'HONOURED MADAM,--The peculiar care I have of that distinguished and

excellent gentleman, your son, no less than the profound duty I owe to

my lord and your ladyship, induces me to a step which I cannot regard

without misgiving; since, once known, it must deprive me of the

influence with Mr. Dunborough which I have now the felicity to enjoy,

and which, heightened by the affection he is so good as to bestow on me,

renders his society the most agreeable in the world. Nevertheless, and

though considerations of this sort cannot but have weight with me, I am

not able to be silent, nor allow your honoured repose among the storied

oaks of Papworth to be roughly shattered by a blow that may still be

averted by skill and conduct.

'For particulars, Madam, the young gentleman--I say it with regret--has

of late been drawn into a connection with a girl of low origin and

suitable behaviour, Not that your ladyship is to think me so wanting in

_savoir-faire_ as to trouble your ears with this, were it all; but the

person concerned--who (I need scarcely tell one so familiar with Mr.

Dunborough's amiable disposition) is solely to blame--has the wit to

affect virtue, and by means of this pretence, often resorted to by

creatures of that class, has led my generous but misguided pupil to the

point of matrimony. Your ladyship shudders? Alas! it is so. I have

learned within the hour that he has followed her to Wallingford, whither

she has withdrawn herself, doubtless to augment his passion; I am forced

to conclude that nothing short of your ladyship's presence and advice

can now stay his purpose. In that belief, and with the most profound

regret, I pen these lines; and respectfully awaiting the favour of your

ladyship's commands, which shall ever evoke my instant compliance,

'I have the honour to be while I live, Madam,

Your ladyship's most humble obedient servant,

'FREDERICK THOMASSON.

'_Nota bene_.--I do not commend the advantage of silence in regard to

this communication, this being patent to your ladyship's sagacity.'

CHAPTER VIII

THE OLD BATH ROAD

In the year 1757--to go back ten years from the spring with which we are

dealing--the ordinary Englishman was a Balbus despairing of the State.

No phrase was then more common on English lips, or in English ears, than

the statement that the days of England's greatness were numbered, and

were fast running out. Unwitting the wider sphere about to open before

them, men dwelt fondly on the glories of the past. The old babbled of

Marlborough's wars, of the entrance of Prince Eugene into London, of

choirs draped in flags, and steeples reeling giddily for Ramillies and

Blenheim. The young listened, and sighed to think that the day had been,

and was not, when England gave the law to Europe, and John Churchill's

warder set troops moving from Hamburg to the Alps.

On the top of such triumphs, and the famous reign of good Queen Anne,

had ensued forty years of peace, broken only by one inglorious war. The

peace did its work: it settled the dynasty, and filled the purse; but

men, considering it, whispered of effeminacy and degeneracy, and the

like, as men will to the end of time. And when the clouds, long sighted

on the political horizon, began to roll up, they looked fearfully abroad

and doubted and trembled; and doubted and trembled the more because in

home affairs all patriotism, all party-spirit, all thought of things

higher than ribbon or place or pension, seemed to be dead among public

men. The Tories, long deprived of power, and discredited by the taint or

suspicion of Jacobitism, counted for nothing. The Whigs, agreed on all

points of principle, and split into sections, the Ins and Outs, solely

by the fact that all could not enjoy places and pensions at once, the

supply being unequal to the demand--had come to regard politics as

purely a game; a kind of licensed hazard played for titles, orders, and

emoluments, by certain families who had the _entrée_ to the public table

by virtue of the part they had played in settling the succession.

Into the midst of this state of things, this world of despondency,

mediocrity, selfishness, and chicanery, and at the precise crisis when

the disasters which attended the opening campaigns of the Seven Years'

War--and particularly the loss of Minorca--seemed to confirm the

gloomiest prognostications of the most hopeless pessimists, came William

Pitt; and in eighteen months changed the face of the world, not for his

generation only, but for ours. Indifferent as an administrator, mediocre

as a financier, passionate, haughty, headstrong, with many of the worst

faults of an orator, he was still a man with ideals--a patriot among

placemen, pure where all were corrupt. And the effect of his touch was

magical. By infusing his own spirit, his own patriotism, his own belief

in his country, and his own belief in himself, into those who worked

with him--ay, and into the better half of England--he wrought a

seeming miracle.

See, for instance, what Mr. Walpole wrote to Sir Horace Mann in

September, 1757. 'For how many years,' he says, 'have I been telling you

that your country was mad, that your country was undone! It does not

grow wiser, it does not grow more prosperous! ... How do you behave on

these lamentable occasions? Oh, believe me, it is comfortable to have an

island to hide one's head in! ...' Again he writes in the same month,'

'It is time for England to slip her own cables, and float away into some

unknown ocean.'

With these compare a letter dated November, 1759. 'Indeed,' he says to

the same correspondent, 'one is forced to ask every morning what victory

there is, for fear of missing one.' And he wrote with reason. India,

Canada, Belleisle, the Mississippi, the Philippines, the Havanna,

Martinique, Guadaloupe--there was no end to our conquests. Wolfe fell in

the arms of victory, Clive came home the satrap of sovereigns; but day

by day ships sailed in and couriers spurred abroad with the news that a

new world and a nascent empire were ours. Until men's heads reeled and

maps failed them, as they asked each morning 'What new land, to-day?'

Until those who had despaired of England awoke and rubbed their

eyes--awoke to find three nations at her feet, and the dawn of a new and

wider day breaking in the sky.

And what of the minister? They called him the Great Commoner, the

heaven-born statesman; they showered gold boxes upon him; they bore him

through the city, the centre of frantic thousands, to the effacement

even of the sovereign. Where he went all heads were bared; while he

walked the rooms at Bath and drank the water, all stood; his very sedan,

built with a boot to accommodate his gouty foot, was a show followed and

watched wherever it moved. A man he had never seen left him a house and

three thousand pounds a year; this one, that one, the other one,

legacies. In a word, for a year or two he was the idol of the

nation--the first great People's Minister.

Then, the crisis over, the old system lifted its head again; the

mediocrities returned; and, thwarted by envious rivals and a jealous

king, Pitt placed the crown alike on his services and his popularity by

resigning power when he could no longer dictate the policy which he

knew to be right. Nor were events slow to prove his wisdom. The war with

Spain which he would have declared, Spain declared. The treasure fleet

which he would have seized, escaped us. Finally, the peace when it came

redounded to his credit, for in the main it secured his conquests--to

the disgrace of his enemies, since more might have been obtained.

Such was the man who, restored to office and lately created an earl by

the title of Chatham, lay ill at Bath in the spring of '67. The passage

of time, the course of events, the ravages of gout, in a degree the

acceptance of a title, had robbed his popularity of its first gloss. But

his name was still a name to conjure with in England. He was still the

idol of the City. Crowds still ran to see him where he passed. His gaunt

figure racked with gout, his eagle nose, his piercing eyes, were still

England's picture of a minister. His curricle, his troop of servants,

the very state he kept, the ceremony with which he travelled, all

pleased the popular fancy. When it was known that he was well enough to

leave Bath, and would lie a night at the Castle Inn at Marlborough, his

suite requiring twenty rooms, even that great hostelry, then reputed one

of the best, as it was certainly the most splendid in England, and

capable, it was said, of serving a dinner of twenty-four covers on

silver, was in an uproar. The landlord, who knew the tastes of half the

peerage, and which bin Lord Sandwich preferred, and which Mr. Rigby, in

which rooms the Duchess or Lady Betty liked to lie, what Mr. Walpole

took with his supper, and which shades the Princess Amelia preferred for

her card-table--even he, who had taken his glass of wine with a score of

dukes, from Cumberland the Great to Bedford the Little, was put to it;

the notice being short, and the house somewhat full.

Fortunately the Castle Inn, on the road between London and the west,

was a place of call, not of residence. Formerly a favourite residence of

the Seymour family, and built, if tradition does not lie, by a pupil of

Inigo Jones, it stood--and for the house, still stands--in a snug fold

of the downs, at the end of the long High Street of Marlborough; at the

precise point where the route to Salisbury debouches from the Old Bath

Road. A long-fronted, stately mansion of brick, bosomed in trees, and

jealous of its historic past--it had sheltered William of Orange--it

presented to the north and the road, from which it was distant some

hundred yards, a grand pillared portico flanked by projecting wings. At

that portico, and before those long rows of shapely windows, forty

coaches, we are told, changed horses every day. Beside the western wing

of the house a green sugarloaf mound, reputed to be of Druidical origin,

rose above the trees; it was accessible by a steep winding path, and

crowned at the date of this story by a curious summer-house. Travellers

from the west who merely passed on the coach, caught, if they looked

back as they entered the town, a glimpse of groves and lawns laid out by

the best taste of the day, between the southern front and the river. To

these a doorway and a flight of stone steps, corresponding in position

with the portico in the middle of the north front, conducted the

visitor, who, if a man of feeling, was equally surprised and charmed to

find in these shady retreats, stretching to the banks of the Kennet, a

silence and beauty excelled in few noblemen's gardens. In a word, while

the north front of the house hummed with the revolving wheels, and

echoed the chatter of half the fashionable world bound for the Bath or

the great western port of Bristol, the south front reflected the taste

of that Lady Hertford who had made these glades and trim walks her

principal hobby.

With all its charms, however, the traveller, as we have said, stayed

there but a night or so. Those in the house, therefore, would move on,

and so room could be made. And so room was made; and two days later, a

little after sunset, amid a spasm of final preparation, and with a great

parade of arrival, the earl's procession, curricle, chariot, coaches,

chaises, and footmen, rolled in from the west. In a trice lights flashed

everywhere, in the road, at the windows, on the mound, among the trees;

the crowd thickened--every place seemed peopled with the Pitt liveries.

Women, vowing that they were cramped to death, called languidly for

chaise-doors to be opened; and men who had already descended, and were

stretching their limbs in the road, ran to open them. This was in the

rear of the procession; in front, where the throng of townsfolk closed

most thickly round the earl's travelling chariot, was a sudden baring of

heads, as the door of the coach was opened. The landlord, bowing lower

than he had ever bowed to the proud Duke of Somerset, offered his

shoulder. And then men waited and bent nearer; and nothing happening,

looked at one another in surprise. Still no one issued; instead,

something which the nearest could not catch was said, and a tall lady,

closely hooded, stepped stiffly out and pointed to the house. On which

the landlord and two or three servants hurried in; and all was

expectation.

The men were out again in a moment, bearing a great chair, which they

set with nicety at the door of the carriage. This done, the gapers saw

what they had come to see. For an instant, the face that all England

knew and all Europe feared--but blanched, strained, and drawn with

pain--showed in the opening. For a second the crowd was gratified with a

glimpse of a gaunt form, a star and ribbon; then, with a groan heard far

through the awestruck silence, the invalid sank heavily into the chair,

and was borne swiftly and silently into the house.

Men looked at one another; but the fact was better than their fears. My

lord, after leaving Bath, had had a fresh attack of the gout; and when

he would be able to proceed on his journey only Dr. Addington, his

physician, whose gold-headed cane, great wig, and starched aspect did

not foster curiosity, could pretend to say. Perhaps Mr. Smith, the

landlord, was as much concerned as any; when he learned the state of the

case, he fell to mental arithmetic with the assistance of his fingers,

and at times looked blank. Counting up the earl and his gentleman, and

his gentleman's gentleman, and his secretary, and his private secretary,

and his physician, and his three friends and their gentlemen, and my

lady and her woman, and the children and nurses, and a crowd of others,

he could not see where to-morrow's travellers were to lie, supposing the

minister remained. However, in the end, he set that aside as a question

for to-morrow; and having seen Mr. Rigby's favourite bin opened (for Dr.

Addington was a connoisseur), and reviewed the cooks dishing up the

belated dinner--which an endless chain of servants carried to the

different apartments--he followed to the principal dining-room, where

the minister's company were assembled; and between the intervals of

carving and seeing that his guests ate to their liking, enjoyed the

conversation, and, when invited, joined in it with tact and

self-respect. As became a host of the old school.

By this time lights blazed in every window of the great mansion; the

open doors emitted a fragrant glow of warmth and welcome; the rattle of

plates and hum of voices could be heard in the road a hundred paces

away. But outside and about the stables the hubbub had somewhat

subsided, the road had grown quiet, and the last townsfolk had

withdrawn, when a little after seven the lamps of a carriage appeared

in the High Street, approaching from the town. It swept round the

church, turned the flank of the house, and in a twinkling drew up before

the pillars.

'Hilloa! House!' cried the postillion. 'House!' And, cracking his whip

on his boot, he looked up at the rows of lighted windows.

A man and a maid who travelled outside climbed down. As the man opened

the carriage door, a servant bustled out of the house. 'Do you want

fresh horses?' said he, in a kind of aside to the footman.

'No--rooms!' the man answered bluntly.

Before the other could reply, 'What is this?' cried a shrewish voice

from the interior of the carriage. 'Hoity toity! This is a nice way of

receiving company! You, fellow, go to your master and say that I

am here.'

'Say that the Lady Dunborough is here,' an unctuous voice repeated, 'and

requires rooms, dinners, fire, and the best he has. And do you be

quick, fellow!'

The speaker was Mr. Thomasson, or rather Mr. Thomasson plus the

importance which comes of travelling with a viscountess. This, and

perhaps the cramped state of his limbs, made him a little long in

descending. 'Will your ladyship wait? or will you allow me to have the

honour of assisting you to descend?' he continued, shivering slightly

from the cold. To tell the truth, he was not enjoying his honour on

cheap terms. Save the last hour, her ladyship's tongue had gone without

ceasing, and Mr. Thomasson was sorely in need of refreshment.

'Descend? No!' was the tart answer. 'Let the man come! Sho! Times are

changed since I was here last. I had not to wait then, or break my shins

in the dark! Has the impudent fellow gone in?'

He had, but at this came out again, bearing lights before his master.

The host, with the civility which marked landlords in those days--the

halcyon days of inns--hurried down the steps to the carriage. 'Dear me!

Dear me! I am most unhappy!' he exclaimed. 'Had I known your ladyship

was travelling, some arrangement should have been made. I declare, my

lady, I would not have had this happen for twenty pounds! But--'

'But what, man! What is the man mouthing about?' she cried impatiently.

'I am full,' he said, extending his palms to express his despair.' The

Earl of Chatham and his lordship's company travelling from Bath occupy

all the west wing and the greater part of the house; and I have

positively no rooms fit for your ladyship's use. I am grieved,

desolated, to have to say this to a person in your ladyship's position,'

he continued glibly, 'and an esteemed customer, but--' and again he

extended his hands.

'A fig for your desolation!' her ladyship cried rudely. 'It don't help

me, Smith.'

'But your ladyship sees how it is.'

'I am hanged if I do!' she retorted, and used an expression too coarse

for modern print. 'But I suppose that there is another house, man.'

'Certainly, my lady--several,' the landlord answered, with a gesture of

deprecation. 'But all full. And the accommodation not of a kind to suit

your ladyship's tastes.'

'Then--what are we to do?' she asked with angry shrillness.

'We have fresh horses,' he ventured to suggest. 'The road is good, and

in four hours, or four and a half at the most, your ladyship might be in

Bath, where there is an abundance of good lodgings.'

'Bless the man!' cried the angry peeress. 'Does he think I have a skin

of leather to stand this jolting and shaking? Four hours more! I'll lie

in my carriage first!'

A small rain was beginning to fall, and the night promised to be wet as

well as cold. Mr. Thomasson, who had spent the last hour, while his

companion slept, in visions of the sumptuous dinner, neat wines, and

good beds that awaited him at the Castle Inn, cast a despairing glance

at the doorway, whence issued a fragrance that made his mouth water.

'Oh, positively,' he cried, addressing the landlord, 'something must be

done, my good man. For myself, I can sleep in a chair if her ladyship

can anyway be accommodated.'

'Well,' said the landlord dubiously, 'if her ladyship could allow her

woman to lie with her?'

'Bless the man! Why did you not say that at once?' cried my lady. 'Oh,

she may come!' This last in a voice that promised little comfort for

the maid.

'And if the reverend gentleman--would put up with a couch below stairs?'

'Yes, yes,' said Mr. Thomasson; but faintly, now it came to the point.

'Then I think I can manage--if your ladyship will not object to sup with

some guests who have just arrived, and are now sitting down? Friends of

Sir George Soane,' the landlord hastened to add, 'whom your ladyship

probably knows.'

'Drat the man!--too well!' Lady Dunborough answered, making a wry face.

For by this time she had heard all about the duel. 'He has nearly cost

me dear! But, there--if we must, we must. Let me get my tooth in the

dinner, and I won't stand on my company.' And she proceeded to descend,

and, the landlord going before her, entered the house.

In those days people were not so punctilious in certain directions as

they now are. My lady put off her French hood and travelling cloak in

the lobby of the east wing, gave her piled-up hair a twitch this way and

that, unfastened her fan from her waist, and sailed in to supper, her

maid carrying her gloves and scent-bottle behind her. The tutor, who

wore no gloves, was a little longer. But having washed his hands at a

pump in the scullery, and dried them on a roller-towel--with no sense

that the apparatus was deficient--he tucked his hat under his arm and,

handling his snuff-box, tripped after her as hastily as vanity and an

elegant demeanour permitted.

He found her in the act of joining, with an air of vast condescension, a

party of three; two of whom her stately salute had already frozen in

their places. These two, a slight perky man of middle age, and a

frightened rustic-looking woman in homely black--who, by the way, sat

with her mouth, open and her knife and fork resting points upward on the

table--could do nothing but stare. The third, a handsome girl, very

simply dressed, returned her ladyship's gaze with mingled interest

and timidity.

My lady noticed this, and the girl's elegant air and shape, and set down

the other two for her duenna and her guardian's man of business. Aware

that Sir George Soane had no sister, she scented scandal, and lost not a

moment in opening the trenches.

'And how far have you come to-day, child?' she asked with condescension,

as soon as she had taken her seat.

'From Reading, madam,' the girl answered in a voice low and restrained.

Her manner was somewhat awkward, and she had a shy air, as if her

surroundings were new to her, But Lady Dunborough was more and more

impressed with her beauty, and a natural air of refinement that was not

to be mistaken.

'The roads are insufferably crowded,' said the peeress. 'They are

intolerable!'

'I am afraid you suffered some inconvenience,' the girl answered

timidly.

At that moment Mr. Thomasson entered. He treated the strangers to a

distant bow, and, without looking at them, took his seat with a

nonchalant ease, becoming a man who travelled with viscountesses, and

was at home in the best company. The table had his first hungry glance.

He espied roast and cold, a pair of smoking ducklings just set on, a

dish of trout, a round of beef, a pigeon-pie, and hot rolls. Relieved,

he heaved a sigh of satisfaction.

''Pon honour this is not so bad!' he said. 'It is not what your ladyship

is accustomed to, but at a pinch it will do. It will do!'

He was not unwilling that the strangers should know his companion's

rank, and he stole a glance at them, as he spoke, to see what impression

it made. Alas! the deeper impression was made on himself. For a moment

he stared; the next he sprang to his feet with an oath plain and strong.

'Drat the man!' cried my lady in wrath. He had come near to oversetting

her plate. 'What flea has bitten you now?'

'Do you know--who these people are?' Mr. Thomasson stammered, trembling

with rage; and, resting both hands on the back of his chair, he glared

now at them and now at Lady Dunborough. He could be truculent where he

had nothing to fear; and he was truculent now.

'These people?' my lady drawled in surprise; and she inspected them

through her quizzing-glass as coolly as if they were specimens of a rare

order submitted to her notice. 'Not in the least, my good man. Who are

they? Should I know them?'

'They are--'

But the little man, whose seat happened to be opposite the tutor's, had

risen to his feet by this time; and at that word cut him short. 'Sir!'

he cried in a flutter of agitation. 'Have a care! Have a care what you

say! I am a lawyer, and I warn you that anything defamatory

will--will be--'

'Pooh!' said Mr. Thomasson. 'Don't try to browbeat me, sir. These

persons are impostors, Lady Dunborough! Impostors!' he continued. 'In

this house, at any rate. They have no right to be here!'

'You shall pay for this!' shrieked Mr. Fishwick. For he it was.

'I will ring the bell,' the tutor continued in a high tone, 'and have

them removed. They have no more to do with Sir George Soane, whose name

they appear to have taken, than your ladyship has.'

'Have a care! Have a care, sir,' cried the lawyer, trembling.

'Or than I have!' persisted Mr. Thomasson hardily, and with his head in

the air; 'and no right or title to be anywhere but in the servants'

room. That is their proper place. Lady Dunborough,' he continued, his

eyes darting severity at the three culprits, 'are you aware that this

young person whom you have been so kind as to notice is--is--'

'Oh, Gadzooks, man, come to the point!' cried her ladyship, with one eye

on the victuals.

'No, I will not shame her publicly,' said Mr. Thomasson, swelling with

virtuous self-restraint. 'But if your ladyship would honour me with two

words apart?'

Lady Dunborough rose, muttering impatiently; and Mr. Thomasson, with the

air of a just man in a parable, led her a little aside; but so that the

three who remained at the table might still feel that his eye and his

reprehension rested on them. He spoke a few words to her ladyship;

whereon she uttered a faint cry, and stiffened. A moment and she turned

and came back to the table, her face crimson, her headdress nodding.

She looked at the girl, who had just risen to her feet.

'You baggage!' she hissed, 'begone! Out of this house! How dare you sit

in my presence?' And she pointed to the door.

CHAPTER IX

ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON

The scene presented by the room at this moment was sufficiently

singular. The waiters, drawn to the spot by the fury of my lady's tone,

peered in at the half-opened door, and asking one another what the

fracas was about, thought so; and softly called to others to witness it.

On one side of the table rose Lady Dunborough, grim and venomous; on the

other the girl stood virtually alone--for the elder woman had fallen to

weeping helplessly, and the attorney seemed to be unequal to this new

combatant. Even so, and though her face betrayed trouble and some

irresolution, she did not blench, but faced her accuser with a slowly

rising passion that overcame her shyness.

'Madam,' she said, 'I did not clearly catch your name. Am I right in

supposing that you are Lady Dunborough?'

The peeress swallowed her rage with difficulty. 'Go!' she cried, and

pointed afresh to the door. 'How dare you bandy words with me? Do you

hear me? Go!'

'I am not going at your bidding,' the girl answered slowly. 'Why do you

speak to me like that?' And then, 'You have no right to speak to me in

that way!' she continued, in a flush of indignation.

'You impudent creature!' Lady Dunborough cried. 'You shameless,

abandoned baggage! Who brought you in out of the streets? You, a

kitchen-wench, to be sitting at this table smiling at your betters!

I'll--Ring the bell! Ring the bell, fool!' she continued impetuously,

and scathed Mr. Thomasson with a look. 'Fetch the landlord, and let me

see this impudent hussy thrown out! Ay, madam, I suppose you are here

waiting for my son; but you have caught me instead, and I'll be

bound. I'll--'

'You'll disgrace yourself,' the girl retorted with quiet pride. But she

was very white. 'I know nothing of your son.'

'A fig for the lie, mistress!' cried the old harridan; and added, as was

too much the fashion in those days, a word we cannot print. The Duchess

of Northumberland had the greater name for coarseness; but Lady

Dunborough's tongue was known in town. 'Ay, that smartens you, does it?

'she continued with cruel delight; for the girl had winced as from a

blow. 'But here comes the landlord, and now out you go. Ay, into the

streets, mistress! Hoity-toity, that dirt like you should sit at tables!

Go wash the dishes, slut!'

There was not a waiter who saw the younger woman's shame who did not

long to choke the viscountess. As for the attorney, though he had vague

fears of privilege before his eyes, and was clogged by the sex of the

assailant, he could remain silent no longer.

'My lady,' he cried, in a tone of trembling desperation, 'you will--you

will repent this! You don't know what you are doing. I tell you that

to-morrow--'

'What is this?' said a quiet voice. It was the landlord's; he spoke as

he pushed his way through the group at the door. 'Has your ladyship some

complaint to make?' he continued civilly, his eye taking in the

scene--even to the elder woman, who through her tears kept muttering,

'Deary, we ought not to have come here! I told him we ought not to come

here!' And then, before her ladyship could reply, 'Is this the

party--that have Sir George Soane's rooms?' he continued, turning to

the nearest servant.

Lady Dunborough answered for the man. 'Ay!' she said, pitiless in her

triumph. 'They are! And know no more of Soane than the hair of my head!

They are a party of fly-by-nights; and for this fine madam, she is a

kitchen dish-washer at Oxford! And the commonest, lowest slut that--'

'Your ladyship has said enough,' the landlord interposed, moved by pity

or the girl's beauty. 'I know already that there has been some mistake

here, and that these persons have no right to the rooms they occupy. Sir

George Soane has alighted within the last few minutes--'

'And knows nothing of them!' my lady cried, clapping her hands in

triumph.

'That is so,' the landlord answered ominously. Then, turning to the

bewildered attorney, 'For you, sir,' he continued, 'if you have anything

to say, be good enough to speak. On the face of it, this is a dirty

trick you have played me.'

'Trick?' cried the attorney.

'Ay, trick, man. But before I send for the constable--'

'The constable?' shrieked Mr. Fishwick. Truth to tell, it had been his

own idea to storm the splendours of the Castle Inn; and for certain

reasons he had carried it in the teeth of his companions' remonstrances.

Now between the suddenness of the onslaught made on them, the

strangeness of the surroundings, Sir George's inopportune arrival, and

the scornful grins of the servants who thronged the doorway, he was

cowed. For a moment his wonted sharpness deserted him; he faltered and

changed colour. 'I don't know what you mean,' he said. 'I gave--I gave

the name of Soane; and you--you assigned me the rooms. I thought it

particularly civil, sir, and was even troubled about the expense--'

'Is your name Soane?' Mr. Smith asked with blunt-ness; he grew more

suspicious as the other's embarrassment increased.

'No,' Mr. Fishwick admitted reluctantly. 'But this young lady's name--'

'Is Soane?'

'Yes.'

Mr. Thomasson stepped forward, grim as fate. 'That is not true,' he said

coldly. 'I am a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, at present in

attendance on her ladyship; and I identify this person'--he pointed to

the girl--'as the daughter of a late servant of the College, and this

woman as her mother. I have no doubt that the last thing they expected

to find in this place was one who knew them.'

The landlord nodded. 'Joe,' he said, turning to a servant, 'fetch the

constable. You will find him at the Falcon.'

'That is talking!' cried my lady, clapping her hands gleefully. 'That is

talking!' And then addressing the girl, 'Now, madam,' she said, 'I'll

have your pride pulled down! If I don't have you in the stocks for this,

tease my back!'

There was a snigger at that, in the background, by the door; and a crush

to get in and see how the rogues took their exposure; for my lady's

shrill voice could be heard in the hall, and half the inn was running to

listen. Mrs. Masterson, who had collapsed at the mention of the

constable, and could now do nothing but moan and weep, and the attorney,

who spluttered vain threats in a voice quavering between fear and

passion evoked little sympathy. But the girl, who through all remained

silent, white, and defiant, who faced all, the fingers of one hand

drumming on the table before her, and her fine eyes brooding scornfully

on the crowd, drew from more than one the compliment of a quicker breath

and a choking throat. She was the handsomest piece they had seen, they

muttered, for many a day--as alien, from the other two as light from

darkness; and it is not in man's nature to see beauty humiliated, and

feel no unpleasant emotion. If there was to be a scene, and she did not

go quietly--in that case more than one in the front rank, who read the

pride in her eyes, wished he were elsewhere.

Suddenly the crowd about the door heaved. It opened slowly, and a voice,

airy and indifferent, was heard remarking, 'Ah! These are the people,

are they? Poor devils! 'Then a pause; and then, in a tone of

unmistakable surprise, 'Hallo!' the newcomer cried as he emerged and

stared at the scene before him. 'What is this?'

The attorney almost fell on his knees. 'Sir George!' he screamed. 'My

dear Sir George! Honoured sir, believe me I am innocent of any

ill-meaning.'

'Tut-tut!' said Sir George, who might have just stepped out of his

dressing-closet instead of his carriage, so perfect was his array, from

the ruffles that fell gracefully over his wrists to the cravat that

supported his chin. 'Tut-tut! Lord, man, what is the meaning of this?'

'We are going to see,' the landlord answered drily, forestalling the

lawyer's reply. 'I have sent for the constable, Sir George.'

'But, Sir George, you'll speak for us?' Mr. Fishwick cried piteously,

cutting the other short in his turn. 'You will speak for us? You know

me. You know that I am a respectable man. Oh, dear me, if this were told

in Wallingford!' he continued; 'and I have a mother aged seventy! It is

a mistake--a pure mistake, as I am prepared to prove. I appeal to you,

sir. Both I and my friends--'

He was stopped on that word; and very strangely. The girl turned on him,

her cheeks scarlet. 'For shame!' she cried with indignation that seemed

to her hearers inexplicable. 'Be silent, will you?'

Sir George stared with the others. 'Oh!' said Lady Dunborough, 'so you

have found your voice, have you, miss--now that there is a

gentleman here?'

'But--what is it all about?' Sir George asked.

'They took your rooms, sir,' the landlord explained respectfully.

'Pooh! is that all?' Soane answered contemptuously. What moved him he

could not tell; but in his mind he had chosen his side. He did not like

Lady Dunborough.

'But they are not,' the landlord objected, 'they are not the persons

they say they are, Sir George.'

'Chut!' said Soane carelessly. 'I know this person, at any rate. He is

respectable enough. I don't understand it at all. Oh, is that you,

Thomasson?'

Mr. Thomasson had fallen back a pace on Sir George's entrance; but being

recognised he came forward. 'I think that you will acknowledge, my dear

sir,' he said persuasively--and his tone was very different from that

which he had taken ten minutes earlier--'that at any rate--they are not

proper persons to sit down with her ladyship.'

'But why should they sit down with her?' said Sir George the

fashionable, slightly raising his eyebrows.

'Hem--Sir George, this is Lady Dunborough,' replied Mr. Thomasson, not a

little embarrassed.

Soane's eyes twinkled as he returned the viscountess's glance. But he

bowed profoundly, and with a sweep of his hat that made the rustics

stare. 'Your ladyship's most humble servant,' he said. 'Allow me to hope

that Mr. Dunborough is perfectly recovered. Believe me, I greatly

regretted his mischance.'

But Lady Dunborough was not so foolish as to receive his overtures

according to the letter. She saw plainly that he had chosen his

side--the impertinent fop, with his airs and graces!--and she was not to

be propitiated. 'Pray leave my son's name apart,' she answered, tossing

her head contemptuously. 'After what has happened, sir, I prefer not to

discuss him with you.'

Sir George raised his eyebrows, and bowed as profoundly as before. 'That

is entirely as your ladyship pleases,' he said. Nevertheless he was not

accustomed to be snubbed, and he set a trifle to her account.

'But for that creature,' she continued, trembling with passion, 'I will

not sleep under the same roof with her.'

Sir George simpered. 'I am sorry for that,' he said. 'For I am afraid

that the Falcon in the town is not the stamp of house to suit your

ladyship.'

The viscountess gasped. 'I should like to know why you champion her,'

she cried violently. 'I suppose you came here to meet her.'

'Alas, madam, I am not so happy,' he answered--with such blandness that

a servant by the door choked, and had to be hustled out in disgrace.

'But since Miss--er--Masterson is here, I shall be glad to place my

rooms at her--mother's disposal.'

'There are no rooms,' said the landlord. Between the two he was growing

bewildered.

'There are mine,' said Sir George drily.

'But for yourself, Sir George?'

'Oh, never mind me, my good man. I am here to meet Lord Chatham, and

some of his people will accommodate me.'

'Well, of course,' Mr. Smith answered, rubbing his hands dubiously--for

he had sent for the constable--'of course, Sir George--if you wish it.

I did not understand for whom the rooms were ordered, or--or this

unpleasantness would not have arisen.'

'To be sure,' Sir George drawled good-naturedly. 'Give the constable

half-a-crown, Smith, and charge it to me.' And he turned on his heel.

But at this appearance of a happy issue, Lady Dunborough's rage and

chagrin, which had been rising higher and higher with each word of the

dialogue, could no longer be restrained. In an awful voice, and with a

port of such majesty that an ordinary man must have shaken in his shoes

before her towering headdress, 'Am I to understand,' she cried, 'that,

after all that has been said about these persons, you propose to

harbour them?'

The landlord looked particularly miserable; luckily he was saved from

the necessity of replying by an unexpected intervention.

'We are much obliged to your ladyship,' the girl behind the table said,

speaking rapidly, but in a voice rather sarcastic than vehement. 'There

were reasons why I thought it impossible that we should accept this

gentleman's offer. But the words you have applied to me, and the spirit

in which your ladyship has dealt with me, make it impossible for us to

withdraw and lie under the--the vile imputations, you have chosen to

cast upon me. For that reason,' she continued with spirit, her face

instinct with indignation, 'I do accept from this gentleman--and with

gratitude--what I would fain refuse. And if it be any matter to your

ladyship, you have only your unmannerly words to thank for it.'

'Ho! ho!' the viscountess cried in affected contempt. 'Are we to be

called in question by creatures like these? You vixen! I spit upon you!'

Mr. Thomasson smiled in a sickly fashion. For one thing, he began to

feel hungry; he had not supped. For another, he wished that he had kept

his mouth shut, or had never left Oxford. With a downcast air, 'I think

it might be better,' he said, 'if your ladyship were to withdraw from

this company.'

But her ladyship was at that moment as dangerous as a tigress. 'You

think?' she cried. 'You think? I think you are a fool!'

A snigger from the doorway gave point to the words; on which Lady

Dunborough turned wrathfully in that direction. But the prudent landlord

had slipped away, Sir George also had retired, and the servants and

others, concluding the sport was at an end, were fast dispersing. She

saw that redress was not to be had, but that in a moment she would be

left alone with her foes; and though she was bursting with spite, the

prospect had no charms for her. For the time she had failed; nothing she

could say would now alter that. Moreover her ladyship was vaguely

conscious that in the girl, who still stood pitilessly behind the table,

as expecting her to withdraw, she had met her match. The beautiful face

and proud eyes that regarded her so steadfastly had a certain terror for

the battered great lady, who had all to lose in a conflict, and saw

dimly that coarse words had no power to hurt her adversary.

So Lady Dunborough, after a moment's hesitation, determined to yield the

field. Gathering her skirts about her with a last gesture of contempt,

she sailed towards the door, resolved not to demean herself by a single

word. But halfway across the room her resolution, which had nearly cost

her a fit, gave way. She turned, and withering the three travellers with

a glance, 'You--you abandoned creature!' she cried. 'I'll see you in the

stocks yet!' And she swept from the room.

Alas! the girl laughed: and my lady heard her!

Perhaps it was that; perhaps it was the fact that she had not dined,

and was leaving her supper behind her; perhaps it was only a general

exasperation rendered her ladyship deaf. From one cause or another she

lost something which her woman said to her--with no small appearance of

excitement--as they crossed the hall. The maid said it again, but with

no better success; and pressing nearer to say it a third time, when they

were halfway up the stairs, she had the misfortune to step on her

mistress's train. The viscountess turned in a fury, and slapped

her cheek.

'You clumsy slut!' she cried. 'Will that teach you to be more careful?'

The woman shrank away, one side of her face deep red, her eyes

glittering. Doubtless the pain was sharp; and though the thing had

happened before, it had never happened in public. But she suppressed her

feelings, and answered whimpering, 'If your ladyship pleases, I wished

to tell you that Mr. Dunborough is here.'

'Mr. Dunborough? Here?' the viscountess stammered.

'Yes, my lady, I saw him alighting as we passed the door.'

CHAPTER X

MOTHER AND SON

Lady Dunborough stood, as if turned to stone by the news. In the great

hall below, a throng of servants, the Pitt livery prominent among them,

were hurrying to and fro, with a clatter of dishes and plates, a

ceaseless calling of orders, a buzz of talk, and now and then a wrangle.

But the lobby and staircase of the west wing, on the first floor of

which she stood--and where the great man lay, at the end of a softly

lighted passage, his door guarded by a man and a woman seated motionless

in chairs beside it--were silent by comparison; the bulk of the guests

were still at supper or busy in the east or inferior wing; and my lady

had a moment to think, to trace the consequences of this inopportune

arrival, and to curse, now more bitterly than before, the failure of her

attempt to eject the girl from the house.

However, she was not a woman to lie down to her antagonists, and in the

depth of her stupor she had a thought. Her brow relaxed; she clutched

the maid's arm. 'Quick,' she whispered, 'go and fetch Mr. Thomasson--he

is somewhere below. Bring him here, but do not let Mr. Dunborough see

you as you pass! Quick, woman--run!'

The maid flew on her errand, leaving her mistress to listen and fret on

the stairs, in a state of suspense almost unbearable. She caught her

son's voice in the entrance hall, from which stately arched doorways led

to the side lobbies; but happily he was still at the door, engaged in

railing at a servant; and so far all was well. At any moment, however,

he might stride into the middle of the busy group in the hall; and then

if he saw Thomasson before the tutor had had his lesson, the trick, if

not the game, was lost. Her ladyship, scarcely breathing, hung over the

balustrade, and at length had the satisfaction of seeing Thomasson and

the woman enter the lobby at the foot of the stairs. In a trice the

tutor, looking scared, and a trifle sulky--for he had been taken from

his meat--stood at her side.

Lady Dunborough drew a breath of relief, and by a sign bade the maid

begone. 'You know who is below?' she whispered.

Mr. Thomasson nodded. 'I thought it was what you wished,' he said, with

something in his tone as near mutiny as he dared venture. 'I understood

that your ladyship desired to overtake him and reason with him.'

'But with the girl here?' she muttered. And yet it was true. Before she

had seen this girl, she had fancied the task of turning her son to be

well within her powers. Now she gravely doubted the issue; nay, was

inclined to think all lost if the pair met. She told the tutor this, in

curt phrase; and continued: 'So, do you go down, man, at once, and meet

him at the door; and tell him that I am here--he will discover that for

himself--but that the hussy is not here. Say she is at Bath or--or

anywhere you please.'

Mr. Thomasson hesitated. 'He will see her,' he said.

'Why should he see her?' my lady retorted. 'The house is full. He must

presently go elsewhere. Put him on a false scent, and he will go after

her hot-foot, and not find her. And in a week he will be wiser.'

'It is dangerous,' Mr. Thomasson faltered, his eyes wandering uneasily.

'So am I,' the viscountess answered in a passion. 'And mind you,

Thomasson,' she continued fiercely, 'you have got to side with me now!

Cross me, and you shall have neither the living nor my good word; and

without my word you may whistle for your sucking lord! But do my

bidding, help me to checkmate this baggage, and I'll see you have both.

Why, man, rather than let him marry her, I'd pay you to marry her! I'd

rather pay down a couple of thousand pounds, and the living too. D'ye

hear me? But it won't come to that if you do my bidding.'

Still Mr. Thomasson hesitated, shrinking from the task proposed, not

because he must lie to execute it, but because he must lie to

Dunborough, and would suffer for it, were he found out. On the other

hand, the bribe was large; the red gabled house, set in its little park,

and as good as a squire's, the hundred-acre glebe, the fat tithes and

Easter dues--to say nothing of the promised pupil and freedom from his

money troubles--tempted him sorely. He paused; and while he hesitated he

was lost. For Mr. Dunborough, with the landlord beside him, entered the

side-hall, booted, spurred, and in his horseman's coat; and looked up

and saw the pair at the head of the staircase. His face, gloomy and

discontented before, grew darker. He slapped his muddy boot with his

whip, and, quitting the landlord without ceremony, in three strides was

up the stairs. He did not condescend to Mr. Thomasson, but turned to the

viscountess.

'Well, madam,' he said with a sneer.' Your humble servant. This is an

unforeseen honour! I did not expect to meet you here.'

'I expected to meet _you_,' my lady answered with meaning.

'Glad to give you the pleasure,' he said, sneering again. He was

evidently in the worst of tempers.' May I ask what has set _you_

travelling?' he continued.

'Why, naught but your folly!' the viscountess cried.

'Thank you for nothing, my lady,' he said. 'I suppose your spy

there'--and he scowled at the tutor, whose knees shook under him--'has

set you on this. Well, there is time. I'll settle accounts with him

by-and-by.'

'Lord, my dear sir,' Mr. Thomasson cried faintly, 'you don't know your

friends!'

'Don't I? I think I am beginning to find them out,' Mr. Dunborough

answered, slapping his boot ominously, 'and my enemies!' At which the

tutor trembled afresh.

'Never mind him,' quoth my lady. 'Attend to me, Dunborough. Is it a lie,

or is it not, that you are going to disgrace yourself the way I

have heard?'

'Disgrace myself?' cried Mr. Dunborough hotly.

'Ay, disgrace yourself.'

'I'll flay the man that says it!'

'You can't flay me,' her ladyship retorted with corresponding spirit.'

You impudent, good-for-nothing fellow! D'you hear me? You are an

impudent, good-for-nothing fellow, Dunborough, for all your airs and

graces! Come, you don't swagger over me, my lad! And as sure as you do

this that I hear of, you'll smart for it. There are Lorton and

Swanton--my lord can do as he pleases with _them_, and they'll go from

you; and your cousin Meg, ugly and long in the tooth as she is, shall

have them! You may put this beggar's wench in my chair, but you shall

smart for it as long as you live!'

'I'll marry whom I like!' he said.

'Then you'll buy her dear,' cried my lady, ashake with rage.

'Dear or cheap, I'll have her!' he answered, inflamed by opposition and

the discovery that the tutor had betrayed him. 'I shall go to her now!

She is here.'

'That is a lie!' cried Lady Dunborough. 'Lie number one.'

'She is in the house at this moment!' he cried obstinately. 'And I shall

go to her.'

'She is at Bath,' said my lady, unmoved. 'Ask Thomasson, if you do not

believe me.'

'She is not here,' said the tutor with an effort.

'Dunborough, you'll outface the devil when you meet him!' my lady

added--for a closing shot. She knew how to carry the war into the

enemy's country.

He glared at her, uncertain what to believe. 'I'll see for myself,' he

said at last; but sullenly, and as if he foresaw a check.

He was in the act of turning to carry out his intention, when Lady

Dunborough, with great presence of mind, called to a servant who was

passing the foot of the stairs. The man came. 'Go and fetch this

gentleman the book,' she said imperiously, 'with the people's names.

Bring it here. I want to see it.'

The man went, and in a moment returned with it. She signed to him to

give it to Mr. Dunborough. 'See for yourself,' she said contemptuously.

She calculated, and very shrewdly, that as the lawyer and his companions

had given the name of Soane and taken possession of Sir George's rooms,

only the name of Soane would appear in the book. And so it turned out.

Mr. Dunborough sought in vain for the name of Masterson or for a party

of three, resembling the one he pursued; he found only the name of Sir

George Soane entered when the rooms were ordered.

'Oh!' he said with an execration. 'He is here, is he? Wish you joy of

him, my lady! Very well, I go on. Good night, madam!' The viscountess

knew that opposition would stiffen him. 'Stop!' she cried.

But he was already in the hall, ordering fresh saddle-horses for himself

and his man. My lady heard the order, and stood listening. Mr. Thomasson

heard it, and stood quaking. At any moment the door of the room in which

the girl was supping might open--it was adjacent to the hall--and she

come out, and the two would meet. Nor did the suspense last a moment or

two only. Fresh horses could not be ready in a minute, even in those

times, when day and night post-horses stood harnessed in the stalls.

Even Mr. Dunborough could not be served in a moment. So he roared for a

pint of claret and a crust, sent one servant flying this way, and

another that, hectored up and down the entrance, to the admiration of

the peeping chambermaids; and for a while added much to the bustle. Once

in those minutes the fateful door did open, but it emitted only a

waiter. And in the end, Mr. Dunborough's horses being announced, he

strode out, his spurs ringing on the steps, and the viscountess heard

him clatter away into the night, and drew a deep breath of relief. For a

day or two, at any rate, she was saved. For the time, the machinations

of the creature below stairs were baffled.

CHAPTER XI

DR. ADDINGTON

It did not occur to Lady Dunborough to ask herself seriously how a girl

in the Mastersons' position came to be in such quarters as the Castle

Inn, and to have a middle-aged and apparently respectable attorney for a

travelling companion. Or, if her ladyship did ask herself those

questions, she was content with the solution, which the tutor out of his

knowledge of human nature had suggested; namely, that the girl, wily as

she was beautiful, knew that a retreat in good order, flanked after the

fashion of her betters by duenna and man of business, doubled her

virtue; and by so much improved her value, and her chance of catching

Mr. Dunborough and a coronet.

There was one in the house, however, who did set himself these riddles,

and was at a loss for an answer. Sir George Soane, supping with Dr.

Addington, the earl's physician, found his attention wander from the

conversation, and more than once came near to stating the problem which

troubled him. The cosy room, in which the two sat, lay at the bottom of

a snug passage leading off the principal corridor of the west wing; and

was as remote from the stir and bustle of the more public part of the

house as the silent movements of Sir George's servant were from the

clumsy haste of the helpers whom the pressure of the moment had

compelled the landlord to call in.

The physician had taken his supper earlier, but was gourmet enough to

follow, now with an approving word, and now with a sigh, the different

stages of Sir George's meal. In public, a starched, dry man, the ideal

of a fashionable London doctor of the severer type, he was in private a

benevolent and easy friend; a judge of port, and one who commended it to

others; and a man of some weight in the political world. In his early

days he had been a mad doctor; and at Batson's he could still disconcert

the impertinent by a shrewd glance, learned and practised among those

unfortunates.

With such qualifications, Dr. Addington was not slow to perceive Sir

George's absence of mind; and presuming on old friendship--he had

attended the younger man from boyhood--he began to probe for the cause.

Raising his half-filled glass to the light, and rolling the last

mouthful on his tongue, 'I am afraid,' he said, 'that what I heard in

town was true?'

'What was it?' Soane asked, rousing himself.

'I heard, Sir George, that my Lady Hazard had proved an inconstant

mistress of late?'

'Yes. Hang the jade! And yet--we could not live without her!'

'They are saying that you lost three thousand to my Lord March, the

night before you left town?'

'Halve it.'

'Indeed? Still--an expensive mistress?'

'Can you direct me to a cheap one?' Sir George said rather crustily.

'No. But doesn't it occur to you a wife with money--might be cheaper?'

the doctor asked with a twinkle in his eye.

Sir George shrugged his shoulders for answer, and turning from the

table--the servant had withdrawn--brushed the crumbs from his breeches,

and sat staring at the lire, his glass in his hand. 'I suppose--it will

come to that presently,' he said, sipping his wine.

'Very soon,' the doctor answered, drily, 'unless I am in error.'

Sir George looked at him. 'Come, doctor!' he said. 'You know something!

What is it?'

'I know that it is town talk that you lost seven thousand last season;

and God knows how many thousands in the three seasons before it!'

'Well, one must live,' Sir George answered lightly.

'But not at that rate.'

'In that state of life, doctor, into which God has been pleased--you

know the rest.'

'In that state of life into which the devil!' retorted the doctor with

heat.' If I thought that my boy would ever grow up to do nothing better

than--than--but there, forgive me. I grow warm when I think of the old

trees, and the old pictures, and the old Halls that you fine gentlemen

at White's squander in a night! Why, I know of a little place in

Oxfordshire, which, were it mine by inheritance--as it is my

brother's--I would not stake against a Canons or a Petworth!'

'And Stavordale would stake it against a bootjack--rather than not play

at all!' Sir George answered complacently.

'The more fool he!' snapped the doctor.

'So I think.'

'Eh?'

'So I think,' Sir George answered coolly. 'But one must be in the

fashion, doctor.'

'One must be in the Fleet!' the doctor retorted. 'To be in the fashion

you'll ruin yourself! If you have not done it already,' he continued

with something like a groan. 'There, pass the bottle. I have not

patience with you. One of these fine days you will awake to find

yourself in the Rules.'

'Doctor,' Soane answered, returning to his point, 'you know something.'

'Well--'

'You know why my lord sent for me.'

'And what if I do?' Dr. Addington answered, looking thoughtfully through

his wine. 'To tell the truth, I do, Sir George, I do, and I wish I did

not; for the news I have is not of the best. There is a claimant to that

money come forward. I do not know his name or anything about him; but

his lordship thinks seriously of the matter. I am not sure,' the doctor

continued, with his professional air, and as if his patient in the other

room were alone in his mind, 'that the vexation attending it has not

precipitated this attack. I'm not--at all--sure of it. And Lady Chatham

certainly thinks so.'

Sir George was some time silent. Then, with a fair show of indifference,

'And who is the claimant?' he asked.

'That I don't know,' Dr. Addington answered. 'He purports, I suppose, to

be your uncle's heir. But I do know that his attorney has forwarded

copies of documents to his lordship, and that Lord Chatham thinks the

matter of serious import.'

'The worse for me,' said Sir George, forcing a yawn. 'As you say,

doctor, your news is not of the best.'

'Nor, I hope, of the worst,' the physician answered with feeling. 'The

estate is entailed?'

Sir George shook his head. 'No,' he said. 'It is mortgaged. But that is

not the same thing.'

The doctor's face showed genuine distress. 'Ah, my friend, you should

not have done that,' he said reproachfully. 'A property that has been in

the family--why, since--'

'My great-grandfather the stay-maker's time,' Sir George answered

flippantly, as he emptied his glass. 'You know Selwyn's last upon that?

It came by bones, and it is going by bones.'

'God forbid!' said the physician, rubbing his gold-rimmed glasses with

an air of kindly vexation, not unmixed with perplexity. 'If I thought

that my boy would ever come to--to--'

'Buzz the gold-headed cane?' Sir George said gravely. 'Yes, doctor, what

would you do?'

But the physician, instead of answering, looked fixedly at him, nodded,

and turned away. 'You would deceive some, Sir George,' he said quietly,

'but you do not deceive me. When a man who is not jocular by nature

makes two jokes in as many minutes, he is hard hit.'

'Insight?' drawled Sir George lazily. 'Or instinct.'

'Experience among madmen--some would call it,' the doctor retorted with

warmth. 'But it is not. It is what you fine gentlemen at White's have no

part in! Good feeling.'

'Ah!' said Soane; and then a different look came into his face. He

stooped and poked the fire. 'Pardon me, doctor,' he said soberly. 'You

are a good fellow. It is--well, of course, it's a blow. If your news be

true, I stand to lose fifty thousand; and shall be worth about as much

as a Nabob spends yearly on his liveries.'

Dr. Addington, in evident distress, thrust back his wig. 'Is it as bad

as that?' he said. 'Dear, dear, I did not dream of this.'

'Nor I,' Sir George said drily. 'Or I should not have betted with

March.'

'And the old house!' the doctor continued, more and more moved. 'I don't

know one more comfortable.'

'You must buy it,' said Soane. 'I have spared the timber, and there is a

little of the old wine left.'

'Dear, dear!' the doctor answered; and his sigh said more than the

words. Apparently it was also more effectual in moving Sir George. He

rose and began to pace the room, choosing a part where his face evaded

the light of the candles that stood in heavy silver sconces on the dark

mahogany. Presently he laughed, but the laugh was mirthless.

'It is quite the Rake's Progress,' he said, pausing before one of

Hogarth's prints which hung on the wall. 'Perhaps I have been a little

less of a fool and a little more of a rogue than my prototype; but the

end is the same. D----n me, I am sorry for the servants, doctor--though

I dare swear that they have robbed me right and left. It is a pity that

clumsy fool, Dunborough, did not get home when he had the chance the

other day.'

The doctor took snuff, put up his box, filled his glass and emptied it

before he spoke. Then, 'No, no, Sir George, it has not come to that

yet,' he said heartily. 'There is only one thing for it now. They must

do something for you.' And he also rose to his feet, and stood with his

back to the fire, looking at his companion.

'Who?' Soane asked, though he knew very well what the other meant.

'The Government,' said the doctor. 'The mission to Turin is likely to be

vacant by-and-by. Or, if that be too much to ask, a consulship, say at

Genoa or Leghorn, might be found, and serve for a stepping-stone to

Florence. Sir Horace has done well there, and you--'

'Might toady a Grand-duke and bear-lead sucking peers--as well as

another!' Soane answered with a gesture of disgust. 'Ugh, one might as

well be Thomasson and ruin boys. No, doctor, that will not do. I had

sooner hang myself at once, as poor Fanny Braddock did at Bath, or put a

pistol to my head like Bland!'

'God forbid!' said the doctor solemnly.

Sir George shrugged his shoulders, but little by little his face lost

its hardness. 'Yes, God forbid,' he said gently. 'But it is odd. There

is poor Tavistock with a pretty wife and two children, and another

coming; and Woburn and thirty thousand a year to inherit, broke his neck

last week with the hounds; and I, who have nothing to inherit, why

nothing hurts me!'

Dr. Addington disregarded his words.

'They must do something for you at home then,' he said, firmly set on

his benevolent designs. 'In the Mint or the Customs. There should not be

the least difficulty about it. You must speak to his lordship, and it is

not to be supposed that he will refuse.'

Sir George grunted, and might have expressed his doubts, but at that

moment the sound of voices raised in altercation penetrated the room

from the passage. A second later, while the two stood listening,

arrested by the noise, the door was thrown open with such violence that

the candles flickered in the draught. Two persons appeared on the

threshold, the one striving to make his way in, the other to resist

the invasion.

The former was our friend Mr. Fishwick, who having succeeded in pushing

past his antagonist, stared round the room with a mixture of

astonishment and chagrin. 'But--this is _not_ his lordship's room!' he

cried. 'I tell you, I will see his lordship!' he continued. 'I have

business with him, and--' here his gaze alighted on Sir George, and he

stood confounded.

Dr. Addington took advantage of the pause. 'Watkins,' he said in an

awful voice, 'what is the meaning of this unmannerly intrusion? And who

is this person?'

'He persisted that he must see his lordship,' the servant, a sleek,

respectable man in black, answered. 'And rather than have words about it

at his lordship's door--which I would not for twice the likes of him!'

he added with a malevolent glance at the attorney--'I brought him here.

I believe he is mad. I told him it was out of the question, if he was

the king of England or my lord duke. But he would have it that he had an

appointment.'

'So I have!' cried Mr. Fishwick with heat and an excited gesture. 'I

have an appointment with Lord Chatham. I should have been with his

lordship at nine o'clock.'

'An appointment? At this time of night?' Dr. Addington returned with a

freezing mien. 'With Lord Chatham? And who may you please to be, sir,

who claim this privilege?'

'My name is Fishwick, sir, and I am an attorney,' our friend replied.

'A mad attorney?' Dr. Addington answered, affecting to hear him amiss.

'No more mad, sir, than you are!' Mr. Fishwick retorted, kindling at the

insinuation. 'Do you comprehend me, sir? I come by appointment. My lord

has been so good as to send for me, and I defy any one to close his

door on me!'

'Are you aware, sir,' said the doctor, frowning under his wig with the

port of an indignant Jupiter, 'what hour it is? It is ten o'clock.'

'It may be ten o'clock or it may be eleven o'clock,' the attorney

answered doggedly. 'But his lordship has honoured me with a summons, and

see him I must. I insist on seeing him.'

'You may insist or not as you please,' said Dr. Addington

contemptuously. 'You will not see him. Watkins,' he continued, 'what is

this cock-and-bull story of a summons? Has his lordship sent for

any one?'

'About nine o'clock he said that he would see Sir George Soane if he was

in the house,' Watkins answered. 'I did not know that Sir George was

here, and I sent the message to his apartments by one of the men.'

'Well,' said Dr. Addington in his coldest manner, 'what has that to do

with this gentleman?'

'I think I can tell you,' Sir George said, intervening with a smile.

'His party have the rooms that were reserved for me. And doubtless by an

error the message which was intended for me was delivered to him.'

'Ah!' said Dr. Addington gruffly. 'I understand.'

Alas! poor Mr. Fishwick understood too; and his face, as the truth

dawned on him, was one of the most comical sights ever seen. A nervous,

sanguine man, the attorney had been immensely elated by the honour paid

to him; he had thought his cause won and his fortune made. The downfall

was proportionate: in a second his pomp and importance were gone, and he

stood before them timidly rubbing one hand on another. Yet even in the

ridiculous position in which the mistake placed him--in the wrong and

with all his heroics wasted--he retained a sort of manliness. 'Dear me,

dear me,' he said, his jaw fallen, 'I--Your most humble servant, sir! I

offer a thousand apologies for the intrusion! But having business with

his lordship, and receiving the message,' he continued in a tone of

pathetic regret, 'it was natural I should think it was intended for me.

I can say no more than that I humbly crave pardon for intruding on you,

honourable gentlemen, over your wine.'

Dr. Addington bowed stiffly; he was not the man to forgive a liberty.

But Sir George had a kindly impulse. In spite of himself, he could not

refrain from liking the little man who so strangely haunted his steps.

There was a spare glass on the table. He pushed it and the bottle

towards Mr. Fishwick.

'There is no harm done,' he said kindly. 'A glass of wine with you,

sir.'

Mr. Fishwick in his surprise and nervousness, dropped his hat, picked

it up, and dropped it again; finally he let it lie while he filled his

glass. His hand shook; he was unaccountably agitated. But he managed to

acquit himself fairly, and with a 'Greatly honoured, Sir George.

Good-night, gentlemen,' he disappeared.

'What is his business with Lord Chatham?' Dr. Addington asked rather

coldly. It was plain that he did not approve of Sir George's

condescension.

'I have no notion,' Soane answered, yawning. 'But he has got a very

pretty girl with him. Whether she is laying traps for Dunborough--'

'The viscountess's son?'

'Just so--I cannot say. But that is the old harridan's account of it.'

'Is she here too?'

'Lord, yes; and they had no end of a quarrel downstairs. There is a

story about the girl and Dunborough. I'll tell it you some time.'

'I began to think--he was here on your business,' said the doctor.

'He? Oh, no,' Sir George answered without suspicion, and turned to look

for his candlestick. 'I suppose that he is in the case I am in--wants

something and comes to the fountain of honour to get it.'

And bidding the other good-night, he went to bed; not to sleep, but to

lie awake and reckon and calculate, and add a charge here to interest

there, and set both against income, and find nothing remain.

He had sneered at the old home because it had been in his family only so

many generations. But there is this of evil in an old house--it is bad

to live in, but worse to part from. Sir George, straining his eyes in

the darkness, saw the long avenue of elms and the rooks' nests, and the

startled birds circling overhead; and at the end of the vista the wide

doorway, _aed. temp._ Jac. 1--saw it all more lucidly than he had seen

it since the September morning when he traversed it, a boy of fourteen,

with his first gun on his arm. Well, it was gone; but he was Sir George,

macaroni and fashionable, arbiter of elections at White's, and great at

Almack's, more powerful in his sphere than a belted earl! But, then,

that was gone too, with the money--and--and what was left? Sir George

groaned and turned on his pillow and thought of Bland and Fanny

Braddock. He wondered if any one had ever left the Castle by the suicide

door, and, to escape his thoughts, lit a candle and read 'La Belle

Héloïse,' which he had in his mail.

CHAPTER XII

JULIA

It is certain that if Sir George Soane had borne any other name, the

girl, after the conversation which had taken place between them on the

dingy staircase at Oxford, must have hated him. There is a kind of

condescension from man to woman, in which the man says, 'My good girl,

not for me--but do take care of yourself,' which a woman of the least

pride finds to be of all modes of treatment the most shameful and the

most humiliating. The masterful overtures of such a lover as Dunborough,

who would take all by storm, are still natural, though they lack

respect; a woman would be courted, and sometimes would be courted in the

old rough fashion. But, for the other mode of treatment, she may be a

Grizel, or as patient--a short course of that will sharpen not only her

tongue, but her fingernails.

Yet this, or something like it, Julia, who was far from being the most

patient woman in the world, had suffered at Sir George's hands;

believing at the time that he was some one else, or, rather, being

ignorant then and for just an hour afterwards that such a person as Sir

George Soane existed. Enlightened on this point and on some others

connected with it (which a sagacious reader may divine for himself) the

girl's first feeling in face of the astonishing future opening before

her had been one of spiteful exultation. She hated him, and he would

suffer. She hated him with all her heart and strength, and he would

suffer. There were balm and sweet satisfaction in the thought.

But presently, dwelling on the matter, she began to relent. The very

completeness of the revenge which she had in prospect robbed her of her

satisfaction. The man was so dependent on her, so deeply indebted to

her, must suffer so much by reason of her, that the maternal instinct,

which is said to be developed even in half-grown girls, took him under

its protection; and when that scene occurred in the public room of the

Castle Inn and he stood forward to shield her (albeit in an arrogant,

careless, half-insolent way that must have wounded her in other

circumstances), she was not content to forgive him only--with a smile;

but long after her companion had fallen asleep, Julia sat brooding over

the fire, her arms clasped about her knees; now reading the embers with

parted lips and shining eyes, and now sighing gently--for 'la femme

propose, mais Dieu dispose.' And nothing is certain.

After this, it may not have been pure accident that cast her in Sir

George's way when he strolled out of the house next morning. A coach had

come in, and was changing horses before the porch. The passengers were

moving to and fro before the house, grooms and horse-boys were shouting

and hissing, the guard was throwing out parcels. Soane passed through

the bustle, and, strolling to the end of the High Street, saw the girl

seated on a low parapet of the bridge that, near the end of the inn

gardens, carries the Salisbury road over the Kennet. She wore a plain

riding-coat, such as ladies then affected when they travelled and would

avoid their hoops and patches. A little hood covered her hair, which,

undressed and unpowdered, hung in a club behind; and she held up a plain

fan between her complexion and the sun.

Her seat, though quiet and remote from the bustle--for the Salisbury

road is the less frequented of the two roads--was in view of the gates

leading to the Inn; and her extreme beauty, which was that of expression

as well as feature, made her a mark for a dozen furtive eyes, of which

she affected to be unconscious. But as soon as Sir George's gaze fell on

her, her look met his frankly and she smiled; and then again her eyes

dropped and studied the road before her, and she blushed in a way Soane

found enchanting. He had been going into the town, but he turned and

went to her and sat down on the bridge beside her, almost with the air

of an old acquaintance. He opened the conversation by saying that it was

a prodigious fine day; she agreed. That the Downs were uncommonly

healthy; she said the same. And then there was silence.

'Well?' he said after a while; and he looked at her.

'Well?' she answered in the same tone. And she looked at him over the

edge of her fan, her eyes laughing.

'How did you sleep, child?' he asked; while he thought, 'Lord! How

handsome she is!'

'Perfectly, sir,' she answered, 'thanks to your excellency's kindness.'

Her voice as well as her eyes laughed. He stared at her, wondering at

the change in her. 'You are lively this morning,' he said.

'I cannot say the same of you, Sir George,' she answered. 'When you came

out, and before you saw me, your face was as long as a coach-horse's.'

Sir George winced. He knew where his thoughts had been. 'That was before

I saw you, child,' he said. 'In your company--'

'You are scarcely more lively,' she answered saucily. 'Do you flatter

yourself that you are?'

Sir George was astonished. He was aware that the girl lacked neither wit

nor quickness; but hitherto he had found her passionate at one time,

difficult and _farouche_ at another, at no time playful or coquettish.

Here, and this morning, she did not seem to be the same woman. She spoke

with ease, laughed with the heart as well as the lips, met his eyes with

freedom and without embarrassment, countered his sallies with

sportiveness--in a word, carried herself towards him as though she were

an equal; precisely as Lady Betty and the Honourable Fanny carried

themselves. He stared at her.

And she, seeing the look, laughed in pure happiness, knowing what was in

his mind, and knowing her own mind very well. 'I puzzle you?' she said.

'You do,' he answered. 'What are you doing here? And why have you taken

up with that lawyer? And why are you dressed, child--'

'Like this?' she said, rising, and sitting down again. 'You think it is

above my station?'

He shrugged his shoulders, declining to put his views into words;

instead, 'What does it all mean?' he said.

'What do you suppose?' she asked, averting her eyes for the first time.

'Well, of course--you may be here to meet Dunborough,' he answered

bluntly. 'His mother seems to think that he is going to marry you.'

'And what do you think, sir?'

'I?' said Sir George, reverting to the easy, half-insolent tone she

hated. And he tapped his Paris snuff-box and spoke with tantalising

slowness. 'Well, if that be the case, I should advise you to see that

Mr. Dunborough's surplice--covers a parson.'

She sat still and silent for a full half-minute after he had spoken.

Then she rose without a word, and without looking at him; and, walking

away to the farther end of the bridge, sat down there with her shoulder

turned to him.

Soane felt himself rebuffed, and for a moment let his anger get the

better of him. 'D--n the girl, I only spoke for her own good!' he

muttered; then reflecting that if he followed her she might remove again

and make him ridiculous, he rose to go into the house. But apparently

that was not what she wished. He was scarcely on his legs before she

turned her head, saw that he was going, and imperiously beckoned to him.

He went to her, wondering as much at her audacity as her pettishness.

When he reached her, 'Sir George,' she said, retaining her seat and

looking gravely at him, while he stood before her like a boy undergoing

correction, 'you have twice insulted me--once in Oxford when, believing

Mr. Dunborough's hurt lay at my door, I was doing what I could to repair

it; and again to-day. If you wish to see more of me, you must refrain

from doing so a third time. You know, a third time--you know what a

third time does. And more--one moment, if you please. I must ask you to

treat me differently. I make no claim to be a gentlewoman, but my

condition is altered. A relation has left me a--a fortune, and when I

met you here last night I was on my way to Bath to claim it.'

Sir George passed from the surprise into which the first part of this

speech had thrown him, to surprise still greater. At last, 'I am vastly

glad to hear it,' he said. 'For most of us it is easier to drop a

fortune than to find one.'

'Is it?' she said, and laughed musically, Then, moving her skirt to show

him that he might sit down, 'Well, I suppose it is. You have no

experience of that, I hope, sir?'

He nodded.

'The gaming-table?' she said.

'Not this time,' he answered, wondering why he told her. 'I had a

grandfather, who made a will. He had a fancy to wrap up a bombshell in

the will. Now--the shell has burst.'

'I am sorry,' she said; and was silent a moment. At length, 'Does it

make--any great difference to you?' she asked naïvely.

Sir George looked at her as if he were studying her appearance. Then,

'Yes, child, it does,' he said.

She hesitated, but seemed to make up her mind. 'I have never asked you

where you live,' she said softly; 'have you no house in the country?'

He suppressed something between an oath and a groan. 'Yes,' he said, 'I

have a house.'

'What do you call it?'

'Estcombe Hall. It is in Wiltshire, not far from here.'

She looked at her fan, and idly flapped it open, and again closed it in

the air. 'Is it a fine place?' she said carelessly.

'I suppose so,' he answered, wincing.

'With trees, and gardens, and woods?'

'Yes.'

'And water?'

'Yes. There is a river.'

'You used to fish in it as a boy?'

'Yes.'

'Estcombe! it is a pretty name. And shall you lose it?'

But that was too much for Soane's equanimity. 'Oh, d--n the girl!' he

cried, rising abruptly, but sitting down again. Then, as she recoiled,

in anger real or affected, 'I beg your pardon,' he said formally.

'But--it is not the custom to ask so many questions upon

private matters.'

'Really, Sir George?' she said, receiving the information gravely, and

raising her eyebrows. 'Then Estcombe is your Mr. Dunborough, is it?'

'If you will,' he said, almost sullenly.

'But you love it,' she answered, studying her fan, 'and I do not

love--Mr. Dunborough!'

Marvelling at her coolness and the nimbleness of her wit, he turned so

that he looked her full in the face. 'Miss Masterson,' he said, 'you are

too clever for me. Will you tell me where you learned so much? 'Fore

Gad, you might have been at Mrs. Chapone's, the way you talk.'

'Mrs. Chapone's?' she said.

'A learned lady,' he explained.

'I was at a school,' she answered simply, 'until I was fifteen. A

godfather, whom I never knew, left money to my father to be spent on my

schooling.'

'Lord!' he said. 'And where were you at school?'

'At Worcester.'

'And what have you done since?--if I may ask.'

'I have been at home. I should have taught children, or gone into

service as a waiting-woman; but my father would keep me with him. Now I

am glad of it, as this money has come to me.'

'Lord! it is a perfect romance!' he exclaimed. And on the instant he

fancied that he had the key to the mystery, and her beauty. She was

illegitimate--a rich man's child! 'Gad, Mr. Richardson should hear of

it,' he continued with more than his usual energy. 'Pamela--why you

might be Pamela!'

'That if you please,' she said quickly, 'for certainly I shall never be

Clarissa.'

Sir George laughed. 'With such charms it is better not to be too sure!'

he answered. And he looked at her furtively and looked away again. A

coach bound eastwards came out of the gates; but it had little of his

attention, though he seemed to be watching the bustle. He was thinking

that if he sat much longer with this strange girl, he was a lost man.

And then again he thought--what did it matter? If the best he had to

expect was exile on a pittance, a consulship at Genoa, a governorship at

Guadeloupe, where would he find a more beautiful, a wittier, a gayer

companion? And for her birth--a fico! His great-grandfather had made

money in stays; and the money was gone! No doubt there would be gibing

at White's, and shrugging at Almack's; but a fico, too, for that--it

would not hurt him at Guadeloupe, and little at Genoa. And then on a

sudden the fortune of which she had talked came into his head, and he

smiled. It might be a thousand; or two, three, four, at most five

thousand. A fortune! He smiled and looked at her.

He found her gazing steadily at him, her chin on her hand. Being caught,

she reddened and looked, away. He took the man's privilege, and

continued to gaze, and she to flush; and presently, 'What are you

looking at?' she said, moving uneasily.

'A most beautiful face,' he answered, with the note of sincerity in his

voice which a woman's ear never fails to appreciate.

She rose and curtsied low, perhaps to hide the tell-tale pleasure in her

eyes. 'Thank you, sir,' she said. And she drew back as if she intended

to leave him.

'But you are not--you are not offended, Julia?'

'Julia?' she answered, smiling. 'No, but I think it is time I relieved

your Highness from attendance. For one thing, I am not quite sure

whether that pretty flattery was addressed to Clarissa--or to Pamela.

And for another,' she continued more coldly, seeing Sir George wince

under this first stroke--he was far from having his mind made up--'I see

Lady Dunborough watching us from the windows at the corner of the house.

And I would not for worlds relieve her ladyship's anxiety by seeming

unfaithful to her son.'

'You can be spiteful, then?' Soane said, laughing.

'I can--and grateful,' she answered. 'In proof of which I am going to

make a strange request, Sir George. Do not misunderstand it. And yet--it

is only that before you leave here--whatever be the circumstances under

which you leave--you will see me for five minutes.'

Sir George stared, bowed, and muttered 'Too happy.' Then observing, or

fancying he observed, that she was anxious to be rid of him, he took his

leave and went into the house.

For a man who had descended the stairs an hour before, hipped to the

last degree, with his mind on a pistol, it must be confessed that he

went up with a light step; albeit, in a mighty obfuscation, as Dr.

Johnson might have put it. A kinder smile, more honest eyes he swore he

had never seen, even in a plain face. Her very blushes, of which the

memory set his _blasé_ blood dancing to a faster time, were a character

in themselves. But--he wondered. She had made such advances, been so

friendly, dropped such hints--he wondered. He was fresh from the

masquerades, from Mrs. Cornely's assemblies, Lord March's converse, the

Chudleigh's fantasies; the girl had made an appointment--he wondered.

For all that, one thing was unmistakable. Life, as he went up the

stairs, had taken on another and a brighter colour; was fuller, brisker,

more generous. From a spare garret with one poor casement it had grown

in an hour into a palace, vague indeed, but full of rich vistas and rosy

distances and quivering delights. The corridor upstairs, which at his

going out had filled him with distaste--there were boots in it, and

water-cans--was now the Passage Beautiful; for he might meet her there.

The day which, when he rose, had lain before him dull and

monotonous--since Lord Chatham was too ill to see him, and he had no one

with whom to game--was now full-furnished with interest, and hung with

recollections--recollections of conscious eyes and the sweetest lips in

the world. In a word, Julia had succeeded in that which she had set

herself to do. Sir George might wonder. He was none the less in love.

CHAPTER XIII

A SPOILED CHILD

Julia was right in fancying that she saw Lady Dunborough's face at one

of the windows in the south-east corner of the house. Those windows

commanded both the Marlborough High Street and the Salisbury road,

welcomed alike the London and the Salisbury coach, overlooked the

loungers at the entrance to the town, and supervised most details of the

incoming and outgoing worlds. Lady Dunborough had not been up and about

half-an-hour before she remarked these advantages. In an hour her

ladyship was installed in that suite, which, though in the east wing,

was commonly reckoned to be one of the best in the house. Heaven knows

how she did it. There is a pertinacity, shameless and violent, which

gains its ends, be the crowd between never so dense. It is possible that

Mr. Smith would have ousted her had he dared. It is possible he had to

pay forfeit to the rightful tenants, and in private cursed her for an

old jade and a brimstone. But when a viscountess sits herself down in

the middle of a room and declines to budge, she cannot with decency be

taken up like a sack of hops and dumped in the passage.

Her ladyship, therefore, won, and had the pleasure of viewing from the

coveted window the scene between Julia and Sir George; a scene which

gave her the profoundest satisfaction. What she could not see--her eyes

were no longer all that they had been--she imagined. In five minutes

she had torn up the last rag of the girl's character, and proved her as

bad as the worst woman that ever rode down Cheapside in a cart. Lady

Dunborough was not mealy-mouthed, nor one of those who mince matters.

'What did I tell you?' she cried. 'She will be on with that stuck-up

before night, and be gone with morning. If Dunborough comes back he may

whistle for her!'

Mr. Thomasson did not doubt that her ladyship was right. But he spoke

with indifferent spirit. He had had a bad night, had lain anywhere, and

dressed nowhere, and was chilly and unkempt. Apart from the awe in which

he stood of her ladyship, he would have returned to Oxford by the first

coach that morning.

'Dear me!' Lady Dunborough announced presently. 'I declare he is leaving

her! Lord, how the slut ogles him! She is a shameless baggage if ever

there was one; and ruddled to the eyes, as I can see from here. I hope

the white may kill her! Well, I'll be bound it won't be long before he

is to her again! My fine gentleman is like the rest of them--a damned

impudent fellow!'

Mr. Thomasson turned up his eyes. 'There was something a little

odd--does not your lady think so?'--he ventured to say, 'in her taking

possession of Sir George's rooms as she did.'

'Did I not say so? Did I not say that very thing?'

'It seems to prove an understanding between them before they met here

last night.'

'I'll take my oath on it!' her ladyship cried with energy. Then in a

tone of exultation she continued, 'Ah! here he is again, as I thought!

And come round by the street to mask the matter! He has down beside her

again. Oh, he is limed, he is limed!' my lady continued, as she searched

for her spying-glass, that she might miss no wit of the love-making.

The tutor was all complacence. 'It proves that your ladyship's

stratagem,' he said, 'was to the point last night.'

'Oh, Dunborough will live to thank me for that!' she answered.

'Gadzooks, he will! It is first come first served with these madams.

This will open his eyes if anything will.'

'Still--it is to be hoped she will leave before he returns,' Mr.

Thomasson said, with a slight shiver of anticipation. He knew Mr.

Dunborough's temper.

'Maybe,' my lady answered. 'But even if she does not--' There she broke

of, and stood peering through the window. And suddenly, 'Lord's sake!'

she shrieked, 'what is this?'

The fury of her tone, no less than the expletive--which we have ventured

to soften--startled Mr. Thomasson to his feet. Approaching the window in

trepidation--for her ladyship's wrath was impartial, and as often

alighted on the wrong head as the right--the tutor saw that she had

dropped her quizzing-glass, and was striving with shaking hands--but

without averting her eyes from the scene outside--to recover and

readjust it. Curious as well as alarmed, he drew up to her, and, looking

over her shoulder, discerned the seat and Julia; and, alas! seated on

the bench beside Julia, not Sir George Soane, as my lady's indifferent

sight, prompted by her wishes, had persuaded her, but Mr. Dunborough!

The tutor gasped. 'Oh, dear!' he said, looking round, as if for a way of

retreat. 'This is--this is most unfortunate.'

My lady in her wrath did not heed him. Shaking her fist at her

unconscious son, 'You rascal!' she cried. 'You paltry, impudent fellow!

You would do it before my eyes, would you? Oh, I would like to have the

brooming of you! And that minx! Go down you,' she continued, turning

fiercely on the trembling, wretched Thomasson--'go down this instant,

sir, and--and interrupt them! Don't stand gaping there, but down to

them, booby, without the loss of a moment! And bring him up before the

word is said. Bring him up, do you hear?'

'Bring him up?' said Mr. Thomasson, his breath coming quickly. 'I?'

'Yes, you! Who else?'

'I--I--but, my dear lady, he is--he can be very violent,' the unhappy

tutor faltered, his teeth chattering, and his cheek flabby with fright.

'I have known him--and perhaps it would be better, considering my sacred

office, to--to--'

'To what, craven?' her ladyship cried furiously.

'To leave him awhile--I mean to leave him and presently--'

Lady Dunborough's comment was a swinging blow, which the tutor hardly

avoided by springing back. Unfortunately this placed her ladyship

between him and the door; and it is not likely that he would have

escaped her cane a second time, if his wits, and a slice of good

fortune, had not come to his assistance. In the midst of his palpitating

'There, there, my lady! My dear good lady!' his tune changed on a sudden

to 'See; they are parting! They are parting already. And--and I think--I

really think--indeed, my lady, I am sure that she has refused him! She

has not accepted him?'

'Refused him!' Lady Dunborough ejaculated in scorn. Nevertheless she

lowered the cane and, raising her glass, addressed herself to the

window. 'Not accepted him? Bosh, man!'

'But if Sir George had proposed to her before?' the tutor suggested.

'There--oh, he is coming in! He has--he has seen us.'

It was too true. Mr. Dunborough, approaching the door with a lowering

face, had looked up as if to see what witnesses there were to his

discomfiture. His eyes met his mother's. She shook her fist at him. 'Ay,

he has,' she said, her tone more moderate. 'And, Lord, it must be as you

say! He is in a fine temper, if I am any judge.'

'I think,' said Mr. Thomasson, looking round, 'I had better--better

leave--your ladyship to see him alone.'

'No,' said my lady firmly.

'But--but Mr. Dunborough,' the tutor pleaded, 'may like to see you

alone. Yes, I am sure I had better go.'

'No,' said my lady more decisively; and she laid her hand on the hapless

tutor's arm.

'But--but if your ladyship is afraid of--of his violence,' Mr. Thomasson

stuttered, 'it will be better, surely, for me to call some--some of the

servants.'

'Afraid?' Lady Dunborough cried, supremely contemptuous. 'Do you think I

am afraid of my own son? And such a son! A poor puppet,' she continued,

purposely raising her voice as a step sounded outside, and Mr.

Dunborough, flinging open the door, appeared like an angry Jove on the

threshold, 'who is fooled by every ruddled woman he meets! Ay, sir, I

mean you! You! Oh, I am not to be browbeaten, Dunborough!' she went on;

'and I will trouble you not to kick my furniture, you unmannerly puppy.

And out or in's no matter, but shut the door after you.'

Mr. Dunborough was understood to curse everybody; after which he fell

into the chair that stood next the door, and, sticking his hands into

his breeches-pockets, glared at my lady, his face flushed and sombre.

'Hoity-toity! are these manners?' said she. 'Do you see this reverend

gentleman?'

'Ay, and G--d--him!' cried Mr. Dunborough, with a very strong

expletive; 'but I'll make him smart for it by-and-by. You have ruined me

among you.'

'Saved you, you mean,' said Lady Dunborough with complacency, 'if you

are worth saving--which, mind you, I very much doubt, Dunborough.'

'If I had seen her last night,' he answered, drawing a long breath, 'it

would have been different. For that I have to thank you two. You sent me

to lie at Bath and thought you had got rid of me. But I am back, and

I'll remember it, my lady! I'll remember you too, you lying sneak!'

'You common, low fellow!' said my lady.

'Ay, talk away!' said he; and then no more, but stared at the floor

before him, his jaw set, and his brow as black as a thunder-cloud. He

was a powerful man, and, with that face, a dangerous man. For he was

honestly in love; the love was coarse, brutal, headlong, a passion to

curse the woman who accepted it; but it was not the less love for that.

On the contrary, it was such a fever as fills the veins with fire and

drives a man to desperate things; as was proved by his next words.

'You have ruined me among you,' he said, his tone dull and thick, like

that of a man in drink. 'If I had seen her last night, there is no

knowing but what she would have had me. She would have jumped at it. You

tell me why not! But she is different this morning. There is a change in

her. Gad, my lady,' with a bitter laugh, 'she is as good a lady as you,

and better! And I'd have used her gently. Now I shall carry her off. And

if she crosses me I will wring her handsome neck!'

It is noticeable that he did not adduce any reason why the night had

changed her. Only he had got it firmly into his head that, but for the

delay they had caused, all would be well. Nothing could move him

from this.

'Now I shall run away with her,' he repeated.

'She won't go with you,' my lady cried with scorn.

'I sha'n't ask her,' he answered. 'When there is no choice she will come

to it. I tell you I shall carry her off. And if I am taken and hanged

for it, I'll be hanged at Papworth--before your window.'

'You poor simpleton!' she said. 'Go home to your father.'

'All right, my lady,' he answered, without lifting his eyes from the

carpet. 'Now you know. It will be your doing. I shall force her off, and

if I am taken and hanged I will be hanged at Papworth. You took fine

pains last night, but I'll take pains to-day. If I don't have her I

shall never have a wife. But I will have her.'

'Fools cry for the moon,' said my lady. 'Any way, get out of my room.

You are a fine talker, but I warrant you will take care of your neck.'

'I shall carry her off and marry her,' he repeated, his chin sunk on his

breast, his hand rattling the money in his pocket.

'It is a distance to Gretna,' she answered. 'You'll be nearer it outside

my door, my lad. So be stepping, will you? And if you take my advice,

you will go to my lord.'

'All right; you know,' he said sullenly. 'For that sneak there, if he

comes in my way, I'll break every bone in his body. Good-day, my lady.

When I see you again I will have Miss with me.'

'Like enough; but not Madam,' she retorted. 'You are not such a fool as

that comes to. And there is the Act besides!'

That was her parting shot; for all the feeling she had shown, from the

opening to the close of the interview, she might have been his worst

enemy. Yet after a fashion, and as a part of herself, she did love him;

which was proved by her first words after the door had closed upon him.

'Lord!' she said uneasily. 'I hope he will play no Ferrers tricks, and

disgrace us all. He is a black desperate fellow, is Dunborough, when he

is roused.'

The crestfallen tutor could not in a moment recover himself; but he

managed to say that he did not think Mr. Dunborough suspected Sir

George; and that even if he did, the men had fought once, in which case

there was less risk of a second encounter.

'You don't know him,' my lady answered, 'if you say that. But it is not

that I mean. He'll do some wild thing about carrying her off. From a boy

he would have his toy. I've whipped him till the blood ran, and he's

gone to it.'

'But without her consent,' said Mr. Thomasson, 'it would not be

possible.'

'I mistrust him,' the viscountess answered. 'So do you go and find this

baggage, and drop a word to her--to go in company you understand. Lord!

he might marry her that way yet. For once away she would have to marry

him--ay, and he to marry her to save his neck. And fine fools we

should look.'

'It's--it's a most surprising, wonderful thing she did not take him,'

said the tutor thoughtfully.

'It's God's mercy and her madness,' quoth the viscountess piously. 'She

may yet. And I would rather give you a bit of a living to marry her--ay,

I would, Thomasson--than be saddled with such a besom!'

Mr. Thomasson cast a sickly glance at her ladyship. The evening before,

when the danger seemed imminent, she had named two thousand pounds and a

living. Tonight, the living. To-morrow--what? For the living had been

promised all along and in any case. Whereas now, a remote and impossible

contingency was attached to it. Alas! the tutor saw very clearly that my

lady's promises were pie-crust, made to be broken.

She caught the look, but attributed it to another cause. 'What do you

fear, man?' she said. 'Sho! he is out of the house by this time.'

Mr. Thomasson would not have ventured far on that assurance, but he had

himself seen Mr. Dunborough leave the house and pass to the stables; and

anxious to escape for a time from his terrible patroness, he professed

himself ready. Knowing where the rooms, which the girl's party occupied,

lay, in the west wing, he did not call a servant, but went through the

house to them and knocked at the door.

He got no answer, so gently opened the door and peeped in. He discovered

a pleasant airy apartment, looking by two windows over a little grass

plot that flanked the house on that side, and lay under the shadow of

the great Druid mound. The room showed signs of occupancy--a lady's

cloak cast over a chair, a great litter of papers on the table. But for

the moment it was empty.

He was drawing back, satisfied with his survey, when he caught the sound

of a heavy tread in the corridor behind him. He turned; to his horror he

discerned Mr. Dunborough striding towards him, a whip in one hand, and

in the other a note; probably the note was for this very room. At the

same moment Mr. Dunborough caught sight of the tutor, and bore down on

him with a view halloa. Mr. Thomasson's hair rose, his knees shook under

him, he all but sank down where he was. Fortunately at the last moment

his better angel came to his assistance. His hand was still on the latch

of the door; to open it, to dart inside, and to shoot the bolt were the

work of a second. Trembling he heard Mr. Dunborough come up and slash

the door with his whip, and then, contented with this demonstration,

pass on, after shouting through the panels that the tutor need not

flatter himself--he would catch him by-and-by.

Mr. Thomasson devoutly hoped he would not; and, sweating at every pore,

sat down to recover himself. Though all was quiet, he suspected the

enemy of lying in wait; and rather than run into his arms was prepared

to stay where he was, at any risk of discovery by the occupants. Or

there might be another exit. Going to one of the windows to ascertain

this, he found that there was; an outside staircase of stone affording

egress to the grass plot. He might go that way; but no!--at the base of

the Druid mound he perceived a group of townsfolk and rustics staring at

the flank of the building--staring apparently at him. He recoiled; then

he remembered that Lord Chatham's rooms lay in that wing, and also

looked over the gardens. Doubtless the countryfolk were watching in the

hope that the great man would show himself at a window, or that, at the

worst, they might see the crumbs shaken from a tablecloth he had used.

This alone would have deterred the tutor from a retreat so public:

besides, he saw something which placed him at his ease. Beyond the group

of watchers he espied three people strolling at their leisure, their

backs towards him. His sight was better than Lady Dunborough's; and he

had no difficulty in making out the three to be Julia, her mother, and

the attorney. They were moving towards the Bath road. Freed from the

fear of interruption, he heaved a sigh of relief, and, choosing the most

comfortable chair, sat down on it.

It chanced to stand by the table, and on the table, as has been said,

lay a vast litter of papers. Mr. Thomasson's elbow rested on one. He

went to move it; in the act he read the heading: 'This is the last will

and testament of me Sir Anthony Cornelius Soane, baronet, of Estcombe

Hall, in the county of Wilts.'

'Tut-tut!' said the tutor. 'That is not Soane's will, that is his

grandfather's.' And between idleness and curiosity, not unmingled with

surprise, he read the will to the end. Beside it lay three or four

narrow slips; he examined these, and found them to be extracts from a

register. Apparently some one was trying to claim under the will; but

Mr. Thomasson did not follow the steps or analyse the pedigree--his mind

was engrossed by perplexity on another point. His thoughts might have

been summed up in the lines--

'Not that the things themselves are rich or rare,

The wonder's how the devil they got there'--

in a word, how came the papers to be in that room? 'These must be

Soane's rooms,' he muttered at last, looking about him. 'And yet--that's

a woman's cloak. And that old cowskin bag is not Sir George's. It is

odd. Ah! What is this?'

This was a paper, written and folded brief-wise, and indorsed:

'Statement of the Claimant's case for the worshipful consideration of

the Eight Honourable the Earl of Chatham and others the trustees of the

Estcombe Hall Estate. Without Prejudice.'

'So!' said the tutor. 'This may be intelligible.' And having assured

himself by a furtive glance through the window that the owners of the

room were not returning, he settled himself to peruse it. When he again

looked up, which was at a point about one-third of the way through the

document, his face wore a look of rapt, incredulous, fatuous

astonishment.

CHAPTER XIV

A GOOD MAN'S DILEMMA

Ten minutes later Mr. Thomasson slid back the bolt, and opening the

door, glanced furtively up and down the passage. Seeing no one, he came

out, closed the door behind him, and humming an air from the 'Buona

Figlinola,' which was then the fashion, returned slowly, and with

apparent deliberation, to the east wing. There he hastened to hide

himself in a small closet of a chamber, which he had that morning

secured on the second floor, and having bolted the door behind him, he

plumped down on the scanty bed, and stared at the wall, he was the prey

of a vast amazement.

'Jupiter!' he muttered at last, 'what a--a Pactolus I have missed! Three

months ago, two months ago, she would have gone on her knees to marry

me! And with all that money--Lord! I would have died Bishop of Oxford.

It is monstrous! Positively, I am fit to kill myself when I think

of it!'

He paused awhile to roll the morsel on the palate of his imagination,

and found that the pathos of it almost moved him to tears. But before

long he fell from the clouds to more practical matters. The secret was

his, but what was he going to do with it? Where make his market of it?

One by one he considered all the persons concerned. To begin with, there

was her ladyship. But the knowledge did not greatly affect the

viscountess, and he did not trust her. He dismissed the thought of

applying to her. It was the same with Dunborough; money or no money was

all one to him, he would take the girl if he could get her. He was

dismissed as equally hopeless. Soane came next; but Sir George either

knew the secret, or must know it soon; and though his was a case the

tutor pondered long, he discerned no profit he could claim from him.

Moreover, he had not much stomach for driving a bargain with the

baronet; so in the end Sir George too was set aside.

There remained only the Buona Figliuola--the girl herself. 'I might pay

my court to her,' the tutor thought, 'but she would have a spite against

me for last night's work, and I doubt I could not do much. To be sure, I

might put her on her guard against Dunborough, and trust to her

gratitude; but it is ten to one she would not believe me. Or I could let

him play his trick--if he is fool enough to put his neck in a noose--and

step in and save her at the last moment. Ah!' Mr. Thomasson continued,

looking up to the ceiling in a flabby ecstasy of appreciation, 'If I had

the courage! That were a game to play indeed, Frederick Thomasson!'

It was, but it was hazardous; and the schemer rose and walked the floor,

striving to discover a safer mode of founding his claim. He found none,

however; and presently, with a wry face, he took out a letter which he

had received on the eve of his departure from Oxford--a letter from a

dun, threatening process and arrest. The sum was one which a year's

stipend of a fat living would discharge; and until the receipt of the

letter the tutor, long familiar with embarrassment, had taken the matter

lightly. But the letter was to the point, and meant business--a spunging

house and the Fleet; and with the cold shade of the Rules in immediate

prospect, Mr. Thomasson saw himself at his wits' end. He thought and

thought, and presently despair bred in him a bastard courage.

Buoyed up by this he tried to picture the scene; the lonely road, the

carriage, the shrieking girl, the ruffians looking fearfully up and down

as they strove to silence her; and himself running to the rescue; as Mr.

Burchell ran with the big stick, in Mr. Goldsmith's novel, which he had

read a few months before. Then the struggle. He saw himself

knocked--well, pushed down; after all, with care, he might play a fine

part without much risk. The men might fly either at sight of him, or

when he drew nearer and added his shouts to the girl's cries; or--or

some one else might come up, by chance or summoned by the uproar! In a

minute it would be over; in a minute--and what a rich reward he

might reap.

Nevertheless he did not feel sure he would be able to do it. His heart

thumped, and his smile grew sickly, and he passed his tongue again and

again over his dry lips, as he thought of the venture. But do it or not

when the time came, he would at least give himself the chance. He would

attend the girl wherever she went, dog her, watch her, hang on her

skirts; so, if the thing happened, he would be at hand, and if he had

the courage, would save her.

'It should--it should stand me in a thousand!' he muttered, wiping his

damp brow, 'and that would put me on my legs.'

He put her gratitude at that; and it was a great sum, a rich bribe. He

thought of the money lovingly, and of the feat with trembling, and took

his hat and unlocked his door and went downstairs. He spied about him

cautiously until he learned that Mr. Dunborough had departed; then he

went boldly to the stables, and inquired and found that the gentleman

had started for Bristol in a post-chaise. 'In a middling black temper,'

the ostler added, 'saving your reverence's presence.'

That ascertained, the tutor needed no more. He knew that Dunborough, on

his way to foreign service, had lain ten days in Bristol, whistling for

a wind; that he had landed there also on his return, and made--on his

own authority--some queer friends there. Bristol, too, was the port for

the plantations; a slave-mart under the rose, with the roughest of all

the English seatown populations. There were houses at Bristol where

crimping was the least of the crimes committed; in the docks, where the

great ships, laden with sugar and tobacco, sailed in and out in their

seasons, lay sloops and skippers, ready to carry all comers, criminal

and victim alike, beyond the reach of the law. The very name gave Mr.

Thomasson pause; he could have done with Gretna--which Lord Hardwicke's

Marriage Act had lately raised to importance--or Berwick, or Harwich, or

Dover. But Bristol had a grisly sound. From Marlborough it lay no more

than forty miles away by the Chippenham and Marshfield road; a

post-chaise and four stout horses might cover the distance in

four hours.

He felt, as he sneaked into the house, that the die was cast. The other

intended to do it then. And that meant--'Oh, Lord,' he muttered, wiping

his brow, 'I shall never dare! If he is there himself, I shall never

dare!' As he crawled upstairs he went hot one moment and shivered the

next; and did not know whether he was glad or sorry that the chance

would be his to take.

Fortunately, on reaching the first floor he remembered that Lady

Dunborough had requested him to convey her compliments to Dr. Addington,

with an inquiry how Lord Chatham did. The tutor felt that a commonplace

interview of this kind would settle his nerves; and having learned the

position of Dr. Addington's apartments, he found his way down the snug

passage of which we know and knocked at the door. A voice, disagreeably

raised, was speaking on the other side of the door, but paused at the

sound of his knock. Some one said 'Come in,' and he entered.

He found Dr. Addington standing on the hearth, stiff as a poker, and

swelling with dignity. Facing him stood Mr. Fishwick. The attorney,

flustered and excited, cast a look at Mr. Thomasson as if his entrance

were an added grievance; but that done, went on with his complaint.

'I tell you, sir,' he said, 'I do not understand this. His lordship was

able to travel yesterday, and last evening he was well enough to see Sir

George Soane.'

'He did not see him,' the physician answered stiffly. There is no class

which extends less indulgence to another than the higher grade of

professional men to the lower grade. While to Sir George Mr. Fishwick

was an odd little man, comic, and not altogether inestimable, to Dr.

Addington he was an anathema.

'I said only, sir, that he was well enough to see him,' the lawyer

retorted querulously. 'Be that as it may, his lordship was not seriously

ill yesterday. To-day I have business of the utmost importance with him,

and am willing to wait upon him at any hour. Nevertheless you tell me

that I cannot see him to-day, nor to-morrow--'

'Nor in all probability the next day,' the doctor answered grimly.

Mr. Fishwick's voice rose almost to a shriek. 'Nor the next day?' he

cried.

'No, nor the next day, so far as I can judge.'

'But I must see him! I tell you, sir, I must see him,' the lawyer

ejaculated. 'I have the most important business with him!'

'The most important?'

'The most important!'

'My dear sir,' Dr. Addington said, raising his hand and clearly near the

end of his patience, 'my answer is that you shall see him--when he is

well enough to be seen, and chooses to see you, and not before! For

myself, whether you see him now or never see him, is no business of

mine. But it _is_ my business to be sure that his lordship does not risk

a life which is of inestimable value to his country.'

'But--but yesterday he was well enough to travel!' murmured the lawyer,

somewhat awed. 'I--I do not like this!'

The doctor looked at the door.

'I--I believe I am being kept from his lordship!' Mr. Fishwick

persisted, stuttering nervously. 'And there are people whose interest it

is to keep me from his lordship. I warn you, sir, that if anything

happens in the meantime--'

The doctor rang the bell.

'I shall hold you responsible!' Mr. Fishwick cried passionately. 'I

consider this a most mysterious illness. I repeat, I--'

But apparently that was the last straw. 'Mysterious?' the doctor cried,

his face purple with indignation. 'Leave the room, sir! You are not

sane, sir! By God, you ought to be shut up, sir! You ought not to be

allowed to go about. Do you think that you are the only person who wants

to see His Majesty's Minister? Here is a courier come to-day from His

Grace the Duke of Grafton, and to-morrow there will be a score, and a

king's messenger from His Majesty among them--and all this trouble is

given by a miserable, little, paltry, petti--Begone, sir, before I say

too much!' he continued trembling with anger. And then to the servant,

'John, the door! the door! And see that this person does not trouble me

again. Be good enough to communicate in writing, sir, if you have

anything to say.'

With which poor Mr. Fishwick was hustled out, protesting but not

convinced. It is seldom the better side of human nature that lawyers

see; nor is an attorney's office, or a barrister's chamber, the soil in

which a luxuriant crop of confidence is grown. In common with many

persons of warm feelings, but narrow education, Mr. Fishwick was ready

to believe on the smallest evidence--or on no evidence at all--that the

rich and powerful were leagued against his client; that justice, if he

were not very sharp, would be denied him; that the heavy purse had a

knack of outweighing the righteous cause, even in England and in the

eighteenth century. And the fact that all his hopes were staked on this

case, that all his resources were embarked in it, that it had fallen, as

it were, from heaven into his hands--wherefore the greater the pity if

things went amiss--rendered him peculiarly captious and impracticable.

After this every day, nay, every hour, that passed without bringing him

to Lord Chatham's presence augmented his suspense and doubled his

anxiety. To be put off, not one day, but two days, three days--what

might not happen in three days!--was a thing intolerable, insufferable;

a thing to bring the heavens down in pity on his head! What wonder if he

rebelled hourly; and being routed, as we have seen him routed, muttered

dark hints in Julia's ear, and, snubbed in that quarter also, had no

resource but to shut himself up in his sleeping-place, and there brood

miserably over his suspicions and surmises?

Even when the lapse of twenty-four hours brought the swarm of couriers,

messengers, and expresses which Dr. Addington had foretold; when the

High Street of Marlborough--a name henceforth written on the page of

history--became but a slowly moving line of coaches and chariots bearing

the select of the county to wait on the great Minister; when the little

town itself began to throb with unusual life, and to take on airs of

fashion, by reason of the crowd that lay in it; when the Duke of

Grafton himself was reported to be but a stage distant, and there

detained by the Earl's express refusal to see him; when the very _KING_,

it was rumoured, was coming on the same business; when, in a word, it

became evident that the eyes of half England were turned to the Castle

Inn at Marlborough, where England's great statesman lay helpless, and

gave no sign, though the wheels of state creaked and all but stood

still--even then Mr. Fishwick refused to be satisfied, declined to be

comforted. In place of viewing this stir and bustle, this coming and

going as a perfect confirmation of Dr. Addington's statement, and a

proof of his integrity, he looked askance at it. He saw in it a

demonstration of the powers ranked against him and the principalities he

had to combat; he felt, in face of it, how weak, how poor, how

insignificant he was; and at one time despaired, and at another was in a

frenzy, at one time wearied Julia with prophecies of treachery, at

another poured his forebodings into the more sympathetic bosom of the

elder woman. The reader may laugh; but if he has ever staked his all on

a cast, if he has taken up a hand of twelve trumps, only to hear the

ominous word 'misdeal!' he will find something in Mr. Fishwick's

attitude neither unnatural nor blameworthy.

CHAPTER XV

AMORIS INTEGRATIO

During the early days of the Minister's illness, when, as we have seen,

all the political world of England were turning their coaches and six

towards the Castle Inn, it came to be the custom for Julia to go every

morning to the little bridge over the Kennet, thence to watch the

panorama of departures and arrivals; and for Sir George to join her

there without excuse or explanation, and as if, indeed, nothing in the

world were more natural. As the Earl's illness continued to detain all

who desired to see him--from the Duke of Grafton's parliamentary

secretary to the humblest aspirant to a tide-waitership--Soane was not

the only one who had time on his hands and sought to while it away in

the company of the fair. The shades of Preshute churchyard, which lies

in the bosom of the trees, not three bowshots from the Castle Inn and

hard by the Kennet, formed the chosen haunt of one couple. A second pair

favoured a seat situate on the west side of the Castle Mound, and well

protected by shrubs from the gaze of the vulgar. And there were others.

These Corydons, however, were at ease; they basked free from care in the

smiles of their Celias. But Soane, in his philandering, had to do with

black care that would be ever at his elbow; black care, that always when

he was not with Julia, and sometimes while he talked to her, would jog

his thoughts, and draw a veil before the future. The prospect of losing

Estcombe, of seeing the family Lares broken and cast out, and the

family stem, tender and young, yet not ungracious, snapped off short,

wrung a heart that belied his cold exterior. Moreover, when all these

had been sacrificed, he was his own judge how far he could without means

pursue the life which he was living. Suspense, anxiety, sordid

calculation were ever twitching his sleeve, and would have his

attention. Was the claim a valid claim, and must it prevail? If it

prevailed, how was he to live; and where, and on what? Would the

Minister grant his suit for a place or a pension? Should he prefer that

suit, or might he still by one deep night and one great hand at hazard

win back the thirty thousand guineas he had lost in five years?

Such questions, troubling him whether he would or no, and forcing

themselves on his attention when they were least welcome, ruffled at

last the outward composure on which as a man of fashion he plumed

himself. He would fall silent in Julia's company, and turning his eyes

from her, in unworthy forgetfulness, would trace patterns in the dust

with his cane, or stare by the minute together at the quiet stream that

moved sluggishly beneath them.

On these occasions she made no attempt to rouse him. But when he again

awoke to the world, to the coach passing in its cloud of dust, or the

gaping urchin, or the clang of the distant dinner-bell, he would find

her considering him with an enigmatical smile, that lay in the region

between amusement and pity; her shapely chin resting on her hand, and

the lace falling from the whitest wrist in the world. One day the smile

lasted so long, was so strange and dubious, and so full of a weird

intelligence, that it chilled him; it crept to his bones, disconcerted

him, and set him wondering. The uneasy questions that had haunted him at

the first, recurred. Why was this girl so facile, who had seemed so

proud, and whose full lips curved so naturally? Was she really won, or

was she with some hidden motive only playing with him? The notion was

not flattering to a fine gentleman's vanity; and in any other case he

would have given himself credit for conquest. But he had discovered that

this girl was not as other girls; and then there was that puzzling

smile. He had surprised it half a dozen times before.

'What is it?' he said abruptly, holding her eyes with his. This time he

was determined to clear up the matter.

'What?' she asked in apparent innocence. But she coloured, and he saw

that she understood.

'What does your smile mean, Pulcherrima?'

'Only--that I was reading your thoughts, Sir George,' she answered. 'And

they were not of me.'

'Impossible!' he said. I vow, Julia--'

'Don't vow,' she answered quickly, 'or when you vow--some other time--I

may not be able to believe you! You were not thinking of me, Sir George,

but of your home, and the avenue of which you told me, and the elms in

which the rooks lived, and the river in which you used to fish. You were

wondering to whom they would go, and who would possess them, and who

would be born in the room in which you were born, and who would die in

the room in which your father died.'

'You are a witch!' he said, a spasm of pain crossing his face.

'Thank you,' she answered, looking at him over her fan. 'Last time you

said, "D--n the girl!" It is clear I am improving your manners, Sir

George. You are now so polite, that presently you will consult me.'

So she could read his very thoughts! Could set him on the rack! Could

perceive when pain and not irritation underlay the oath or the

compliment. He was always discovering something new in her; something

that piqued his curiosity, and kept him amused. 'Suppose I consult you

now?' he said.

She swung her fan to and fro, playing with it childishly, looking at the

light through it, and again dropping it until it hung from her wrist by

a ribbon. 'As your highness pleases,' she said at last. 'Only I warn

you, that I am not the Bottle Conjuror.'

'No, for you are here, and he was not there,' Sir George answered,

affecting to speak in jest. 'But tell me; what shall I do in this case?

A claim is made against me.'

'It's the bomb,' she said, 'that burst, Sir George, is it not?'

'The same. The point is, shall I resist the claim, or shall I yield to

it? What do you say, ma'am?'

She tossed up her fan and caught it deftly, and looked to him for

admiration. Then, 'It depends,' she said. 'Is it a large claim?'

'It is a claim--for all I have,' he answered slowly. It was the first

time he had confessed that to any one, except to himself in the

night watches.

If he thought to touch her, he succeeded. If he had fancied her

unfeeling before, he did so no longer. She was red one minute and pale

the next, and the tears came into her eyes. 'Oh,' she cried, her breast

heaving, 'you should not have told me! Oh, why did you tell me?' And she

rose hurriedly as if to leave him; and then sat down again, the fan

quivering in her hand.

'But you said you would advise me!' he answered in surprise.

'I! Oh, no! no!' she cried.

'But you must!' he persisted, more deeply moved than he would show. 'I

want your advice. I want to know how the case looks to another. It is a

simple question. Shall I fight, Julia, or shall I yield to the claim?'

'Fight or yield?' she said, her voice broken by agitation. 'Shall you

fight or yield? You ask me?'

'Yes.'

'Then fight! Fight!' she answered, with surprising emotion: and she rose

again to her feet. And again sat down. 'Fight them to the last, Sir

George!' she cried breathlessly. 'Let the creatures have nothing! Not a

penny! Not an acre!'

'But--if it is a righteous claim?' he said, amazed at her excitement.

'Righteous?' she answered passionately. 'How can a claim be righteous

that takes all that a man has?'

He nodded, and studied the road awhile, thinking less of her advice than

of the strange fervour with which she had given it. At the end of a

minute he was surprised to hear her laugh. He felt hurt, and looked up

to learn the reason; and was astounded to find her smiling at him as

lightly and gaily as if nothing had occurred to interrupt her most

whimsical mood; as if the question he had put to her had not been put,

or were a farce, a jest, a mere pastime!

'Sho, Sir George,' she said, 'how silly you must think me to proffer you

advice; and with an air as if the sky were falling? Do you forgive me?'

'I forgive you _that_,' Sir George answered. But, poor fellow, he winced

under her sudden change of tone.

'That is well,' she said confidently. 'And there again, do you know you

are changed; you would not have said that a week ago. I have most

certainly improved your manners.'

Sir George made an effort to answer her in the same strain. 'Well, I

should improve,' he said. 'I come very regularly to school. Do you know

how many days we have sat here, _ma belle_?'