LOVE'S CONTEST.
"If I possess him, I may be unhappy,
But, if I lose him, I am surely so."
Meanwhile a different scene was being enacted earlier in Cowley
Street, Lambeth, or, as it was more often termed, Cowley Street,
Westminster--a spot now quaint and old, but then almost fresh and new;
a street to which, then as now, there would come from the river a
wafted scent of new-mown hay (especially in the warm days of
harvest-time, when windows were open), brought up or down the river in
great cumbrous barges for sale in London; a quiet place which was then
as peaceful and tranquil as the streets of old country towns are now.
All through the day which preceded that night when Beau Bufton had
celebrated his last hours of bachelor freedom, as he had cynically
termed the conclusion of his unwedded life, Ariadne Thorne had either
sat in the great parlour on the lower floor--a floor raised some
three or four feet above the level of the road and narrow footway
outside--had sat glancing eagerly out of the long windows which faced
the walls that enclosed the grounds of the Abbey, or, pacing the
spacious room, had given herself up to uneasy thoughts.
"Will he ever come?" she whispered to herself again and again, "or,
coming, ever forgive me for what I have done--am about to do? I pray
God he may."
Then, almost distraught, she would seize the long bell-rope and summon
Mrs. Pottle to her presence, who, entering with a look of strange,
hard determination on her strong features, would stand before her
mistress ready to answer, for the twentieth time, any questions that
might be asked her, and ready also to dispel any doubts which might
exist in the girl's perturbed mind.
"He must have received my letter," Ariadne would then say; "must have
had it in his hands by yesterday morning at the latest. Must he not,
Pottle?"
"In truth he must," her old nurse and attendant from the first would
say; "he must indeed, deary."
"And, receiving it, would come. Surely he would come, Rebecca,"
addressing the woman now, as most often she did, by her Christian
name.
"I think so, dear heart; that is, if the frigate ain't----"
"Sailed! Oh, my God!" Ariadne cried, "if it has done that! If it has
gone to join Admiral Boscawen's fleet in the West Indies. If it has
done that! Then--then my heart is broken."
"P'r'aps, it ain't sailed after all. Don't weep, sweet one. P'r'aps it
ain't. Look at that vane out there on the Abbey. The wind is west--doo
west. He won't get out o' the Channel ag'in that, let alone off to the
Injies. I remember when we were going in the _R'yal Suverin_----"
"If he would only come. Only come once--for an hour--half an
hour--so--so--that I could make all clear to him. Could sue to him for
pardon and for pity."
"Humph!" Mrs. Pottle exclaimed, with a snort, "he ain't got so
very much to pardon nor to pity, I don't think. Pardon and pity!
Hoity-toity! You've writ him, ain't you?"
"Ay, indeed I have! Yet I could not tell him all then--could not do so
until he stands here before me. Oh! Rebecca, Rebecca, what have I
done! What have we done!"
"Done what we oughter. That is, I have; what I agreed to do, if things
turn out well. You ain't done nothin' as you oughtn't to do, and 'ave
been an angel, as you always was. And cheer up, missy, he'll come; I
know as how he will."
"I pray God," Ariadne said again, "I pray God he will."
A few days before this conversation took place, the girl, after
considerable communing with herself, had despatched a letter addressed
to Captain Sir Geoffrey Barry on board H.M.S. _Mignonne_ at
Portsmouth; a letter cold in tone, it is true, and one in which there
was no acknowledgment, as well as no denial, of her having been false
to him, or of her having received a visit from the person whom he had
encountered in the lime-tree avenue of her estate. For neither, she
knew, would weigh anything with him--he would disbelieve her denial,
while, on the other hand, her confession that such was the case would
prevent him from ever speaking to her again. And she so much desired
to see him before to-morrow; to see him before he sailed, as she had
heard he was about to do, to join Admiral Boscawen's squadron.
"If you will not come to me before you quit England for the West
Indies," she wrote, "you will have put away from both of us for ever
any prospect of our being aught but strangers. I have been a wicked,
weak girl, perhaps, though never have I regarded myself as such until
now, and I should have told you all that I had done on the night when
you parted from me; then, at least, you would have forgiven me. Now, I
ask you, I beseech you, to come to me at once on receipt of this; I
implore you to do so on the strength of the love that has been between
us, and in memory of the love of our early years. If you will do that,
then--then--you shall know all. No action on my part shall be hidden
from you."
"Will he come?" she said, "will he come?" And, thinking of the letter
she had written, she told herself that he would do so. Surely he
would!
Meanwhile, below, Mrs. Pottle was engaged in the homely occupation of
sewing and of ironing, and of other feminine pursuits that are dear to
the hearts of women of her class. Upon a huge table were spread out a
number of garments such as would befit a young lady who was about to
make a clandestine marriage--a marriage which, since it must
necessarily be without the accompaniment of a large and fashionable
gathering of friends, would be but simple, yet a ceremony in which the
bride would, nevertheless, be expected to make a proper appearance. To
wit, there was a flowered brocade covered with Italian posies,
myrtles, jessamine sprigs, and pinks; as well as a lace apron and
stomacher, more than one fan, and several articles of _lingerie_. And
upon another table was an enormous hat such as Gainsborough loved to
paint, and with which an earlier master, Rembrandt, frequently adorned
the pictures of his cavaliers.
"Fit for any lady to go to the altar in," Mrs. Pottle muttered to
herself as she fingered all these things. "Fit even for the Princess
'Melie. And worth money too--good money; that will be of use, come
what come may. Worth money; ay! that's something; and I've 'ad fifty
guineas from Bufton--damn him!--I'll get no more arter he's led his
bride to church to-morrow."
Then she walked to a cupboard and, taking out a thick black bottle and
a small glass, helped herself to a dram, old customs of her stormy
seafaring life being strong upon her still; while, as she drank so she
still continued to muse, sitting down near all this finery, and
occasionally regarding it.
"P'r'aps, arter all," she murmured, "I done wrong; p'r'aps I oughter
not to--to let 'er 'ave him. Yet 'er 'art's on it. 'I will go through
with it,' she said last night--only last night 'though the devil stood
a-tween him and me. You know from the time I come back from Tunbridge
I was set upon it.' And so she 'ave been set upon it. Ah, well! he
oughter to 'ave 'er. And now he must 'ave 'er. Well, so be it."
After which, her eye falling again upon the clothes laid out near her,
she murmured, "Worth money; that's something."
The house in which she now sat below stairs, while Ariadne Thorne was
upstairs in the parlour, was one that the gentry of the county of
Hampshire were in the habit of using when in London, it being an
instance of the numerous better class of lodgings which were to be
obtained in the town at the end of the reign of George II. It also was
near the House of Commons, and had been handy for General Thorne
during the time he sat in that assembly. But now that Parliament was
not sitting, and when Ariadne had come to London, ostensibly with a
view to visiting the mercers and other furnishers of ladies'
necessaries, there were no other occupants of the house but herself
and those who had accompanied her.
Presently Mrs. Pottle roused herself from a nap to which she had
succumbed--perhaps owing to the heat of the summer day!--and regarded
a clock that ticked in the parlour which she used in common with other
ladies' servants and gentlemen's gentlemen when the house had lodgers.
"Five o'clock," she muttered, "five o'clock, and the Portsmouth coach
is doo in the city by now. If Sir Geoffrey's coming, he'll be here by
this, or soon. His frigate ain't started on no voyage, I'll go bail;
not with that wind a-blowing. Will he come? Will he? He see that
villain, Bufton, sure enough in the avenue, and he heerd her say to me
as 'ow he had seen him. Pity! Pity! Might 'a' spoilt all. Lawk's
sakes, what will she tell him when he do see her?"
Again she dozed, sitting in her chair; then, when perhaps she had
slumbered peacefully for some quarter of an hour, she sprang to her
feet wide awake, for, above, she had heard a hackney coach rumble up
to the door. And, a moment later, had also heard the rush of feet
across the room, and knew, divined, with woman's instinct, that
Ariadne had flown to the window to peer out from behind the heavy
curtains and to observe if he for whom she was waiting had come.
In another instant, Mrs. Pottle was running up the narrow stairs from
below to open the door in answer to an imperious summons that sounded
through the house.
With almost a look of guilt, a half look of terror, on her face, she
answered the question of Sir Geoffrey Barry as to whether her mistress
was within; she seeing, as she glanced at him, that he was very
pale--as pale as he who was so bronzed could be--and that on his face
was a stern look.
"Your mistress," he said, "has sent for me. I am here in answer to her
summons. Where is she?"
"She is 'ere, Sir Jaffray," Mrs. Pottle said, opening the door of the
parlour and announcing him. And then those two who had loved each
other so fondly and so long were alone face to face.
"How lovely she is!" Geoffrey thought, observing the sad, pale face of
the girl and her soft eyes as they were fixed on him; observing, too,
however, how one white hand was pressed to her heart as though to
still the tumult beneath. "How lovely, and--how false."
"Geoffrey!" Ariadne cried now. "Oh, Geoffrey! you have come to me. I
knew you would. Knew it so well. You could not stay away from me," she
said, sinking her voice so that the gentle tones of it sounded even
more sweet than usual, "when I wanted you to come. Oh, Geoffrey!" she
sighed.
"Actress!" he said inwardly, his face white--almost, it seemed, drawn.
"Actress!" Then cursed himself for being there--for, in solemn truth
being drawn to her against his will! But aloud, he said, so coldly
that the tone struck like ice to her heart:
"I am here because you desired to see me again; because, too, Heaven
help me! you conjured me, lured me with those cunning words you wrote
in your letter, 'the memory of the love of our early years.' Ay, our
_early_ love. You did well to speak of that. That, at least, has
been."
"And can there be no other? Not when----"
"Not until," he cried, his voice ringing clearly through the room,
"not until you deal truthfully with me, if ever; not until you answer
my question fairly as to that man--that bedizened fop--I encountered
in your avenue!"
"What do you ask? What do you desire to know?"
"That you know as well as I. Yet once again. I ask you, did that man
come to Fanshawe Manor; was he there by--my God!--by appointment with
the Manor's owner: was he there to see--Ariadne Thorne?"
For a moment the pure clear eyes gazed into his, then they dropped and
sought the floor.
"Yes," she whispered slowly, hesitatingly, "yes, he went there--to
see--Ariadne Thorne----"
"Ah!" he cried, "ah! I knew it. Knew it well from the moment I heard
your whispered words to your woman. I knew it. Oh!" and now he, too,
lifted his hand towards his heart as though to still it. "Oh! then
thus all ends; thus I bid farewell to all our love. It is enough.
To-morrow I resign my command----"
"No! no!" she cried, and now she came swiftly towards him. "No! no!
To-morrow! Not to-morrow! Until to-morrow at least is past--do
nothing. Geoffrey! Geoffrey! I love you; fondly, madly! Not to-morrow,
of all days! not to-morrow!"
* * * * * * *
"A long talk," muttered Mrs. Pottle, below stairs, "a long talk,"
and she glanced at the clock, which now struck seven even as
she did so. "A long talk. She must 'a' bin telling of 'im all. Ah!
poor sweet, I'll go bail she finds it pretty 'ard to do. Yet they're
quiet, too. I don't hear no walking about. Surely they ain't
a-quarrelling--surely"--for now her melodramatic mind, a mind
perhaps attuned to such things by her own stormy life, imagined the
worst--"he hasn't refused to believe her! hasn't--oh! oh! that's too
terrible to think on."
"I'll go up," she whispered to herself a moment later; "I will. I'll
find an excuse for busting in upon them. I'm getting the 'orrors what
with Sir Jaffray being 'ere and what with thinking of all that's to do
to-morrow."
Whereon, slowly, she went towards the stairs, and began to creep up
them noiselessly; but, when she reached where they turned towards the
passage, she paused astonished.
For the door of the parlour opened, and Sir Geoffrey came forth--yet
not alone.
By his side was Ariadne, her fair, lovely face radiant with a look of
happiness extreme, her hand upon his sleeve. While, as they reached
the hall door and she put up her other hand to unfasten the latch,
Mrs. Pottle saw, with wonder-staring eyes, that he, bending forward
now, took that hand and raised it to his lips, kissing it fervently.
Then, ere he went, Ariadne being still behind the half-open door, he
did even more, for now he held his arms open before her and drew her
into them, and kissed her long and tenderly, after which, murmuring
"Adieu, sweetheart," loudly enough for Mrs. Pottle to hear, he went
forth into the street.