"Your Grace is very good to call," Mrs. Northey said, working her fan with a violence that betrayed something of the restraint which she was putting on her feelings. "But, of course, the mischief is done now, the girl is gone, and----"
"I know, my dear, I know," the duchess answered soothingly. "Believe me, I am almost as sorry as if she were one of my own daughters."
"La, for the matter of that, it may be yet!" Mrs. Northey answered, unable to behave herself longer. "Begging your Grace's pardon. Of course, I hope not," she continued sourly, "but, indeed, and in truth, young ladies who show the road are very apt to follow it themselves."
"Indeed, I fear that is so; too often," her Grace answered patiently. "Too often!" She had come prepared to eat humble pie, and was not going to refuse the dish.
"I hope, at any rate, that the young lady will take the lesson to heart!" Mrs. Northey continued, with a venomous glance at Lady Betty; who, much subdued, sat half-sullen and half-frightened on a stool beside and a little behind her mother. "I hope so for her own sake."
"It is for that reason I brought her," the duchess said with dignity. "She has behaved naughtily, very naughtily. His Grace is so angry that he will not see her. To-morrow she goes into the country, where she will return to the schoolroom until we leave town. I hope that that and the scandal she has brought upon us may teach her to be more discreet in future."
"And more steady! I trust it may," Mrs. Northey said, biting her lip and looking daggers at the culprit. "I am sure she has done mischief enough. But it is easier to do than to undo, as she would find to her sorrow if it were her own case."
"Very true! Very true, indeed! Do you hear, miss?" the duchess asked, turning and sharply addressing her daughter.
"Yes, ma'am," Lady Betty whispered meekly. Quick of fence as she was with men, or with girls of her own age, she knew better than to contradict her mother.
"Go, and sit in the window, then. No, miss, with your back to it. And now," the duchess continued, when Lady Betty had withdrawn out of earshot, "tell me what you wish to be known, my dear. Anything I can do for the foolish child--she is very young, you know--I will do. And, if I make the best of it, I have friends, and they will also make the best of it."
But Mrs. Northey's face was hard as stone. "There is no best to it," she said.
"Oh, but surely in your sister's interest?" the duchess expostulated.
"Your Grace was misinformed. I have no sister," Mrs. Northey replied, her voice a trifle high, and her thin nostrils more pinched than usual. "From the moment Miss Maitland left this house in such a way as to bring scandal on my husband's name, she ceased to be my sister. Lord Northey has claims upon us. We acknowledge them."
The duchess stared, but did not answer.
"My husband has claims upon me, I acknowledge them," Mrs. Northey continued with majesty.
The duchess still stared; her manner betrayed that she was startled.
"Well, of course," she said at last, "that is what we all wish other people to do in these cases; for the sake of example, you know, and to warn the--the young. But, dear me," rubbing her nose reflectively with the corner of her snuff-box, "it's very sad! I don't know, I really don't know that I should have the courage to do it--in Betty's case now. His Grace would--would expect it, of course. But really I don't know!"
"Your Grace is the best judge in your own case," Mrs. Northey said, her breath coming a little quickly. "For our part," she added, looking upward with an air of self-denial, "Mr. Northey and I have determined to give no sanction to a connection so discreditable!"
The duchess had a vision of her own spoiled daughter laid ill in a six-shilling lodging, of a mother stealing to her under cover of darkness, and in his Grace's teeth; of a tiny baby the image of Betty at that age. And she clutched her snuff-box tightly, "I suppose the man is--is impossible?" she said impulsively.
"He is quite impossible."
"Mr. Northey has not seen him?"
"Certainly not," Mrs. Northey exclaimed, with a virtuous shudder.
"But if she--if she were brought to see what she has done in its true light?" the duchess asked weakly; her motherly instinct still impelling her to fight the young thing's battle.
"Not even then," Mrs. Northey replied with Roman firmness. "Under no circumstances, no circumstances whatever, could Mr. Northey and I countenance conduct such as hers."
"You are sure that there's--there's no mistake, my dear?"
"Not a shadow of a mistake!" madam answered with acrimony. "We have traced her to the man's lodging. She reached it after dark, and under--under the most disgraceful circumstances."
Mrs. Northey referred to the arrest by bailiffs, the news of which had reached Arlington Street through Lane the mercer. But the duchess took her to mean something quite different; and her Grace was shocked.
"Dear, dear," she said in a tone of horror; and looking instinctively at her daughter, she wished that Lady Betty had not seen so much of the girl, wished still more fervently that she had not mixed herself up with her flight. "I am infinitely sorry to hear it," she said. "Infinitely sorry! I confess I did not think her that kind of girl. My dear, you have indeed my sympathy."
Mrs. Northey, though she knew quite well what the duchess was thinking, shook her head as if she could add much more, but would not; and the duchess, her apologies made, rose to take leave; resolved to give her daughter such a wigging by the way as that young lady had never experienced. But while they stood in the act of making their adieux, Mr. Northey entered; and his dolorous head shaking, which would have done credit to a father's funeral, detained her so long, that she was still where he found her, when an exclamation from Lady Betty, who had profited by her mother's engrossment to look out of the window, startled the party.
"Oh, la, ma'am, here she is!" the girl cried. "I vow and declare she is!"
"Betty!" her Grace cried sharply. "Remember yourself. What do you mean? Come, we must be going."
"But, ma'am, she's at the door," Lady Betty replied with a giggle. And turning and thrusting her muff into her mouth--as one well understanding the crisis--she looked over it at the party, her eyes bright with mischief.
Mrs. Northey's face turned quite white. "If this--if your daughter means that the misguided girl is returning here," she cried, "I will not have it."
"It is not to be thought of!" Mr. Northey chimed in. "She would not have the audacity," he added more pompously, "after her behaviour." And he was moving to the window--while the kind-hearted duchess wished herself anywhere else--when the door opened, and the servant announced, "Sir Hervey Coke!"
The duchess gave vent to a sigh of relief, while the Northeys looked daggers at Lady Betty, the author of the false alarm. Meantime Coke advanced, his hat under his arm. "I am really no more than an ambassador," he said gaily. "My principal is downstairs waiting leave to ascend. Duchess, your humble servant! Lady Betty, yours--you grow prettier every day. Mrs. Northey, I have good news for you. You will be glad to hear that you were misinformed as to the object of your sister's departure from the house--about which you wrote to me."
"Misinformed!" Mrs. Northey exclaimed with a freezing look. "I was misinformed, sir?"
"Completely, at the time you wrote to me," Sir Hervey answered, smiling on the party. "As you will acknowledge in one moment."
"On whose authority, pray?" with a sniff.
"On mine," Coke replied. "'Twas an odd coincidence that you wrote to me, of all people."
"Why, sir, pray?"
"Because----" he began; and there he broke off and turned to the duchess, who had made a movement as if she would withdraw. "No," he said, "I hope your Grace will not go. The matter is not private."
"Private?" Mrs. Northey cried shrilly--she could control her feelings no longer. "The hussy has taken good care it shall not be that! Private, indeed? It is not her fault if there is a man in the town who is ignorant of her disgrace!"
"Nay, ma'am, softly, if you please," Sir Hervey interposed, with the least touch of sternness in his tone. "You go too far."
Mrs. Northey glared at him; she was pale with anger. "What?" she cried. "Hoity-toity! do you think I shall not say what I like about my own sister?"
"But not about my wife!" he answered firmly.
She stepped back as if he had aimed a blow at her, so great was her surprise. "What?" she shrieked. "Your wife?" While the others looked at him, thunderstruck; and Lady Betty, who, on the fringe of the group, was taking in all with childish dilated eyes, uttered a scream of delight.
"Your wife?" Mr. Northey gasped.
"Precisely," Coke answered. "My wife."
But Mrs. Northey could not, would not, believe it. She thought that he was lending himself to some cunning scheme; some plan for bringing about a reconciliation. "Your wife?" she repeated. "Do you mean that Sophia, my sister----"
"Preferred a quiet weddingà deux," he answered, helping himself to a pinch of snuff, and smiling slightly, as at the recollection. "Your Grace will understand," he continued, turning with easy politeness to the duchess, "how it amused me to read Mrs. Northey's letter under such circumstances."
But Mrs. Northey was furious. "If this be true," she said hoarsely, "but I do not believe it is, why did you do it? Tell me that? Until I know that I shall not believe it!"
Sir Hervey shrugged his shoulders. "Mr. Northey will believe it, I am sure," he said, with a look in that gentleman's direction. "For the rest, ma'am, it was rather Lady Coke's doing than mine. She heard that her brother was about to make a ruinous marriage, and discovered that he was actually in the company and under the influence of the Irishman, Hawkesworth, whom you know. There were those who should more properly have made the effort to save him, but these failed him; and the result of it was, thanks to her, he was saved. Thanks to her, and to her only," Sir Hervey repeated with a look, beneath which Mr. Northey quailed, and his wife turned green with rage, "since, as I said, those who should have interfered did not. But this effected, and Keith, who should have married her brother, being in attendance--well, we thought it better to avail ourselves of his services. 'Twould have been a pity, your Grace, to lose a guinea," Coke added, his eyes twinkling, as he turned to the duchess. "It was the best instance I've ever known of 'a guinea in time saves ninety!'"
The duchess laughed heartily. "'Twas cheap at any rate, Sir Hervey," she said. "I am sure for my part I congratulate you."
"I don't!" Mrs. Northey cried, before he could answer. "She has behaved abominably! Abominably!" she repeated, her voice quivering with spite. For, strange human nature! here was the match made, on making which she had set her heart; yet so far was she from being pleased, or even satisfied, she could have cried with mortification. "She has behaved infamously!"
"Tut, tut!" Sir Hervey cried.
But the angry woman was not to be silenced. "I shall say it!" she persisted. "I think it, and I shall say it."
"Of Miss Maitland, as often as you please," he retorted, bowing. "Of Lady Coke only at your husband's peril. Of course, if you do not wish to receive her, ma'am, that is another matter."
But on this Mr. Northey interposed. "No, no," he cried, fussily. "Mrs. Northey is vexed, if I may say so, not unnaturally vexed by the lack of confidence in her, which Sophia has shown. But that--that is quite another thing from--from disowning her. No, no, let me be the first to wish you happiness, Coke!" And with an awkward essay at heartiness, and an automaton-like grin, he shook Sir Hervey by the hand. "I'll fetch her up," he continued, "I'll fetch her up! My dear, ahem! Congratulate Sir Hervey. It is what we wanted from the first, and though it has not come about quite as we expected, nothing could give us greater pleasure. It's an alliance welcome in every respect. Yes, yes, I'll bring her up."
He hurried away, while the duchess hastened to add a few words of further congratulation, and Mrs. Northey stood silent and waiting, her face now red, now pale. She had every reason to be satisfied, for except in the matter of Tom--and there Sophia had thwarted her selfish plans--all had turned out as she wished. But not through her, there was the rub! On the contrary, she had been duped, she felt it. She had been tricked into betraying how little heart she had, how little affection for her sister; and bitterly she resented the exposure.
But even her face cleared in a degree when Sophia appeared. As the girl moved forward on Sir Hervey's arm--who went gallantly to the door to meet her--so far from exhibiting the blushing pride of a woman vain of her conquest, glorying in the trick she had played the world, she showed but the timid, frightened face of a shrinking child. Her eyes sought the floor, nervously; her bearing was the farthest removed from exultation it was possible to conceive. So different, indeed, was she from all they had looked to see in the new Lady Coke, the heroine of this odd romance, that even Mrs. Northey found the cold reconciliation on which her husband was bent more feasible, the frigid kiss more possible than she had thought; while to the duchess the bride's aspect seemed so unnatural, that she drew Sir Hervey aside and questioned him keenly.
"What have you done to her?" she said. "That a runaway bride? Why, if she had been dragged to the altar and sold to a Jew broker she could hardly look worse, or more down-hearted! Sho, man, what is it?"
"She's troubled about her brother," Coke explained elaborately. "She's saved him from a wretched match, but he's taken himself off, and we don't know where to look for him."
The good-natured duchess struck him on the shoulder with her fan. "Fudge!" she cried. "Her brother? I don't believe it."
"My dear duchess," Coke remonstrated. "Half a dozen witnesses are prepared to swear to it."
"I don't believe it any the more for that!"
"You think she's unhappy?"
"I am sure of it."
"Well," Sir Hervey answered, and for a moment a gleam which the duchess could not interpret, shone in his eyes, "wait six months! If she is not happy then--I mean," he added, hastily correcting himself, "if she does not look happy then, I have made a mistake."
The duchess stared. "Or she?"
"No, I," he answered, almost in a whisper. "I only, duchess."
She nodded, understanding somewhat; not all. "Oh!" she said; and looked him over, considering what kind of a lover she would have thought him in the old days when all men presented themselves in that capacity, and were measured by maiden eyes. She found him satisfactory. "What are your plans?" she said.
"I am going to Coke Hall to-night, to give the necessary orders. There are changes to be made."
"Quick work!" she said smiling. "Leaving her?"
"Yes."
"You are not killing her with kindness then, my friend?"
"She will follow in two or three days."
"In the meantime--does she stay here?" she asked; with a glance round the room that said much.
"Well, no," Sir Hervey answered slowly, his face growing hard. "I don't quite know--it has all been very sudden, you know."
"I'll take her if you like," the duchess said impulsively.
Sir Hervey's face grew pink. "You dear, good, great lady!" he said. "Will you do that?"
"For you, I will," she said, "if it will help you?"
"Will it not," he cried; and, stooping over her hand, he kissed it after the fashion of the day; but a little more warmly--we were going to say, a little more warmly than the duke would have approved.
While they talked, Mrs. Northey had left the room, to take order for "my lady's" packing; and Mr. Northey, who was dying for a word with her on the astonishing event, had followed, after murmuring an apology and an indistinct word about a carriage. Sophia was thus lefttête-à-têtewith the one person in the room who had not approached her, or offered felicitation or compliment; but who now, after assuring herself by a hurried glance that the duchess was out of hearing, hastened to deliver her mind.
"Wait till you want to elope again, miss," Lady Betty hissed, in a fierce whisper. "And see if I'll help you! Oh, you deceitful cat, you! To trick me with a long story of your lover and your wrongs, and your dear, dear Irishman! And then to come back 'my lady,' and we're all to bow down to you. Oh, you false, humdrum creature!"
Sophia, in spite of her depression, could not refrain from a smile. "My dear Lady Betty," she whispered gratefully. "I shall ever remember your kindness."
"Don't Lady Betty me, miss!" the girl retorted, thrusting her pretty, eager face close to the other's. "Do you know that I am to go into the country, ma'am? and be put to school again, and the blackboard; and lose the Ridotto on the 17th, and the frolic at the King's House Miss Ham had arranged--and all for helping you? All for helping you, ma'am! See if I ever do a good-natured thing again, as long as I live!"
"My poor Lady Betty! I am so sorry!"
"But that's not all," the angry little beauty cried. "Didn't you lead me to think, ma'am--oh yes, madam, you are now," with a swift little curtsey--"to think that 'twas all for love and the world lost! That 'twas a dear delicious elopement, almost as good as running away myself! And that all the town would be wild to hear of it, and every girl envy me for being in it! Romance? And the world well lost! Oh, you deceitful madam! But see if I ever speak to you again! That's all, my lady!"
Sophia, with a smile that trembled on the brink of tears, was about to crave her pardon, when the approach of the duchess and Sir Hervey closed her mouth. "Your sister has gone upstairs?" her Grace said.
"Only to take order for my packing," Sophia answered.
"I have just been talking to your husband," the duchess continued, and smiled faintly at the hot blush that at the word rose to Sophia's brow. "If you are willing, my dear, you shall keep Lady Betty company until he returns."
"Returns?" Sophia exclaimed.
"From Coke Hall," Sir Hervey interposed glibly. "Whither I must go to-night, sweet, to give orders for our reception. In the meantime the duchess has most kindly offered to take care of you, and has also promised that when you go into the country Lady Betty shall go with you and keep you company until the duke leaves town."
The tears rose in Sophia's eyes at this double, this wonderful proof of his thought for her; and through her tears her eyes thanked him though it was only by a swift glance, averted as soon as perceived. In a tremulous voice she made her acknowledgments to the duchess. It was most kind of her Grace. And any--any arrangement that Sir Hervey thought fit to make for her--would be to her liking.
"Dear me," the duchess said laughing, "a most obedient wife. My dear, how long do you think you will play the patient Grizel?"
Poor Sophia drooped, blushing under the question, but was quickly relieved by Lady Betty. "Oh la!" the young lady cried, "am I really, really, to go with her? When ma'am? When?"
"When I choose," the duchess answered sharply. "That's enough for you. Thank your stars, and Sir Hervey, miss, that it's not back to the schoolroom, as it was to be."
"Yes, ma'am," Lady Betty murmured obediently.
But a little later, when they were alone together in her room, she fell upon Sophia, and pinched and tweaked her in a way that implied a full pardon. "Oh, you double-faced madam!" she cried. "You sly thing! But I'll be even with you! I'll make love to him before your eyes, see if I don't! After all I like him better than O'Rourke! You remember:
"'O'Rourke's noble fareWill ne'er be forgot,By those who were thereAnd those who were not!'
"'O'Rourke's noble fare
Will ne'er be forgot,
By those who were there
And those who were not!'
For Coke, he's as grave as grave! But he's a dear for all that!"
"A dear!" Sophia repeated, opening her eyes.
"Yes, a dear! Not that you need be proud, my lady! I'll soon have his heart from you, see if I don't. What'll you say to that?"
But Lady Coke, from whom Sir Hervey had parted gravely a few minutes before, did not answer. She sat silent, conjuring up his face--in a new light. She did not acknowledge that he was a dear. She felt the same shrinking from him, the same fear of him, that had depressed her from the moment she knew the knot tied, the thing done. But she began to see him in a new light. The duchess liked him, and Lady Betty thought him a dear? Would Lady Betty--even Lady Betty have taken him?
* * * * *
At that moment, in the little house at the end of Clarges Row, three persons sat vowing vengeance over Tom's wedding feast. One with the rage of a gamester baffled by an abnormal run of the cards, beaten by the devil's own luck, breathed naught but flames and fury, pistols, and nose-slitting. The second, who stormed and wept by turns, broke things with her hands and gnawed them, in futile passion, with her strong white teeth, could have kissed him for that last word. The third, mulcted in purse, and uncertain on whom to turn, chattered impotent, senile curses. "I shall die a beggar!" he cried; and cursed his companions. "I shall die in a ditch! But I'll not die alone, I'll not be the only one to suffer!"
"By G----d, I'll show you better than that!" the Irishman answered between oaths. "They are three and we are three. Wait! I'll have them watched every minute of the day, and by-and-by it'll be our turn. A little money----"
"Money!" old Grocott shrieked, clawing the air. And he got up hurriedly, and sat down again. "Always money! More money! But you'll have none of mine! Not a farthing! Not a farthing more!"
"Why not, fool, if it will bring in a thousand per cent.," Hawkesworth growled. The thin veneer of fashion that had duped poor Sophia was gone. With the loss of the venture, on which he had staked his all, the man stood forth a plain unmitigated ruffian. "Why not?" he continued, bending his brows. "D'you think anything is to be done without money? And I shall risk more than money, old skinflint!"
The woman looked at the man, her eyes gleaming; her face, under the red that splashed it, was livid. "What'll you do?" she muttered, "what'll you do?" She had been--almost a lady. The chance would never, never, never recur! When she thought of what she had lost, and how nearly she had won it, she was frantic. "What'll you do?" she repeated.
"Hark, I hear the sound of coachesThe hour of attack approaches,And turns our lead to gold!"
"Hark, I hear the sound of coachesThe hour of attack approaches,And turns our lead to gold!"
Hawkesworth hummed for answer. "Gold is good, but I'll wait my opportunity, and I'll have gold and--a pound of flesh!"
"Ah!" she said thirstily. And then to her father: "Do you hear, old man? You'll give him what he wants."
"I'll not!" he screamed. "I shall die a beggar! I shall die in a ditch! I tell you I----" his voice suddenly quavered off as he met his daughter's eyes. He was silent.
"I think you will," she said.
"I think so," the Irishman murmured grimly.
A week later the sun of a bright May morning shone on King's Square, once known as Monmouth, now as Soho, Square. Before the duke's town house on the east side of the Square--on the left of the King's Statue which then, and for many years to come, faced Monmouth House--a travelling carriage waited, attended by a pair of mounted grooms, and watched at a respectful distance by a half-circle of idle loungers. It was in readiness to convey Lady Coke and Lady Betty Cochrane into Sussex. On the steps of the house lounged no less a person than the duke himself; who, unlike his proud Grace of Petworth, was at no pains to play a part. On the contrary, he sunned himself where he pleased, nor thought it beneath him to display the anxiety on his daughter's account which would have become a meaner man. He knew, too, what he was about in the present matter; neither the four sturdy big-boned horses, tossing their tasselled heads, nor the pair of armed outriders, nor Watkyns, Sir Hervey's valet, waiting hat in hand at the door of the chariot, escaped his scrutiny. He had the tongue of a buckle secured here, and a horse's hoof lifted there--and his Grace was right, there was a stone in it. He inquired if the relay at Croydon was ordered, he demanded whether it was certain that Sir Hervey's horses would meet them at Lewes. Finally--for he knew that part of the country--he asked what was the state of the roads beyond Grinstead, and whether the Ouse was out.
"Not to hurt, your Grace," Watkyns who had come up with the carriage answered. "The roads will be good if no more rain falls, if your Grace pleases."
"You will make East Grinstead about five, my man?"
"'Tween four and five, your Grace, we should."
"And Lewes--by two to-morrow?"
The servant was about to answer when the duchess and the two young ladies, followed by Lady Betty's woman, appeared at the duke's elbow. The duchess, holding a fan between her eyes and the sun, looked anxiously at the horses. "I don't like them to be on the road alone," she said. "Coke should have come for them. My dear," she continued, turning to Sophia, "your husband should have come for you instead of sending. I don't understand such manners, and a week married."
Sophia, blushing deeply, did not answer. She knew quite well why Sir Hervey had not come, and she was thankful when Lady Betty took the word.
"Oh ma'am," the child cried, "I am sure we shall do well enough; 'tis the charmingest thing in the world to be going a journey, and this morning the most delicious of all mornings. We are going to drive all day, and at night lie at an inn, and tell one another a world of secrets. I declare I could jump out of my skin! I never was so happy in my life!"
"And leaving us!" her Grace said in a tone of reproach.
Lady Betty looked a trifle dashed at that, but her father pinched her ear. "Leaving town, too, Bet," he said good-naturedly. "That's more serious, isn't it?"
"I am sure, sir, I--if my mother wishes me to stay!"
"No, go, child, and enjoy yourself," the duchess answered kindly. "And I hope Lady Coke may put some sense into that feather brain of yours. My dear," she continued, embracing Sophia, "you'll take care of her?"
"I will, I will indeed!" Sophia cried, clinging to her. "And thank you a thousand times, ma'am, for your kindness to me."
"Pooh, pooh, 'tis nothing," her Grace said. "But all the same," she added, her anxiety returning, "I wish Sir Hervey were with you, or you had not those jewels."
"Coke should have thought of it," the duke answered. "But there, kiss Bet, my love, and tell her to be a good puss. The sooner they are gone, the sooner they will be there."
"You have your cordial, Betty?" the duchess asked anxiously.
"Yes, ma'am."
"And the saffron drops, and your 'Holy Living'? Pettitt," to the woman; "you'll see her Ladyship uses the face wash every morning, and wears her warm night-rail. And see that the flowered chintz is aired before she puts it on."
"Yes, sure, your Grace."
"And I hope you'll come back safe, and won't be robbed!"
"Pooh, pooh!" the duke said. "Since Cook was hanged last year--and he was ten times out of eleven at Mimms and Finchley--there has been nothing done on the Lewes Road. And they are too strong to be stopped by one man. You have been reading Johnson'sLives, and are frightening yourself for nothing, my dear. There, let them go, and they'll be in Lewes two hours before nightfall. A good journey, my lady, and my service to Sir Hervey."
"I should not mind if it were not for the child's jewels," her Grace muttered in a low tone.
"Pooh, the carriage might be robbed twenty times," the duke answered, "and they would not be found--where they are. Good-bye, Bet. Good-bye! Be a good girl, and say your prayers!"
"And mind you use the almond wash," her Grace cried.
Lady Betty cried "yes," to everything, and, amid a fire of similar advices, the two were shut into the chariot. From the window Lady Betty continued to wave her handkerchief, until, Watkyns and the woman having taken their seats outside, the postboys cracked their whips and the heavy vehicle moved forward. A moment, and the house and the kind wistful faces on the steps disappeared, the travellers swung right-handed into Sutton Street, and, rolling briskly through St. Giles's and Holborn, were presently on London Bridge, at that time the only link connecting London and Southwark.
Lady Betty was in a humour that matched the sparkle of the bright May morning. She was leaving the delights of town, but she had a journey before her, a thing exhilarating in youth; and at the end of that she had a vision of lordlings, knights, and country squires, waiting in troops to be reduced to despair by her charms. The dazzling surface of the stream, as the tide running up from the pool sparkled and glittered in the sun, was not brighter than her eyes--that now were here, now there, now everywhere. Now she stuck her head out of one window, now out of the other; now she flashed a smile at a passing apprentice, and left him gasping, now she cast a flower at an astonished teamster, or tilted her pretty nose at the odours that pervaded the Borough. The grooms rode more briskly for her presence, the postboys looked grinning over their shoulders; even the gibbet that marked the turn to Tooting failed to depress her airy spirits.
And Sophia? Sophia sat fighting for contentment. By turns the better and the worse mood possessed her. In the better, she thought with gratitude of her lot--a lot happy in comparison of the fate which she had so narrowly escaped; happy, even in comparison of that fate which would have been hers, if, after escaping from Hawkesworth, she had been forced to return to her sister's house. If it was good-bye to love, if the glow of passion could never be hers, she was not alone. She had a friend from whose kindness she had all to expect that any save a lover could give; a firm and true friend whose generosity and thoughtfulness touched her every hour, and must have touched her more deeply, but for that other mood which in its turn possessed her.
In that mood she lived the past again, she thirsted for that which had not been hers. She regretted, not her dear Irishman--for he had never existed save in her fancy, and she knew it now--but the delicious thrill, the warm emotion which the thought of him, the sight of him, the sound even of his voice, had been wont to arouse. In this mood she could not patiently give up love; she could not willingly resign the woman's dream. In this mood she cried out on the prudence that, to save her from the talk of a week, had deprived her of love for a life. She saw in her husband's kindness, calculation; in his thoughtfulness, the wisdom of the serpent. She shook with resentment, and burnt with shame.
And then, even while she thought of him most harshly, her conscience pricked her, and in a moment she was in the melting temper; while Lady Betty chattered by her side, and town changed to country, and, leaving Brixton Causey, they rattled by the busy inns of Streatham, with the church on their right and the hills rolling upward leftwise to the blue.
Four and a half miles to Croydon and then dinner. "Now let me see them," Lady Betty urged. "Do, that's a dear creature! Here we are quite safe!"
Sophia pleaded that it was too near town. "Wait until we are through Croydon," she said. "They say, you know, the nearer town, the greater the danger!"
"Then, as soon as we are out of Croydon?" Lady Betty cried, hugging her. "You promise?"
"Yes, I promise."
"Oh, I know if they were mine I should be looking at them all day!" Lady Betty rejoined; and then shrieked and threw herself back in the carriage as they passed Croydon gibbet that stood at the ninth milestone, opposite the turn to Wellington. The empty irons swaying in the wind provided her with shudders until the carriage drew up in Croydon Street, where with recovered cheerfulness, the ladies alighted and dined at the Crown, under the eye and protection of Watkyns. After a stay of an hour, they took the road again up Banstead Downs, where they walked a little at the steeper part of the way, but presently outstripping the carriage above the turn to Reigate, grew frightened in that solitude, and were glad to step in again. So down and up, and down again through the woods about Coulsdon, where the rabbits peered at them through the bracken, and raising their white scuts, loped away at leisure to their burrows.
"Now!" Lady Betty cried, when they were again in the full glare of the afternoon sun. "Now is the time! There is no one within a mile of us. The grooms," she continued, after putting out her head and looking back, "are half a mile behind."
Sophia nodded reluctantly. "You must get up, then," she said.
Lady Betty did so, and Sophia, to whom the secret had been committed the day before, lifted the leather valance that hung before the seat. Touching a spring she drew from the apparently solid woodwork of the seat--which was no more than three inches thick, so that a mail could be placed beneath it--a shallow covered drawer about twenty inches wide. She held this until Lady Betty had dropped the valance, and the two could take their seats again. Then she inserted a tiny key which she took from her bodice, into a keyhole cunningly placed at the side of the drawer--so that when the latter was in its place the keyhole was invisible. She turned the key, but before she raised the lid, bade Lady Betty look out of the window again, and assure herself that the grooms were at a distance.
"You provoking creature!" Lady Betty cried. "They are where they were--a good half-mile behind. And--yes, one of them has dismounted, and is doing something to his saddle. Oh! let me look, I am dying to see them!"
Sophia raised the lid, and her companion gasped, then screamed with delight. Over the white Genoa of the jewel case shone, and rippled, and sparkled in rills of liquid fire, a necklace, tiara, and bracelet of perfect stones, perfectly matched. Lady Betty had expected much; her mother had told her that, at the coronation of '27, Lady Coke's jewels had taken the world by storm; and that no one under the rank of a peeress had worn any like them. But reality exceeded imagination; she could not control her delight, admiration, envy. She hung over the tray, her eyes bright as the stones they reflected, her cheeks catching the soft lustre of the jewels.
"Oh, ma'am, now I know you are married!" she cried. "Things like these are not for poor lambkins! I vow I grow afraid of you. My Lady Brook will have nothing like them, and couldn't carry them if she had! She'd sink under them, the wee thing! And my Lady Carteret won't do better, though she is naught but airs and graces, and he's fifty-five if he's a day! When you go to the Drawing-Room, they'll die of envy. And to think the dear things lie under that dingy valance! I declare, I wonder they don't shine through!"
"Sir Hervey's father planned the drawer," Sophia explained, "for the carriage he built for his wife's foreign tour. And when Sir Hervey had a new carriage about six years ago, the drawer was repeated as a matter of course. Once his mother was stopped and robbed when she had the diamonds with her, but they were not found."
"And had you never seen them until yesterday?"
"Never."
"And he'd never told you about them until they sent them from the bank, with that note?"
Sophia sighed as she glanced at the jewels. "He had not mentioned them," she said.
Lady Betty hugged her ecstatically: "The dear devoted man!" she cried. "I vow you are the luckiest woman in the world! There's not a girl in town would not give her two eyes for them! And mighty few would not be ready to sell themselves body and soul for them! And he sends them to you with scarce a word, but 'Lady Coke from her husband!'--and where they are to be hidden to travel. I vow," Lady Betty continued gaily, "if I were in your shoes, my dear, I should jump out of my skin with joy! I--why what's the matter, are you ill?"
For Sophia had suddenly burst into violent weeping; and now, with the diamonds lying in her lap, was sobbing on the other's shoulder as if her heart would break. "If you knew!" was all she could say: "If you knew!"
The young girl, amazed and frightened, patted her shoulder, tried to soothe her, asked her again and again: What? If she only knew what?
"The sight of them kills me!" Sophia cried, struggling in vain with her emotion. "They are not mine! I have no--no right to them!"
Lady Betty raised her pretty eyebrows in despair. "But they are yours," she said. "Your husband has given them to you."
"I would rather he killed me!" Sophia cried; her feelings, overwrought for a week past, finding sudden vent.
Lady Betty gasped. "Oh!" she said. "I don't understand, I am afraid. Doesn't he"--in an awestruck tone--"doesn't he love you, then?"
"He?" Sophia cried bitterly. "Oh yes, I suppose he does. He pities me at any rate. It's I----"
"You don't love him?"
Sophia shook her head.
The younger girl shivered. "That must be--horrible," she whispered.
Her tone was so grave that Sophia raised her head, and smiled drearily through her tears. "You don't understand yet," she said. "It's only a form, our marriage. He offered to marry me to save me from scandal. And I agreed. But since he gave me the jewels that were his mother's, I--I am frightened, child. I know now that I have done wrong. I should not have let him persuade me."
"Why did you?" Lady Betty asked softly.
Sophia told her, with all the circumstances of Hawkesworth's villainy, Tom's infatuation, her own dilemma, Sir Hervey's offer, and the terms of it.
After a brief silence, "It was generous," Lady Betty said, her eyes shining. "I think I should--I think I could love him, my Lady Coke. And since that, you have only seen him one day?"
"That is all."
"And he kept his word? I mean--he wasn't silly?"
"No."
"He has been kind too. There is no denying that?"
"It is that which is killing me!" Sophia cried with returning excitement. "It is his kindness kills me, girl! Cannot you understand that?"
Lady Betty declined to say she could. And for quite a long time she was silent. She sat gazing from the carriage, her eyes busied, to all appearance, with the distant view of Godstone Church; but a person watching her closely might have detected a gleam of mischief, a sudden flash of amusement that leapt into them as she looked; and that could scarcely have had to do with this church. She seemed at a loss, however, for matter of comfort; or she was singularly unfortunate in the choice of it. For when she spoke again she could hit on no better topic to compose Sophia's mind than a long story, which the naughty girl had no right to know, of Sir Hervey's dealings with his old flames. It is true, nods and winks formed so large a part of the tale, and the rest was so involved, that Sophia could not even arrive at the ladies' names. "But," as Lady Betty concluded mysteriously, "it may serve to ease your mind, my dear. You may be sure he won't trouble you long. La! child, the things I've heard of him--but there, I mustn't tell you."
"No," Sophia answered primly. "Certainly not, if you please."
"Of course not. But you may take it from me, the first pretty face he sees----why, Sophy! what is it! What is it?"
No wonder she screamed. Sophia had gripped her arm with one hand; with the other she was striving to cover the treasure that lay forgotten on her lap. "What is it?" Betty repeated frantically. There is nothing more terrifying than a silent alarm ill-understood.
The next moment she saw--and understood. Beside Sophia's window, riding abreast of the carriage, in such a position that only his horse's head, by forging an instant to the front, had betrayed his presence, was a cloaked stranger. Lady Betty caught no more than a glimpse of him, but that was enough. Apart from the doubt how long he had ridden there, inspecting the jewels at his leisure, his appearance was calculated to scare less nervous travellers. Though the day was mild, he wore a heavy riding cloak, the collar of which rose to the height of his cheek bone, where it very nearly met the uncocked leaf of his hat. Between the two, an eye bright and threatening gleamed forth. The rest of his features were lost in the depths of a fierce black riding wig; but his great holsters, and long swinging sword, seemed to show that his errand was anything but peaceful.
The moment his one eye met Lady Betty's gaze, he fell back; and that instant Sophia used to close the jewel case, and turn the key. To lower the drawer to the floor of the carriage, and cover it with her skirts was the work of a second, then still trembling, she put out her head, and looked back along the road. The man had pulled his horse into a walk, and was now a hundred paces behind them. Even at that distance, his cloaked figure as he lounged along the turf beside the track, loomed a dark blot on the road.
Sophia drew in her head. "Quick!" she cried. "Do you stand up and watch him, Betty, while I put the case away. Tell me in a moment if he comes on or is likely to overtake us."
Lady Betty complied. "He is walking still," she said, her head out on one side. "Now the grooms--lazy beasts, they should have been here--are passing him, La, what a turn it gave me. He had an eye--I hope to goodness we shall never meet the wretch again."
"I hope we may never meet him after nightfall," Sophia answered with a shudder. And she clicked the drawer home, dropped the valance in front of the seat, and rose from her knees.
"I noticed one thing, the left hand corner of his cloak was patched," Lady Betty said, as she drew in her head. "And I should know his horse among a hundred: chestnut, with white forelegs and a scarred knee."
"He saw them, he must have seen them!" Sophia cried in great distress. "Oh, why did I take them out!"
"But if he meant mischief he would have stopped us then," Lady Betty replied. "The grooms were half a mile behind, and I'll be bound Watkyns was asleep."
"He dared not here, because of these houses," Sophia moaned, as they rolled by a small inn, the outpost of the little hamlet of New Chapel Green, between Lingfield and Turner's Heath. "He will wait until we are in some lonely spot, in a wood, or crossing a common, or----"
"Sho!" Lady Betty cried contemptuously--the jewels were not hers, and weighed less heavily on her mind. "We are only five miles from Grinstead, see, there is the milestone, and it is early in the afternoon. He'll not rob us here if he be Turpin himself."
"All the same," Sophia cried, "I wish the diamonds were safe at Lewes."
"Why, child, they are your own!" Lady Betty answered. "If you lose them, whose is the loss?"
But Sophia, whether she agreed or had her own views of the fact, appeared to draw little comfort from it. As the horses slowly climbed the hill and again descended the slope to Felbridge, her head was more often out of the window than in the carriage. She beckoned to the grooms to come on; she prayed Watkyns, who, sure enough, was asleep, to be on the alert; she bade the post-boys whip on. Nor did she show herself at ease, or heave a sigh of relief, until the gibbet at the twenty-ninth milestone was safely passed, and the carriage rattled over the pavement of East Grinstead.