We left Sir George Soane and his companions stranded in the little alehouse at Bathford, waiting through the small hours of the night for a conveyance to carry them forward to Bristol. Soap and water, a good meal, and a brief dog's sleep, in which Soane had no share--he spent the night walking up and down--and from which Mr. Fishwick was continually starting with cries and moanings, did something to put them in better plight, if in no better temper. When the dawn came, and with it the chaise-and-four for which they had sent to Bath, they issued forth haggard and unshaven, but resolute; and long before the shops in Bristol had begun to look for custom, the three, with Sir George's servant, descended before the old Bush Inn, near the Docks.
The attorney held strongly the opinion that they should not waste a second before seeking the persons whom Mr. Dunborough had employed; the least delay, he urged, and the men might be gone into hiding. But on this a wrangle took place, in the empty street before the half-roused inn; with a milk-girl and a couple of drunken sailors for witnesses. Mr. Dunborough, who was of the party will-he, nill-he, and asked nothing better than to take out in churlishness the pressure put upon him, stood firmly to it, he would take no more than one person to the men. He would take Sir George, if he pleased, but he would take no one else.
'I'll have no lawyer to make evidence!' he cried boastfully. 'And I'll take no one but on terms. I'll have no Jemmy Twitcher with me. That's flat.'
Mr. Fishwick in a great rage was for insisting; but Sir George stopped him. 'On what terms?' he asked the other.
'If the girl be unharmed, we go unharmed. One and all!' Mr. Dunborough answered. 'Damme!' he continued with a great show of bravado, 'do you think I am going to peach on 'em? Not I. There's the offer, take it or leave it.'
Sir George might have broken down his opposition by the same arguments addressed to his safety which had brought him so far. But time was everything, and Soane was on fire to know the best or worst. 'Agreed!' he cried. 'Lead the way, sir! And do you, Mr. Fishwick, await me here.'
'We must have time,' Mr. Dunborough grumbled, hesitating, and looking askance at the attorney--he hated him. 'I can't answer for an hour or two. I know a place, and I know another place, and there is another place. And they may be at one or another, or the other. D'you see?'
'I see that it is your business,' Sir George answered with a glance, before which the other's eyes fell. 'Wait until noon, Mr. Fishwick. If we have not returned at that hour, be good enough to swear an information against this gentleman, and set the constables to work.'
Mr. Dunborough muttered that it lay on Sir George's head if ill came of it; but that said, swung sulkily on his heel. Mr. Fishwick, when the two were some way down the street, ran after Soane, and asked in a whisper if his pistols were primed; when he returned satisfied on that point, the servant, whom he had left at the door of the inn, had vanished. The lawyer made a shrewd guess that he would have an eye to his master's safety, and retired into the house with less misgiving.
He got his breakfast early, and afterwards dozed awhile, resting his aching bones in a corner of the coffee-room. It was nine and after, and the tide of life was roaring through the channels of the city when he roused himself, and to divert his suspense and fend off his growing stiffness went out to look about him. All was new to him, but he soon wearied of the main streets, where huge drays laden with puncheons of rum and bales of tobacco threatened to crush him, and tarry seamen, their whiskers hanging in ringlets, jostled him at every crossing. Turning aside into a quiet court he stood to stare at a humble wedding which was leaving a church. He watched the party out of sight, and then, the church-door standing open, he took the fancy to stroll into the building. He looked about him at the maze of dusty green-cushioned pews with little alleys winding hither and thither among them; at the great three-decker with its huge sounding-board; at the royal escutcheon, and the faded tables of the law, and was about to leave as aimlessly as he had entered, when he espied the open vestry door. Popping in his head, his eye fell on a folio bound in sheepskin, that lay open on a chest, a pen and ink beside it.
The attorney was in that state of fatigue of body and languor of mind in which the least trifle amuses. He tip-toed in, his hat in his hand, and licking his lips as he thought of the law-cases that lay enshrined between those covers, he perused a couple of entries with a kind of professional enthusiasm. He was beginning a third, which, being by a different hand, was a little hard to decipher, when a black gown that hung on a hook over against him swung noiselessly outward from the wall, and a little old man emerged from the doorway which it masked.
The lawyer, who was stooping over the register, raised himself guiltily. 'Hallo!' he said, to cover his confusion.
'Hallo!' the old man answered with a wintry smile. 'A shilling, if you please.' And he held out his hand.
'Oh!' said Mr. Fishwick, much chap-fallen, 'I was only just--looking out of curiosity.'
'It is a shilling to look,' the newcomer retorted with a chuckle. 'Only one year, I think? Just so, anno domini seventeen hundred and sixty-seven. A shilling, if you please.'
Mr. Fishwick hesitated, but in the end professional pride swayed him, he drew out the coin, and grudgingly handed it over. 'Well,' he said, 'it is a shilling for nothing. But, I suppose, as you have caught me, I must pay.'
'I've caught a many that way,' the old fellow answered as he pouched the shilling. 'But there, I do a lot of work upon them. There is not a better register kept anywhere than that, nor a parish clerk that knows more about his register than I do, though I say it that should not. It is clear and clean from old Henry Eighth, with never a break except at the time of the siege, and, by the way, there is an entry about that that you could see for another shilling. No? Well, if you would like to see a year for nothing--No? Now, I know a lad, an attorney's clerk here, name of Chatterton, would give his ears for the offer. Perhaps your name is Smith?' the old fellow continued, looking curiously at Mr. Fishwick. 'If it is, you may like to know that the name of Smith is in the register of burials just three hundred-and eighty-three times--was last Friday! Oh, it is not Smith? Well, if it is Brown, it is there two hundred and seventy times--and one over!'
'That is an odd thought of yours,' said the lawyer, staring at the conceit.
'So many have said,' the old man chuckled. 'But it is not Brown? Jones, perhaps? That comes two hundred and--Oh, it is not Jones?'
'It is a name you won't be likely to have once, let alone four hundred times!' the lawyer answered, with a little pride--heaven knows why.
'What may it be, then?' the clerk asked, fairly put on his mettle. And he drew out a pair of glasses, and settling them on his forehead looked fixedly at his companion.
'Fishwick.'
'Fishwick! Fishwick? Well, it is not a common name, and I cannot speak to it at this moment. But if it is here, I'll wager I'll find it for you. D'you see, I have them here in alphabet order,' he continued, bustling with an important air to a cupboard in the wall, whence he produced a thick folio bound in roughened calf. 'Ay, here's Fishwick, in the burial book, do you see, volume two, page seventeen, anno domini 1750, seventeen years gone, that is. Will you see it? 'Twill be only a shilling. There's many pays out of curiosity to see their names.'
Mr. Fishwick shook his head.
'Dods! man, you shall!' the old clerk cried generously; and turned the pages. 'You shall see it for what you have paid. Here you are. "Fourteenth of September, William Fishwick, aged eighty-one, barber, West Quay, died the eleventh of the month." No, man, you are looking too low. Higher on the page! Here 'tis, do you see? Eh--what is it? What's the matter with you?'
'Nothing,' Mr. Fishwick muttered. But he continued to stare at the page with a face struck suddenly sallow, while the hand that rested on the corner of the book shook as with the ague.
'Nothing?' the old man said, staring suspiciously at him. 'I do believe it is something. I do believe it is money. Well, it is five shillings to extract. So there!'
That seemed to change Mr. Fishwick's view. 'It might be money,' he confessed, still speaking thickly, and as if his tongue were too large for his mouth. 'It might be,' he repeated. 'But--I am not very well this morning. Do you think you could get me a glass of water?'
'None of that!' the old man retorted sharply, with a sudden look of alarm. 'I would not leave you alone with that book at this moment for all the shillings I have taken! So if you want water you've got to get it.'
'I am better now,' Mr. Fishwick answered. But the sweat that stood on his brow went far to belie his words. 'I--yes, I think I'll take an extract. Sixty-one, was he?'
'Eighty-one, eighty-one, it says. There's pen and ink, but you'll please to give me five shillings before you write. Thank you kindly. Lord save us, but that is not the one. You're taking out the one above it.'
'I'll have 'em all--for identification,' Mr. Fishwick replied, wiping his forehead nervously.
'Sho! You have no need.'
'I think I will.'
'What, all?'
'Well, the one before and the one after.'
'Dods! man, but that will be fifteen shillings!' the clerk cried, aghast at such extravagance.
'You'll only charge for the entry I want?' the lawyer said with an effort.
'Well--we'll say five shillings for the other two.'
Mr. Fishwick closed with the offer, and with a hand which was still unsteady paid the money and extracted the entries. Then he took his hat, and hurriedly, his eyes averted, turned to go.
'If it's money,' the old clerk said, staring at him as if he could never satisfy his inquisitiveness, 'you'll not forget me?'
'If it's money,' Mr. Fishwick said with a ghastly smile, 'it shall be some in your pocket.'
'Thank you kindly. Thank you kindly, sir! Now who would ha' thought when you stepped in here you were stepping into fortune, so to speak?'
'Just so,' Mr. Fishwick answered, a spasm distorting his face. 'Who'd have thought it? Good morning!'
'And good-luck!' the clerk bawled after him. 'Good-luck!'
Mr. Fishwick fluttered a hand backward, but made no answer. His first object was to escape from the court; this done, he plunged through a stream of traffic, and having covered his trail, went on rapidly, seeking a quiet corner. He found one in a square among some warehouses, and standing, pulled out the copy he had made from the register. It was neither on the first nor the second entry, however, that his eyes dwelled, while the hand that held the paper shook as with the ague. It was the third fascinated him:--
'September 19th,' it ran, 'at the Bee in Steep Street, Julia, daughter of Anthony and Julia Soane of Estcombe, aged three, and buried the 21st of the month.'
Mr. Fishwick read it thrice, his lips quivering; then he slowly drew from a separate pocket a little sheaf of papers, frayed at the corners, and soiled with much and loving handling. He selected from these a slip; it was one of those which Mr. Thomasson had surprised on the table in the room at the Castle Inn. It was a copy of the attestation of birth 'of Julia, daughter of Anthony Soane, of Estcombe, England, and Julie his wife'; the date, August, 1747; the place, Dunquerque.
The Attorney drew a long quivering breath, and put the papers up again, the packet in the place from which he had taken it, the extract from the Bristol register in another pocket. Then, after drawing one or two more sighs as if his heart were going out of him, he looked dismally upwards as in protest against heaven. At length he turned and went back to the thoroughfare, and there, with a strangely humble air, asked a passer-by the nearest way to Steep Street.
The man directed him; the place was near at hand. In two minutes Mr. Fishwick found himself at the door of a small but decent grocer's shop, over the portal of which a gilded bee seemed to prognosticate more business than the fact performed. An elderly woman, stout and comfortable-looking, was behind the counter. Eyeing the attorney as he came forward, she asked him what she could do for him, and before he could answer reached for the snuff canister.
He took the hint, requested an ounce of the best Scotch and Havannah mixed, and while she weighed it, asked her how long she had lived there.
'Twenty-six years, sir,' she answered heartily, 'Old Style. For the New, I don't hold with it nor them that meddle with things above them. I am sure it brought me no profit,' she continued, rubbing her nose. 'I have buried a good husband and two children since they gave it us!'
'Still, I suppose people died Old Style?' the lawyer ventured.
'Well, well, may be.'
'There was a death in this house seventeen years gone this September,' he said, 'if I remember rightly.'
The woman pushed away the snuff and stared at him. 'Two, for the matter of that,' she said sharply. 'But should I remember you?'
'No.'
'Then, if I may make so bold, what is't to you?' she retorted. 'Do you come from Jim Masterson?'
'He is dead,' Mr. Fishwick answered.
She threw up her hands. 'Lord! And he a young man, so to speak! Poor Jim! Poor Jim! It is ten years and more--ay, more--since I heard from him. And the child? Is that dead too?'
'No, the child is alive,' the lawyer answered, speaking at a venture, 'I am here on her behalf, to make some inquiries about her kinsfolk.'
The woman's honest red face softened and grew motherly. 'You may inquire,' she said, 'you'll learn no more than I can tell you. There is no one left that's kin to her. The father was a poor Frenchman, a monsieur that taught the quality about here; the mother was one of his people--she came from Canterbury, where I am told there are French and to spare. But according to her account she had no kin left. He died the year after the child was born, and she came to lodge with me, and lived by teaching, as he had; but 'twas a poor livelihood, you may say, and when she sickened, she died--just as a candle goes out.'
'When?' Mr. Fishwick asked, his eyes glued to the woman's face.
'The week Jim Masterson came to see us bringing the child from foreign parts--that was buried with her. 'Twas said his child took the fever from her and got its death that way. But I don't know. I don't know. It is true they had not brought in the New Style then; but--'
'You knew him before? Masterson, I mean?'
'Why, he had courted me!' was the good-tempered answer. 'You don't know much if you don't know that. Then my good man came along and I liked him better, and Jim went into service and married Oxfordshire way. But when he came to Bristol after his journey in foreign parts, 'twas natural he should come to see me; and my husband, who was always easy, would keep him a day or two--more's the pity, for in twenty-four hours the child he had with him began to sicken, and died. And never was man in such a taking, though he swore the child was not his, but one he had adopted to serve a gentleman in trouble; and because his wife had none. Any way, it was buried along with my lodger, and nothing would serve but he must adopt the child she had left. It seemed ordained-like, they being of an age, and all. And I had two children to care for, and was looking for another that never came; and the mother had left no more than buried her with a little help. So he took it with him, and we heard from him once or twice, how it fared, and that his wife took to it, and the like; and then--well, writing's a burden. But,' with renewed interest, 'she's a well-grown girl by now, I guess?'
'Yes,' the attorney answered absently, 'she--she's a well-grown girl.'
'And is poor Jim's wife alive?'
'Yes.'
'Ah,' the good woman answered, looking thoughtfully into the street.' If she were not--I'd think about taking to the girl myself. It's lonely at times without chick or child. And there's the shop to tend. She could help with that.'
The attorney winced. He was looking ill; wretchedly ill. But he had his back to the light, and she remarked nothing save that he seemed to be a sombre sort of body and poor company. 'What was the Frenchman's name?' he asked after a pause.
'Parry,' said she. And then, sharply, 'Don't they call her by it?'
'It has an English sound,' he said doubtfully, evading her question.
'That is the way he called it. But it was spelled Pare, just Pare.'
'Ah,' said Mr. Fishwick. 'That explains it.' He wondered miserably why he had asked what did not in the least matter; since, if she were not a Soane, it mattered not who she was. After an interval he recovered himself with a sigh. 'Well, thank you,' he continued, 'I am much obliged to you. And now--for the moment--good-morning, ma'am. I must wish you good-morning,' he repeated, hurriedly; and took up his snuff.
'But that is not all?' the good woman exclaimed in astonishment. 'At any rate you'll leave your name?'
Mr. Fishwick pursed up his lips and stared at her gloomily. 'Name?' he said at last. 'Yes, ma'am, certainly. Brown. Mr. Peter Brown, the--the Poultry--'
'The Poultry!' she cried, gaping at him helplessly.
'Yes, the Poultry, London. Mr. Peter Brown, the Poultry, London. And now I have other business and shall--shall return another day. I must wish you good-morning, ma'am, Good-morning.' And thrusting his face into his hat, Mr. Fishwick bundled precipitately into the street, and with singular recklessness made haste to plunge into the thickest of the traffic, leaving the good woman in a state of amazement.
Nevertheless, he reached the inn safely. When Mr. Dunborough returned from a futile search, his failure in which condemned him to another twenty-four hours in that company, the first thing he saw was the attorney's gloomy face awaiting them in a dark corner of the coffee-room. The sight reproached him subtly, he knew not why; he was in the worst of tempers, and, for want of a better outlet, he vented his spleen on the lawyer's head.
'D--n you!' he cried, brutally. 'Your hang-dog phiz is enough to spoil any sport! Hang me if I believe that there is such another mumping, whining, whimpering sneak in the 'varsal world! D'you think any one will have luck with your tallow face within a mile of him?' Then longing, but not daring, to turn his wrath on Sir George, 'What do you bring him for?' he cried.
'For my convenience,' Sir George retorted, with a look of contempt that for the time silenced the other. And that said, Soane proceeded to explain to Mr. Fishwick, who had answered not a word, that the rogues had got into hiding; but that by means of persons known to Mr. Dunborough it was hoped that they would be heard from that evening or the next. Then, struck by the attorney's sickly face, 'I am afraid you are not well, Mr. Fishwick,' Sir George continued, more kindly. 'The night has been too much for you. I would advise you to lie down for a few hours and take some rest. If anything is heard I will send word to you.'
Mr. Fishwick thanked him, without meeting his eyes; and after a minute or two retired. Sir George looked after him, and pondered a little on the change in his manner. Through the stress of the night Mr. Fishwick had shown himself alert and eager, ready and not lacking in spirit; now he had depression written large on his face, and walked and bore himself like a man sinking under a load of despondency.
All that day the messenger from the slums was expected but did not come; and between the two men who sat downstairs, strange relations prevailed. Sir George did not venture to let the other out of his sight; yet there were times when they came to the verge of blows, and nothing but the knowledge of Sir George's swordsmanship kept Mr. Dunborough's temper within bounds. At dinner, at which Sir George insisted that the attorney should sit down with them, Dunborough drank his two bottles of wine, and in his cups fell into a strain peculiarly provoking.
'Lord! you make me sick,' he said. 'All this pother about a girl that a month ago your high mightiness would not have looked at in the street. You are vastly virtuous now, and sneer at me; but, damme! which of us loves the girl best? Take away her money, and will you marry her? I'd 'a done it, without a rag to her back. But take away her money, and will you do the same, Mr. Virtuous?'
Sir George listening darkly, and putting a great restraint on himself, did not answer. Mr. Fishwick waited a moment, then got up suddenly, and hurried from the room--with a movement so abrupt that he left his wine-glass in fragments on the floor.
Lord Almeric continued to vapour and romance as he mounted the stairs. Mr. Pomeroy attended, sneering, at his heels. The tutor followed, and longed to separate them. He had his fears for the one and of the other, and was relieved when his lordship at the last moment hung back, and with a foolish chuckle proposed a plan that did more honour to his vanity than his taste.
'Hist!' he whispered. 'Do you two stop outside a minute, and you'll hear how kind she'll be to me! I'll leave the door ajar, and then in a minute do you come in and roast her! Lord, 'twill be as good as a play!'
Mr. Pomeroy shrugged his shoulders. 'As you please,' he growled. 'But I have known a man go to shear and be shorn!'
Lord Almeric smiled loftily, and waiting for no more, winked to them, turned the handle of the door, and simpered in.
Had Mr. Thomasson entered with him, the tutor would have seen at a glance that he had wasted his fears; and that whatever trouble threatened brooded in a different quarter. The girl, her face a blaze of excitement and shame and eagerness, stood in the recess of the farther window seat, as far from the door as she could go; her attitude the attitude of one driven into a corner. And from that alone her lover should have taken warning. But Lord Almeric saw nothing, feared nothing. Crying 'Most lovely Julia!' he tripped forward to embrace her, and, the wine emboldening him, was about to clasp her in his arms, when she checked him by a gesture unmistakable even by a man in his flustered state.
'My lord,' she said hurriedly, yet in a tone of pleading--and her head hung a little, and her cheeks began to flame. 'I ask your forgiveness for having sent for you. Alas, I have also to ask your forgiveness for a more serious fault. One--one which you may find it less easy to pardon,' she added, her courage failing.
'Try me!' the little beau answered with ardour; and he struck an attitude. 'What would I not forgive to the loveliest of her sex?' And under cover of his words he made a second attempt to come within reach of her.
She waved him back. 'No!' she said. 'You do not understand me.'
'Understand?' he cried effusively. 'I understand enough to--but why, my Chloe, these alarms, this bashfulness? Sure,' he spouted,
'How can I see you, and not love,While you as Opening East are fair?While cold as Northern Blasts you prove,How can I love and not despair?'
And then, in wonder at his own readiness, 'S'help me! that's uncommon clever of me,' he said. 'But when a man is in love with the most beautiful of her sex--'
'My lord!' she cried, stamping the floor in her impatience. 'I have something serious to say to you. Must I ask you to return to me at another time? Or will you be good enough to listen to me now?'
'Sho, if you wish it, child,' he said lightly, taking out his snuff-box. 'And to be sure there is time enough. But between us two, sweet--'
'There is nothing between us!' she cried, impetuously snatching at the word. 'That is what I wanted to tell you. I made a mistake when I said that there should be. I was mad; I was wicked, if you like. Do you hear me, my lord?' she continued passionately. 'It was a mistake. I did not know what I was doing. And, now I do understand, I take it back.'
Lord Almeric gasped. He heard the words, but the meaning seemed incredible, inconceivable; the misfortune, if he heard aright, was too terrible; the humiliation too overwhelming! He had brought listeners--and for this! 'Understand?' he cried, looking at her in a confused, chap-fallen way. 'Hang me if I do understand! You don't mean to say--Oh, it is impossible, stuff me! it is. You don't mean that--that you'll not have me? After all that has come and gone, ma'am?'
She shook her head; pitying him, blaming herself, for the plight in which she had placed him. 'I sent for you, my lord,' she said humbly, 'that I might tell you at once. I could not rest until I had told you. I did what I could. And, believe me, I am very, very sorry.'
'But do you mean--that you--you jilt me?' he cried, still fighting off the dreadful truth.
'Not jilt!' she said, shivering.
'That you won't have me?'
She nodded.
'After--after saying you would?' he wailed.
'I cannot,' she answered. Then, 'Cannot you understand?' she cried, her face scarlet. 'I did not know until--until you went to kiss me.'
'But--oh, I say--but you love me?' he protested.
'No, my lord,' she said firmly. 'No. And there, you must do me the justice to acknowledge that I never said I did.'
He dashed his hat on the floor: he was almost weeping. 'Oh, damme!' he cried, 'a woman should not--should not treat a man like this. It's low. It's cruel! It's--'
A knock on the door stopped him. Recollection of the listeners, whom he had momentarily forgotten, revived, and overwhelmed him. With an oath he sprang to shut the door, but before he could intervene Mr. Pomeroy appeared smiling on the threshold; and behind him the reluctant tutor.
Lord Almeric swore, and Julia, affronted by the presence of strangers at such a time, drew back, frowning. But Bully Pomeroy would see nothing. 'A thousand pardons if I intrude,' he said, bowing this way and that, that he might hide a lurking grin. 'But his lordship was good enough to say a while ago, that he would present us to the lady who had consented to make him happy. We little thought last night, ma'am, that so much beauty and so much goodness were reserved for one of us.'
Lord Almeric looked ready to cry. Julia, darkly red, was certain that they had overheard; she stood glaring at the intruders, her foot tapping the floor. No one answered, and Mr. Pomeroy, after looking from one to the other in assumed surprise, pretended to hit on the reason. 'Oh, I see; I spoil sport!' he cried with coarse joviality. 'Curse me if I meant to! I fear we have comemal à propos,my lord, and the sooner we are gone the better.
'And though she found his usage rough,Yet in a man 'twas well enough!'
he hummed, with his head on one side and an impudent leer. 'We are interrupting the turtledoves, Mr. Thomasson, and had better be gone.'
'Curse you! Why did you ever come?' my lord cried furiously. 'But she won't have me. So there! Now you know.'
Mr. Pomeroy struck an attitude of astonishment.
'Won't have you?' he cried, 'Oh, stap me! you are biting us.'
'I'm not! And you know it!' the poor little blood answered, tears of vexation in his eyes. 'You know it, and you are roasting me!'
'Know it?' Mr. Pomeroy answered in tones of righteous indignation. 'I know it? So far from knowing it, my dear lord, I cannot believe it! I understood that the lady had given you her word.'
'So she did.'
'Then I cannot believe that a lady would anywhere, much less under my roof, take it back. Madam, there must be some mistake here,' Mr. Pomeroy continued warmly. 'It is intolerable that a man of his lordship's rank should be so treated. I'm forsworn if he has not mistaken you.'
'He does not mistake me now,' she answered, trembling and blushing painfully. 'What error there was I have explained to him.'
'But, damme--'
'Sir!' she said with awakening spirit, her eyes sparkling. 'What has happened is between his lordship and myself. Interference on the part of any one else is an intrusion, and I shall treat it as such. His lordship understood--'
'Curse me! He does not look as if he understood,' Mr. Pomeroy cried, allowing his native coarseness to peep through. 'Sink me, ma'am, there is a limit to prudishness. Fine words butter no parsnips. You plighted your troth to my guest, and I'll not see him thrown over i' this fashion. These airs and graces are out of place. I suppose a man has some rights under his own roof, and when his guest is jilted before his eyes'--here Mr. Pomeroy frowned like Jove--'it is well you should know, ma'am, that a woman no more than a man can play fast and loose at pleasure.'
She looked at him with disdain. 'Then the sooner I leave your roof the better, sir,' she said.
'Not so fast there, either,' he answered with an unpleasant smile. 'You came to it when you chose, and you will leave it when we choose; and that is flat, my girl. This morning, when my lord did you the honour to ask you, you gave him your word. Perhaps to-morrow morning you'll be of the same mind again. Any way, you will wait until to-morrow and see.'
'I shall not wait on your pleasure,' she cried, stung to rage.
'You will wait on it, ma'am! Or 'twill be the worse for you.'
Burning with indignation she turned to the other two, her breath coming quick. But Mr. Thomasson gazed gloomily at the floor, and would not meet her eyes; and Lord Almeric, who had thrown himself into a chair, was glowering sulkily at his shoes. 'Do you mean,' she cried, 'that you will dare to detain me, sir?'
'If you put it so,' Pomeroy answered, grinning, 'I think I dare take it on myself.'
His voice full of mockery, his insolent eyes, stung her to the quick. 'I will see if that be so,' she cried, fearlessly advancing on him. 'Lay a finger on me if you dare! I am going out. Make way, sir.'
'You are not going out!' he cried between his teeth. And held his ground in front of her.
She advanced until she was within touch of him, then her courage failed her; they stood a second or two gazing at one another, the girl with heaving breast and cheeks burning with indignation, the man with cynical watchfulness. Suddenly, shrinking from actual contact with him, she sprang aside, and was at the door before he could intercept her. But with a rapid movement he turned on his heel, seized her round the waist before she could open the door, dragged her shrieking from it, and with an oath--and not without an effort--flung her panting and breathless into the window-seat. 'There!' he cried ferociously, his blood fired by the struggle; 'lie there! And behave yourself, my lady, or I'll find means to quiet you. For you,' he continued, turning fiercely on the tutor, whose face the sudden scuffle and the girl's screams had blanched to the hue of paper, 'did you never hear a woman squeak before? And you, my lord? Are you so dainty? But, to be sure, 'tis your lordship's mistress,' he continued ironically. 'Your pardon. I forgot that. I should not have handled her so roughly. However, she is none the worse, and 'twill bring her to reason.'
But the struggle and the girl's cries had shaken my lord's nerves. 'D--n you!' he cried hysterically, and with a stamp of the foot, 'you should not have done that.'
'Pooh, pooh,' Mr. Pomeroy answered lightly. 'Do you leave it to me, my lord. She does not know her own mind. 'Twill help her to find it. And now, if you'll take my advice, you'll leave her to a night's reflection.'
But Lord Almeric only repeated, 'You should not have done that.'
Mr. Pomeroy's face showed his scorn for the man whom a cry or two and a struggling woman had frightened. Yet he affected to see art in it. 'I understand. And it is the right line to take,' he said; and he laughed unpleasantly. 'No doubt it will be put to your lordship's credit. But now, my lord,' he continued, 'let us go. You will see she will have come to her senses by to-morrow.'
The girl had remained passive since her defeat. But at this she rose from the window-seat where she had crouched, slaying them with furious glances. 'My lord,' she cried passionately, 'if you are a man, if you are a gentleman--you'll not suffer this.'
But Lord Almeric, who had recovered from his temporary panic, and was as angry with her as with Pomeroy, shrugged his shoulders. 'Oh, I don't know,' he said resentfully. 'It has naught to do with me, ma'am. I don't want you kept, but you have behaved uncommon low to me; uncommon low. And 'twill do you good to think on it. Stap me, it will!'
And he turned on his heel and sneaked out.
Mr. Pomeroy laughed insolently. 'There is still Tommy,' he said. 'Try him. See what he'll say to you. It amuses me to hear you plead, my dear; you put so much spirit into it. As my lord said, before we came in, 'tis as good as a play.'
She flung him a look of scorn, but did not answer. For Mr. Thomasson, he shuffled his feet uncomfortably. 'There are no horses,' he faltered, cursing his indiscreet companion. 'Mr. Pomeroy means well, I know. And as there are no horses, even if nothing prevented you, you could not go to-night, you see.'
Mr. Pomeroy burst into a shout of laughter and clapped the stammering tutor (fallen miserably between two stools) on the back. 'There's a champion for you!' he cried. 'Beauty in distress! Lord! how it fires his blood and turns his look to flame! What! going, Tommy?' he continued, as Mr. Thomasson, unable to bear his raillery or the girl's fiery scorn, turned and fled ignobly. 'Well, my pretty dear, I see we are to be left alone. And, damme! quite right too, for we are the only man and the only woman of the party, and should come to an understanding.'
Julia looked at him with shuddering abhorrence. They were alone; the sound of the tutor's retreating footsteps was growing faint. She pointed to the door. 'If you do not go,' she cried, her voice shaking with rage, 'I will rouse the house! I will call your people! Do you hear me? I will so cry to your servants that you shall not for shame dare to keep me! I will break this window and cry for help?'
'And what do you think I should be doing meanwhile?' he retorted with an ugly leer. 'I thought I had shown you that two could play at that game. But there, child, I like your spirit! I love you for it! You are a girl after my own heart, and, damme! we'll live to laugh at those two old women yet!'
She shrank farther from him with an expression of loathing. He saw the look, and scowled, but for the moment he kept his temper. 'Fie! the Little Masterson playing the grand lady!' he said. 'But there, you are too handsome to be crossed, my dear. You shall have your own way to-night, and I'll come and talk to you to-morrow, when your head is cooler and those two fools are out of the way. And if we quarrel then, my beauty, we can but kiss and make it up. Look on me as your friend,' he added, with a leer from which she shrank, 'and I vow you'll not repent it.'
She did not answer, she only pointed to the door, and finding that he could draw nothing from her, he went at last. On the threshold he turned, met her eyes with a grin of meaning, and took the key from the inside of the lock. She heard him insert it on the outside, and turn it, and had to grip one hand with the other to stay the scream that arose in her throat. She was brave beyond most women; but the ease with which he had mastered her, the humiliation of contact with him, the conviction of her helplessness in his grasp lay on her still. They filled her with fear; which grew more definite as the light, already low in the corners of the room, began to fail, and the shadows thickened about the dingy furniture, and she crouched alone against the barred window, listening for the first tread of a coming foot--and dreading the night.
Mr. Pomeroy chuckled as he went down the stairs. Things had gone so well for him, he owed it to himself to see that they went better, he had mounted with a firm determination to effect a breach even if it cost him my lord's enmity. He descended, the breach made, the prize open to competition, and my lord obliged by friendly offices and unselfish service.
Mr. Pomeroy smiled. 'She is a saucy baggage,' he muttered, 'but I've tamed worse. 'Tis the first step is hard, and I have taken that. Now to deal with Mother Olney. If she were not such a fool, or if I could be rid of her and Jarvey, and put in the Tamplins, all's done. But she'd talk! The kitchen wench need know nothing; for visitors, there are none in this damp old hole. Win over Mother Olney and the Parson--and I don't see where I can fail. The wench is here, safe and tight, and bread and water, damp and loneliness will do a great deal. She don't deserve better treatment, hang her impudence!'
But when he appeared in the hall an hour later, his gloomy face told a different story. 'Where's Doyley?' he growled; and stumbled over a dog, kicked it howling into a corner. 'Has he gone to bed?'
The tutor, brooding sulkily over his wine, looked up. 'Yes,' he said, as rudely as he dared--he was sick with disappointment. 'He is going in the morning.'
'And a good riddance!' Pomeroy cried with an oath. 'He's off it, is he? He gives up?'
The tutor nodded gloomily. 'His lordship is not the man,' he said, with an attempt at his former manner, 'to--to--'
'To win the odd trick unless he holds six trumps,' Mr. Pomeroy cried. 'No, by God! he is not. You are right, Parson. But so much the better for you and me!'
Mr. Thomasson sniffed. 'I don't follow you,' he said stiffly.
'Don't you? You weren't so dull years ago,' Mr. Pomeroy answered, filling a glass as he stood. He held it in his hand and looked over it at the other, who, ill at ease, fidgeted in his chair, 'You could put two and two together then, Parson, and you can put five and five together now. They make ten--thousand.'
'I don't follow you,' the tutor repeated, steadfastly looking away from him.
'Why? Nothing is changed since we talked--except that he is out of it! And that that is done for me for nothing, which I offered you five thousand to do. But I am generous, Tommy. I am generous.'
'The next chance is mine,' Mr. Thomasson cried, with a glance of spite.
Mr. Pomeroy, looking down at him, laughed--a galling laugh. 'Lord! Tommy, that was a hundred years ago,' he said contemptuously.
'You said nothing was changed!'
'Nothing is changed in my case,' Mr. Pomeroy answered confidently, 'except for the better. In your case everything is changed--for the worse. Did you take her part upstairs? Are your hands clean now? Does she see through you or does she not? Or, put it in another way, my friend. It is your turn; what are you going to do?'
'Go,' the tutor answered viciously. 'And glad to be quit.'
Mr. Pomeroy sat down opposite him. 'No, you'll not go,' he said in a low voice; and drinking off half his wine, set down the glass and regarded the other over it. 'Five and five are ten, Tommy. You are no fool, and I am no fool.'
'I am not such a fool as to put my neck in a noose,' the tutor retorted. 'And there is no other way of coming at what you want, Mr. Pomeroy.'
'There are twenty,' Pomeroy returned coolly. 'And, mark you, if I fail, you are spun, whether you help rue or no. You are blown on, or I can blow on you! You'll get nothing for your cut on the head.'
'And what shall I get if I stay?'
'I have told you.'
'The gallows.'
'No, Tommy. Eight hundred a year.'
Mr. Thomasson sneered incredulously, and having made it plain that he refused to think--thought! He had risked so much in this enterprise, gone through so much; and to lose it all! He cursed the girl's fickleness, her coyness, her obstinacy! He hated her. And do what he might for her now, he doubted if he could cozen her or get much from her. Yet in that lay his only chance, apart from Mr. Pomeroy. His eye was cunning and his tone sly when he spoke.
'You forget one thing,' he said. 'I have only to open my lips after I leave.'
'And I am nicked?' Mr. Pomeroy answered. 'True. And you will get a hundred guineas, and have a worse than Dunborough at your heels.'
The tutor wiped his brow. 'What do you want?' he whispered.
'That old hag of a housekeeper has turned rusty,' Pomeroy answered. 'She has got it into her head something is going to be done to the girl. I sounded her and I cannot trust her. I could send her packing, but Jarvey is not much better, and talks when he is drunk. The girl must be got from here.'
Mr. Thomasson raised his eyebrows scornfully.
'You need not sneer, you fool!' Pomeroy cried with a little spirt of rage.' 'Tis no harder than to get her here.'
'Where will you take her?'
'To Tamplin's farm by the river. There, you are no wiser, but you may trust me. I can hang the man, and the woman is no better. They have done this sort of thing before. Once get her there, and, sink me! she'll be glad to see the parson!'
The tutor shuddered. The water was growing very deep. 'I'll have no part in it!' he said hoarsely. 'No part in it, so help me God!'
'There's no part for you!' Mr. Pomeroy answered with grim patience. 'Your part is to thwart me.'
Mr. Thomasson, half risen from his chair, sat down again. 'What do you mean?' he muttered.
'You are her friend. Your part is to help her to escape. You're to sneak to her room to-morrow, and tell her that you'll steal the key when I'm drunk after dinner. You'll bid her be ready at eleven, and you'll let her out, and have a chaise waiting at the end of the avenue. The chaise will be there, you'll put her in, you'll go back to the house. I suppose you see it now?'
The tutor stared in wonder. 'She'll get away,' he said.
'Half a mile,' Mr. Pomeroy answered drily, as he filled his glass.' Then I shall stop the chaise--with a pistol if you like, jump in--a merry surprise for the nymph; and before twelve we shall be at Tamplin's. And you'll be free of it.'
Mr. Thomasson pondered, his face flushed, his eyes moist. 'I think you are the devil!' he said at last.
'Is it a bargain? And see here. His lordship has gone silly on the girl. You can tell him before he leaves what you are going to do. He'll leave easy, and you'll have an evidence--of your good intentions!' Mr. Pomeroy added with a chuckle. 'Is it a bargain?'
'I'll not do it!' Mr. Thomasson cried faintly. 'I'll not do it!'
But he sat down again, their heads came together across the table; they talked long in low voices. Presently Mr. Pomeroy fetched pen and paper from a table in one of the windows; where they lay along with one or two odd volumes of Crebillon, a tattered Hoyle on whist, and Foote's jest book. A note was written and handed over, and the two rose.
Mr. Thomasson would have liked to say a word before they parted as to no violence being contemplated or used; something smug and fair-seeming that would go to show that his right hand did not understand what his left was doing. But even his impudence was unequal to the task, and with a shamefaced good-night he secured the memorandum in his pocket-book and sneaked up to bed.
He had every opportunity of carrying out Pomeroy's suggestion to make Lord Almeric his confidant. For when he entered the chamber which they shared, he found his lordship awake, tossing and turning in the shade of the green moreen curtains; in a pitiable state between chagrin and rage. But the tutor's nerve failed him. He had few scruples--it was not that; but he was weary and sick at heart, and for that night he felt that he had done enough. So to all my lord's inquiries he answered as sleepily as consisted with respect, until the effect which he did not wish to produce was produced. The young roué's suspicions were aroused, and on a sudden he sat up in bed, his nightcap quivering on his head.
'Tommy!' he cried feverishly. 'What is afoot downstairs? Now, do you tell me the truth.'
'Nothing,' Mr. Thomasson answered soothingly.
'Because--well, she's played it uncommon low on me, uncommon low she's played it,' my lord complained pathetically; 'but fair is fair, and willing's willing! And I'll not see her hurt. Pom's none too nice, I know, but he's got to understand that. I'm none of your Methodists, Tommy, as you are aware, no one more so! But, s'help me! no one shall lay a hand on her against her will!'
'My dear lord, no one is going to!' the tutor answered, quaking in his bed.
'That is understood, is it? Because it had better be!' the little lord continued with unusual vigour. 'I vow I have no cause to stand up for her. She's a d--d saucy baggage, and has treated me with--with d--d disrespect. But, oh Lord! Tommy, I'd have been a good husband to her. I would indeed. And been kind to her. And now--she's made a fool of me! She's made a fool of me!'
And my lord took off his nightcap, and wiped his eyes with it.