Julia, left alone, and locked in the room, passed such a night as a girl instructed in the world's ways might have been expected to pass in her position, and after the rough treatment of the afternoon. The room grew dark, the dismal garden and weedy pool that closed the prospect faded from sight; and still as she crouched by the barred window, or listened breathless at the door, all that part of the house lay silent. Not a sound of life came to the ear.
By turns she resented and welcomed this. At one time, pacing the floor in a fit of rage and indignation, she was ready to dash herself against the door, or scream and scream and scream until some one came to her. At another the recollection of Pomeroy's sneering smile, of his insolent grasp, revived to chill and terrify her; and she hid in the darkest corner, hugged the solitude, and, scarcely daring to breathe, prayed that the silence might endure for ever.
But the hours in the dark room were long and cold; and at times the fever of rage and fear left her in the chill. Of this came another phase through which she passed, as the night wore on and nothing happened. Her thoughts reverted to him who should have been her protector, but had become her betrayer--and by his treachery had plunged her into this misery; and on a sudden a doubt of his guilt flashed into her mind and blinded her by its brilliance. Had she done him an injustice? Had the abduction been, after all, concerted not by him but by Mr. Thomasson and his confederates? The setting down near Pomeroy's gate, the reception at his house, the rough, hasty suit paid to her--were these all parts of a drama cunningly arranged to mystify her? And was he innocent? Washestill her lover, true, faithful, almost her husband?
If she could think so! She rose, and softly walked the floor in the darkness, tears raining down her face. Oh, if she could be sure of it! At the thought, the thought only, she glowed from head to foot with happy shame. And fear? If this were so, if his love were still hers, and hers the only fault--of doubting him, she feared nothing! Nothing! She felt her way to a tray in the corner where her last meal remained untasted, and ate and drank humbly, and for him. She might need her strength.
She had finished, and was groping her return to the window-seat, when a faint rustle as of some one moving on the other side of the door caught her ear. She had fancied herself brave enough an instant before, but in the darkness a great horror of fear came on her. She stood rooted to the spot; and heard the noise again. It was followed by the sound of a hand passed stealthily over the panels; a hand seeking, as she thought, for the key; and she could have shrieked in her helplessness. But while she stood, her face turned to stone, came instant relief, A voice, subdued in fear, whispered, 'Hist, ma'am, hist! Are you asleep?'
She could have fallen on her knees in her thankfulness. 'No! no!' she cried eagerly. 'Who is it?'
'It is me--Olney!' was the answer. 'Keep a heart, ma'am! They are gone to bed. You are quite safe.'
'Can you let me out?' Julia cried. 'Oh, let me out!'
'Let you out?'
'Yes, yes! Let me out? Please let me out.'
'God forbid, ma'am!' was the horrified answer. 'He'd kill me. And he has the key. But--'
'Yes? yes?'
'Keep your heart up, ma'am, for Jarvey'll not see you hurt; nor will I. You may sleep easy. And good-night!'
She stole away before Julia could answer; but she left comfort. In a glow of thankfulness the girl pushed a chair against the door, and, wrapping herself for warmth in the folds of the shabby curtains, lay down on the window seat. She was willing to sleep now, but the agitation of her thoughts, the whirl of fear and hope that prevailed in them, as she went again and again over the old ground, kept her long awake. The moon had risen and run its course, decking the old garden with a solemn beauty as of death, and was beginning to retreat before the dawn, when Julia slept at last.
When she awoke it was broad daylight. A moment she gazed upwards, wondering where she was; the next a harsh grating sound, and the echo of a mocking laugh brought her to her feet in a panic of remembrance.
The key was still turning in the lock--she saw it move, saw it withdrawn; but the room was empty. And while she stood staring and listening heavy footsteps retired along the passage. The chair which she had set against the door had been pushed back, and milk and bread stood on the floor beside it.
She drew a deep breath; he had been there. But her worst terrors had passed with the night. The sun was shining, filling her with scorn of her gaoler. She panted to be face to face with him, that she might cover him with ridicule, overwhelm him with the shafts of her woman's wit, and show him how little she feared and how greatly she despised him.
But he did not appear; the hours passed slowly, and with the afternoon came a clouded sky, and weariness and reaction of spirits; fatigue of body, and something like illness; and on that a great terror. If they drugged her in her food? The thought was like a knife in the girl's heart, and while she still writhed on it, her ear caught the creak of a board in the passage, and a furtive tread that came, and softly went again, and once more returned. She stood, her heart beating; and fancied she heard the sound of breathing on the other side of the door. Then her eye alighted on a something white at the foot of the door, that had not been there a minute earlier. It was a tiny note. While she gazed at it the footsteps stole away again.
She pounced on the note and opened it, thinking it might be from Mrs. Olney. But the opening lines smacked of other modes of speech than hers; and though Julia had no experience of Mr. Thomasson's epistolary style, she felt no surprise when she found the initials F.T. appended to the message.
'Madam,' it ran. 'You are in danger here, and I in no less of being held to account for acts which my heart abhors. Openly to oppose myself to Mr. P.--the course my soul dictates--were dangerous for us both, and another must be found. If he drink deep to-night, I will, heaven assisting, purloin the key, and release you at ten, or as soon after as may be. Jarvey, who is honest, and fears the turn things are taking, will have a carriage waiting in the road. Be ready, hide this, and when you are free, though I seek no return for services attended by much risk, yet if you desire to find one, an easy way may appear of requiting,
'Madam, your devoted, obedient servant, F.T.'
Julia's face glowed. 'He cannot do even a kind act as it should be done,' she thought. 'But once away it will be easy to reward him. At worst he shall tell me how I came to be set down here.'
She spent the rest of the day divided between anxiety on that point--for Mr. Thomasson's intervention went some way to weaken the theory she had built up with so much joy--and impatience for night to come and put an end to her suspense. She was now as much concerned to escape the ordeal of Mr. Pomeroy's visit as she had been earlier in the day to see him. And she had her wish. He did not come; she fancied he might be willing to let the dullness and loneliness, the monotony and silence of her prison, work their effect on her mind.
Night, as welcome to-day as it had been yesterday unwelcome, fell at last, and hid the dingy familiar room, the worn furniture, the dusky outlook. She counted the minutes, and before it was nine by the clock was the prey of impatience, thinking the time past and gone and the tutor a poor deceiver. Ten was midnight to her; she hoped against hope, walking her narrow bounds in the darkness. Eleven found her lying on her face on the floor, heaving dry sobs of despair, her hair dishevelled. And then, on a sudden she sprang up; the key was grating in the lock! While she stared, half demented, scarcely believing her happiness, Mr. Thomasson appeared on the threshold, his head--he wore no wig--muffled in a woman's shawl, a shaded lanthorn in his hand.
'Come!' he said. 'There is not a moment to be lost.'
'Oh!' she cried hysterically, yet kept her shaking voice low; 'I thought you were not coming. I thought it was all over.'
'I am late,' he answered nervously; his face was pale, his shifty eyes avoided hers.' It is eleven o'clock, but I could not get the key before. Follow me closely and silently, child; and in a few minutes you will be safe.'
'Heaven bless you!' she cried, weeping. And would have taken his hand.
But at that he turned from her so abruptly that she marvelled, for she had not judged him a man averse from thanks. But setting his manner down to the danger and the need of haste, she took the hint and controlling her feelings, prepared to follow him in silence. Holding the lanthorn so that its light fell on the floor he listened an instant, then led the way on tip-toe down the dim corridor. The house was hushed round them; if a board creaked under their feet, it seemed to her scared ears a pistol shot. At the entrance to the gallery which was partly illumined by lights still burning in the hall below, the tutor paused anew an instant to listen, then turned quickly from it, and by a narrow passage on the right gained a back staircase. Descending the steep stairs he guided her by devious turnings through dingy offices and servants' quarters until they stood in safety before an outer door. To withdraw the bar that secured it, while she held the lanthorn, was for the tutor the work of an instant. They passed through, and he closed the door softly behind them.
After the confinement of her prison, the night air that blew on her temples was rapture to Julia; for it breathed of freedom. She turned her face up to the dark boughs that met and interlaced above her head, and whispered her thankfulness. Then, obedient to Mr. Thomasson's impatient gesture, she hastened to follow him along a dank narrow path that skirted the wall of the house for a few yards, then turned off among the trees.
They had left the wall no more than a dozen paces behind them, when Mr. Thomasson paused, as in doubt, and raised his light. They were in a little beech-coppice that grew close up to the walls of the servants' offices. The light showed the dark shining trunks, running in solemn rows this way and that; and more than one path trodden smooth across the roots. The lanthorn disclosed no more, but apparently this was enough for Mr. Thomasson. He pursued the path he had chosen, and less than a minute's walking brought them to the avenue.
Julia drew a breath of relief and looked behind and before. 'Where is the carriage?' she whispered, shivering with excitement.
The tutor before he answered raised his lanthorn thrice to the level of his head, as if to make sure of his position. Then, 'In the road,' he answered. 'And the sooner you are in it the better, child, for I must return and replace the key before he sobers. Or 'twill, be worse for me,' he added snappishly, 'than for you.'
'You are not coming with me? 'she exclaimed in surprise.
'No, I--I can't quarrel with him,' he answered hurriedly. 'I--I am under obligations to him. And once in the carriage you'll be safe.'
'Then please to tell me this,' Julia rejoined, her breath a little short. 'Mr. Thomasson, did you know anything of my being carried off before it took place?'
'I?' he cried effusively. 'Did I know?'
'I mean--were you employed--to bring me to Mr. Pomeroy's?'
'I employed? To bring you to Mr. Pomeroy's? Good heavens! ma'am, what do you take me for?' the tutor cried in righteous indignation. 'No, ma'am, certainly not! I am not that kind of man!' And then blurting out the truth in his surprise, 'Why, 'twas Mr. Dunborough!' he said. 'And like him too! Heaven keep us from him!'
'Mr. Dunborough?' she exclaimed.
'Yes, yes.'
'Oh,' she said, in a helpless, foolish kind of way. 'It was Mr. Dunborough, was it?' And she begged his pardon. And did it too so humbly, in a voice so broken by feeling and gratitude, that, bad man as he was, his soul revolted from the work he was upon; and for an instant, he stood still, the lanthorn swinging in his hand.
She misinterpreted the movement. 'Are we right?' she said, anxiously. 'You don't think that we are out of the road?' Though the night was dark, and it was difficult to discern, anything beyond the circle of light thrown by the lanthorn, it struck her that the avenue they were traversing was not the one by which she had approached the house two nights before. The trees seemed to stand farther from one another and to be smaller. Or was it her fancy?
But it was not that had moved him to stand; for in a moment, with a curious sound between a groan and a curse he led the way on, without answering her. Fifty paces brought them to the gate and the road. Thomasson held up his lanthorn and looked over the gate.
'Where is the carriage?' she whispered, startled by the darkness and silence.
'It should be here,' he answered, his voice betraying his perplexity. 'It should be here at this gate. But I--I don't see it.'
'Would it have lights?' she asked anxiously. He had opened the gate by this time, and as she spoke they passed through, and stood together looking up and down the road. The moon was obscured, and the lanthorn's rays were of little use to find a carriage which was not there.
'It should be here, and it should have lights,' he said in evident dismay. 'I don't know what to think of it. I--ha! What is that? It is coming, I think. Yes, I hear it. The coachman must have drawn off a little for some reason, and now he has seen the lanthorn.'
He had only the sound of wheels to go upon, but he proved to be right; she uttered a sigh of relief as the twin lights of a carriage apparently approaching round a bend of the road broke upon them. The lights drew near and nearer, and the tutor waved his lamp. For a second the driver appeared to be going to pass them; then, as Mr. Thomasson again waved his lanthorn and shouted, he drew up.
'Halloa!' he said.
Mr. Thomasson did not answer, but with a trembling hand opened the door and thrust the girl in. 'God bless you!' she murmured; 'and--' He slammed the door, cutting short the sentence.
'Well?' the driver said, looking down at him, his face in shadow; 'I am--'
'Go on!' Mr. Thomasson cried peremptorily, and waving his lanthorn again, startled the horses; which plunged away wildly, the man tugging vainly at the reins. The tutor fancied that, as it started, he caught a faint scream from the inside of the chaise, but he set it down to fright caused by the sudden jerk; and, after he had stood long enough to assure himself that the carriage was keeping the road, he turned to retrace his steps to the house.
He was feeling for the latch of the gate--his thoughts no pleasant ones, for the devil pays scant measure--when his ear was surprised by a new sound of wheels approaching from the direction whence the chaise had come. He stood to listen, thinking he heard an echo; but in a second or two he saw lights approaching through the night precisely as the other lights had approached. Once seen they came on swiftly, and he was still standing gaping in wonder when a carriage and pair, a postboy riding and a servant sitting outside, swept by, dazzling him a moment; the next it was gone, whirled away into the darkness.
The road which passed before the gates at Bastwick was not a highway, and Mr. Thomasson stood a full minute, staring after the carriage, and wondering what chance brought a traveller that way at that hour. Presently it occurred to him that one of Mr. Pomeroy's neighbours might have dined abroad, have sat late over the wine, and be now returning; and that so the incident might admit of the most innocent explanation. Yet it left him uneasy. Until the last hum of wheels died in the distance he stood listening and thinking. Then he turned from the gate, and with a shiver betook himself towards the house. He had done his part.
Or had he? The road was not ten paces behind him, when a cry rent the darkness, and he paused to listen. He caught the sound of hasty footsteps crossing the open ground on his right, and apparently approaching; and he raised his lanthorn in alarm. The next moment a dark form vaulted the railings that fenced the avenue on that side, sprang on the affrighted tutor, and, seizing him violently by the collar, shook him to and fro as a terrier shakes a rat.
It was Mr. Pomeroy, beside himself with rage. 'What have you done with her?' he cried. 'You treacherous hound! Answer, or by heaven I shall choke you!'
'Done--done with whom?' the tutor gasped, striving to free himself. 'Mr. Pomeroy, I am not--what does this--mean?'
'With her? With the girl?'
'She is--I have put her in the carriage! I swear I have! Oh!' he shrieked, as Mr. Pomeroy, in a fresh access of passion, gripped his throat and squeezed it. 'I have put her in the carriage, I tell you! I have done everything you told me!'
'In the carriage? What carriage? In what carriage?'
'The one that was there.'
'At the gate?'
'Yes, yes.'
'You fool! You imbecile!' Mr. Pomeroy roared, as he shook him with all his strength. 'The carriage is at the other gate.'
Mr. Thomasson gasped, partly with surprise, partly under the influence of Pomeroy's violence. 'At the other gate?' he faltered. 'But--there was a carriage here. I saw it. I put her in it. Not a minute ago!'
'Then, by heaven, it was your carriage, and you have betrayed me,' Pomeroy retorted; and shook his trembling victim until his teeth chattered and his eyes protruded. 'I thought I heard wheels and I came to see. If you don't tell me the truth this instant,' he continued furiously, 'I'll have the life out of you.'
'It is the truth,' Mr. Thomasson stammered, blubbering with fright. 'It was a carriage that came up--and stopped. I thought it was yours, and I put her in. And it went on.'
'A lie, man--a lie!'
'I swear it is true! I swear it is! If it were not should I be going back to the house? Should I be going to face you?' Mr. Thomasson protested.
The argument impressed Pomeroy; his grasp relaxed. 'The devil is in it, then!' he muttered. 'For no one else could have set a carriage at that gate at that minute! Anyway, I'll know. Come on!' he continued recklessly snatching up the lanthorn, which had fallen on its side and was not extinguished. 'We'll after her! By the Lord, we'll after her. They don't trick me so easily!'
The tutor ventured a terrified remonstrance, but Mr. Pomeroy, deaf to his entreaties and arguments, bundled him over the fence, and, gripping his arm, hurried him as fast as his feet would carry him across the sward to the other gate. A carriage, its lamps burning brightly, stood in the road. Mr. Pomeroy exchanged a few curt words with the driver, thrust in the tutor, and followed himself. On the instant the vehicle dashed away, the coachman cracking his whip and shouting oaths at his horses.
The hedges flew by, pale glimmering walls in the lamplight; the mud flew up and splashed Mr. Pomeroy's face; still he hung out of the window, his hand on the fastening of the door, and a brace of pistols on the ledge before him; while the tutor, shuddering at these preparations, hoping against hope that they would overtake no one, cowered in the farther corner. With every turn of the road or swerve of the horses Pomeroy expected to see the fugitives' lights. Unaware or oblivious that the carriage he was pursuing had the start of him by so much that at top speed he could scarcely look to overtake it under the hour, his rage increased with every disappointment. Although the pace at which they travelled over a rough road was such as to fill the tutor with instant terror and urgent thoughts of death--although first one lamp was extinguished and then another, and the carriage swung so violently as from moment to moment to threaten an overturn, Mr. Pomeroy never ceased to hang out of the window, to yell at the horses and upbraid the driver.
And with all, the labour seemed to be wasted. With wrath and a volley of curses he saw the lights of Chippenham appear in front, and still no sign of the pursued. Five minutes later the carriage awoke the echoes in the main street of the sleeping town, and Mr. Thomasson drew a deep breath of relief as it came to a stand.
Not so Mr. Pomeroy. He dashed the door open and sprang out, prepared to overwhelm the driver with reproaches. The man anticipated him. 'They are here,' he said with a sulky gesture.
'Here? Where?'
A man in a watchman's coat, and carrying a staff and lanthorn--of whom the driver had already asked a question--came heavily round, from the off-side of the carriage. 'There is a chaise and pair just come in from the Melksham Road,' he said, 'and gone to the Angel, if that is what you want, your honour.'
'A lady with them?'
'I saw none, but there might be.'
'How long ago?'
'Ten minutes.'
'We're right!' Mr. Pomeroy cried with a jubilant oath, and turning back to the door of the carriage, slipped the pistols into his skirt pockets. 'Come,' he said to Thomasson. 'And do you,' he continued, addressing his driver, who was no other than the respectable Tamplin, 'follow at a walking pace. Have they ordered on?' he asked, slipping a crown into the night-watchman's hand.
'I think not, your honour,' the man answered. 'I believe they are staying.'
With a word of satisfaction Mr. Pomeroy hurried his unwilling companion towards the inn. The streets were dark; only an oil lamp or two burned at distant points. But the darkness of the town was noon-day light in comparison of the gloom which reigned in Mr. Thomasson's mind. In the grasp of this headstrong man, whose temper rendered him blind to obstacles and heedless of danger, the tutor felt himself swept along, as incapable of resistance as the leaf that is borne upon the stream. It was not until they turned into the open space before the Angel, and perceived a light in the doorway of the inn that despair gave him courage to remonstrate.
Then the risk and folly of the course they were pursuing struck him so forcibly that he grew frantic. He clutched Mr. Pomeroy's sleeve, and dragging him aside out of earshot of Tamplin, who was following them, 'This is madness!' he urged vehemently. 'Sheer madness! Have you considered, Mr. Pomeroy? If she is here, what claim have we to interfere with her? What authority over her? What title to force her away? If we had overtaken her on the road, in the country, it might have been one thing. But here--'
'Here?' Mr. Pomeroy retorted, his face dark, his under-jaw thrust out hard as a rock. 'And why not here?'
'Because--why, because she will appeal to the people.'
'What people?'
'The people who have brought her hither.'
'And what is their right to her?' Mr. Pomeroy retorted, with a brutal oath.
'The people at the inn, then.'
'Well, and what is their right? But--I see your point, parson! Damme, you are a cunning one. I had not thought of that. She'll appeal to them, will she? Then she shall be my sister, run off from her home! Ha! Ha! Or no, my lad,' he continued, chuckling savagely, and slapping the tutor on the back; 'they know me here, and that I have no sister. She shall be your daughter!' And while Mr. Thomasson stared aghast, Pomeroy laughed recklessly. 'She shall be your daughter, man! My guest, and run off with an Irish ensign! Oh, by Gad, we'll nick her! Come on!'
Mr. Thomasson shuddered. It seemed to him the wildest scheme--a folly beyond speech. Resisting the hand with which Pomeroy would have impelled him towards the lighted doorway, 'I will have nothing to do with it!' he cried, with all the firmness he could muster. 'Nothing! Nothing!'
'A minute ago you might have gone to the devil!' Mr. Pomeroy answered grimly, 'and welcome! Now, I want you. And, by heaven, if you don't stand by me I'll break your back! Who is there here who is likely to know you? Or what have you to fear?'
'She'll expose us!' Mr. Thomasson whimpered. 'She'll tell them!'
'Who'll believe her?' the other answered with supreme contempt. 'Which is the more credible story--hers about a lost heir, or ours? Come on, I say!'
Mr. Thomasson had been far from anticipating a risk of this kind when he entered on his career of scheming. But he stood in mortal terror of his companion, whose reckless passions were fully aroused; and after a brief resistance he succumbed. Still protesting, he allowed himself to be urged past the open doors of the inn-yard--in the black depths of which the gleam of a lanthorn, and the form of a man moving to and fro, indicated that the strangers' horses were not yet bedded--and up the hospitable steps of the Angel Inn.
A solitary candle burning in a room on the right of the hall, guided their feet that way. Its light disclosed a red-curtained snuggery, well furnished with kegs and jolly-bodied jars, and rows of bottles; and in the middle of this cheerful profusion the landlord himself, stooping over a bottle of port, which he was lovingly decanting. His array, a horseman's coat worn over night-gear, with bare feet thrust into slippers, proved him newly risen from bed; but the hum of voices and clatter of plates which came from the neighbouring kitchen were signs that, late as it was, the good inn was not caught napping.
The host heard their steps behind him, but crying 'Coming, gentlemen, coming!' finished his task before he turned. Then 'Lord save us!' he ejaculated, staring at them--the empty bottle in one hand, the decanter in the other. 'Why, the road's alive to-night! I beg your honour's pardon, I am sure, and yours, sir! I thought 'twas one of the gentlemen that arrived, awhile ago--come down to see why supper lagged. Squire Pomeroy, to be sure! What can I do for you, gentlemen? The fire is scarce out in the Hertford, and shall be rekindled at once?'
Mr. Pomeroy silenced him by a gesture. 'No,' he said; 'we are not staying. But you have some guests here, who arrived half an hour ago?'
'To be sure, your honour. The same I was naming.' 'Is there a young lady with them?'
The landlord looked hard at him. 'A young lady?' he said.
'Yes! Are you deaf, man?' Pomeroy retorted wrathfully, his impatience getting the better of him. 'Is there a young lady with them? That is what I asked.'
But the landlord still stared; and it was only after an appreciable interval that he answered cautiously: 'Well, to be sure, I am not--I am not certain. I saw none, sir. But I only saw the gentlemen when they had gone upstairs. William admitted them, and rang up the stables. A young lady?' he continued, rubbing his head as if the question perplexed him. 'May I ask, is't some one your honour is seeking?'
'Damme, man, should I ask if it weren't?' Mr. Pomeroy retorted angrily. 'If you must know, it is this gentleman's daughter, who has run away from her friends.'
'Dear, dear!'
'And taken up with a beggarly Irishman!'
The landlord stared from one to the other in great perplexity. 'Dear me!' he said. 'That is sad! The gentleman's daughter!' And he looked at Mr. Thomasson, whose fat sallow face was sullenness itself. Then, remembering his manners, 'Well, to be sure, I'll go and learn,' he continued briskly. 'Charles!' to a half-dressed waiter, who at that moment appeared at the foot of the stairs, 'set lights in the Yarmouth and draw these gentlemen what they require. I'll not be many minutes, Mr. Pomeroy.'
He hurried up the narrow staircase, and an instant later appeared on the threshold of a room in which sat two gentlemen, facing one another in silence before a hastily-kindled fire. They had travelled together from Bristol, cheek by jowl in a post-chaise, exchanging scarce as many words as they had traversed miles. But patience, whether it be of the sullen or the dignified cast, has its limits; and these two, their tempers exasperated by a chilly journey taken fasting, had come very near to the end of sufferance. Fortunately, at the moment Mr. Dunborough--for he was the one--made the discovery that he could not endure Sir George's impassive face for so much as the hundredth part of another minute--and in consequence was having recourse to his invention for the most brutal remark with which to provoke him--the port and the landlord arrived together; and William, who had carried up the cold beef and stewed kidneys by another staircase, was heard on the landing. The host helped to place the dishes on the table. Then he shut out his assistant.
'By your leave, Sir George,' he said diffidently. 'But the young lady you were inquiring for? Might I ask--?'
He paused as if he feared to give offence. Sir George laid down his knife and fork and looked at him. Mr. Dunborough did the same. 'Yes, yes, man,' Soane said. 'Have you heard anything? Out with it!'
'Well, sir, it is only--I was going to ask if her father lived in these parts.'
'Her father?'
'Yes, sir.'
Mr. Dunborough burst into rude laughter. 'Oh, Lord!' he said. 'Are we grown so proper of a sudden? Her father, damme!'
Sir George shot a glance of disdain at him. Then, 'My good fellow,' he said to the host, 'her father has been dead these fifteen years.'
The landlord reddened, annoyed by the way Mr. Dunborough had taken him. 'The gentleman mistakes me, Sir George,' he said stiffly. 'I did not ask out of curiosity, as you, who know me, can guess; but to be plain, your honour, there are two gentlemen below stairs, just come in; and what beats me, though I did not tell them so, they are also in search of a young lady.'
'Indeed?' Sir George answered, looking gravely at him. 'Probably they are from the Castle Inn at Marlborough, and are inquiring for the lady we are seeking.'
'So I should have thought,' the landlord answered, nodding sagely; 'but one of the gentlemen says he is her father, and the other--'
Sir George stared. 'Yes?' he said, 'What of the other?'
'Is Mr. Pomeroy of Bastwick,' the host replied, lowering his voice. 'Doubtless your honour knows him?'
'By name.'
'He has naught to do with the young lady?'
'Nothing in the world.'
'I ask because--well, I don't like to speak ill of the quality, or of those by whom one lives, Sir George; but he has not got the best name in the county; and there have been wild doings at Bastwick of late, and writs and bailiffs and worse. So I did not up and tell him all I knew.'
On a sudden Dunborough spoke. 'He was at College, at Pembroke,' he said. 'Doyley knows him. He'd know Tommy too; and we know Tommy is with the girl, and that they were both dropped Laycock way. Hang me, if I don't think there is something in this!' he continued, thrusting his feet into slippers: his boots were drying on the hearth. 'Thomasson is rogue enough for anything! See here, man,' he went on, rising and flinging down his napkin; 'do you go down and draw them into the hall, so that I can hear their voices. And I will come to the head of the stairs. Where is Bastwick?'
'Between here and Melksham, but a bit off the road, sir.'
'It would not be far from Laycock?'
'No, your honour; I should think it would be within two or three miles of it. They are both on the flat the other side of the river.'
'Go down! go down!' Mr. Dunborough answered. 'And pump him, man! Set him talking. I believe we have run the old fox to earth. It will be our fault if we don't find the vixen!'
By this time the arrival of a second pair of travellers hard on the heels of the first had roused the inn to full activity. Half-dressed servants flitted this way and that through the narrow passages, setting night-caps in the chambers, or bringing up clean snuffers and snuff trays. One was away to the buttery, to draw ale for the driver, another to the kitchen with William's orders to the cook. Lights began to shine in the hall and behind the diamond panes of the low-browed windows; a pleasant hum, a subdued bustle, filled the hospitable house.
On entering the Yarmouth, however, the landlord was surprised to find only the clergyman awaiting him. Mr. Pomeroy, irritated by his long absence, had gone to the stables to learn what he could from the postboy. The landlord was nearer indeed than he knew to finding no one; for when he entered, Mr. Thomasson, unable to suppress his fears, was on his feet; another ten seconds, and the tutor would have fled panic-stricken from the house.
The host did not suspect this, but Mr. Thomasson thought he did; and the thought added to his confusion. 'I--I was coming to ask what had happened to you,' he stammered. 'You will understand, I am very anxious to get news.'
'To be sure, sir,' the landlord answered comfortably. 'Will you step this way, and I think we shall be able to ascertain something for certain?'
But the tutor did not like his tone; moreover, he felt safer in the room than in the public hall. He shrank back. 'I--I think I will wait here until Mr. Pomeroy returns,' he said.
The landlord raised his eyebrows. 'I thought you were anxious, sir,' he retorted, 'to get news?'
'So I am, very anxious!' Mr. Thomasson replied, with a touch of the stiffness that marked his manner to those below him. 'Still, I think I had better wait here. Or, no, no!' he cried, afraid to stand out, 'I will come with you. But, you see, if she is not here, I am anxious to go in search of her as quickly as possible, where--wherever she is.'
'To be sure, that is natural,' the landlord answered, holding the door open that the clergyman might pass out, 'seeing that you are her father, sir. I think you said you were her father?' he continued, as Mr. Thomasson, with a scared look round the hall, emerged from the room.
'Ye--yes,' the tutor faltered; and wished himself in the street. 'At least--I am her step-father.'
'Oh, her step-father!'
'Yes,' Mr. Thomasson answered, faintly. How he cursed the folly that had put him in this false position! How much more strongly he would have cursed it, had he known what it was cast that dark shadow, as of a lurking man, on the upper part of the stairs!
'Just so,' the landlord answered, as he paused at the foot of the staircase. 'And, if you please--what might your name be, sir?'
A cold sweat rose on the tutor's brow; he looked helplessly towards the door. If he gave his name and the matter were followed up, he would be traced, and it was impossible to say what might not come of it. At last, 'Mr. Thomas,' he said, with a sneaking guilty look.
'Mr. Thomas, your reverence?'
'Yes.'
'And the young lady's name would be Thomas, then?'
'N-no,' Mr. Thomasson faltered. 'No. Her name--you see,' he continued, with a sickly smile, 'she is my step-daughter.'
'To be sure, your reverence. So I understood. And her name?'
The tutor glowered at his persecutor. 'I protest, you are monstrous inquisitive,' he said, with a sudden sorry air of offence. 'But, if you must know, her name is Masterson; and she has left her friends to join--to join a--an Irish adventurer.'
It was unfortunately said; the more as the tutor in order to keep his eye on the door, by which he expected Mr. Pomeroy to re-enter, had turned his back on the staircase. The lie was scarcely off his lips when a heavy hand fell on his shoulder, and, twisting him round with a jerk, brought him face to face with an old friend. The tutor's eyes met those of Mr. Dunborough, he uttered one low shriek, and turned as white as paper. He knew that Nemesis had overtaken him.
But not how heavy a Nemesis! For he could not know that the landlord of the Angel owned a restive colt, and no farther back than the last fair had bought a new whip; nor that that very whip lay at this moment where the landlord had dropped it, on a chest so near to Mr. Dunborough's hand that the tutor never knew how he became possessed of it. Only he saw it imminent, and would have fallen in sheer terror, his coward's knees giving way under him, if Mr. Dunborough had not driven him back against the wall with a violence that jarred the teeth in his head.
'You liar!' the infuriated listener cried; 'you lying toad!' and shook him afresh with each sentence. 'She has run away from her friends, has she? With an Irish adventurer, eh? And you are her father? And your name is Thomas? Thomas, eh! Well, if you do not this instant tell me where she is, I'll Thomas you! Now, come! One! Two! Three!'
In the last words seemed a faint promise of mercy; alas! it was fallacious. Mr. Thomasson, the lash impending over him, had time to utter one cry; no more. Then the landlord's supple cutting-whip, wielded by a vigorous hand, wound round the tenderest part of his legs--for at the critical instant Mr. Dunborough dragged him from the wall--and with a gasping shriek of pain, pain such as he had not felt since boyhood, Mr. Thomasson leapt into the air. As soon as his breath returned, he strove frantically to throw himself down; but struggle as he might, pour forth screams, prayers, execrations, as he might, all was vain. The hour of requital had come. The cruel lash fell again and again, raising great wheals on his pampered body: now he clutched Mr. Dunborough's arm only to be shaken off; now he grovelled on the floor; now he was plucked up again, now an ill-directed cut marked his cheek. Twice the landlord, in pity and fear for the man's life, tried to catch Mr. Dunborough's arm and stay the punishment; once William did the same--for ten seconds of this had filled the hall with staring servants. But Mr. Dunborough's arm and the whirling whip kept all at a distance; nor was it until a tender-hearted housemaid ran in at risk of her beauty, and clutched his wrist and hung on it, that he tossed the whip away, and allowed Mr. Thomasson to drop, a limp moaning rag on the floor.
'For shame!' the girl cried hysterically. 'You blackguard! You cruel blackguard!'
''Tis he's the blackguard, my dear!' the honourable Mr. Dunborough answered, panting, but in the best of tempers. 'Bring me a tankard of something; and put that rubbish outside, landlord. He has got no more than he deserved, my dear.'
Mr. Thomasson uttered a moan, and one of the waiters stooping over him asked him if he could stand. He answered only by a faint groan, and the man raising his eyebrows, looked gravely at the landlord; who, recovered from the astonishment into which the fury and suddenness of the assault had thrown him, turned his indignation on Mr. Dunborough.
'I am surprised at you, sir,' he cried, rubbing his hands with vexation. 'I did not think a gentleman in Sir George's company would act like this! And in a respectable house! For shame, sir! For shame! Do, some of you,' he continued to the servants, 'take this gentleman to his room and put him to bed. And softly with him, do you hear?'
'I think he has swooned,' the man answered, who had stooped over him.
The landlord wrung his hands. 'Fie, sir--for shame!' he said. 'Stay, Charles; I'll fetch some brandy.'
He bustled away to do so, and to acquaint Sir George; who through all, and though from his open door he had gathered what was happening, had resolutely held aloof. The landlord, as he went out, unconsciously evaded Mr. Pomeroy who entered at the same moment from the street. Ignorant of what was forward--for his companion's cries had not reached the stables--Pomeroy advanced at his ease and was surprised to find the hall, which he had left empty, occupied by a chattering crowd of half-dressed servants; some bending over the prostrate man with lights, some muttering their pity or suggesting remedies; while others again glanced askance at the victor, who, out of bravado rather than for any better reason, maintained his place at the foot of the stairs, and now and then called to them 'to rub him--they would not rub that off!'
Mr. Pomeroy did not at first see the fallen man, so thick was the press round him. Then some one moved, and he did; and the thing that had happened bursting on him, his face, gloomy before, grew black as a thunder-cloud. He flung the nearest to either side, that he might see the better; and, as they recoiled, 'Who has done this?' he cried in a voice low but harsh with rage. 'Whose work is this?' And standing over the tutor he turned himself, looking from one to another.
But the servants knew his reputation, and shrank panic-stricken from his eye; and for a moment no one answered. Then Mr. Dunborough, who, whatever his faults, was not a coward, took the word. 'Whose work is it?' he answered with assumed carelessness. 'It is my work. Have you any fault to find with it?'
'Twenty, puppy!' the elder man retorted, foaming with rage. And then, 'Have I said enough, or do you want me to say more?' he cried.
'Quite enough,' Mr. Dunborough answered calmly. He had wreaked the worst of his rage on the unlucky tutor. 'When you are sober I'll talk to you.'
Mr. Pomeroy with a frightful oath cursed his impudence. 'I believe I have to pay you for more than this!' he panted. 'Is it you who decoyed a girl from my house to-night?'
Mr. Dunborough laughed aloud. 'No, but it was I sent her there,' he said. He had the advantage of knowledge. 'And if I had brought her away again, it would have been nothing to you.'
The answer staggered Bully Pomeroy in the midst of his rage.
'Who are you?' he cried.
'Ask your friend there!' Dunborough retorted with disdain. 'I've written my name on him! It should be pretty plain to read'; and he turned on his heel to go upstairs.
Pomeroy took two steps forward, laid his hand on the other's shoulder, and, big man as he was, turned him round. 'Will you give me satisfaction?' he cried.
Dunborough's eyes met his. 'So that is your tone, is it?' he said slowly; and he reached for the tankard of ale that had been brought to him, and that now stood on a chest at the foot of the stairs.
But Mr. Pomeroy's hand was on the pot first; in a second its contents were in Dunborough's face and dripping from his cravat. 'Now will you fight?' Bully Pomeroy cried; and as if he knew his man, and that he had done enough, he turned his back on the stairs and strode first into the Yarmouth.
Two or three women screamed as they saw the liquor thrown, and a waiter ran for the landlord. A second drawer, more courageous, cried, 'Gentlemen, gentlemen--for God's sake, gentlemen!' and threw himself between the younger man and the door of the room. But Dunborough, his face flushed with anger, took him by the shoulder, and sent him spinning; then with an oath he followed the other into the Yarmouth, and slammed the door in the faces of the crowd. They heard the key turned.
'My God!' the waiter who had interfered cried, his face white, 'there will be murder done!' And he sped away for the kitchen poker that he might break in the door. He had known such a case before. Another ran to seek the gentleman upstairs. The others drew round the door and stooped to listen; a moment, and the sound they feared reached their ears--the grinding of steel, the trampling of leaping feet, now a yell and now a taunting laugh. The sounds were too much for one of the men who heard them: he beat on the door with his fists. 'Gentlemen!' he cried, his voice quavering, 'for the Lord's sake don't, gentlemen! Don't!' On which one of the women who had shrieked fell on the floor in wild hysterics.