AN HEIRESS.
The coach--it was the Self-Defence, which did the journey from the
"Swan with Two Necks" in Lad Lane to the "Globe" at Portsmouth in ten
hours and a quarter--had passed Purbrook, and was nearing Fanshawe,
which hamlet lay, as all the world knew, or ought to have known,
between the former place and Portsdown Hill, which is some five miles
from Portsmouth. About which village the new road-book said, amongst
other things, "On L., i,m., Fanshawe Manor, late General Thorne.
Justice of the Peace, etc.; now Miss Ariadne Thorne." So that, as all
who read may see, since Cary's Guide is understandable enough, the
child born seventeen years ago off Cartagena, in the ship after which
she was named, was now the owner of an estate. And what else she owned
has already been made clear.
The June evening was delicious in its soft summer coolness as, now,
the Self-Defence drew near that ancient inn, "The Hautboy," it
retaining on its equally ancient sign-board its old-time spelling of
Hautbois; and from the box-seat the Beau, who was the only occupant
beside the coachman, made ready to descend. A very gallant beau he
looked, too, as, throwing off his long light drugget cloak--assumed to
fend the dust from his bravery underneath--he displayed his costly
attire; attire consisting of his best laced scarlet summer coat, his
blue waistcoat, which was a mass of galloon, and his best satin
breeches, the whole surmounted by the golden peruke and the much-laced
three-cornered hat.
"You will be a-staying at the manor then, my lord?" the coachman said
now, deeming that one so fine and brave-seeming as this spark whom he
had brought from London could be no other than a lord going courting
the heiress of Fanshawe. "I'll go bail the lady is a-looking eagerly
for you."
"Not positively at the manor," Beau Bufton replied. "Not positively,
as yet. For to-night, at least, at the inn. There is, I should
suppose, good accommodation for a gentleman?"
"Ay, there is, my lord; that is, if so be as how one requires not them
damned French kickshaws, which they say are now the mode. But if good
beef and mutton, a pullet, or---- Bill," he broke off to speak to his
mate, the guard, "sound the horn. The O'boy is in sight."
None descended at that old hostelry with the exception of the Beau
himself, since, with the addition of one personage inside who was
booked for Portsmouth, nobody but the Beau had that day travelled from
London. Therefore his own descent took but very little time. A small
valise was handed out from the boot, the customary fee of half-a-crown
was distributed to guard and coachman, the landlady nodded to (she
staring somewhat amazed at Bufton's finery all the time, and more
particularly at his chin, which, she told her gossips later, gave her
"a mort o' fear"), and the visitor entered the low-roofed passage.
Then, as he did so, he felt his sleeve pulled gently by a woman
standing in the doorway, who, on having attracted his attention,
curtsied two or three times.
"Ha!" he said, glancing at her and noticing that, though plainly but
comfortably dressed, she had a strangely worn and seamed face, such as
those who have led an existence much exposed to the elements often
possess. "Ha! It should be the good woman Mr. Granger told me of.
Mrs.--Mrs.----?"
"Pottle, your worship's honour. Miss Ariadne's nurse from the first."
"Ay, Mrs. Pottle. Well, you would speak with me? You have some news?"
"If it pleases your honour. Will your honour step this way?"
It was indeed Mrs. Pottle, one of those women who in past days had
assisted at Ariadne's birth. Yet with now but little of the comeliness
left for which she had once been distinguished, the rumbullion, or its
substitutes in England, usquebaugh and gin, having done their work.
Time also had made her grey, and in some places bald. Otherwise, she
was not much changed. As for her whilom companion in the _Ariadne_,
she was gone. She lay now within the common grave at Gibraltar.
"I shall see her to-night?" Beau Bufton asked, somewhat
impatiently--eagerly--as he stepped into a side room after her. "She
will be there?"
"In truth she will, the pretty thing," the woman answered, roving an
eye, and that a somewhat watery one, on him, "in very truth. At eight,
in the lime-tree avenue. Your worship can find it?"
"Doubtless. I may therefore rely on seeing her?"
"It is to tell you so that I'm here. Oh! sir, you will be good to her.
She loves you fondly."
"Tush! What do I seek her for except to be kind?" Then he said, "Will
she consent, think you, to what I desire--to--to--a speedy marriage?"
"She loves you," Mrs. Pottle replied, with a gleam in her eye, "while,
as for the marriage--well! young, tender though she is, and full of a
maiden's fears, she longs for it."
"She shall be gratified," Beau Bufton said, smirking and pulling at
his chin so that Mrs. Pottle stared at him, wondering in her own mind
if he were trying to pull it off. "I do avow she shall as soon as may
be. I will go seek your parson here----"
"Not here," Mrs. Pottle said, laying on his arm a finger, which he
noticed had lost the top joint--it had, in truth, been shot off by a
spent bullet in an attack made by the _Ariadne_ and _Kingston_ on five
Spanish galleys, the shot coming through the scuttle of a cabin in
which she was calmly cooking--"not here. You must do that in London
town. She is a maiden averse to talk and gossip. She would not
suffer----"
"I will do it wher'er she pleases, so that she is mine. Now go, good
woman, and tell her I shall be there. I must make a meal first and
also remove the dust from off my clothes. Go now."
"There was a promise," Mrs. Pottle said, with an appearance of
hesitation, of modesty, which sat strangely on her rough face. "The
gentleman, your friend, he gave a promise of reward----"
"Curse me!" replied the Beau; "you waiting-women, you go-betweens, are
all alike. Damme! I know there was a promise of five hundred guineas.
But--when we leave the church--when all is over. Do you think I have
such a sum on me now?"
"Not now, dear gentleman. Oh! no. Not now. But a little earnest. A
little----"
"How much?" asked Bufton, looking at her and recognising that here was
a cormorant who would do nothing for nothing. "How much?"
"A little. Just a little. A trifle. Ten guineas will not hurt a pretty
man like you."
"Five," said Bufton. "Five, now. Five." Then, seeing a strange look in
Mrs. Pottle's eyes, which his wonderful knowledge of human nature,
whereon he so congratulated himself, did not assist him in fathoming,
he said, "Well, ten, then. Here," and slowly drawing forth some loose
guineas from his waistcoat, he put them in her open palm.
"A noble gentleman," said Mrs. Pottle, pocketing them in an instant,
"a real gentleman. Now, sir, I go. To-night," she repeated, "in the
lime avenue, at eight," and so withdrew.
Yet, doubtless because of the rough life she had led for years, her
gratitude evaporated swiftly the moment she was outside the door of
the room and had closed it on him; while her face assumed an
expression strangely unlike that which it had worn when she thanked
him for his gift.
"Curse you," she muttered to herself. "Curse you. May joy go with
you," and she shook her fist and mumbled to herself.
Two hours later Beau Bufton had entered the long lime avenue, and was
making his way up to where the lady of his heart was to await him. He
had added somewhat to his appearance, smart as it had been before--had
combed and dusted his peruke, perfumed his hands and lace, and
supplemented his other adornments with a new sword, which he had
brought down from London wrapped in silver paper. Now, it lay against
his thigh, its ivory handle decorated with a gold sword knot, and
once, as the Beau came to a portion of the avenue where it was
almost dark, so thickly did the trees interlace overhead, he told
himself he had done wisely to bring it. Ariadne might have other
admirers--country clowns, 'tis true, yet fellows, who, nevertheless,
were capable of feeling pangs of jealousy at the sight of so
aristocratic a wooer as he. And--and--he thought they might attack him
with clubs, or even with plebeian fists--when--well--damme!--he would
run them through. A little blood-letting--the reputation of being a
swordsman--would not hurt him. To win an heiress after having slain a
yokel lover would make him--well! perhaps even make him the more
sought after. Therefore he went on, wishing, however, that his Ariadne
had not selected a part of the avenue so distant from the main
road--and so near to her house; and then--then--he knew she was there
and had kept the appointed meeting.
A girl came towards him from beneath the trees, shyly, almost
hesitatingly; while over her fair hair she had drawn a riding-hood.
And a moment later Beau Bufton had taken her hand and was impressing
kisses on it, and muttering phrases such as were in use in the highest
London circles, and, consequently, must be irresistible to this
provincial heiress.
"I am enraptured," he murmured now, "that one so fair should deign to
receive her admirer. Ah, madam, if you but knew how my thoughts have
dwelt on you since you let me claim you at the Wells----"
"And stole my fan, bad man. Ah, sir, you should not have trifled
thus----"
"Love, madam, knows no law. But--but--fair Ariadne--almost had I said
fair and chaste Diana--may I not gaze once more in rapture on those
lovely orbs, those features ever present in my memory? Will you not
remove your hood?"
With no more than a brief assumption of coyness, the fair one did as
her gallant desired, showing a mass of light hair beneath the hood,
and, beneath that, a pair of bright eyes which glistened in the
evening dusk. She had too a fresh red-and-white complexion, the whole
being a very satisfactory proof of the benefits of country air and
living, as opposed to the effects of what an earlier poet had
rapturously spoken of as "the stench of the London flambeaux."
"Ah! I protest," Beau Bufton exclaimed now as the maiden yielded to
his request, and displayed her loveliness, "once more I tremble at the
sight of those charms which won my heart at Tunbridge. Ariadne, you
know by my letters all that I desire--all I wish. To call you mine. To
be your husband. You cannot doubt my love."
"So soon?" she said. "Oh, fie! Not yet--not for years, I vow. I am too
young."
"Young! Is the heart ever too young for love? And, Ariadne, dearest
one, now is the time. I protest I cannot wait."
"But there are my guardians, the lawyers. What will they say?"
"What can they say? I am of ancient family, sweet one, and allied to
some of the most distinguished houses in the land. They can make no
dissent."
"If 'tis to be done," the girl said, "it must not be here. Oh! I could
not. Instead, in London. We go to London two weeks hence. Yet--yet--I
fear," and she gazed up into his face with a look of alarm that
fascinated him. For now he knew that the hundred thousand guineas were
almost in his grasp.
Yet as those clear eyes met his, they also disturbed him.
"Where," he muttered, "where, dearest, have I seen such orbs as yours
before? Or was't in my dreams of them? Those lovely orbs."
"I do not know," she answered. "How can I say? I have wandered little
away from this old country home of mine; and at Tunbridge was the
first time I have ever been in the gay world. Ah, Algernon, you will
be good to me?"
"Your life shall ever be my choicest care. My most precious treasure.
Dearest, may I not put up the banns to-morrow, when I return to
London?"
"You will love me always?"
"Always and ever."
Then she slid her hand coyly into his, and told him it should be as he
desired.
"Now," she whispered, "you must away. Sunday sen'-night we leave for
Cowley Street in Lambeth. You will not, Algernon, desire a great
wedding? Let it be private; with none there but Mrs. Pottle, my
faithful nurse. Say that it shall be so, my own."
"It shall be ever as you wish, sweet one," Beau Bufton answered, while
as he did so he laughed in his sleeve. Mrs. Pottle, her faithful
nurse! The woman who had done more to bring this about in accord with
his jackal's, with Lewis Granger's machinations, than any one else;
the woman who was to have five hundred guineas for so bringing it
about (unless he could in any way manage to avoid the payment of the
money); the woman, who, that very night, had had ten guineas from him.
"Yes, yes," he whispered, "Mrs. Pottle, your faithful nurse, on your
side; Lewis Granger, my hireling, on mine." While as he mentioned the
latter's name he reflected that here was another who would have to be
hoodwinked out of the guerdon he had stipulated for--hoodwinked out of
five thousand guineas. Verily! a vast number of those guineas would
drunken, ruined Lewis Granger get, when once Ariadne's fortune was in
his hands. A vast number!
"Farewell, then," the girl said now. "Farewell, my beloved. Oh! do not
deceive me, do not take advantage of my innocence and inexperience.
Say you will not."
"Dear heart," he murmured, "who could deceive thee?" "A girl," he
added to himself, "who has a hundred thousand guineas and a Hampshire
manor. Who could do so?"
They parted now, she clinging to him tenderly before going away, and
whispering in his ear that 99, Cowley Street, Lambeth, was where she
would be a week from Sunday next, and that then she would be all his,
and, meanwhile, would write often. They parted, she going up the
avenue towards where the house stood, and he standing looking after
her, feeling his chin and, with a contemptuous smile, drawing down the
corners of his mouth.