian maid. The
attraction of the man, the magic of the lover, dormant during the
stress she had suffered since she left Arlington Street, revived; the
girl's eyes grew soft, blushes mantled over her cheeks. She looked
round timidly, almost reverently, not daring to advance, not daring to
touch anything.
The room, which was not large, was wainscotted from ceiling to floor
with spacious panels, divided one from the other by fluted pillars in
shallow relief, after the fashion of that day. The two windows were
high, narrow, and roundheaded, deeply sunk in the panelling. The
fireplace, in which a few embers smouldered, was of Dutch tiles. On
the square oak table in the middle of the floor, a pack of cards lay
beside the snuffer tray, between the tall pewter candlesticks.
She noted these things greedily, and then, alas, she fell from the
clouds. Mrs. Wollenhope had said that he had lived in the rooms above
until lately! Still, he had sat here, and these were his belongings,
which she saw strewn here and there. The book laid open on the
high-backed settle that flanked one side of the hearth, and masked the
door of an inner room, had been laid there by his hand. The cloak that
hung across the back of one of the heavy Cromwell chairs was his. The
papers and inkhorn, pushed carelessly aside on one of the plain wooden
window-seats, had been placed there by him. His were the black
riding-wig, the whip, and spurs, and tasselled cane, that hung on a
hook in a corner, and the wig-case that stood on a table against the
wall, alongside a crumpled cravat, and a jug and two mugs. All
these--doubtless all these were his. Sophia, flustered and softened,
her heart beating quick with a delicious emotion, half hope, half
fear, sat down on the chair by the door and gazed at them.
He was more to her now, while she sat in his room and looked at these
things, than he had ever been; and though the moment was at hand when
his reception of her must tell her all, her distrust of him had never
been less. If he did not love her with the love she pictured, why had
he chosen her? He whose career promised so much, who under the cloak
of frivolity pursued aims so high, amid perils so real. He must love
her! He must love her! She thought this almost aloud, and seeing the
wicks of the candles growing long, rose and snuffed them; and in the
performance of this simple act of ownership, experienced a strange
thrill of pleasure.
After that she waited awhile on her feet, looking about her shyly, and
listening. Presently, hearing no sound, she stepped timidly and on
tip-toe to the side table, and lifting the crumpled cravat, smoothed
it, then, with caressing fingers, folded it neatly and laid it back.
Again she listened, wondering how long she had waited. No, that was
not a step on the stairs; and thereat her heart began to sink. The
reaction of hope deferred began to be felt. What if he did not come?
What if she waited, and nine found her still waiting--waiting vainly
in this quiet room where the lights twinkled in the polished panels,
and now and again the ash of the coal fell softly to the hearth? It
might--it might be almost nine already!
She began to succumb to a new fever of suspense, and looked about
for something to divert her thoughts. Her eyes fell on the book that
lay open on the seat of the settle. Thinking, "He has read this
to-day--his was the last hand that touched it--on this page his eyes
rested," Sophia stooped for it, and holding it carefully that she
might keep the place for him, reverently, for it was his, she carried
it to the light. The title at the head of the page was _The Irish
Register_. The name smacked so little of diversion, she thought it a
political tract--for the book was thin, no more than fifty pages or
so; and she was setting it back on the table when her eye, in the very
act of leaving the page, caught the glint, as it were, of a name.
Beside the name, on the margin, were a few pencilled words and
figures; but these, faintly scrawled, she did not heed at the moment.
"Cochrane, the Lady Elizabeth?" she muttered, repeating the name that
had caught her eye, "How strange! What can the book have to do with
Lady Betty? It must be some kind of peerage. But she is not Irish!"
To settle the question, she raised the book anew to the light, and saw
that it consisted of a list of persons' names arranged in order of
rank. Only--which seemed odd--all the names were ladies' names. Above
Cochrane, the Lady Elizabeth, appeared Cochrane, the Lady Anne; below
came Coke, the Lady Catherine, and after each name the address of the
lady followed if she were a widow, of her parents or guardians if she
were unmarried.
Sophia wondered idly what it meant, and with half her mind bent on the
matter, the other half intent on the coming of a footstep, she turned
back to the title-page of the book. She found that the fuller
description there printed ran _The Irish Register, or a list of the
Duchess Dowagers, Countesses, Widow Ladies, Maiden Ladies, Widows, and
Misses of Great Fortunes in England, as registered by the Dublin
Society_.
Even then she was very, very far from understanding. But the baldness
of the description sent a chill through her. Misses of large fortunes
in England! As fortunes went, she was a miss of large fortune. Perhaps
that was why the words grated upon her; why her heart sank, and the
room seemed to grow darker. Turning to look at the cover of the book,
she saw a slip of paper inserted towards the end to keep a place. It
projected only an eighth of an inch, but she marked it, and turned to
it; something or other--it may have been only the position of the
paper in that part of the book, it may have been the presence of the
book in her lover's room--forewarning her; for in the act of turning
the leaves, and before she came to the marker, she knew what she would
find.
And she found it. First, her name, "Maitland, Miss Sophia, at the Hon.
Mr. Northey's in Arlington Street". Then--yes, then, for that was not
all or the worst--down the narrow margin, starting at her name, ran a
note, written faintly, in a hand she knew; the same hand that had
penned her one love letter, the hand from which the quill had fallen
in the rapture of anticipation, the hand of her "humble, adoring
lover, Hector, Count Plomer"!
She knew that the note would tell her all, and for a moment her
courage failed her; she dared not read it. Her averted eyes sought
instead the cupboard in the lower wainscot, which she had fancied the
hiding place of the Jacobite cipher, the muniment chest where lay,
intrusted to his honour, the lives and fortunes of the Beauforts and
Ormondes, the Wynns and Cottons and Cecils. Was the cupboard that
indeed? Or--what was it? The light reflected from the surface of the
panels told her nothing, and she lowered the book and stood pondering.
If the note proved to be that which she still shrank from believing
it, what had she done? Or rather, what had she not done? What warnings
had she not despised, what knowledge had she not slighted, what
experience had she not overridden? How madly, how viciously, in the
face of advice, in the face of remonstrance, in modesty's own despite,
had she wrought her confusion, had she flung herself into the arms of
this man! This man who--but that was the question!
She asked herself trembling, was he what this book seemed to indicate,
or was he what she had thought him? Was he villain, or hero?
Fortune-hunter, or her true lover? The meanest of tricksters, or the
high-spirited, chivalrous gentleman, laughing at danger and smiling at
death, in whom great names and a great cause were content to place
their trust?
At last she nerved herself to learn the answer to the question. The
wicks of the candles were burning long; she snuffed them anew, and
holding the book close to the light, read the words that were
delicately traced beside her name.
"_Has 6000 guineas charged on T. M.'s estate. If T. M. marries without
consent of guardians has L10,000 more. Mrs. N. the same. T. is at
Cambridge, aged eighteen. To make all sure, T. must be married
first--query Oriana, if she can be found? Or Lucy Slee--but boys like
riper women. Not clinch with S. M. until T. is mated, nor at all if
the little Cochrane romp_ (_page 7_) _can be brought to hand. But I
doubt it, but S. M. is an easy miss, and swallows all. A perfect
goose_."
Sophia sat awhile in a chair and shivered, her face white, her head
burning. The words were so clear that, the initials notwithstanding,
it was not possible to misinterpret them; or to set on them any
construction save one. They cut her as the lash of a whip cuts the
bare flesh. It was for this--thing that she had laid aside her maiden
pride, had risked her good name, had scorned her nearest, had thrown
away all in life that was worth keeping! It was for this creature,
this thing in the shape of man, that she had over-leapt the bounds,
had left her home, had risked the perils of the streets, and the
greater perils of his company. For this--but she had not words
adequate to the loathing of her soul. Outraged womanhood, wounded
pride, contemned affection--which she had fancied love--seared her
very soul. She could have seen him killed, she could have killed him
with her own hand--or she thought she could; so completely in a moment
was her liking changed to hatred, so completely destroyed on the
instant was the trust she had placed in him.
"_And S. M. is an easy miss, and swallows all. A perfect goose!_"
Those words cut more deeply than all into her vanity. She winced, nay,
she writhed under them. Nor was that all. They had a clever, dreadful
smartness that told her they were no mere memorandum, but had served
in a letter, and tickled at once a man's conceit and a woman's ears.
Her own ears burned at the thought. "_S. M. is an easy miss, and
swallows all. A perfect goose!_" Oh, she would never recover it! She
would never regain her self-respect!
The last embers had grown grey behind the bars; the last ash had
fallen from the grate while she sat. The room was silent save for her
breathing, that now came in quick spasms as she thought of the false
lover, and now was slow and deep as she sat sunk in a shamed reverie.
On a sudden the cooling fireplace cracked. The sound roused her. She
sprang up and gazed about her in affright, remembering that she had no
longer any business there, nay, that in no room in the world had she
less business.
In the terror of the moment she flew to the door; she must go, but
whither? More than ever, now that she recognised her folly, she shrank
from her sister's scornful eyes, from Mr. Northey's disapproving
stare, from the grins of the servants, the witticisms of her friends.
The part she had played, seen as she now saw it, would make her the
laughing-stock of the town. It was the silliest, the most romantic; a
school-girl would cry fie on it. Sophia's cheek burned at the thought
of facing a single person who had ever known her; much more at the
thought of meeting her sister or Mrs. Martha, or the laced bumpkins
past whom she had flitted in that ill-omened hour. She could not go
back to Arlington Street. But then--whither could she go?
Whither indeed? It was nine o'clock; night had fallen. At such an hour
the streets were unsafe for a woman without escort, much more for a
girl of gentility. Drunken roysterers on their way from tavern to
tavern, ripe for any frolic, formed a peril worse than footpads; and
she had neither chair nor link-boys, servants nor coach, without one
or other of which she had never passed through the streets in her
life. Yet she could not stay where she was; rather would she lie
without covering in the wildest corner of the adjacent parks, or on
the lonely edge of Rosamond's pond! The mere thought that she lingered
there was enough; she shuddered with loathing, grew hot with rage. And
the impulse that had hastened her to the door returning, she hurried
out and was half-way down the stairs, when the sound of a man's voice,
uplifted in the passage below, brought her up short where she stood.
An instant only she heard it clearly. Then the tramp of feet along
the passage, masked the voice. But she had heard enough--it was
Hawkesworth's--and her eyes grew wide with terror. She should die of
shame if he found her there! If he learned, not by hearsay, but eye to
eye, that she had come of her own motion, poor, silly dupe of his
blandishments, to throw herself into his arms! That were too much; she
turned to fly.
Her first thought was to take refuge on the upper floor until he had
gone into his room and closed the door; two bounds carried her to the
landing she had left. But here she found an unexpected obstacle in a
wicket, set at the foot of the upper flight of stairs; one of those
wickets that are still to be seen in old houses, in the neighbourhood
of the nursery. By the light that issued from the half-open doorway of
the room, Sophia tugged at it furiously, but seeking the latch at the
end of the gate where the hinges were, she lost a precious moment.
When she found the fastening, the steps of the man she had fancied she
loved, and now knew she hated, were on the stairs. And the gate would
not yield! Penned on the narrow landing, with discovery tapping her on
the shoulder, she fumbled desperately with the latch, even, in
despair, flung her weight against the wicket. It held; in another
second, if she persisted, she would be seen.
With a moan of anguish she turned and darted into Hawkesworth's room,
and sprang to the table where the candles stood. Her thought was to
blow them out, then to take her chance of passing the man before they
were relighted. But as she gained the table and stooped to extinguish
them, she heard his step so near the door that she knew the sudden
extinction of the light must be seen; and her eyes at the same moment
alighting on the high-backed settle, in an instant she was behind it.
It was a step she would not have taken had she acted on anything but
the blind, unthinking impulse to hide herself. For here retreat was
cut off; she was now between her enemy and the inner room. She dared
not move, and in a few minutes at most must be discovered. But the
thing was done; there was no time to alter it. As her hoop slipped
from sight behind the wooden seat, the Irishman entered, and with a
laugh flung his hat and cane on the table. A second person appeared to
cross the threshold after him; and crouching lower, her heart beating
as if it would choke her, Sophia heard the door flung to behind them.
CHAPTER VIII
UNMASKED
There are men who find as much pleasure in the intrigue as in the
fruits of the intrigue; who take huge credit for their own finesse and
others' folly, and find a chief part of their good in watching, as
from a raised seat, the movements of their dupes, astray in a maze of
their planting. The more ingenious the machination they have
contrived, the nicer the calculations and the more narrow the point on
which success turns, the sweeter is the sop to their vanity. To
receive Lisette and Fifine in the same apartment within the hour; to
divide the rebel and the minister by a door; to turn the scruple of
one person to the hurt of another, and know both to be ignorant--these
are feats on which they hug themselves as fondly as on the substantial
rewards which crown their man[oe]uvres.
Hawkesworth was of this class; and it was with feelings such as these
that he saw his nicely jointed plans revolving to the end he desired.
To mould the fate of Tom Maitland at Cambridge, and of Sophia in town,
and both to his own profit, fulfilled his sense of power. To time the
weddings as nearly as possible, to match the one at noon and to marry
the other at night, gratified his vanity at the same time that it
tickled his humour. But the more delicate the machinery, the smaller
is the atom, and the slighter the jar that suffices to throw all out
of gear. For a time, Oriana's absence, at a moment when every instant
was of price, and the interference of Tom's friends was hourly
possible, threatened to ruin all. It was in the enjoyment of the
relief, which the news of her arrival afforded, that he returned to
his lodging this evening. He was in his most rollicking humour, and
overflowed with spirits; Tom's innocence and his own sagacity
providing him with ever fresh and more lively cause for merriment.
Nor was the lad's presence any check on his mood. Hawkesworth's
joviality, darkling and satirical as it was, passed with Tom for
lightness of heart. What he did not understand, he set down for Irish,
and dubbed his companion the prince of good fellows. As they climbed
the stairs, he was trying with after-supper effusiveness to impress
this on his host. "I swear you are the best friend man ever had," he
cried, his voice full of gratitude. "I vow you are."
Hawkesworth laughed, as he threw his hat and cane on the table, and
proceeded to take off his sword that he might be more at ease. His
laughter was a little louder than the other's statement seemed to
justify; but Tom was in no critical mood, and Hawkesworth's easy
answer "You'll say so when you know all, my lad," satisfied the boy.
"I do say it," he repeated earnestly, as he threw himself on the
settle, and, taking the poker, stirred the embers to see if a spark
survived. "I do say it."
"And I say, well you may," Hawkesworth retorted, with a sneer from
which he could not refrain. "What do you think, dear lad, would have
happened, if I'd tried for the prize myself?" he continued. "If I'd
struck in for your pretty bit of red and white on my own account? Do
you remember Trumpington, and our first meeting? I'd the start of you
then, though you are going to be her husband."
"Twenty minutes' start," Tom answered.
Hawkesworth averted his face to hide a grin. "Twenty minutes?" he
said. "Lord, so it was! Twenty minutes!" The boy reddened. "Why do you
laugh?" he asked.
"Why? Why, because twenty minutes is a long time--sometimes,"
Hawkesworth answered. "But there, be easy, lad," he continued, seeing
that he was going too far, "be easy--no need to be jealous of me--and
I'll brew you some punch. There is one thing certain," he continued,
producing a squat Dutch bottle and some glasses from a cupboard by the
door. "You have me to thank for her! There is no doubt about that."
"It's what I've always said," Tom answered. He was easily appeased.
"If you'd not asked my help when your chaise broke down at
Trumpington--you'd just picked her up, you remember?--I should never
have known her! Think of that!" he continued, his eyes shining with a
lover's enthusiasm; and he rose and trod the floor this way and that.
"Never to have known her, Hawkesworth!"
"Whom, to know was to love," the Irishman murmured, with thinly veiled
irony.
"Right! Right, indeed!"
"And to love was to know--eh?"
"Right! Right, again!" poor Tom cried, striking the table.
For a moment Hawkesworth contemplated him with amusement. Then--"Well,
here's to her!" he cried, raising his glass. "The finest woman in the
world!"
"And the best! And the best!" Tom answered.
"And the best! The toast is worthy the best of liquor," Hawkesworth
continued, pushing over the other's glass; "but you'll have to drink
it cold, for the fire is out."
"The finest woman in the world, and the best!" the lad cried; his eyes
glowed as he stood up reverently, his glass in his hand. "She is that,
isn't she, Hawkesworth?"
"She is all that, I'll answer for it!" the Irishman replied, with a
stifled laugh. Lord! what fools there were in the world! "By this time
to-morrow she'll be yours! Think of it, lad!" he continued, with an
ugly-sounding, ugly-meaning laugh; at which one of his listeners
shuddered.
But Tom, in the lover's seventh heaven, was not that one. His Oriana,
who to others was a handsome woman, bold-eyed and free-tongued, was a
goddess to him. He saw her through that glamour of first love that
blesses no man twice. He felt no doubt, harboured no suspicion, knew
no fear; he gave scarce one thought to her past. He was content to
take for gospel all she told him, and to seek no more. That he--he
should have gained the heart of this queen among women seemed so
wonderful, so amazing, that nothing else seemed wonderful at all.
"You think she'll not fail?" he cried, presently, as he set down his
glass. "It's a week since I saw her, and--and you don't think she'll
have changed her mind, do you?"
"Not she!" Hawkesworth answered.
"She'll come, you are certain."
"As certain," Hawkesworth cried gaily, "as that Dr. Keith will be
ready at the chapel at twelve to the minute, dear lad. And, by the
way, here's his health! Dr. Keith, and long may he live to bless the
single and crown the virtuous! To give to him that hath not, and from
her that hath to take away! To be the plague of all sour guardians,
lockers-up of maidens, and such as would cheat Cupid; and the
guardian-angel of all Nugents, Husseys, and bold fellows! Here's to
the pride of Mayfair, the curse of Chancery, and the god-father of
many a pretty couple--Dr. Keith!"
"Here's to him!" Tom cried, with ready enthusiasm. And then more
quietly as he set down his glass, "There's one thing I'd like, to be
perfectly happy, Hawkesworth, only one. I wish it were possible, but I
suppose it isn't."
"What is it, lad?"
"If Sophia, my sister, could be there. They'll be sisters, you see,
and--and, of course, Sophia's a girl, but there are only the two of
us, for Madam Northey doesn't count. But I suppose it is not possible
she should be told?"
"Quite impossible!" Hawkesworth answered with decision; and he stooped
to hide a smile. The humour of the situation suited him. "Quite
impossible! Ten to one she'd peach! No, no, we must not initiate her
too soon, my boy; though it is likely enough she'll have her own
business with Dr. Keith one of these days!"
The boy stared at him. "My sister?" he said slowly, his face growing
red. "With Dr. Keith? What business could she have with him?"
"With Dr. Keith?" Hawkesworth asked lightly. "Why not the same as
yours, dear boy?"
"The same as mine?"
"Yes, to be sure. Why not? Eh, why not?"
"Why not? Because she's a Maitland!" the lad answered, and his eyes
flashed. "Our women don't marry that way, I'd have you to know! Why,
I'd--I'd rather see her buried."
"But you're going to marry that way yourself!" Hawkesworth reasoned.
The boy's innocence surprised him a little and amused him more.
"I? But I'm a man," Tom answered with dignity. "I'm different.
And--and Oriana," he continued, plunging on a sudden into dreadful
confusion and redness of face, "is--is different of course,
because--well, because if we are not married in this way, my brother
Northey would interfere, and we could not be married at all. Oriana is
an angel, and--and because she loves me, is willing to be married in
this way. That's all, you see."
"I see. But you would not like your sister to be married on the
quiet?"
Tom glared at him. "No," he said curtly. "And for the why, it is my
business."
"To be sure it is! Of course it is. And yet, Sir Tom," Hawkesworth
continued, his tone provoking, "I would not mind wagering you a
hundred it is the way she will be married, when her time comes."
"My sister?"
"Yes."
"Done with you!" the lad cried.
"Nay, I don't mind going farther," Hawkesworth continued. "I'll wager
you the same sum that she does it within the year."
"This year?"
"A year from to-day."
Tom jumped up in heat. "What the devil do you mean?" he cried. Then he
sat down again. "But what matter!" he said, "I'll take you."
Hawkesworth as he pulled out his betting book turned his head aside to
hide a smile. "I note it," he said. "'P. H. bets Sir Thomas Maitland a
hundred that Miss Sophia Maitland is married at Dr. Keith's chapel;
and another hundred that the marriage is within the year.'"
"Right!" Tom said, glowering at him. His boyish estimate of the
importance of his family, and of the sacredness of his womankind,
sucked the flavour from the bet; ordinarily the young scapegrace loved
a wager.
Hawkesworth put up his book again. "Good," he said. "You'll see that
that will be two hundred in my pocket some day."
"Not it!" Tom answered, rudely. "My sister is not that sort! And
perhaps the sooner you know it, the better," he added, aggressively.
"Why, lad, what do you mean?"
"Just what I said!" Tom answered shortly. "It was English. When my
sister is to be married, we shall make a marriage for her. She's
not--but the less said the better," he continued, breaking off with a
frown.
Hawkesworth knew that it would be prudent to quit the subject, but his
love of teasing, or his sense of the humour of the situation, would
not let him be silent. "She's not for such as me, you mean?" he said,
with a mocking laugh.
"You can put it that way if you choose!"
"And yet, I think--if I were to try?"
"What?"
"I say, if I were to try?"
Sir Tom scowled across the table. "Look here!" he said, striking it
heavily with his hand, "I don't like this sort of talk. I don't
suppose you wish to be offensive; and we'll end it, if you please."
Hawkesworth shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, by all means, if you feel
that way," he said. "Only it looks a little as if you feared for your
charming sister. After all, women are women. Even Miss Sophia Maitland
is a woman, and no exception to the rule, I presume?"
"Oh, hang you!" the boy cried, in a fury; and again struck his hand on
the table. "Will you leave my sister's name alone? Cannot you
understand--what a gentleman feels about it?"
[Illustration: "HE CANNOT!"]
"_He cannot!_"
The words came from behind Sir Tom, who forthwith sprang a yard from
the settle, and stood gaping; while Hawkesworth, his glass going to
shivers on the floor, clutched the table as he rose. Both stood
staring, both stood amazed, and scarce believed their eyes, when
Sophia, stepping from the shelter of the settle, stood before them.
"He cannot!" she repeated, with a gesture, a look, an accent that
should have withered the man. "He cannot! For he does not know what a
gentleman feels about anything. He does not know what a gentleman is.
Look at him! Look at him!" she continued, her face white with scorn;
and she fixed the astonished Irishman with an outstretched finger that
could scarce have confounded him more had it been a loaded pistol set
to his head. "A gentleman!" she went on passionately. "That a
gentleman? Why, the air he breathes pollutes us! To be in one room
with him disgraces us! That such an one should have tricked us will
shame us all our lives!"
Hawkesworth tried to speak, tried to carry off the surprise; but a
feeble smile was all he could compass. Even Irish wit, even native
impudence were unequal to this emergency. The blow was so sudden, so
unexpected, he could not in a moment arrange his thoughts, or discern
his position. He saw that for some reason or other she had come to him
before the time; but he could not on the instant remember how far he
had disclosed his hand before her, or what she had learned from him
while she lay hidden.
Naturally Tom was the quicker to recover himself. His first thought on
seeing his sister was that she had got wind of his plans, and was here
to prevent his marriage. And it was in this sense that he interpreted
her opening words. But before she had ceased to speak, the passion
which she threw into her denunciation of Hawkesworth, turned his
thoughts into a new and a fiercer channel. With an oath, "Never mind
him!" he cried, and stepping forward gripped her, almost brutally, by
the wrist. "I'll talk with him afterwards. First, miss, what the devil
are you doing here?"
"Ask him," she answered; and again pointed her finger at Hawkesworth.
"Or no, I will tell you, Tom. That man, the man who calls himself your
friend, and called himself my lover, has plotted to ruin us. He has
schemed to get us into his net. To-morrow he would have married you
to--to, I know not, whom. And when he had seen you married, and knew
you had forfeited a fortune to me, then--then I should have been a fit
match for him! I! I! And in the evening he would have married me! Oh,
shame, shame on us, Tom, that we should have let ourselves be so
deluded!"
"He would have married you!" Tom cried, dropping her hand in sheer
astonishment.
"The same day!"
"Hawkesworth? This man here? He would have married you?"
"You may well say, he!" she answered, a wave of crimson flooding her
cheeks and throat. "The thought kills me."
Tom looked from one to the other. "But I can't understand," he said.
"I didn't know--that he knew you, even."
"And I didn't know that he knew you!" she answered bitterly. "He is a
villain, and that was his plan. We were not to know."
Tom turned to the Irishman; and the latter's deprecatory shrug was
vain. "What have you to say?" Tom cried in a voice almost terrible.
But Hawkesworth, who did not lack courage, was himself again, easy,
alert, plausible. "Much," he said coolly. "Much, dear lad. The whole
thing is a mistake. I loved your sister"--he bowed gravely in her
direction, and stole a glance as he did so, to learn how she took it,
and how far he still had a chance with her. "I loved her, I say, I
still love her, though she has shown that she puts as little faith in
me, as she can ever have entertained affection for me. But I knew her
as Miss Maitland, I did not know that she was your sister. Once I
think she mentioned a brother; but no more, no name. For the rest, I
had as little reason to expect to find her here as you had. That I
swear!"
The last words hit Tom uncomfortably; her presence in this man's room
was a fact hard to swallow. The brother turned on the sister. "Is this
true?" he hissed.
Sophia winced. "It is true," she faltered.
"Then what brought you here?" Tom cried, with brutal frankness.
The girl shivered; she never forgot the pain of that moment, never
forgot the man who had caused her that humiliation. "Ask him!" she
panted. "Or no, I will tell you, Tom. He swore that he loved me. He
made me, poor silly fool that I was, believe him. He said that if I
would elope with him to-morrow, he would marry me at Dr. Keith's
chapel; and fearing they--my sister--would marry me against my will
to--to another man, I consented. Then--they were going to send me away
in the morning, and it would have been too late. I came away this
afternoon to tell him, and--and----"
"There you have the explanation, Sir Thomas," Hawkesworth interposed,
with an air of candid good nature. "And in all you'll say, I think,
that there is nothing of which I need be ashamed. I loved your sister,
she was good enough to fancy that she was not indifferent to me. My
intentions were honourable, but her friends were opposed to my suit. I
had her consent to elope, and if she had not on a sudden discovered,
as she apparently has discovered, that her heart is not mine, we
should have been married within a few days."
"To-morrow, sir, to-morrow!" Sophia cried. And would have confronted
him with his letter; but it was in the folds of her dress, and she
would not let him see where she kept it.
"To-morrow, certainly, if it had been your pleasure," Hawkesworth
answered smoothly. "The sole, the only point it concerns me to show,
is, Sir Tom, that I did not know my Miss Maitland to be your sister. I
give you my word, Sir Tom, I did not!"
"Liar!" she cried, unable to contain herself.
He shrugged his shoulders, and smiled. "There is but one Sir Thomas
Maitland," he said, "but there are many Maitlands. Miss Maitland may
hold what opinion she pleases, and express what view of my character
commends itself to her, without fear that I shall call her natural
guardians to account. But I cannot allow a gentleman to doubt my word.
I repeat, Sir Tom, that I did not know that this lady was your
sister."
The boy listened, scowling and thinking. He had no lack of courage,
and was as ready to fly at a man's throat as not. But he was young; he
was summoned, suddenly and in conditions most perplexing, to protect
the family honour; it was no wonder that he hesitated. At this,
however, "Then why the deuce were you so ready to bet," he blurted
out, "that she would be married at Keith's?"
Before Hawkesworth could frame the answer, "That is not all!" Sophia
cried; and with a rapid movement she snatched from the table the book
that had first opened her eyes. "Here, here," she cried, tapping it
passionately. "In his own handwriting is the plot! The plot against us
both! Tom, look; find it! You will find it under my name. And then he
cannot deny it."
She held out the book to Tom; he went to take it. But Hawkesworth, who
knew the importance of the evidence, was too quick for them. With an
oath he sprang forward, held Tom back with one hand, and with the
other seized the volume, and tried to get possession of it. But Sophia
clung to it, screaming; and before he could wrest it from her hold,
Tom, maddened by the insult and her cries, was at his breast like a
wild cat.
The fury of the assault took the Irishman by surprise. He staggered
against the wall, and alarmed by the girl's shrieks, let the book go.
By that time, however, Sophia had had enough of the struggle. The
sight of the two locked in furious conflict horrified her, her grasp
relaxed, she let the book fall; and as Hawkesworth, recovering from
his surprise, gripped her brother's throat and by main force bent him
backwards--the lad never ceasing to rain blows on the taller man's
face and shoulders--she fled to the door, opened it, and screamed for
help.
Fortunately it was already on the road. Mr. Wollenhope, crying, "Lord,
what is it? What is it?" was halfway up the stairs when she appeared,
and close on his heels followed his wife, with a scared face. Sophia
beckoned them to hasten, and wringing her hands, flew back. They
followed.
They found Hawkesworth dragging the boy about, and striving savagely
to force him to the floor. As soon as he saw Wollenhope, he cried with
fury, "Will some one take this mad dog off me? He has tried his best
to murder me. If I had not been the stronger, he would have done it!"
Wollenhope, panting with the haste he had made, seized Tom from behind
and held him, while Hawkesworth disengaged himself. "You'll--you'll
give me satisfaction for this!" the lad cried, gasping, and almost
blubbering with rage. His wig was gone, so was his cravat; the ruffle
of his shirt was torn from top to bottom.
The other was busy readjusting his dress, and staunching the blood
that flowed from a cut lip. "Satisfaction, you young booby?" he
answered, with savage contempt. "Send you back to school and whip you!
Turn 'em out, Wollenhope! Turn them both out! That devil's cub sprang
on me and tried to strangle me. It's lucky for you, sir, I don't send
you to Hicks's Hall!"
"Oh, Lord, let's have none of that!" Wollenhope interposed hastily.
"Mine's a respectable house, and there's been noise enough already. A
little more and I shall be indicted. March, young sir, if you please.
And you too, miss."
Tom swelled with fresh rage. "Do you know who I am, fellow?" he cried.
"I'd have you to know----"
"I don't want to know!" Wollenhope rejoined, cutting him short. "I
won't know! It's march--that's all I know. And quick, if you please,"
he continued, trying to edge the lad out of the room.
"But, William," his wife protested, and timidly touched his arm, "it's
possible that they may not be in fault. I'm sure the young lady was
very well spoken when she came."
"None of your advice!" her husband retorted.
"But, William----"
"None of your advice, I say! Do you hear? Do you understand? This
gentleman is our lodger. Who the others are, I don't know, nor care.
And I don't want to know, that's more."
"You'll smart for this!" Tom cried, getting in a word at last. He was
almost bursting with chagrin and indignation. "I'd have you know, my
fine fellow, I am Sir----"
"I don't want to know," Wollenhope retorted, stubbornly. "I don't care
who you are; and for smarting, perhaps I may. When you are sober, sir,
we'll talk about it. In the meantime, this is my house, and you'll go,
unless you want me to fetch the constable. And that mayn't be best for
the young lady, who seems a young lady. I don't suppose she'll like to
be taken to the Round house, nor run the risk of it. Take my advice,
young sir, take my advice; and go quietly while you can."
Tom, half-choked with rage, was for retorting, but Sophia, who had
quite broken down and was weeping hysterically, clutched his arm. "Oh,
come," she cried piteously, "please come!" And she tried to draw him
towards the door.
But the lad resisted. "You'll answer to me for this," he said,
scowling at Hawkesworth, who remained in an attitude, eyeing the two
with a smile of disdain. "You know where to find me, and I shall be at
your service until to-morrow at noon."
"I'll find you when you are grown up," the Irishman answered, with a
mocking laugh. "Back to your books, boy, and be whipped for playing
truant!"
The taunt stung Tom to fresh fury. With a scream of rage he sprang
forward, and, shaking off Wollenhope's grasp, tried to close with his
enemy. But Sophia hung on him bravely, imploring him to be calm; and
Wollenhope seized him again and held him back, while Mrs. Wollenhope
supplied, for assistance, a chorus of shrieks. Between the three he
was partly led and partly dragged to the door, and got outside. From
the landing he hurled a last threat at the smiling Hawkesworth, now
left master of the field; and then, with a little rough persuasion, he
was induced to descend.
In the passage he had a fresh fit of stubbornness, and wished to state
his wrongs and who he was. But Sophia's heart was pitifully set on
escaping from the house--to her a house of bitter shame and
humiliation--and the landlord's desire was to see the last of them;
and in a moment the two were outside. Wollenhope lost not a moment,
but slammed the door on them; they heard the chain put up, and, an
instant later, the man's retreating footsteps as he went back to his
lodger.
CHAPTER IX
IN CLARGES BOW
If Tom had been alone when he was thus ejected, it is probable
that his first impulse would have been either to press his forehead
against the wall and weep with rage, or to break the offender's
windows--eighteen being an age at which the emotions are masters of
the man. But the noise of the fracas within, though dulled by the
walls, had reached the street. A window here and a window there stood
open, and curious eyes, peering through the darkness, were on the two
who had been put out. Tom was too angry to heed these on his own
account, or care who was witness of his violence; but for Sophia's
sake, whose state as she clung to his arm began to appeal to his
manhood, he was willing to be gone without more.
After shaking his fist at the door, therefore, and uttering a furious
word or two, he pressed the weeping girl's hand to his side. "All
right," he said, "we'll go. It'll not be long before I'm back again,
and they'll be sorry! A houseful of cheats and bullies! There, there,
child, I'll come. Don't cry," he continued, patting her hand with an
air that, after the reverse he had suffered, was not without its
grandeur. "I'll take care of you, never fear. I've rooms a little way
round the corner, taken to-day, and you shall have my bed. It's too
late to go to Arlington Street to-night."
Sophia, sobbing and frightened, hung down her head, and did not
answer; and Tom, forgetting in his wrath against Hawkesworth the cause
he had to be angry with her, said nothing to increase her misery or
aggravate her sense of the folly she had committed. His lodgings were
in Clarges Row, a little north of Shepherd's Market, and almost
within a stone's throw of Mayfair Chapel. Four minutes' walking
brought the two to the house, where Tom rapped in a peculiar manner
at the window-shutter; when this had been twice repeated, the door
was opened grudgingly by a pale-faced, elderly man, bearing a lighted
candle-end in his fingers.
He muttered his surprise on seeing Tom, but made way for him,
grumbling something about the late hour. When he saw the girl about to
follow, however, he started, and seemed to be going to refuse her
entrance. But Tom was of those who carry off by sheer force of
arrogance a difficult situation. "My sister, Miss Maitland, is with
me," he said. "She'll have my room to-night. Don't stare, fellow, but
hold a light for the lady to go up."
The man's reluctance was evident; but he let them enter, and barred
the door after them. Then snuffing his candle with his fingers, he
held it up and surveyed them. "By gole," he said, chuckling, "you
don't look much like bride and bridegroom!"
Tom stormed at him, but he only continued to grin. "You've been
fighting!" he said.
"Well what's that to you, you rogue!" the lad answered sharply. "Light
the lady up, do you hear?"
"To be sure! To be sure! But you'll be wanting a light in each room,"
he continued with a cunning look, as he halted at the head of a narrow
boarded staircase, up which he had preceded them. "That's over and
above, you'll remember. Candles here and candles there, a man's soon
ruined!"
Tom bade him keep a civil tongue, and himself led the way into a
quaint little three-cornered parlour, boarded like the staircase;
beyond it was a bedroom of the same shape and size. The rooms had a
small window apiece looking on the Row, and wore an air of snugness
that would have appealed to Sophia had her eyes been open to anything
but her troubles. Against the longer wall of the little parlour stood
a couple of tall clocks; a third eked out the scanty furniture of the
bedroom, and others, ticking with stealthy industry in the lower part
of the house, whispered that it was a clock-maker's shop.
Sophia cared not. She felt no curiosity. She put no questions, but
accepted in silence the dispositions her brother made for her comfort.
Bruised and broken, fatigued in body, with a sorely aching heart she
took the room he gave her, sleep offering all she could now hope for
or look for, sleep bounding all her ambitions. In sleep--and at that
moment the girl would fain have lain down not to rise again--she hoped
to find a refuge from trouble, a shelter from thought, a haven where
shame could not enter. To one in suspense, in doubt, in expectation,
bed is a rack, a place of torture; but when the blow has fallen, the
lot been drawn, the dulled sensibilities sink to rest in it as
naturally as a bird in the nest--and as quickly find repose.
She slept as one stunned, but weak is the anodyne of a single night.
She awoke in the morning, cured indeed of love by a radical operation,
but still bleeding; still in fancy under the cruel knife, still
writhing in remembered torture. To look forward, to avert her eyes
from the past, was her sole hope; and speedily her mind grew clear;
the future began to take shape. She would make use of Tom's good
offices, and through him she would negotiate terms with her sister.
She would not, could not, go back to Arlington Street! But any
penance, short of that, she would undergo. If it pleased them she
would go to Chalkhill; or in any other way that seemed good to them,
she would expiate the foolish, and worse than foolish escapade of
which she had been guilty. Life henceforth could be but a grey and
joyless thing; provided she escaped the sneers and gibes of Arlington
Street, she cared little where it was spent.
She was anxious to broach the subject at breakfast; but, through a
natural reluctance to open it, she postponed the discussion as long as
she dared. It was not like Tom to be over careful of her feelings; but
he, too, appeared to be equally unwilling to revert to past
unpleasantness. He fidgeted and seemed preoccupied; he rose frequently
and sat down again; more than once he went to the window and looked
out. At last he rose impulsively and disappeared in the bedroom.
By-and-by he returned. He was still in his morning cap and loose
wrapper, but he carried a shirt over each arm. "Which ruffles do you
like the better, Sophy?" he asked; and he displayed one after the
other before her eyes. "Of course I'd like to look my best to-day," he
added, shamefacedly.
She stared at him, in perplexity at first, not understanding him; then
in horror, as she discerned on a sudden what he meant. "To-day?" she
faltered. "Why to-day, Tom, more than on other days?"
His face fell. "Is't odd," he said, "to want to look one's best to be
married? At any rate, I never thought so. Until yesterday," he added
with a glance at her dress.
She was sitting on the narrow window-seat; she stood up, her back to
the window. "To be married?" she exclaimed. "Oh, Tom! It is
impossible--impossible you intend to go on with it, after all you have
heard!"
His face grew darker and more sullen. "At any rate I am not going
to marry Hawkesworth!" he sneered. And then as she winced under the
cruel stroke he repented of it. "I only mean," he said hurriedly,
"that--that I don't see what he and his villainy have to do with my
marriage."
"But, oh, Tom, it is all one!" Sophia cried, clasping her hands
nervously. "He was with--with her, when you met her. I heard you say
so last night. I heard you say that if it had not been for him you
would never have seen her, or known her."
"Weil!" Tom answered. "And what of that? If her chaise had not broken
down, I should never have seen her, or known her. That is true, too.
But what has that to do with it, I'd like to know?"
"He planned it!"
"He could not plan my falling in love," Tom answered, stroking his
chin fatuously.
"But if you had seen the book," Sophia retorted, "the book he snatched
from me, you would have seen it written there! His plan was to procure
you to be married first. You know you forfeit ten thousand pounds
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