At the corner of Bolton Row Sir Hervey paused. He felt, to be candid, a trifle awkward in therôleof knight-errant, a part reserved in those days for Lord Peterborough. The Northeys' heartless cynicism, and their instant and cruel desertion of the girl, had stirred the chivalry that underlay his cold exterior. But from the first he had been aware that his status in the matter was ill-defined; he now began to see it in a worse, an absurd light. He had taken the field in the belief that Sophia had not stayed in Davies Street; that Hawkesworth, therefore, was beside the question; and that whatever folly she had committed, she had not altogether compromised herself; he now found the data on which he had acted painfully erroneous. She had not stayed in Davies Street, because she had not gone to Davies Street. But she might have joined Hawkesworth elsewhere; she might by this time be his wife; she might be gone with him never to return!
In that event Coke began to see that his part in the matter would prove to be worse than ridiculous; and he paused at the corner of Bolton Row, uncertain whether he should not go home and erase with a sore heart a foolish child's face from his memory. His was a day of coarse things; of duchesses who talked as fishwives talk now, of madcap maids of honour, such as she--
Who, as down the stairs she jumps,Sings over the hills and far away,Despising doleful dumps!
Who, as down the stairs she jumps,
Sings over the hills and far away,
Despising doleful dumps!
of bishops seen at strange levées, of clergy bribed with livings to take strange wives; of hoyden lady Kitties, whose talk was a jumble of homely saws and taproom mock-modesties; of old men still swearing as they had sworn in Flanders in their youth. At the best it was not an age of ideals; but neither was it an age of hypocrisy, and women were plentiful. Why, then, all this trouble for one? And for one who had showed him plainly what she thought of him.
For a moment, at the corner of Bolton Row, Sophia's fate hung in the balance. Hung so nicely, that if Coke had not paused there, but had proceeded straight through Bolton Street, to Piccadilly, and so to Arlington Street, her lot would have been very different. But the debate kept him standing long enough to bring to a point--not many yards from the corner--two figures, which had just detached themselves from the crowd about Shepherd's Market. In the act of stepping across the gutter, he saw them, glanced carelessly at them, and stood. As the two, one behind the other, came up, almost brushing him, and turned to enter Clarges Row, he reached out his cane and touched the foremost.
"Why, Tom!" he cried. "Is it you, lad? Well met!"
137HE STOOD, GRINNING IN HIS FINERY, UNABLE TO SAY A WORD
Tom--for it was he--turned at the sound of his name, and seeing who it was recoiled, as if the cane that touched him had been red hot. The colour mounted to his wig; he stood, grinning in his finery, unable to say a word. "Why, Tom!" Sir Hervey repeated, as he held out his hand, "What is it, lad? Have you bad news? You are on the same business as I am, I take it?"
Tom blushed redder and redder, and shifted his feet uneasily. "I don't know, Sir Hervey," he stammered. "I don't know what your business is, you see."
"Well, you can easily guess," Coke answered, never doubting that Tom had heard what was forward, and had posted from Cambridge in pursuit of his sister. "Have you news? That's the point."
Tom had only his own affair in his mind. He wondered how much the other knew, and more than half suspected that he was being roasted. So "News?" he faltered. "What sort of news, sir?" He had known Sir Hervey all his life, and still felt for him the respect which a lad feels for the man of experience and fashion.
Coke stared at him. "What sort of news?" he exclaimed. "It isn't possible you don't know what has happened, boy?" Then, seeing that the person who had come up with Tom was at his elbow, listening, "Is this fellow with you?" he cried angrily. "If so, bid him stand back a little."
"Yes, he's with me," Tom answered, sheepishly; and turning to the lad, who was laden with a great nosegay of flowers as well as a paper parcel from which some white Spitalfields ribbons protruded, he bade him go on. "Go on," he said, "I'll follow you. The last house on the right."
Sir Hervey heard, and stared afresh. "What?" he cried. "Grocott's?"
Tom winced, and changed his feet uneasily, cursing his folly in letting out so much. "It's only something that--that he's taking there," he muttered.
"But you know about your sister?"
"Sophia?" Tom blurted out. "Oh, she's all right. She's all right, I tell you. You need not trouble about her."
"Indeed? Then where is she? Where is she, man? Out with it."
"She's with me."
"With you?" Sir Hervey cried, his cynicism quite gone. "With you?"
"Yes."
"Was it you who--who took her from Davies Street, then?"
"To be sure," Tom said. In his preoccupation with his own affairs his sister's position had been forgotten. Now he began to recover himself; he began, too, to see that he had done rather a clever thing. "Yes, I was there when she met that fellow," he continued. "Hawkesworth, you know, and I brought her away. I tell you what, Sir Hervey, that fellow's low. He should be in the Clink. She found him out sharp, before he had time to sit down, and it's lucky I was there to bring her away, or Lord knows what would have happened. For he's a monstrous rascal, and the people of the house are none too good!"
"Last night was it?"
"Yes."
"And you took her to Grocott's?" Sir Hervey could not make the tales agree.
"Ye--es," Tom faltered; but the word died on his lips, and he grew hot again. He saw too late that he had put his foot in a hobble from which he would find it hard to extricate himself, with all his skill. For it wanted only a few minutes of noon, and at Grocott's, a hundred paces away, his bride was expecting him. Presently Keith, the Mayfair parson, from whom he had just come after making the last arrangements, would be expecting both! Even now he ought to be at Grocott's; even now he ought to be on his way to the chapel in Curzon Street. And Grocott's was in sight; from where he stood he could see the boy with the flowers and wedding favours waiting at the door. But Coke--Coke the inopportune--had hold of his elbow, and if he went to Grocott's, would wish to go with him--would wish to see his sister, and from her would hear all about the marriage. Aye, and hearing, would interfere!
The cup of Tantalus was a little thing beside this, and Tom's cheeks burned; the wildest projects flashed through his brain. Should he take Sir Hervey to Grocott's, inveigle him into a bedroom and lock him up till the wedding was over? Or should he turn that instant, and take to his heels like any common pickpocket, without word or explanation, and so lead him from the place? He might do that, and return by coach himself, and----
Coke broke the tangled thread of thought. "There is something amiss, here," he said with decision. "She is not at Grocott's. Or they lied to me."
"She's not?" Tom cried, with a sigh of relief. "You've been there? Then you may be sure she has gone to Arlington Street. That is it, you may be sure!"
"Aye, but they said at Grocott's that she had not been there," Coke retorted, looking more closely at Tom, and beginning to discern something odd in his manner. "If she's been there at all, how do you explain that, my boy?"
"She's been there all right," Tom answered eagerly. "I'm bail she has! I tell you it is so! And you may be sure she has gone to Arlington Street. Go there and you'll find her."
"I don't know about that. You don't think that when your back was turned----"
"What?"
"She went off again!"
"With Hawkesworth?" Tom cried impatiently. "I tell you she's found him out! He's poison to her! She's there I tell you. Or she was."
"But Grocott denied her!"
"Oh, nonsense!" Tom said--he was as red as fire with asking himself whom Sir Hervey had seen. "Oh, nonsense," he repeated, hurriedly; he felt he could bear it no longer. "She was there, and she has gone to Arlington Street."
"Very good," Sir Hervey replied. "Then we'll ask again. The man at the house lied to me, and I'll have an explanation, or I'll lay my cane across his shoulders, old as he is! There was some one I did see---- But come along! Come along. We'll look into this, Tom."
It was in vain Tom hung back, feebly protesting that she had gone--there was no doubt that she had gone to Arlington Street. Will-he, nill-he, he was dragged along. A moment and the two, Coke swinging his cane ominously, were half-way up the Row. In the midst of his agony Tom got a notion that his companion was taking sidelong looks at his clothes; and he grew hot and hotter, fearing what was to come. When they were within a few yards of the door, a hackney coach passed them, and, turning, came to a stand before the house.
"There! What did I say?" Sir Hervey muttered. "I take it, we are only just in time."
"Perhaps it's the coach that took her away," Tom suggested, trying to restrain his companion. "Shall I go in--I know the people--and--and inquire? Yes, you'd better let me do that," he continued eagerly, buttonholing Sir Hervey, "perhaps they did not know you. I really think you had better leave it to me, Sir Hervey. I----"
"No, thank you," Coke answered drily. "There's a shorter way. Are you here to take up, my man?"
"To be sure, your honour," the coachman answered readily. "And long life to her!"
"Eh?"
"Long life to the bride, your honour!"
"Ah!" Sir Hervey said, his face growing dark. "I thought so. I think, my lad," he continued to Tom, as he knocked at the door, "she and somebody have made a fool of you!"
"No, no," Tom said, distractedly. "It's--it's not for her."
"We shall soon learn!" Coke answered. And he rapped again imperatively.
Tom tried to tell him the facts; but his throat was dry, his head whirled, he could not get out a word. And by-and-by Grocott's dragging steps were heard in the passage, the latch was raised, and the door opened.
"Now, sir!" Coke cried, addressing him sharply. "What did you mean by lying to me just now? Here is the gentleman who brought Miss Maitland to your house. And if you don't tell me, and tell me quickly, where she is, I'll--I'll send for the constable!"
Grocott was pale, but his face did not lose its sneering expression. "She's gone," he said.
"You said she had not been here."
"Well, it was her order. I suppose," with a touch of insolence, "a lady can be private, sir, if she chooses."
"What time did she go?"
"Ten minutes gone."
Tom heaved a sigh of relief. "I told you so," he muttered. "She's gone to Arlington Street. It's what I told you."
"I don't believe it," Coke answered. "This coach is for her. It is here to take her to the rascal we know of; and I'll not leave till I've seen her. Why, man," he continued, incensed as well as perplexed by Tom's easiness, "have you no blood in your body that you're ready to stand by while your sister's fooled by a scoundrel?"
Tom smiled pitifully, and passed his tongue over his lips; he looked guiltily at Grocott, and Grocott at him. The lad's face was on fire, the sweat stood in beads on Grocott's forehead. Neither knew with precision the other's position nor how much he had told. And while the two stood thus, Sir Hervey looking suspiciously from one to the other, the same dull sound Coke had heard before--a sound as of the drumming of heels on the floor--continued in the upper part of the house. The hackney coachman, an interested spectator of the scene, heard it, and looked at the higher windows in annoyance. The sound drowned the speaker's words.
"Are you going to let me search?" Coke said at last.
Grocott shook his head. He could not speak. He was wondering what they would call the offence at the Old Bailey or Hicks's Hall. He saw himself in the dock, with the tall spikes and bunches of herbs before him, and the gross crimson face of the Red Judge glowering at him through horn-rimmed spectacles--glowering death. Should he confess and bring her down, and with that put an end to his daughter's hopes? Or should he stand it out, defy them all, gain time, perhaps go scot free at last?
"Well?" Coke repeated sternly; "have you made up your mind? Am I to send for the constable?"
Still Grocott found no answer. His wits were so jumbled by fear and the predicament in which he found himself, that he could not decide what to do. And while he hesitated, gaping, the matter was taken out of his hands. The door behind him opened, and the lady whom Sir Hervey had seen before came out of the room.
She looked at the group with a mixture of weariness and impatience. "Is the gentleman not satisfied yet?" she said. "What is all this?"
"I am satisfied, madam," Sir Hervey retorted, "that I did not hear the truth before."
"Well, you are too late now," she answered, "for she's gone. She didn't wish to see you, and there's an end."
"I shall not believe, ma'am----"
"Not believe?" she cried, opening her eyes with sudden fire. "I thought you were a gentleman, sir. I suppose you will take a lady's word?"
"If the lady will tell me for whom the coach at the door is waiting," Sir Hervey answered quietly; and as he spoke he made good his footing by crossing the threshold. He could not see the hot, foolish face that followed him in to the passage, or he might have been enlightened sooner.
"The coach?" she said. "It is for me."
"It is for a bride."
"I am the bride."
"And the bridegroom?"
Her eyes sparkled. "Come!" she cried. "How is that your affair? We poor women have impertinences enough to suffer on these occasions; but it is new to me that the questions of chance visitors are part of them! Room's more than company, sometimes," she added, tossing her head, her accent not quite so genteel as it had been, when she was less moved. "And I'll be glad to see your back."
"I beg your pardon a thousand times, ma'am," Coke replied unmoved. "But I see no impertinence in my question--unless, indeed, you are ashamed of your bridegroom."
"That I'm not!" she cried. "That I'm not! And"--snapping her fingers in his face--"that for you. You are impertinent! Ashamed? No, sir, I am not!"
"And God forbid I should be ashamed of my bride!" cried a husky voice behind Sir Hervey; who turned as if he had been pinched. "No, I'll be silent no longer," Tom continued, his face the colour of a beet, albeit his eyes overflowed with honest devotion. "I've played coward too long!" he went on, stretching out his arms as if he were throwing off a weight. "Let go, man"--this to Grocott, as the latter stealthily plucked his sleeve. "Sir Hervey, I didn't tell you before, but it wasn't because I was ashamed of my bride. Not I!" poor Tom cried bravely. "It was because I--I thought you might do something to thwart me. This lady has done me the honour of entrusting her happiness to me, and before one o'clock we shall be married. Now you know."
"Indeed!" Sir Hervey said. And great as was his amazement, he managed to cloak it after a fashion. In the first burst of Tom's confession he had glanced from him to the lady, and had surprised a black--a very black look. That same look he caught on Grocott's face; and in a wonderfully short space of time he had drawn his conclusions. "Indeed!" he repeated. "And whom have I--perhaps we might step into this room, we shall be more of a family party, eh?--whom have I to felicitate on the possession of Sir Thomas Maitland's heart?"
He bowed so low before madam that she was almost deceived; but not quite. She did not answer.
"Oriana, tell him," Tom cried humbly. He was deceived. His eyes were shining with honest pride.
Coke caught at the name. "Oriana!" he repeated, bowing still lower. "Mistress Oriana----"
"Clark," she said drily. And then, "You are not much wiser now."
"My loss, ma'am," Sir Hervey answered politely. "One of Sir Robert Clark of Snailwell's charming daughters, perhaps? Until now I had only the pleasure of knowing the elder, but----"
"You know no more now," she retorted, with an air of low breeding that must have opened any eyes but a lover's. "I don't know your Sir Robert."
"Indeed!" Sir Hervey said. "One of the Leicestershire Clarks, of Lawnd Abbey, perhaps?"
"No," madam answered sullenly, hating him more and more, yet not daring to show it. How she cursed her booby for his indiscretion!
"Surely not a daughter of my old friend, Dean Clark of Salisbury? You don't say so?"
She bit her lip with mortification. "No," she said, "I don't say so. I ain't that either."
Tom intervened hurriedly. "You are under a misapprehension, Sir Hervey," he said. "Clark was Oriana's--her husband's name. Captain Clark, of Sabine's Foot. He did not treat her well," poor Tom continued, leaning forward, his hands resting on the table--they were all in the room now. "But I hope to make the rest of her life more happy than the early part."
"Oh, I beg pardon," Sir Hervey said, a trifle drily. "A widow! Your humble servant, ma'am, to command. You will excuse me, I am sure. You are waiting for Mrs. Northey, I suppose?" he continued, looking from one to the other in seeming innocence.
Tom's face flamed. It was in vain Grocott from the doorway made signs to him to be silent. "They don't know," he blurted out.
Sir Hervey looked grave. "I am sorry for that," he said. "I am sure this lady would not wish you, Sir Tom, to do anything--anything underhand. You have your guardians' consent, of course?"
"No," Tom said flatly; "and I am not going to ask for it."
Outwardly, Sir Hervey raised his eyebrows in protest; inwardly, he saw that argument would be thrown away, and wondered what on earth he should do. He had no authority over the boy, and it was not likely that Dr. Keith, an irregular parson, would pay heed to him.
Madam Oriana, scared for a moment, discerned that he was at a loss, and smiled in triumph.
"Well, sir, have you anything more to say?" she cried.
"Not to Tom," Sir Hervey answered.
"And to me?"
"Only, ma'am, that a marriage is not valid if a false name be used."
The shot was not fired quite at large, for he had surprised Grocott calling her not Oriana, but Sallie. And, fired at large or not, her face showed that it reached the mark. Whether Captain Clark of Sabine's Foot still lived, or there had never been a Clark; whether she had foreseen the difficulty and made up her mind to run the risk, or had not thought of it at all, her scowling, beautiful face betrayed dismay as well as rage.
"What have you to do with my name?" she hissed.
"Nothing," he said politely. "But my friend here, much. I hope he knows it, and knows it correctly. That is all."
But Tom was at the end of his patience.
"I do," he cried hotly, "I do know it! And I'll trouble you, Sir Hervey, to let it alone. Oriana, don't think that anything he can say can move me. I see, Sir Hervey, that you are no true friend to us. I might have known it," he continued bitterly. "You have lived all your life where--where marriage is a bargain, and women are sold, and--you don't believe in anything else. You can't; you can't believe in anything else. But I am only sorry for you! Only--only you'll please to remember that this lady is as good as my wife, and I expect her to be treated as such. She'll not need a defender as long as I live," poor Tom continued, gallantly, though his voice shook. "Come, Oriana, the coach is waiting. In a few minutes I shall have a better right to protect you; and then let any one say a word!"
"Tom," Sir Hervey said gravely, "don't do this."
Madam marked his altered tone, and laughed derisively. "Now he's in his true colours!" she cried. "What will you do, Sir Thomas? La! they shall never say that I dragged a man to church against his will. I've more pride than that, though I may not be a dean's daughter."
Tom raised her hand and kissed it, his boyish face aglow with love. "Come, dear," he said. "What is his opinion to us? A little room, if you please, Sir Hervey. We are going."
"No," Coke answered. "You are not going! I'll not have this on my head. Hear sense, boy. If this lady be one whom you may honestly make your wife, you cannot lose, and she must gain, by waiting to be married in a proper fashion."
"And at a nice expense, too!" she cried, with a sneer.
"She is right," Tom said manfully. "I'm not going to waste my life waiting on the pleasure of a set of old fogies. Make way, Sir Hervey."
"I shall not," Coke returned, maintaining his position between the two and the door. "And if you come near me, boy----"
"Don't push me too far," Tom cried. From no one else in the world would he have endured so much. "Sir Hervey, make way!"
"If he does not, we will have him put out!" madam cried, pale with rage. "This is my room, sir! and I order you to leave it. If you are a gentleman you will go."
"I shall not," Coke said. He was really at his wits' end to know what to do. "And if the boy comes near me," he continued, "I will knock him down and hold him. He's only fit for Bedlam!"
Tom would have flown at his throat, but madam restrained him. "Grocott," she cried, "call in a couple of chairmen, and put this person out. Give them a guinea apiece, and let them throw him into the street."
Grocott hung a moment in the doorway, pale, perspiring, irresolute. He could not see the end of this.
"Do you hear, man?" madam repeated, and stamped her foot on the floor. "Call in two men. A guinea apiece if they turn him out. Go at once. I'll know whether the room is mine or his," she continued, in a fury.
"Yours, ma'am," Sir Hervey answered coolly, as Grocott shambled out. "I ask nothing better than to leave it, if Sir Thomas Maitland goes with me."
"You'll leave it without him!" she retorted contemptuously. And, as Tom made a forward movement, "Sir Thomas, you'll not interfere in this. I've had to do with nasty rogues like him before," she continued, with growing excitement and freedom, "and know the way. You're mighty fine, sir, and think to tread on me. Oh, for all your bowing, I saw you look at me when you came in as if I was so much dirt! But I'll not be put upon, and I'll let you know it. You are a jackanapes and a finicky fool, that's what you are! Aye, you are! But here they come. Now we'll see. Grocott!"
"They are coming," the clock-maker muttered, cringing in the doorway. The fine of action adopted was too violent for his taste. "But I hope the gentleman will go out quietly," he rejoined. "He must see he has no right here."
It was no question of courage; Sir Hervey had plenty of that. But he had no stomach for a low brawl; and at this moment he wished very heartily that he had let the young scapegrace go his own way. He had put his foot down, however, wisely or unwisely; and he could not now retreat.
"I shall not go," he said firmly. And as heavy, lumbering footsteps were heard coming along the passage, he turned to face the door.
"We'll see about that," Mrs. Clark cried spitefully. "Come in, men; come in! This is your gentleman."
Coke had spent a dozen seasons in London; and naturally to those who lived about town his figure was almost as familiar as that of Sir Hanbury Williams, the beau of the last generation, or that of Lord Lincoln, the pride and hope of the golden youth of '42. The chairman who had never left the rank in St. James's Street in obedience to his nod was as likely as not to ask the way to Mrs. Cornely's rooms; the hackney-coachman who did not know his face and liveries was a stranger also to the front of White's, and to the cry of "Who goes home?" that on foggy evenings drew a hundred link-boys to New Palace Yard. In his present difficulty his principal, and almost his only hope of escaping from a degrading scuffle lay in this notoriety.
It bade fair to be justified. The two men who slouched into the room in obedience to Mrs. Clark's excited cry had scarcely crossed the threshold when they turned to him and grinned, and the foremost made him a sort of bow. Sir Hervey stared, and wondered where he had seen the men before; but in a twinkling his doubt, as well as the half-smothered cry that at the same instant burst from madam's lips, were explained.
"Mrs. Oriana Clark, otherwise Grocott?" the elder man muttered, and, stepping forward briskly, he laid a slip of paper on the table before her. "At suit of Margam's, of Paul's Churchyard, for forty-seven, six, eight, debt and costs. Here's thecapias. And there's a detainer lodged." So much said, he seemed to feel the official part of his duty accomplished, and he turned with a wink to Grocott. "Much obliged to the old gentleman for letting us in. As pretty a capture as I ever made! Trigg, mind the door."
The miser who sees his hoarded all sink beneath the waves; the leader who, in the flush of victory, falls into the deadly ambush and knows all lost; the bride widowed on her wedding morn--these may in some degree serve to image madam at that moment. White to the lips, her eyes staring, she plucked at the front of her dress with one hand, and, leaning with the other against the wall, seemed to struggle for speech.
It was Tom who stepped forward, Tom who instinctively, like the brave soul he was, screened her from their eyes. "What is it?" he said hoarsely. "Have a care, man, whom you speak to! What do you mean, and who are you?"
"Easy asked and soon answered," the fellow replied, civilly enough. "I'm a sworn bailiff, it's acapiasforty-seven, six, eight, debt and costs--that's what it is. And there's a detainer lodged, so it's no use to pay till you know where you are. The lady is here, and I am bound to take her."
"It's a mistake," Tom muttered, his voice indistinct. "There's some mistake, man. What is the name?"
"Well, it's Clark,aliasGrocott on the writ; and it's Clark,aliasHawkesworth----"
"Hawkesworth?"
"Yes, Hawkesworth, on the detainer," the bailiff answered, smiling. "I don't take on myself to say which is right, but the old gentleman here should know."
At that word the unhappy woman, thwarted in the moment of success, roused herself from the first stunning effects of the blow. With a cry she tore her handkerchief into two or three pieces, and, thrusting one end into her mouth, bit on it. Then, "Silence!" she shrieked. "Silence, you dirty dog!" she continued coarsely. "How dare you lay your tongue to me? Do you hear me?"
But Tom interfered. "No, one moment," he said grimly. That word, Hawkesworth, had chilled his blood. "Let us hear what he has to say. Listen to me, man. Why should the old gentleman know?"
The man hesitated, looking from one to the other. "Well, they say he's her father," he answered at last. "At any rate he brought her up; that is, until--well, I suppose you know."
She shrieked out a denial; but Tom, without taking his eyes from the bailiff's face, put out his hand, and, gripping her arm, held her back. "Yes, man, until what?" he said hoarsely. "Speak out. Until what?"
"Well, until she went to live with Hawkesworth, your honour."
"Ah!" Tom said, his face white; only that word. But, dropping his hand from her arm, he stood back.
She should have known that all was lost then; that the game was played out. But, womanlike, she could not accept defeat. "It's a lie!" she shrieked. "A dirty, cowardly lie! It's not true! I swear it is not true! It's not true!" And breathless, panting, furious, she turned first to one and then to another, stretching out her hands, heaping senseless denial on denial. At last, when she read no relenting in the boy's face, but only the quivering of pain as he winced under the lash of her loosened tongue, she cast the mask--that had already slipped--completely away, and, turning on the old man, "You fool! oh, you fool!" she cried. "Have you nothing to say now that you have ruined me? Pay the beast, do you hear? Pay him, or I'll ruin you!"
But the clock-maker, terrified as he was, clung sullenly to his money. "There's a detainer," he muttered. "It's no good, Bess. If s no good, I tell you!"
"Well, pay the detainer! Pay that, too!" she retorted. "Pay it, you old skinflint, or I'll swear to you for gold clipping! and you'll hang at Tyburn, as your friend Jonathan Thomas did! Have a care, will you, or I'll do it, so help me!"
The old man screamed a palsied curse at her. Sir Hervey touched the lad's arm. "Come," he said sternly. And he turned to the door.
Tom shuddered, but followed at his heels as a beaten hound follows. The woman saw her last chance passing from her, sprang forward, and tried to seize his arm; tried to detain him, tried to gain his ear for a final appeal. But the bailiff interfered. "Softly, mistress, softly," he said. "You know the rules. Get the old 'un to pay, and you may do as you please."
He held her while Tom was got out, dizzy and shaking, his eyes opened to the abyss from which he had been plucked back. But, though Coke closed the door behind them, the woman's voice still followed them, and shocked and horrified them with its shrill clamour. Tom shuddered at the dreadful sound; yet lingered.
"I must get something," he muttered, avoiding his companion's eyes. "It is upstairs."
"What is it?" Coke answered impatiently. And, anxious to get the lad out of hearing, he took his arm, and urged him towards the street. "Whatever it is, I'll send my man for it."
But Tom hung back. "No," he said. "It's money. I must get it."
"For goodness' sake don't stay now," Sir Hervey protested.
But Tom, instead of complying, averted his face. "I want to pay this," he muttered. "I shall never see her again. But I would rather she--she were not taken now. That's all."
Coke stared. "Oh Lord!" he said; and he wondered. But he let Tom go upstairs; and he waited himself in the passage to cover his retreat. He heard the lad go up and push open the door of the little three-cornered room, which had been his abode for a week; the little room where he had tasted to the full of anticipation, and whence he had gone aglow with fire and joy an hour before. Coke heard him no farther, but continued to listen, and "What is that?" he muttered presently. A moment, and he followed his companion up the stairs; at the head of the flight he caught again the sound he had heard below; the sound of a muffled cry deadened by distance and obstacles, but still almost articulate. He looked after Tom; but the door of the room in which he had disappeared was half open. The sound did not issue thence. Then he thought it came from the room below; and he was on the point of turning when he saw a door close beside him in the angle of the stairs, and he listened at that. For the moment all was silent, yet Sir Hervey had his doubts. The key was in the lock, he turned it softly, and stepped into an untidy little bedroom, sordid and dull; the same, in fact, through which Sophia had been decoyed. He noticed the door at the farther end, and was crossing the floor towards it, with an unpleasant light in his eyes--for he began to guess what he should find--when the door of the room below opened, and a man came out, and came heavily up the stairs. Sir Hervey paused and looked back; another moment and Grocott reaching the open door stood glaring in.
Sir Hervey spoke only one word. "Open!" he said; and he pointed with his cane to the door of the inner room. The key was not in the lock.
The clock-maker, cringing almost to the boards, crept across the floor, and producing the key from his pocket, set it in the lock. As he did so Coke gripped him on a sudden by the nape of the neck, and irresistibly but silently forced him to his knees. And that was what Sophia saw when the door opened. Grocott kneeling, his dirty, flabby face quivering with fear, and Sir Hervey standing over him.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, and stepped back in amazement; but, so much thought given to herself, her next was for Tom. She had been a prisoner nearly two hours, in fear as well as in suspense, assailed at one time by the fancy that those who had snared her had left her to starve, at another by the dread of ill-treatment if they returned. But the affection for her brother, which had roused her from her own troubles, was still strong, and her second thought was of Tom.
She seized Sir Hervey's arm, "Thank Heaven you have come!" she cried. "Did he send you? Where is he?"
"Tom?" Coke answered cheerily. "He is all right. He is here."
"Here? And he is not married?"
"No, he is not married," Sir Hervey answered; "nor is he going to be yet awhile."
"Thank God!" she exclaimed. And then, as their eyes met, she remembered herself, and quailed, the blushes burning in her cheeks. She had not seen him since the evening at Vauxhall, when he had laboured to open her eyes to Hawkesworth's true character. The things that had happened, the things she had done since that evening crowded into her mind; she could have sunk into the floor for very shame. She did not know how much he knew or how much worse than she was he might be thinking her; and in an agony of recollection she covered her face and shrank from him.
"Come, child, come, you are safe now," he said hurriedly; he understood her feelings. "I suppose they locked you here that you might not interfere? Eh, was that it?" he continued, seizing Grocott's ear and twisting it until the old rogue grovelled on the floor. "Eh, was that it?"
"Oh, yes, yes," the clock-maker cried. "That was it! I'll beg the lady's pardon. I'll do anything! I'll----"
"You'll hang--some day!" Sir Hervey answered, releasing him with a final twist. "Begone for this time, and thank your stars I don't haul you to the nearest justice! And do you, child, come to your brother. He is in the next room."
But when Sophia had so far conquered her agitation as to be able to comply, they found no Tom there; only a scrap of paper, bearing a line or two of writing, lay on the table.
"I'm gone to enlist, or something, I don't care what. It doesn't matter," it ran. "Don't come after me, for I shan't come back. Let Sophy have my setter pup, it's at the hall. I see it now; it was a trap. If I meet H. I shall kill him.--T. M."
"He has found her out, then?" Sophia said tearfully.
"Yes," Sir Hervey answered, standing at the table and drumming on it with his fingers, while he looked at her and wondered what was to be done next. "He has found her out. In a year he will be none the worse and a little wiser."
"But if he enlists?" she murmured.
"We shall hear of it," Coke answered, "and can buy him out." And then there was silence again. And he wondered again what was to be done next.
Below, the house was quiet. Either the bailiffs had removed their prisoner, or she had been released, and she and they had gone their ways. Even Grocott, it would seem, terrified by the position in which he found himself, had taken himself off for a while, for not a sound save the measured ticking of clocks broke the silence of the house, above stairs or below. After a time, as Sophia said nothing, Sir Hervey moved to the window and looked into the Row. The coach that had waited so long was gone. A thin rain was beginning to fall, and through it a pastrycook's boy with a tray on his head was approaching the next house. Otherwise the street was empty.
"Did--did my sister send you?" she faltered at last.
"No."
"How did you find me?"
"I heard from your brother-in-law," he answered, his face still averted.
"What?"
"That you had gone to Davies Street."
"He knew?" she muttered.
"Yes."
She caught her breath. "Is it public?" she whispered. "I suppose everybody--knows."
"Well, some do, I've no doubt," he answered bluntly. "Women will worry something, and, of course, there is a--sort of a bone in it."
She shivered, humiliated by the necessity that lay upon her. She must clear herself. It had come to this, she had brought it to this, that she must clear herself even in his eyes. "My brother was there," she said indistinctly, her face covered from his gaze.
"I know," he answered.
"Do they know?"
He understood that she meant the Northeys. "No," he answered. "Not yet."
She was silent a moment. Then--"What am I to do?" she asked faintly.
She had gone through so many strange things in the last twenty-four hours that this which should have seemed the strangest of all--that she should consult him--passed with her for ordinary. But not with Coke. It showed him more clearly than before her friendlessness, her isolation, her forlornness, and these things moved him. He knew what the world would think of her escapade, what sharp-tongued gossips like Lady Harrington would make of it, what easy dames like Lady Walpole and Lady Townshend would proclaim her; and his heart was full of pity for her. He knew her innocent; he had the word of that other innocent, Tom, for it; but who would believe it? The Northeys had cast her off; perhaps when they knew all they would still cast her off. Her brother, her only witness, had taken himself away, and was a boy at most. Had he been older, he might have given the gossips the lie and forced the world to believe him, at the point of the small sword. As it was she had no one. Her aunt's misfortune was being repeated in a later generation. The penalty must be the same.
Must it? In the silence Sir Hervey heard her sigh, and his heart beat quickly. Was there no way to save her? Yes, there was one. He saw it, and with the coolness of the old gamester he took it.
"What are you to do?" he repeated thoughtfully; and turning, he sat down, and looked at her across the table, his face, voice, manner all business-like. "Well, it depends, child. I suppose you have no feeling left for--for that person?"
She shook her head, her face hidden.
"None at all?" he persisted, toying with his snuff-box, while he looked at her keenly. "Pardon me, I wish to have this clear because--because it's important."
"I would rather die," she cried passionately, "than be his wife."
He nodded. "Good," he said. "It was to be expected. Well, we must make that clear, quite clear, and--and I can hardly think your sister will still refuse to receive you."
Sophia started; her face flamed. "Has she said anything?" she muttered.
"Nothing," Coke answered. "But you left her yesterday--to join him; and you return to-day. Still--still, child, I think if we make all clear to her, quite clear, and to your brother Northey, they will be willing to overlook the matter and find you a home."
She shuddered. "You speak very plainly," she murmured faintly.
"I fear," he said, "you will hear plainer things from her. But," he continued, speaking slowly now, and in a different tone, "there is another way, child, if you are willing to take it. One other way. That way you need not see her unless you choose, you need see none of them, you need hear no plain truths. That way you may laugh at them, and what they say will be no concern of yours, nor need trouble you. But 'tisn't to be supposed that with all this you will take it."
"You mean I may go to Chalkhill?" she cried, rising impetuously. "I will, I will go gladly, I will go thankfully! I will indeed!"
"No," he said, rising also, so that only the table stood between them. "I did not mean that. There is still another way. But you are young, child, and it isn't to be supposed that you will take it."
"Young!" she exclaimed in bitter self-contempt. And then, "What way is it?" she asked. "And why should I not take it, take it gladly if I can escape--all that?"
"Because--I am not very young," he said grimly.
"You?" she exclaimed in astonishment. And then, as her eyes met his across the table, the colour rose in her cheeks. She began to understand; and she began to tremble.
"Yes," he said bluntly, "I. It shocks you, does it? But, courage, child; you understand a little, you do not understand all. Suppose for a moment that you return to Arlington Street to-day as Lady Coke; the demands of the most exacting will be satisfied. Lady Harrington herself will have nothing to say. You left yesterday, you return to-day--my wife. Those who have borne my mother's name have been wont to meet with respect; and, I doubt not, will continue to meet with it."
"And you--would do that?" she cried aghast
"I would."
"You would marry me?"
"I would."
"After all that has passed? Here? To-day?"
"Here, to-day."
For a moment she was silent. Then, "And you imagine I could consent?" she cried. "You imagine I could do that? Never! Never! I think you good, I think you noble, I thank you for your offer, Sir Hervey; I believe it to be one the world would deem you mad to make, and me mad to refuse! But," and suddenly she covered her face with her hands, as if his eyes burned her, "from what a height you must look down on me."
"I look down?" he said lamely. "Not at all. I don't understand you."
"You do not understand?" she cried, dropping her hands and meeting his eyes as suddenly as she had avoided them. "You think it possible, then, that I, who yesterday left my home, poor fool that I was, to marry one man, can give myself a few hours later to another man? You think I hold love so light a thing I can take it and give it again as I take or give a kerchief or a riband? You think I put so small a price on myself--and on you? Oh, no, no, I do not. I see, if you do not, or will not, that your offer, noble, generous, magnanimous as it is, is the sharpest taunt of all that you have it in your power to fling at me."
"That," Sir Hervey said, placidly, "is because you don't understand."
"It is impossible!" she repeated. "It is impossible!"
"What you have in your mind may be impossible," he retorted; "but not what I have in mine. I should have thought, child, that on your side, also, you had had enough of romance."
She looked at him in astonishment.
"While I," he continued, raising his eyebrows, "have outgrown it. There is no question, at least, in my offer there was no question, of love. For one thing it is out of fashion, my dear; for another, at the age I have reached, not quite the age of Methuselah, perhaps," with a smile, "but an age, as you once reminded me, at which I might be your father, I need only a lady to sit at the head of my table, to see that the maids don't rob me, or burn the Hall, and to show a pretty face to my guests when they come from town. My wife will have her own wing of the house, I mine; we need meet only at meals. To the world we shall be husband and wife; to one another, I hope, good friends. Of course," Sir Hervey continued, with a slight yawn, "there was a time when I should not have thought this an ideal marriage; when I might have looked for more. Nor should I then have--you might almost call it--insulted you,ma chère, by proposing it. But I am old enough to be content with it; and you are in an awkward position from which my name may extricate you; while you have probably had enough of what children call love. So, in fine, what do you say?"
After a long pause, "Do you mean," she asked in a low voice, "that we should be only--friends?"
"Precisely," he said. "That is just what I do mean. And nothing more."
"But have you considered," she asked, her tone still low, her voice trembling with agitation. "Have you thought of--of yourself? Why should you be sacrificed to save me from the punishment of my folly? Why should you do out of pity what you may repent all your life? Oh, it cannot, it cannot be!" she continued more rapidly and with growing excitement. "I thank you, I thank you from my heart, Sir Hervey, I believe you mean it generously, nobly, but----"
"Let us consider the question--without fudge!" he retorted, stolidly forestalling her. "Pity has little to do with it. Your folly, child, has much; because apart from that I should not have made the suggestion. For the rest, put me out of the question. The point is, will it suit you? Of course you might wish to marry some one else. You might wish to marry in fact and not in name----"
"Oh, no, no!" she cried, shuddering; and, shaken by the cruel awakening through which she had gone, she fancied that she spoke the truth.
"You are sure?"
"Quite, quite sure."
"Then I think it lies between Chalkhill and Coke Hall," he said, cheerfully. "Read that, child." And drawing from his pocket the letter in which Mr. Northey had announced her flight, he laid it before her. "If I thought you were returning to your sister I would not show it to you," he continued, watching her as she read. And then, after an interval, "Well, shall it be Coke Hall?" he asked.
"Yes," she said, shivering under the cruel, heartless phrases of the letter as under a douche of cold water. "If you really are in earnest, if you mean what you say?"
"I do."
"And you will be satisfied with--that?" she murmured, averting her eyes. "With my friendship?"
"I will," he answered. "You have my word for it."
"Then, I thank you," she muttered faintly.
And that was all, absolutely all. He opened the door, and in her sacque and Lady Betty's Tuscan, as she stood--for she had no change to make--she passed down the stairs before him, and walked beside him through the rain across a corner of Shepherd's Market. Thence they passed along Curzon Street in the direction of the little chapel with the country church porch--over against Mayfair Chapel, and conveniently near the Hercules Pillars--in which the Rev. Alexander Keith held himself ready to marry all comers, at all hours, without notice or licence.
It was the common dinner time, and the streets were quiet; they met no one whom they knew. Sophia, dazed and shaken, had scarcely power to think; she walked beside him mechanically, as in a dream, and could never remember in after days the way she went to be married, or whether she travelled the route on foot or in a chair. The famous Dr. Keith, baulked of one couple and one guinea--for that was his fee, and it included the clerk and a stamped certificate--welcomed the pair with effusion. Accustomed to unite at one hour a peer of the realm to a reigning toast, at another an apprentice to his master's daughter, he betrayed no surprise even when he recognised Sir Hervey Coke; but at once he led the way to the chapel, set the kneelers, called the witnesses, and did his part. He wondered a little, it is true, when he noticed Sophia's pallor and strange dress; but the reasons people had for marrying were nothing to him; the fee was everything, and in ten minutes the tie was tied.
Then only, as they stood waiting in the parlour while the certificate was being written, fear seized her, and a great horror, and she knew what she had done. She turned to Sir Hervey and held out her shaking hands to him, her face white and piteous. "You will be good to me?" she cried. "You will be good to me? You will keep your word?"
"While I live," he said quietly. "Why not, child?"
But, calmly as he spoke, his face, as they went out together, wore the look it wore at White's when he played deep; when, round the shaded candles, oaks, noted in Domesday, crashed down, and long-descended halls shook, and the honour of great names hung on the turn of a die. For, deep as he had played, much as he had risked, even to his home, even to his line, he had made to-day the maddest bet of all. And he knew it.