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 theEvening 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.
p59"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 naïvely. "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. "Ishouldbe 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 abouthim. 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!"
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 thecapias. 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