Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: Google Books
https://books.google.com/books?id=zeQxAQAAMAAJ
(University of Minnesota)
Appletons'
Town and Country
Library
No. 265
FORTUNE'S MY FOE
By J. BLOUNDELLE-BURTON.
------------------------
Each, 12mo, cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents.
------------------------
Fortune's my Foe.
Mr. Bloundelle-Burton has proved his ability to interest readers so
thoroughly that it is sufficient merely to announce this new and
entertaining romance. His story moves briskly as usual, and there is a
constantly sustained interest and plenty of dramatic action.
The Clash of Arms.
"Well written, and the interest is sustained from the beginning to the
end of the tale"--_Brooklyn Eagle_.
"Vividness of detail and rare descriptive power give the story life
and excitement."--_Boston Herald_.
Denounced.
"The author of 'Denounced' is second to none in the romantic
recounting of the tales of earlier days. A story of the critical times
of the vagrant and ambitious Charles I, it is so replete with incident
and realistic happenings that one seems translated to the very scenes
and days of that troublous era in English history."--_Boston Courier_.
The Scourge of God.
"The story is one of the best in style, construction, information, and
graphic power, that have been written in recent years."--_Dial,
Chicago_.
In the Day of Adversity.
"Mr. Burton's creative skill is of the kind which must fascinate those
who revel in the narratives of Stevenson, Rider Haggard, and Stanley
Weyman. Even the author of 'A Gentleman of France' has not surpassed
the writer of 'In the Day of Adversity' in the moving interest of his
tale."--_St. James's Gazette_.
---------------
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK.
FORTUNE'S MY FOE
_A ROMANCE_
BY
JOHN BLOUNDELLE-BURTON
AUTHOR OF THE SCOURGE OF GOD, THE CLASH OF ARMS,
DENOUNCED, IN THE DAY OF ADVERSITY, ETC.
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1898, 1899,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
PROLOGUE--OFF CARTAGENA.
I.--THE LION AND THE JACKAL.
II.--AN HEIRESS.
III.--A "COUNTRY CLOD."
IV.--AN UNKNOWN VISITOR.
V.--THE HAPPY MAN.
VI.--LOVE'S CONTEST.
VII.--THE CLANDESTINE MARRIAGE.
VIII.--FOREBODINGS.
IX.--THE END OF THE FIRST ACT.
X.--"THE MIGNONNE."
XI.--THE COLONISTS.
XII.--VENGEANCE IS SWEET.
XIII.--A BROKEN SWORD.
XIV.--BUFTON IS IMPLACABLE.
XV.--PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT.
XVI.--WEAVING THE NET.
XVII.--A DISCOVERY.
XVIII.--RUSE CONTRE RUSE.
XIX.--THE SECOND MAN.
XX.--ARIADNE'S COMPASSION.
XXI.--A DIVINE DESPAIR.
XXII.--"AS YE SOW."
XXIII.--QUIBERON
FORTUNE'S MY FOE.
PROLOGUE.
OFF CARTAGENA.
The storm of the night was over. The winds had subsided almost as
quickly as they had risen on the previous evening--as is ever the case
in the West Indies and the tropics generally. Against a large number
of ships of war, now riding in the waters off Boca Chica, the waves
slapped monotonously in their regularity, though each crash which they
made on the bows seemed less in force than the preceding one had been;
while the water looked less muddy and sand-coloured than it had done
an hour or so before. Likewise the hot and burning tropical sun was
forcing its way through the dense masses of clouds which were still
banked up beneath it; there coming first upon the choppy waters a
gleam--a weak, thin ray; a glisten like the smile on the face of a
dying man who parts at peace with this world; then, next, a brighter
and more cheery sparkle. Soon the waves were smoothed, nought but a
little ripple supplying the place of their recent turbulence; the sun
burst forth, the banks of clouds were dispersed, the bright glory of a
West Indian day shone forth in all its brilliancy. The surroundings,
which at dawn might well have been the surroundings of the Lower
Thames in November, had evaporated, departed; they were now those of
that portion of the globe which has been termed for centuries the
"World's Paradise."
The large gathering of ships mentioned above--they mustered one
hundred and twenty-four--formed the fleet under the command of Admiral
Vernon, and in that fleet were also numbers of soldiers and marines
who constituted what, in those days, were termed the Land Forces.
There were also a large contingent of volunteers from our American
colonies, drawn principally from Virginia.
The presence here both of sailors and soldiers was due to a
determination arrived at by the authorities at home in the year 1739,
to harass and attack the Spanish West Indian Islands and possessions
in consequence of England being once again, as she had been so often
in the past, at war with Spain. Now that fleet lay off Cartagena and
the neighbourhood; some of the officers and men--both sailors and
soldiers--were ashore destroying the forts near the sea; the
grenadiers were also ashore; the bomb-ketches were at this very moment
playing upon the castles of San Fernando and San Angelo; the siege of
Cartagena had begun.
Upon the quarterdeck of one of the vessels of war composing the great
fleet, a vessel which may be called the _Ariadne_, the captain walked
now as the storm passed away and the morning broke in all its fair
tropical beauty, and while there came the balmy spice-laden breeze
from the South American coast--a breeze soft as a maiden's first kiss
to him she loves; one odorous and sweet, and luscious, too, with the
scents of nutmeg and banana, guava and orange, begonia, bignonia, and
poinsettia, all wafted from the flower-laden shore. But because,
perhaps, such perfumes as these, such rippling blue waves, now crested
with their feathery tips, such a bright warm sun, were not deemed by
Nature to be the fitting accompaniments to the work which that fleet
had to do and was about to do--she had provided others.
Near the ship which has been called the _Ariadne_, alongside the great
and noble flagship, the _Russell_, passing slowly--but deadly even in
their slowness!--through the line made by the _Cumberland_, the
_Boyne_, the _Lion_, the _Shrewsbury_, and a score of others, went the
hideous white sharks of the Caribbean Sea, showing sometimes their
gleaming, squinting eyes close to the surface of the water and showing
always their dorsal fin as the water rippled by them.
"The brutes know well that they will be fed ere long," the
captain--Henry Thorne--said, half to himself, half aloud, as he gazed
through the quarterdeck starboard port; "they know it very well.
Trust them."
"They must know it, sir," said the chaplain, a fine rosy-cheeked
gentleman, who had already had his morning draught, wherefore his
cheeks looked shiny and brilliant--he having been standing near Thorne
while he murmured to himself--"specially since they have been fed
enough already by our fleet. Three went overboard only yesterday from
the _Weymouth_. While we are here they will never leave us."
"So-so," the captain said. "So-so. 'Tis very true." Then, turning to
the chaplain, he asked, "How is it with her below? Have you seen the
surgeon's mate? What does he say? Is her hour of trial near?"
"It is very near," the other answered. "Very near. Pray Heaven all may
go well. Ere long we may hope to congratulate you, sir, upon paternal
honours. 'Tis much to be desired that the Admiral will give no signal
for the bombardment to commence until Mrs. Thorne is through her
peril."
"At least I hope so. With all my heart. Poor girl! Poor girl! I would
never have brought my wife on board, Mr. Glew, had I known either of
two things. The first that she was so near her time; the second, that
we should be ordered to join this squadron--to quit our station at
Port Royal."
Whereby, as you may gather by this remark of Captain Thorne, the
_Ariadne_ was not one of those great war vessels which had sailed from
England under the order of the Admirals. Instead, she had come down
from Jamaica, where she was stationed, to join the fleet now before
Cartagena.
Then the captain continued--
"If the Admiral does open the attack this morning 'twill be a fine
hurly-burly for a child to be born amidst. Surely, if 'tis a boy, he
should live to do great things. He may be a bold sailor--or soldier,
at least. He may go far, too; do well. He will be fortunate also in
his worldly gear. I--I--am not rich, Glew, but he--or she--will be
some day an heir or heiress to much property and wealth that must come
my way at last if I live. If I live," he repeated, more to himself
than to his companion.
"You have not made your will yet, sir?" the parson asked, rubbing his
chin, which was red and almost raw from the use of a bad razor that
morning. "The will you talked about. As a chaplain who, on board ship,
is also supposed to be something of a lawyer, I feel it right to tell
you that you should do so. No man who is before the enemy, whatever
his standing, should neglect so important an office as that."
"I will not neglect it, Mr. Glew. Let the child but be born and I will
perform it in my cabin the moment I know the good news." Then,
changing the subject, he asked, "Will they let me see her if I go
below, think you?"
"I will make inquiries," the other said, going towards the
after-hatch. "Yet," he went on, as he put his foot on the ladder
beneath, "I doubt it. The event is very near at hand. The wife of the
master-at-arms, as well as the wife of the ship's corporal, are with
her--they rule all. But I will go see," and his head followed his body
and disappeared.
Left alone, or at least without the companionship of Mr. Glew, for
none could be alone on board such a ship as this was--even though she
might have been making a pleasant cruise on summer seas; while more
especially, none could be alone when that ship was one of a large
number engaged in a bombardment--the captain went about his duties. He
visited the gun decks and saw that all were at their proper stations,
inspected the twenty-four, twelve, and nine pounders, swivel guns,
stern and bow chasers, and indeed, everything that could throw a ball;
he saw that sponges and rammers were ready, and that every bolt and
loop was in working order. He neglected nothing, no more than he would
have done had his young wife been at home at Deptford or Portsmouth,
and he without the knowledge that at the present time, she was about
to make him a father.
Yet, all the same, his thoughts were never absent from her, his bride
of a year; again and again he lamented bitterly that she had come upon
this cruise with him. Why, he asked himself repeatedly, could he not
have left her behind in Port Royal, where she would have been well and
carefully attended to, and where he could have joined her after this
siege was over? He had been mad to bring her! Already the bomb-ketches
were making a hideous din all around; already, too, some of the great
ships of war had received their orders to open fire, and were obeying
those orders; from the forts on shore a horrible noise was being kept
up as they replied to the attackers in a more or less irregular and
perfunctory manner.
"What surroundings," he muttered to himself, breaking off even as he
did so to bawl orders to the men in the tops to train their swivel
guns more accurately upon the shore, "what surroundings for a little
helpless babe to be born in the midst of. What surroundings!"
They were, however, to become worse--far worse for the poor mother
below; surroundings more terrible and awful to accompany the birth of
a new-born child.
Commodore Lestock, with his broad red pennant hoisted, tapering and
swallow-tailed, went in to bombard all the forts along the shore, and
after him followed an appointed number of the ships in his squadron.
It was a noble sight, one that might have caused--and doubtless did
cause--many hearts to beat enthusiastically in their owners' breasts.
Along the line of other vessels which they passed, cheer rang upon
cheer; the bands of the flagships, and others which possessed such
music, played "Britons, Strike Home." Soon five hundred great guns
were firing on those forts, which replied with courage; the din was
tremendous, as also was the vibration caused to each of the vessels
while the flames belched forth and the guns shook. And in the middle
of the cannonading--when, on board, one could not see across the ship,
nor from the mizzen to the main shrouds on either side--the chaplain,
staggering on to the upper deck, his handkerchief to his nose and
mouth to keep out the saltpetre from his lungs, ran against Captain
Thorne giving orders for a marine who had been wounded by a shot from
the shore to be carried below.
"Sir," Mr. Glew said hastily, and clutching the captain by the arm,
"sir, I offer my congratulations. It----"
"Is well over?" Thorne exclaimed. "Is that it?"
"It is that, sir. And the child is----"
"What?"
"A girl."
"A girl," the captain repeated, while even amongst all the roar of the
cannonading, Glew seemed to think he heard a tone of disappointment in
the other's voice.
"So-so!" Thorne exclaimed a moment later. "Well, carry down my love to
my dear wife. I must not leave the deck now. Say--say--that I will be
below ere long. Say that I--am--rejoiced."
* * * * * * *
Meanwhile, what was passing below in the captain's cabin--which had
been set aside for his wife ever since her hour drew nigh; he sleeping
in a spare one close by? Independently of it being now a chamber in
which a young and beautiful wife had just become a mother, as well as
a room in great disorder, there were other things which, in any
circumstances, must have caused it to present an appearance of extreme
confusion. Naturally, all the pictures had been unshipped, since the
concussion of the guns would otherwise have brought them from the
bulkheads to the floor, or deck, to say nothing of shivering any glass
they might possess. And also all china and glass in the cabin, and the
pretty knick-knacks which Thorne had bestowed about it, were removed
from their usual positions. Whereby the apartment in the _Ariadne_, in
which Mrs. Thorne had but recently presented a child to her husband,
was even more disarranged than it would ordinarily have been,
Likewise, every port and scuttle was opened, so that thus some of the
concussion should be avoided, and the cabin was thereby made less hot
and stuffy than such a place would otherwise have been in this
climate. Yet it was but a poor place in which to bring a fresh body
and soul, into a troublous world--a poor place in which a child should
first open its eyes upon the light.
"Dear, dear!" said Mrs. Tickle, the wife of the master-at-arms, she
thinking thus, as she wiped the perspiration from Mrs. Thorne's face.
"Dear, dear! What a place for the sweet young thing to give birth to a
babe in. Yet," and, as she spoke, she took a sip of rumbullion from a
cannikin close to her hand, and then passed it over to Mrs. Pottle,
the wife of the ship's corporal, "it might have been wuss. My first
was born in Havant Work'us', Tickle being away with Captain Clipperton
at the time."
"Ha!" said Mrs. Pottle, as she in her turn took a sip of the toothsome
liquor. "Indeed, and it might have been wuss. Even now it may be so.
What if one of them forts should plump a round shot into us below the
water-line? Then there won't soon be no Captain Thorne, nor Mistress
Thorne, nor baby either."
"Nor yet no Mrs. Tickle nor Mrs. Pottle," said the other. Whereupon
each took another drink at the rumbullion to calm their nerves, which,
in truth, needed little calming, since this was not the first battle,
or rather bombardment, in which these good ladies had taken part. For,
in those days of a century and a half ago, it was common enough for
the wives of the petty officers and the lower-deck men to sail on
board ships with their husbands, they doing much such work therein as,
in these days, is done by soldier's wives who are on the "strength of
the regiment." They could also turn their hands to other things, even
as Mrs. Tickle and Mrs. Pottle were now doing. For they were almost
always excellent nurses, understanding much about wounds and fevers
and other complaints, and quite capable of working under, and
sometimes of advising, the raw sawbones whom the Admiralty sent into
the ships of war to cure--or kill--the sailors.
"Is the battle over?" Mrs. Thorne asked feebly, opening her eyes now
as she spoke, and endeavouring in her newly-developed maternal love,
to turn them down upon the tiny mite lying on her breast.
"Over, deary!" said Mrs. Tickle, sinking the character of the inferior
woman who was in the presence of the superior, and speaking only as a
good-hearted, motherly creature, which indeed she was, to another who
needed her care. "Not yet, poor lamb. Lawk's sakes," she whispered to
her comrade, "can't she hear the guns a-belching? Ah! drat you all,"
she muttered, as at this moment a larboard broadside bellowed forth,
causing the ship to tremble at her keelson; "that's them lower deck
twenty-four pounders at it again. Poor dear, she don't seem to hear or
feel them, anyhow."
She should have done so, indeed she must have done so, since even as
the roaring continued, while the _Ariadne_ was brought round so that
now her starboard broadside could be fired, she lifted her arms feebly
and enfolded more tightly to her breast than she had done before the
little atom she had but recently brought into the world.
"My child," she moaned, "my child! Oh what can your future be with
such a beginning as this? What shocks and tempests must threaten the
existence that commences in such turbulence and throes as these."
"You 'ear," said the master-at-arms' wife to the wife of the ship's
corporal, "you 'ear! She is quite calm and full of understanding. Ah!
poor dear." Whereupon she stretched out her hand once more for the can
of rumbullion.
And even now, as each of these women in the cabin listened to the
uproar without, that uproar seemed to increase. Half a dozen vessels
were firing at once; the battery which had been constructed ashore by
those who had landed overnight was adding to the tumult; the bo'sun's
pipes were heard whistling like some shrill-voiced bird that sings its
loudest amidst the violence of a summer storm; the master-gunner's
voice was heard on board the _Ariadne_ giving his orders. And there
came too, the sound of a hideous crash in the vessel, the rending of
timbers, the shrieks of sailors, who were doubtless wounded--bellows,
shouts and curses.
"The ship is struck," said Mrs. Tickle, calm and tranquil as became a
sailor's wife who had been in battle before. "Pray Heaven 'tis not
below the water-line."
"Nor that the magazine is set afire," said Mrs. Pottle, also with
heroic coolness. "Otherwise we have got our passage to Davy Jones.
Yet," she continued, the woman rising above the Amazon, "I have three
poor little children at home in Portsmouth town. And one is a'most
blind. God help them, what shall they do if Pottle and I have got our
discharge!"
While, even as she spoke of her children, that other child, the
newly-born babe present in the cabin, set up a piteous infantine wail.
Little, unconscious creature as it was, bearing a brain but an hour
old, it seemed to recognise, to have some glimmering of the terrors
that enveloped it. And while it did so the ship listed to starboard,
causing Mrs. Thorne's body to move somewhat, and, at the same moment,
the white, delicate hands seemed to strain the infant closer to her;
the liquor can, too, was upset, whereby the drink went slopping over
the cabin carpet. But the other two matrons were not to be stopped,
even at that moment, from doing their duty. Mrs. Tickle sprang up and
held the ailing woman tightly in her berth, as she muttered--
"The ship has listed four degrees. Yet she goes no further. They have
stopped the water from pouring in. Go, Pottle, and find the surgeon.
He must come here, even though he quits the wounded for an instant."
Whereon Mrs. Pottle went forth, a heroine still, though a white,
pale-faced one. A heroine, not thinking of her own life--now in deadly
peril!--but only of the little children at home in Portsmouth town.
Above all, she thought of the half-blind one who could never do aught
for itself when it grew up. She thought of it, and wondered who would
protect it when she and her husband were gone.
"My husband, my husband!" wailed Mrs. Thorne, as she and the other
woman were left alone. "My husband! Will he not come to me? To me. To
his wife and new-born babe. Oh! my husband. Why comes he not?"
"Dear heart," exclaimed Mrs. Tickle, "he cannot come. His duty is on
deck. Duty before all." Then she bent her head a little nearer to the
other's, and said, "We are sailors' wives. Our duty first. Duty before
all," she repeated.
As she did so the cabin door was slid back, and Mrs. Pottle returned,
bringing with her the surgeon's mate from the sick bay--a young,
callow Irishman, who was now making his first cruise. The surgeon, an
old man, who had an army of children of his own at home in
Rotherhithe, had attended Mrs. Thorne through her trouble, but now he
was busy with those who were wounded and in the cock-pit. He could not
come.
The mate was very pale--too pale, thought Mrs. Tickle, for a
sailor-doctor to be, even though he were smelling powder for the first
time. Then, to that good lady's astonishment, as she cast her eyes on
her nursing comrade, she saw that she too was very pale--was
white--ghastly. And in a moment she imagined, guessed, that the ship's
corporal was dead! By that freemasonry, by some telegraphic method of
the eyes, which women alone know how to use, she signalled to the
other to ask if such were the case, yet only to discover that she had
not divined aright. Mrs. Pottle shook her head; then, seeing that the
eyes of the captain's wife were wide open, she stepped behind the
surgeon's mate, and from the screen of his broad back put her finger
to her lip. Thereby not knowing what else she meant, Mrs. Tickle
understood at least that silence was to be observed.
"My husband," moaned Mrs. Thorne again now, gazing up into the dark
eyes of the handsome young fellow who looked so white, "my husband--I
want him."
"Nay, madam," he said, even as he felt her pulse and arranged her more
comfortably in the berth, "nay, not yet; the bombardment is not over."
While, turning his head round, he whispered to Mrs. Pottle behind him,
"You have left the cabin door open; shut it."
It was well she obeyed him at once. Well that, amidst fresh discharges
of the twenty-four pounders, another crash on deck and a noise which
was the fall of the foremast, added to the piercing cries of the
child, Mrs. Thorne could not hear nor see beyond that door. Well that
it was shut immediately on the order of the surgeon's mate.
For now six sailors were carrying down the after-ladder a helpless,
limp body at that moment--one that was to be laid in the very next
cabin to that which Mrs. Thorne was occupying. The body of Henry
Thorne, with a bullet in it that had pierced the heart.
And behind them came the chaplain, shaking his head sadly, yet
muttering somewhat thankfully, too--
"But he made that will. He made that will. And the child is safe.
Although it seems, no will was needed, yet it is as well that he
should have made it."
* * * * * * *
For many years after her father's death _Ariadne's_ home was with her
mother at Gosport, and here she grew from childhood to womanhood, and
became a sweet, pure girl, whom to see was at once to admire. A girl
so fair and pretty, that, whenever she walked abroad, the eyes of men
were turned towards her approvingly; a girl, tall, and with a figure
that full womanhood would develop into one of extreme grace and
beauty; one who possessed also such charms as deep hazel eyes, which
looked out at you from between thick eyelashes that were many shades
darker than the fair hair crowning her head as though with a golden
diadem; a pretty girl whose masses of curls reminded one of the
cornfields in July.
For years she lived with her mother here in Gosport, having done so
from the time when Vernon sent them both home to England in the first
ship of war that went back after Mrs. Thorne was able to travel. And
of all the neighbourhood around she was the pet; she was, too, the
darling of old sea captains who had had arms and legs lopped off in
many a fierce fight against those whom we called our old "hereditary
foes"; the darling of every old blue who had drawn cutlass for His
Majesty King George II., or King George I., or even, amongst the very
old and decrepit, for Great Anne; the beloved of those sea-dogs who had
first spat their quids out on the enemy's decks and had then hewn that
enemy down before them. For these old salts, no matter what their rank
was, regarded her as their own child and property. Had she not been
born amidst the roar and smoke of England's cannon as they vomited
forth fire and fury? Was she not a sailor's child, and he one who had
fallen as a sailor should fall, dying on his own deck, while doing his
duty? That was enough to make them love the little thing who grew
beneath their eyes towards beauteous womanhood; enough to make old
lieutenants who had served sufficiently long to be admirals, and
admirals--fortunate dogs!--who had not seen half the service of those
old lieutenants, worship her; to make them wander up to her mother's
house and smoke their pipes there, and talk to her about the father
who had died the glorious death. It was sufficient, too, to set old
tars carving out ornaments and knick-knacks from ancient ships of war
which had been towed as prisoners into the harbour and there broken
up, all of which they presented to her with grins of pleasure, and
almost with blushes--if such could be!--upon their wind-tanned,
scarred faces. It was amply sufficient also to cause others to bring
her in baskets of strawberries and raspberries from their little
gardens on the outskirts of the town, and bouquets of the sweet
old-time flowers that grew in such profusion in those gardens. And
some there were--and many--who called her the "Sailor's Pet," and
others who named her the "Mariner's Joy."
Yet 'twas not only the old who loved _Ariadne_ Thorne. Be very sure of
that. For you cannot but suppose that the young men loved her
too--those lieutenants and second lieutenants who, although still
beardless, had fought in many of the numerous sea-fights of the
period. Young fellows with boyish faces who had, all the same, been
with Hawke at the Isle of Aix, and Howe at St. Malo, or had assisted
in the destruction of the _Oriflamme_ by the _Monarque_ and the
_Monmouth_. They all loved her, and she loved one, and one alone.
Happy, happy man!
Two years before this narrative begins, however, and when _Ariadne_
was sixteen, there fell upon her a great blow, that of her mother's
death--a blow which, when it strikes a young girl in her swift
blossoming from maidenhood to womanhood, is doubly cruel. Mrs. Thorne
died of an internal disorder with which she had been for some time
afflicted, and the girl was left alone, or almost alone, in the world.
She had a relative, it was true, an uncle of her late father's, one
General Thorne; but he was a very old man--so old, indeed, that he
could talk of Eugene's campaign against the Turks, and speak of that
great soldier as one whom he had seen in boyhood; while he was also
able to boast that he had formed one of the guard of honour which had
accompanied the present King, George II., now grown old, to his
coronation. He dwelt at, and owned, an estate spoken of generally as
"Fawnshawe Manor," which lay five miles or so on the London side of
Portsmouth; one that would at his death come, with a very considerable
fortune, to _Ariadne_ herself. A fortune and an estate which would
have come to her eventually through her father had he not been slain
at Cartagena, even without his making that will which his chaplain,
the Reverend Mr. Glew, had so impressed on him to do, although it was
unnecessary; that must have come to her, since no heir male existed to
deprive her of it, or to step in between her and it.
She had likewise a friend, a true and steadfast friend, one who loved
her as, next to her mother, no other woman could have loved her. A
hard, rugged woman was this friend, with a deep voice and corrugated
face, yet possessing within her bosom a heart of gold; the woman who
had assisted at her birth--Mrs. Pottle, now growing old.
"Ah!" this good creature would moan sometimes as she sat by her
fireside, either in her own room in the house at Gosport, or, later,
in her parlour at the lodge at Fanshawe Manor, which she came to
occupy later. "Ah! if Ariannie," as she pronounced the loved one's
name, "was not left to me, mine would be a weary lot. Pottle, he've
gone; he done his duty, but he've gone; at Anson's victory off
Finisterre, it were. And as to all my children--oh!" she would
exclaim, "there! I can't abide to dwell on them. Oh! my children,"
whereon--because old customs grow on us and are hard to shake off--the
brave sailor-woman would endeavour to console herself with something
from a black bottle.
But she was true as steel to "her little child," as she called
Ariadne; true and loving as her honest English heart, as any honest
woman's heart, could be. She had not attended to all the child's wants
since the black day off Cartagena in '41; had not nursed and attended
to Ariadne for years, nor told her--in company with her own little
ones--of fierce and turbulent sea-fights and land-fights, without
becoming a foster-mother to her. So, now, she accompanied the girl,
clad in her deep mourning and weeping sorrowfully for her loss, and
also for having to quit the little house where she had lived so
happily for the great one where she did not know whether she would be
happy or not. She accompanied Ariadne, sitting by her side in the
coach and calling her "deary" and "dear heart," and bidding her cheer
up, because the General--"although he hadn't the luck to be an
admiral"--was reported to be kind and good.
"And," she would say more than once, "remember that, as the lawyer
told you, you go to what is your inheritance. It will be all your'n,
and you will rule over it like a young queen until some day you love
one who will rule over you."
Practically, that was what Ariadne did do after a few short months;
she did rule over the house for her great-uncle, as, ere long, she was
to do it for herself. General Thorne was now helpless with old age,
and was glad to know that, already, the girl was in the home which
must so soon be hers; that she was there to bring sunlight into the
great vast house which, through the Fanshawes, had by intermarriage
come into the possession of the Thornes.
As Mrs. Pottle had said, she presided over it like a young queen,
graciously and kindly, making herself beloved all around the place,
yet not forgotten by those old sailors amongst whom her earliest days
had been passed. She became its mistress from then until now, when
this history opens, and when "Ariadne Thorne" was a toast in the
county, while many gentlemen of various degrees aspired to win both
her hand and her love. When, too, others aspired to win that hand, not
so much because they desired to obtain her love so much as, in its
stead, they desired the possession of Fanshawe Manor and the hundred
thousand guineas which were reported to be her fortune.
CHAPTER I.
THE LION AND THE JACKAL.
Seventeen years have passed since the child who was to bear the name
of that ship of war, in which she was born, had come into the
world--upon the very day and at almost the very hour when her father
had left it. Seventeen years!--full of storm and strife and battles,
of thrones in danger; of one throne--that of England--almost lost to
its holder by the invasion of him to whom it by birth belonged. Years
full of storm and strife and battle by land and sea; of Dettingen won
and Fontenoy lost, of India coming nearer to our grasp and America
imperceptibly receding from it. Years full, too, of changes in many
ways, especially in our own land. Of growing alteration in that old
mother speech of ours which had become welded, by time and mixture of
race into the superb and sonorous diction of the English Bible and of
Shakespeare, and which found its last exponent in the great Defoe, but
was now sinking into a jargon in which gentlemen and ladies spoke in a
mincing and affected manner that was but a poor substitute for the
grammar which, if they had ever known it, they had now forgotten.
Gentlemen and ladies who should have been scholars, but who did not
know the difference between "was" and "were" nor "is" and "are," nor
the proper pronunciation of the vowel "e."
Changes, too, of clothes, of habits, customs, and morality. Scarlet
and blue cloth taking the place of russet or peach-coloured satin;
French dishes and kickshaws in the place of the honest beef and mutton
which had made us "eat like wolves and fight like devils"; and with
the dancing-master manners of Chesterfield and his imitators
superseding the grace and dignity of earlier days. The rogue too was
now a crafty, scheming knave who feared public opinion as much as he
feared the Lord Chief Justice and his subordinates, and began at this
time to think as much of his respectability as of his neck; whereby he
was an infinitely less interesting vagabond than his predecessor, who
revelled in his crimes, drank to the health of his friend, the
gallows, and went drunk to Tyburn, damning and cursing the populace
who cheered him, and jerring at the parson who sat in the cart by his
side, had been.
Two things, however, God be praised! were still left in existence in
this England of ours, namely, masculine courage and feminine virtue;
and against them neither the vagabond nor the knave had any more
chance than they had ever had or ever will have. When they succeeded
they did so because their victims were either fools or wantons, and
when they failed, as often enough was the case, if they did not find
the gallows they found the cart-tail, or what to them, if they
belonged to the upper classes, was often quite as bad--contempt and
ridicule.
* * * * * * *
Seventeen years had passed, consequently the world had arrived at the
year of our Lord 1758, and Beau Bufton sat in his lodgings in the
Haymarket one June afternoon. In front of him, because he was a beau,
there stood three wigs upon blocks, one black, the other brown, a
third one golden, and upon each his eye glanced with considerable
complacency--a complacency which, however, was somewhat marred by the
recollection that none were paid for, and, as far as Algernon Bufton
knew, were not likely to be so just yet. Which fact would not,
perhaps, have been particularly painful to him except for one other,
namely, that his credit was running short and his creditors were
beginning to pester him. Nevertheless, he smiled approvingly upon
them; not because they themselves were splendid, and would be
costly--if he should ever pay his bills!--but because he considered
that they would become him vastly.
"It was the golden one I wore," he muttered to himself now, "when
first I won her young and virgin heart at the Wells. Ay! the golden
one. I do remember very well. I assumed it because it matched the blue
frock and the green silk waistcoat trimmed with gold and the black
breeches of velvet. Ah! well, I will wear it again."
Then his eye, which was a dark, full one, fell upon a number of fans
nailed against the wall, in the midst of which, spread out and open,
was one that seemed to possess the place of honour. We know those fans
because our grandmothers' grandmothers (when we had any!) left them
behind after they had departed for a better world than this. We know
the carved ivory sticks, the highly coloured landscape, the lover
kneeling at his mistress's feet, with ever one amorous arm around her
waist--as should be in such happy sylvan scenes!--also we know the
blue sky and the sportive woolly sheep, as well as the bird upon the
bough, the rivulet and waterfall. Thus the fan appeared on which Beau
Bufton gazed now, his chin--a long one, causing him to be a man
mistrusted of other men--in his hand. Yet more particularly he gazed
upon two letters carved into the topmost ivory rib, and lacquered
golden; two letters entwined together--the letters "A. T."
"Ah, Ariadne!" he whispered, with emotion, "although you did protest,
you let me take it. Ah, Ariadne! In faith you must be mine. Those
sweet clear eyes, that supple form, those gentle features, and," he
concluded, perhaps a little inconsequently, "the Fanshawe Manor and
the hundred thousand guineas. All--all must be mine."
Then he returned to his seat, with again the smirk of fervour on his
face, while, still nursing that long chin, he pursued his meditations.
It has been said that this chin made other men mistrust him. And, it
may also be said, it was of so peculiar a shape as to make people
dislike him. In truth, it was a blemish to what otherwise would have
been a good-looking face--a long oval face, in which were set the soft
dark eyes above mentioned. But this chin, running down to a point (so
that some wondered how his barber shaved it, while others said it
looked like a sheep's tail stuck on to an ordinary face), spoilt all.
It caused him to look crafty; it seemed to make him lisp a little as
he spoke, as though its weight was more than his lower jaw could bear;
and it gained his enemies, since it irritated those who regarded it.
It gave him, too, a cynical appearance, which was not obnoxious to
him, as he considered that it emphasised the clever things which he
flattered himself he was particularly smart at saying. For the rest,
he was fairly tall, not badly knit, and as lean as a greyhound.
Thinking of her whom he apostrophised as Ariadne, and of her sweet,
clear eyes and supple form--with the Fanshawe Manor and the hundred
thousand guineas not forgotten!--his thoughts lent themselves to other
things in connection with her. To a letter he had addressed to her at
Fanshawe Manor, this side of Portsmouth--one full of holy vows of
admiration and esteem; a billet containing a little scrap of poetry
(written for him, probably, by a garreteer of Grub Street for
half-a-crown); one suggesting also that, by great good chance, he
would be in the neighbourhood of Havant on a certain evening now close
at hand, and that then "his wandering love-led steps" (for so he
phrased it) would turn, as turns the needle to the pole, towards the
avenue of limes where oft Phyllis was known to walk at eve and
Philomel to warble. Perhaps, too, the gutter-poet had helped him in
this charming composition!
"Ay, so I wrote," he said to himself now. "And so I did. Well! well!
Now for the means. I vow they run uncommon short." Whereupon he
unlocked a 'scrutoire that stood close to him, and thrusting his hand
into a drawer, pulling forth a silk purse. A well-filled one, too, as
it seemed by its weight; one heavy enough for any beau to carry,
provided always that it was so carried simply to supply the wants of
the passing hour, and was backed up by a good sound balance at Sir
Mathew Decker's Bank, or at some other. But, should it happen to
represent all the available cash that its owner was in possession of
as his whole goods, then but a lean and sorry purse.
He turned its contents out upon the table before him, picking out
amongst them five great three pound twelve shilling pieces, which he
stacked carefully in a little heap by themselves.
"They look well," Beau Bufton said, while assuming the cynical smile
which he practised in private, so that it should not fail him when
required in public. "They give their possessor an air of
sumptuousness. To draw one out 'twixt thumb and finger from a
well-gallooned waistcoat, and present it to, say, Ariadne's tiring
maid, or some scurvy groom, bespeaks wealth and ease. So, so. 'Tis
very well."
Then he fell to counting the guineas and half-guineas which he had
also tumbled out of the silken purse, though, as he did so, his chin
seemed to grow longer. "Humph!" he muttered, "seventy-nine guineas in
all. Devilish little. I thought there had been more. And where are
more to be gotten? Seventy-nine guineas---- Come in!" he cried,
breaking off. Come in!"--a knock being heard at the door, Yet, even as
he did so, he thrust a copy of the _Universal Chronicle_ over the
little heap, or, rather, endeavoured to do so.
"The chink of money is always agreeable to the ears of the poor," said
a man who now entered the room, "especially when those ears have
learnt to discriminate 'twixt gold and baser metals. And how does the
illustrious Beau Bufton find his health and spirits to-day?"
The new-corner who asked this question was a man of about the same age
as the Beau, neither of them being yet thirty, or within a year or so
of it; yet, except in point of age, there was no similarity between
them, for Bufton's clothes were of the newest and best--as why should
they not be, since still the creditors were confiding; his ruffles and
neck-lace were clean and expensive. But with the other man things were
mighty different. His coat was cloth, 'tis true, but cloth well worn;
his linen and his lace were, say, dingy; and his wig had had never a
shilling spent on it at the curler's for many a long day. Also his
spadroon stuck out two inches from its leathern scabbard and clinked
against a heel that needed sadly the cobbler's aid. Nevertheless, he
was a better-looking man than the Beau, in so far that his features
were softly turned and much more manly.
"Has't done it?" asked Bufton now, his dark eye roaming over the
other's worn garments, and resting with extreme displeasure on the
sight of his visitor's feet, which were lifted with an indifferent air
on to a neighbouring chair, across which was thrown a scarlet cloak.
"Has't done it, Granger?"
"Ay! ay! She loves you, Algernon, as I do think. The letter is in her
hands, and she awaits you in the lime-tree avenue. Thursday is the
night. Fortunate man!"
"You have rid post haste back?"
"Post-haste! Ay, in the devil's chariot. A lumbering waggon thing from
Portsmouth was my coach. A waggon lined with straw; and, for comrades,
two of Knowles' sailors, drunk; a demirep; also a Jew who furnishes
for the Press-gang. What travelling! What a sumptuous coach! I
protest, Algy, you starve your jackal."
"Better fare next time. When we have bagged the luscious plum. Then
the jackal shall be starved no longer. Meanwhile, you know----" and
here he gave the well-accustomed smile and fingered his chin, so that
the man called Granger began to feel his gall arising, and instantly
interrupted him, saying--
"NO jokes. No bites. Starve me as you will, keep me short of money,
but in the name of God, spare me your wit. My stomach is weak from
heavy fasting. I desire no emetics."
"At least you yourself waste no politeness. You do not curb a bitter
tongue."
"Better so, nevertheless. Better I cursed and swore, as Knowles'
sailors did all through the night, than listened to your emasculated
gibes. Algernon, my friend, in spite of your having won the love of a
great heiress, you will never succeed in life if you fail to recognise
that you are not a wit. The fourth-form little boy humour with which
you regaled us once at Shrewsbury becomes not London. I do remember
that humour with pain. I think you killed your little sister Lucy, by
repeating your schoolboy wit to her, or perhaps you put your finishing
stroke to her end by your Cambridge----"
"Be still! be still!" Beau Bufton exclaimed, wincing as the other
mentioned his dead sister's name. In truth he had loved that child,
and thinking himself cynical, had sometimes retailed to her his
sallies made both at Shrewsbury and at Clare. And now, to hear
that his humour, as he deemed it, had slain her! 'Twas too much.
"Be still," he cried, "or I will find some other to do my
work--to do----"
"Your dirty work! That's what I do. Because of my infirmities. My fall
from the position of a gentleman. Well! I have done it. A. T.--she,"
and he pointed to the fan which occupied the place of honour, "loves
you. If you woo her carefully, and do not weary her with your accursed
flabby wit, you may win her. Then--then--why, then--oh! my God!" he
exclaimed, breaking off into a strident peal of laughter, "you may be
so happy together. So happy. So happy." And again he laughed.
"You have been drinking," Bufton said, fingering his chin still.
"Drinking again. Come, tell me once more before you forget. About the
meeting? Where, and when is it?"
"Have I not said! At the lime-tree avenue, leading up to Fanshawe
Manor. Eight of the evening is the hour, and Thursday is the day. Win
her--fail not to win her; she is yours for the trouble, and then there
is the fortune and a large per centum for me."
"I shall not fail."
"I'll make very sure you do not. Remember, if I am a broken man--I--I
can break--bah! Threats are unnecessary. Now, I want money."
Saying which he flung the _Universal Chronicle_ aside, and then
started at the sight of the little heap of gold before him. "What!" he
exclaimed. "What! And three pound twelve shilling pieces, too. Gad! No
Shoe Lane ordinary for me to-night."
Whereupon he took two of those coins and dropped them into his
waistcoat pocket.