'You old fox!' Mr. Pomeroy chimed in, shaking his finger at the tutor

with leering solemnity; he, belonging to an older generation at the

College, did not know her. Then, 'The Little Masterson, is it?' he

continued, advancing to the girl, and saluting her with mock ceremony.

'Among friends, I suppose? Well, my dear, for the future be pleased to

count me among them. Welcome to my poor house! And here's to bettering

your taste--for, fie, my love, old men are naughty. Have naught to do

with them!' And he laughed wickedly. He was a tall, heavy man, with a

hard, bullying, sneering face; a Dunborough grown older.

'Hush! my good sir. Hush!' Mr. Thomasson cried anxiously, after making

more than one futile effort to stop him. Between his respect for his

companion, and the deference in which he held a lord, the tutor was in

agony. 'My good sir, my dear Lord Almeric, you are in error,' he

continued strenuously. 'You mistake, I assure you, you mistake--'

'Do we, by Gad!' Mr. Pomeroy cried, winking at Julia.' Well, you and I,

my dear, don't, do we? We understand one another very well.'

The girl only answered by a fierce look of contempt. But Mr. Thomasson

was in despair. 'You do not, indeed!' he cried, almost wringing his

hands. 'This lady has lately come into a--a fortune, and to-night was

carried off by some villains from the Castle Inn at Marlborough in a--in

a post-chaise. I was fortunately on the spot to give her such protection

as I could, but the villains overpowered me, and to prevent my giving

the alarm, as I take it, bundled me into the chaise with her.'

'Oh, come,' said Mr. Pomeroy, grinning. 'You don't expect us to swallow

that?'

'It is true, as I live,' the tutor protested. 'Every word of it.'

'Then how come you here?'

'Not far from your gate, for no reason that I can understand, they

turned us out, and made off.'

'Honest Abraham?' Lord Almeric asked; he had listened open-mouthed.

'Every word of it,' the tutor answered.

'Then, my dear, if you have a fortune, sit down,' cried Mr. Pomeroy; and

seizing a chair he handed it with exaggerated gallantry to Julia, who

still remained near the door, frowning darkly at the trio; neither

ashamed nor abashed, but proudly and coldly contemptuous. 'Make yourself

at home, my pretty,' he continued familiarly, 'for if you have a fortune

it is the only one in this house, and a monstrous uncommon thing. Is it

not, my lord?'

'Lord! I vow it is!' the other drawled; and then, taking advantage of

the moment when Julia's attention was engaged elsewhere--she dumbly

refused to sit, 'Where is Dunborough?' my lord muttered.

'Heaven knows,' Mr. Thomasson whispered, with a wink that postponed

inquiry. 'What is more to the purpose,' he continued aloud, 'if I may

venture to make the suggestion to your lordship and Mr. Pomeroy, Miss

Masterson has been much distressed and fatigued this evening. If there

is a respectable elderly woman in the house, therefore, to whose care

you could entrust her for the night, it were well.'

'There is old Mother Olney,' Mr. Pomeroy answered, assenting with a

readier grace than the tutor expected, 'who locked herself up an hour

ago for fear of us young bloods. She should be old and ugly enough! Here

you, Jarvey, go and kick in her outworks, and bid her come down.'

'Better still, if I may suggest it,' said the tutor, who was above all

things anxious to be rid of the girl before too much was said--'Might

not your servant take Miss above stairs to this good woman--who will

doubtless see to her comfort? Miss Masterson has gone through some

surprising adventures this evening, and I think it were better if you

allowed her to withdraw at once, Mr. Pomeroy.'

'Jarvey, take the lady,' Mr. Pomeroy cried. 'A sweet pretty toad she is.

Here's to your eyes and fortune, child!' he continued with an impudent

grin; and filling his glass he pledged her as she passed.

After that he stood watching while Mr. Thomasson opened the door and

bowed her out; and this done and the door closed after her, 'Lord, what

ceremony!' he said, with an ugly sneer. 'Is't real, man, or are you

bubbling her? And what is this Cock-lane story of a chaise and the rest?

Out with it, unless you want to be tossed in a blanket.'

'True, upon my honour!' Mr. Thomasson asseverated.

'Oh, but Tommy, the fortune?' Lord Almeric protested seriously. 'I vow

you are sharping us.'

'True too, my lord, as I hope to be saved!'

'True? Oh, but it is too monstrous absurd,' my lord wailed. 'The Little

Masterson? As pretty a little tit as was to be found in all Oxford. The

Little Masterson a fortune?'

'She has eyes and a shape,' Mr. Pomeroy admitted generously. 'For the

rest, what is the figure, Mr. Thomasson?' he continued. 'There are

fortunes and fortunes.'

Mr. Thomasson looked at the gallery above, and thence, and slyly, to

his companions and back again to the gallery; and swallowed something

that rose in his throat. At length he seemed to make up his mind to

speak the truth, though when he did so it was in a voice little above a

whisper. 'Fifty thousand,' he said, and looked guiltily round him.

Lord Almeric rose from his chair as if on springs. 'Oh, I protest!' he

said. 'You are roasting us. Fifty thousand! It's a bite?'

But Mr. Thomasson nodded. 'Fifty thousand,' he repeated softly. 'Fifty

thousand.'

'Pounds?' gasped my lord. 'The Little Masterson?'

The tutor nodded again; and without asking leave, with a dogged air

unlike his ordinary bearing when he was in the company of those above

him, he drew a decanter towards him, and filling a glass with a shaking

hand raised it to his lips and emptied it. The three were on their feet

round the table, on which several candles, luridly lighting up their

faces, still burned; while others had flickered down, and smoked in the

guttering sockets, among the empty bottles and the litter of cards. In

one corner of the table the lees of wine had run upon the oak, and

dripped to the floor, and formed a pool, in which a broken glass lay in

fragments beside the overturned chair. An observant eye might have found

on the panels below the gallery the vacant nails and dusty lines whence

Lelys and Knellers, Cuyps and Hondekoeters had looked down on two

generations of Pomeroys. But in the main the disorder of the scene

centred in the small table and the three men standing round it; a

lighted group, islanded in the shadows of the hall.

Mr. Pomeroy waited with impatience until Mr. Thomasson lowered his

glass. Then, 'Let us have the story,' he said. 'A guinea to a China

orange the fool is tricking us.'

The tutor shook his head, and turned to Lord Almeric. 'You know Sir

George Soane,' he said. 'Well, my lord, she is his cousin.'

'Oh, tally, tally!' my lord cried. 'You--you are romancing, Tommy!'

'And under the will of Sir George's grandfather she takes fifty thousand

pounds, if she make good her claim within a certain time from to-day.'

'Oh, I say, you are romancing!' my lord repeated, more feebly. 'You

know, you really should not! It is too uncommon absurd, Tommy.'

'It's true!' said Mr. Thomasson.

'What? That this porter's wench at Pembroke has fifty thousand pounds?'

cried Mr. Pomeroy. 'She is the porter's wench, isn't she?' he continued.

Something had sobered him. His eyes shone, and the veins stood out on

his forehead. But his manner was concise and harsh, and to the point.

Mr. Thomasson. glanced at him stealthily, as one gamester scrutinises

another over the cards. 'She is Masterson, the porter's,

foster-child,' he said.

'But is it certain that she has the money?' the other cried rudely. 'Is

it true, man? How do you know? Is it public property?'

'No,' Mr. Thomasson answered, 'it is not public property. But it is

certain and it is true!' Then, after a moment's hesitation, 'I saw some

papers--by accident,' he said, his eyes on the gallery.

'Oh, d--n your accident!' Mr. Pomeroy cried brutally. 'You are very fine

to-night. You were not used to be a Methodist! Hang it, man, we know

you,' he continued violently, 'and this is not all! This does not bring

you and the girl tramping the country, knocking at doors at midnight

with Cock-lane stories of chaises and abductions. Come to it, man, or--'

'Oh, I say,' Lord Almeric protested weakly. 'Tommy is an honest man in

his way, and you are too stiff with him.'

'D--n him! my lord; let him come to the point then,' Mr. Pomeroy

retorted savagely. 'Is she in the way to get the money?'

'She is,' said the tutor sullenly.

'Then what brings her here--with you, of all people?'

'I will tell you if you will give me time, Mr. Pomeroy,' the tutor said

plaintively. And he proceeded to describe in some detail all that had

happened, from the _fons et origo mali_--Mr. Dunborough's passion for

the girl--to the stay at the Castle Inn, the abduction at Manton Corner,

the strange night journey in the chaise, and the stranger release.

When he had done, 'Sir George was the girl's fancy-man, then?' Pomeroy

said, in the harsh overbearing tone he had suddenly adopted.

The tutor nodded.

'And she thinks he has tricked her?'

'But for that and the humour she is in,' Mr. Thomasson answered, with a

subtle glance at the other's face, 'you and I might talk here till

Doomsday, and be none the better, Mr. Pomeroy.'

His frankness provoked Mr. Pomeroy to greater frankness. 'Consume your

impertinence!' he cried. 'Speak for yourself.'

'She is not that kind of woman,' said Mr. Thomasson firmly.

'Kind of woman?' cried Mr. Pomeroy furiously. 'I am this kind of man.

Oh, d--n you! If you want plain speaking you shall have it! She has

fifty thousand, and she is in my house; well, I am this kind of man!

I'll not let that money go out of the house without having a fling at

it! It is the devil's luck has sent her here, and it will be my folly

will send her away--if she goes. Which she does not if I am the kind of

man I think I am. So there for you! There's plain speaking.'

'You don't know her,' Mr. Thomasson answered doggedly. 'Mr. Dunborough

is a gentleman of mettle, and he could not bend her.'

'She was not in his house!' the other retorted, with a grim laugh. Then,

in a lower, if not more amicable tone, 'Look here, man,' he continued,

'd'ye mean to say that you had not something of this kind in your mind

when you knocked at this door?'

'I!' Mr. Thomasson cried, virtuously indignant.

'Ay, you! Do you mean to say you did not see that here was a chance in a

hundred? In a thousand? Ay, in a million? Fifty thousand pounds is not

found in the road any day?'

Mr. Thomasson grinned in a sickly fashion. 'I know that,' he said.

'Well, what is your idea? What do you want?'

The tutor did not answer on the instant, but after stealing one or two

furtive glances at Lord Almeric, looked down at the table, a nervous

smile distorting his mouth. At length, 'I want--her,' he said; and

passed his tongue furtively over his lips.

'The girl?'

'Yes.'

'Oh Lord!' said Mr. Pomeroy, in a voice of disgust.

But the ice broken, Mr. Thomasson had more to say. 'Why not?' he said

plaintively. 'I brought her here--with all submission. I know her,

and--and am a friend of hers. If she is fair game for any one, she is

fair game for me. I have run a risk for her,' he continued pathetically,

and touched his brow, where the slight cut he had received in the

struggle with Dunborough's men showed below the border of his wig,

'and--and for that matter, Mr. Pomeroy is not the only man who has

bailiffs to avoid.'

'Stuff me, Tommy, if I am not of your opinion!' cried Lord Almeric. And

he struck the table with unusual energy.

Pomeroy turned on him in surprise as great as his disgust. 'What?' he

cried. 'You would give the girl and her money--fifty thousand--to this

old hunks!'

'I? Not I! I would have her myself!' his lordship answered stoutly.

'Come, Pomeroy, you have won three hundred of me, and if I am not to

take a hand at this, I shall think it low! Monstrous low I shall think

it!' he repeated in the tone of an injured person. 'You know. Pom, I

want money as well as another--want it devilish bad--'

'You have not been a Sabbatarian, as I was for two months last year,'

Mr. Pomeroy retorted, somewhat cooled by this wholesale rising among his

allies, 'and walked out Sundays only for fear of the catchpolls.'

'No, but--'

'But I am not now, either. Is that it? Why, d'ye think, because I

pouched six hundred of Flitney's, and three of yours, and set the mare

going again, it will last for ever?'

'No, but fair's fair, and if I am not in this, it is low. It is low,

Pom,' Lord Almeric continued, sticking to his point with abnormal

spirit. 'And here is Tommy will tell you the same. You have had three

hundred of me--'

'At cards, dear lad; at cards,' Mr. Pomeroy answered easily. 'But this

is not cards. Besides,' he continued, shrugging his shoulders and

pouncing on the argument, 'we cannot all marry the girl!'

'I don't know,' my lord answered, passing his fingers tenderly through

his wig. 'I--I don't commit myself to that.'

'Well, at any rate, we cannot all have the money!' Pomeroy replied,

with sufficient impatience.

'But we can all try! Can't we, Tommy?'

Mr. Thomasson's face, when the question was put to him in that form, was

a curious study. Mr. Pomeroy had spoken aright when he called it a

chance in a hundred, in a thousand, in a million. It was a chance, at

any rate, that was not likely to come in Mr. Thomasson's way again.

True, he appreciated more correctly than the others the obstacles in the

way of success--the girl's strong will and wayward temper; but he knew

also the humour which had now taken hold of her, and how likely it was

that it might lead her to strange lengths if the right man spoke at the

right moment.

The very fact that Mr. Pomeroy had seen the chance and gauged the

possibilities, gave them a more solid aspect and a greater reality in

the tutor's mind. Each moment that passed left him less willing to

resign pretensions which were no longer the shadowy creatures of the

brain, but had acquired the aspect of solid claims--claims made his by

skill and exertion.

But if he defied Mr. Pomeroy, how would he stand? The girl's position in

this solitary house, apart from her friends, was half the battle; in a

sneaking way, though he shrank from facing the fact, he knew that she

was at their mercy; as much at their mercy as if they had planned the

abduction from the first. Without Mr. Pomeroy, therefore, the master of

the house and the strongest spirit of the three--

He got no farther, for at this point Lord Almeric repeated his question;

and the tutor, meeting Pomeroy's bullying eye, found it necessary to say

something. 'Certainly,' he stammered at a venture, 'we can all try, my

lord. Why not?'

'Ay, why not?' said Lord Almeric. 'Why not try?'

'Try? But how are you going to try?' Mr. Pomeroy responded with a

jeering laugh. 'I tell you, we cannot all marry the girl.'

Lord Almeric burst in a sudden fit of chuckling. 'I vow and protest I

have it!' he cried. 'We'll play for her! Don't you see, Pom? We'll cut

for her! Ha! Ha! That is surprising clever of me; don't you think? We'll

play for her!'

CHAPTER XXIV

CUTTING FOR THE QUEEN

It was a suggestion so purely in the spirit of a day when men betted on

every contingency, public or private, decorous or the reverse, from the

fecundity of a sister to the longevity of a sire, that it sounded less

indecent in the cars of Lord Almeric's companions than it does in ours.

Mr. Thomasson indeed, who was only so far a gamester as every man who

had pretensions to be a gentleman was one at that time, and who had

seldom, since the days of Lady Harrington's faro bank, staked more than

he could afford, hesitated and looked dubious. But Mr. Pomeroy, a

reckless and hardened gambler, gave a boisterous assent, and in the face

of that the tutor's objections went for nothing. In a trice, all the

cards and half the glasses were swept pell mell to the floor, a new pack

was torn open, the candles were snuffed, and Mr. Pomeroy, smacking him

on the back, was bidding him draw up.

'Sit down, man! Sit down!' cried that gentleman, who had regained his

jovial humour as quickly as he had lost it, and whom the prospect of the

stake appeared to intoxicate. 'May I burn if I ever played for a girl

before! Hang it! man, look cheerful, We'll toast her first--and a

daintier bit never swam in a bowl--and play for her afterwards! Come, no

heel-taps, my lord. Drink her! Drink her! Here's to the Mistress of

Bastwick!'

'Lady Almeric Doyley!' my lord cried, rising, and bowing with his hand

to his heart, while he ogled the door through which she had disappeared.

'I drink you! Here's to your pretty face, my dear!'

'Mrs. Thomasson!' cried the tutor, 'I drink to you. But--'

'But what shall it be, you mean?' Pomeroy cried briskly. 'Loo, Quinze,

Faro, Lansquenet? Or cribbage, all-fours, put, Mr. Parson, if you like!

It's all one to me. Name your game and I am your man!'

'Then let us shuffle and cut, and the highest takes,' said the tutor.

'Sho! man, where is the sport in that?' Pomeroy cried, receiving the

suggestion with disgust.

'It is what Lord Almeric proposed,' Mr. Thomasson answered. The two

glasses of wine he had taken had given him courage. 'I am no player, and

at games of skill I am no match for you.'

A shadow crossed Mr. Pomeroy's face; but he recovered himself

immediately. 'As you please,' he said, shrugging his shoulders with a

show of carelessness. 'I'll match any man at anything. Let's to it!'

But the tutor kept his hands on the cards, which lay in a heap face

downwards on the table. 'There is a thing to be settled,' he said,

hesitating somewhat, 'before we draw. If she will not take the

winner--what then?'

'What then?'

'Yes, what then?'

Mr. Pomeroy grinned. 'Why, then number two will try his luck with her,

and if he fail, number three! There, my bully boy, that is settled. It

seems simple enough, don't it?'

'But how long is each to have?' the tutor asked in a low voice. The

three were bending over the cards, their faces near one another. Lord

Almeric's eyes turned from one to the other of the speakers.

'How long?' Mr. Pomeroy answered, raising his eyebrows. 'Ah. Well,

let's say--what do you think? Two days?'

'And if the first fail, two days for the second?'

'There will be no second if I am first,' Pomeroy answered grimly.

'But otherwise,' the tutor persisted; 'two days for the second?'

Bully Pomeroy nodded.

'But then, the question is, can we keep her here?'

'Four days?'

'Yes.'

Mr. Pomeroy laughed harshly. 'Ay,' he said, 'or six if needs be and I

lose. You may leave that to me. We'll shift her to the nursery

to-morrow.'

'The nursery?' my lord said, and stared.

'The windows are barred. Now do you understand?'

The tutor turned a shade paler, and his eyes sank slyly to the table.

'There'll--there'll be no violence, of course,' he said, his voice a

trifle unsteady.

'Violence? Oh, no, there will be no violence,' Mr. Pomeroy answered with

an unpleasant sneer. And they all laughed; Mr. Thomasson tremulously,

Lord Almeric as if he scarcely entered into the other's meaning and

laughed that he might not seem outside it. Then, 'There is another thing

that must not be,' Pomeroy continued, tapping softly on the table with

his forefinger, as much to command attention as to emphasise his words,

'and that is peaching! Peaching! We'll have no Jeremy Twitcher here, if

you please.'

'No, no!' Mr. Thomasson stammered. 'Of course not.'

'No, damme!' said my lord grandly. 'No peaching!'

'No,' Mr. Pomeroy said, glancing keenly from one to the other, 'and by

token I have a thought that will cure it. D'ye see here, my lord! What

do you say to the losers taking five thousand each out of Madam's money?

That should bind all together if anything will--though I say it that

will have to pay it,' he continued boastfully.

My lord was full of admiration. 'Uncommon handsome!' he said. 'Pom, that

does you credit. You have a head! I always said you had a head!'

'You are agreeable to that, my lord?'

'Burn me, if I am not.'

'Then shake hands upon it. And what say you, Parson?'

Mr. Thomasson proffered an assent fully as enthusiastic as Lord

Almeric's, but for a different reason. The tutor's nerves, never strong,

were none the better for the rough treatment he had undergone, his long

drive, and his longer fast. He had taken enough wine to obscure remoter

terrors, but not the image of Mr. Dunborough--_impiger, iracundus,

inexorabilis, acer_--Dunborough doubly and trebly offended! That image

recurred when the glass was not at his lips; and behind it, sometimes

the angry spectre of Sir George, sometimes the face of the girl, blazing

with rage, slaying him with the lightning of her contempt.

He thought that it would not suit him ill, therefore, though it was a

sacrifice, if Mr. Pomeroy took the fortune, the wife, and the risk--and

five thousand only fell to him. True, the risk, apart from that of Mr.

Dunborough's vengeance, might be small; no one of the three had had act

or part in the abduction of the girl. True, too, in the atmosphere of

this unfamiliar house--into which he had been transported as suddenly as

Bedreddin Hassan to the palace in the fairy tale--with the fumes of wine

and the glamour of beauty in his head, he was in a mood to minimise even

that risk. But under the jovial good-fellowship which Mr. Pomeroy

affected, and strove to instil into the party, he discerned at odd

moments a something sinister that turned his craven heart to water and

loosened the joints of his knees.

The lights and cards and jests, the toasts and laughter were a mask that

sometimes slipped and let him see the death's head that grinned behind

it. They were three men, alone with the girl in a country house, of

which the reputation, Mr. Thomasson had a shrewd idea, was no better

than its master's. No one outside knew that she was there; as far as her

friends were concerned, she had vanished from the earth. She was a

woman, and she was in their power. What was to prevent them bending her

to their purpose?

It is probable that had she been of their rank from the beginning, bred

and trained, as well as born, a Soane, it would not have occurred even

to a broken and desperate man to frame so audacious a plan. But

scruples grew weak, and virtue--the virtue of Vauxhall and the

masquerades--languished where it was a question of a woman who a month

before had been fair game for undergraduate gallantry, and who now

carried fifty thousand pounds in her hand.

Mr. Pomeroy's next words showed that this aspect of the case was in his

mind. 'Damme, she ought to be glad to marry any one of us!' he said, as

he packed the cards and handed them to the others that each might

shuffle them. 'If she is not, the worse for her! We'll put her on bread

and water until she sees reason!'

'D'you think Dunborough knew, Tommy?' said Lord Almeric, grinning at the

thought of his friend's disappointment. 'That she had the money?'

Dunborough's name turned the tutor grave. He shook his head.

'He'll be monstrous mad! Monstrous!' Lord Almeric said with a chuckle;

the wine he had drunk was beginning to affect him. 'He has paid the

postboys and we ride. Well, are you ready? Ready all? Hallo! Who is to

draw first?'

'Let's draw for first,' said Mr. Pomeroy. 'All together!'

'All together!'

'For it's hey, derry down, and it's over the lea.

And it's out with the fox in the dawning!'

sang my lord in an uncertain voice. And then, 'Lord! I've a d----d

deuce! Tommy has it! Tommy's Pam has it! No, by Gad! Pomeroy, you have

won it! Your Queen takes!'

'And I shall take the Queen!' quoth Mr. Pomeroy. Then ceremoniously, 'My

first draw, I think?'

'Yes,' said Mr. Thomasson nervously.

'Yes,' said Lord Almeric, gloating with flushed face on the blind backs

of the cards as they lay in a long row before him. 'Draw away!'

'Then here's for a wife and five thousand a year!' cried Pomeroy. 'One,

two, three--oh, hang and sink the cards!' he continued with a violent

execration, as he flung down the card he had drawn. 'Seven's the main! I

have no luck! Now, Mr. Parson, get on! Can you do better?'

Mr. Thomasson, a damp flush on his brow, chose his card gingerly, and

turned it with trembling fingers. Mr. Pomeroy greeted it with a savage

oath, Lord Almeric with a yell of tipsy laughter. It was an eight.

'It is bad to be crabbed, but to be crabbed by a smug like you!' Mr.

Pomeroy cried churlishly. Then, 'Go on, man!' he said to his lordship.

'Don't keep us all night.'

Lord Almeric, thus adjured, turned a card with a flourish. It was a

King!

'Fal-lal-lal, lal-lal-la!' he sang, rising with a sweep of the arm that

brought down two candlesticks. Then, seizing a glass and filling it from

the punch-bowl, 'Here's your health once more, my lady. And drink her,

you envious beggars! Drink her! You shall throw the stocking for us.

Lord, we'll have a right royal wedding! And then--'

'Don't you forget the five thousand,' said Pomeroy sulkily. He kept his

seat, his hands thrust deep into his breeches pockets; he looked the

picture of disappointment.

'Not I, dear lad! Not I! Lord, it is as safe as if your banker had it.

Just as safe!'

'Umph! She has not taken you yet!' Pomeroy muttered, watching him; and

his face relaxed. 'No, hang me! she has not!' he continued in a tone but

half audible. 'And it is even betting she will not. She might take you

drunk, but d--n me if she will take you sober!' And, cheered by the

reflection, he pulled the bowl to him, and, filling a glass, 'Here's to

her, my lord,' he said, raising it to his lips. 'But remember you have

only two days.'

'Two days!' my lord cried, reeling slightly; the last glass had been too

much for him. 'We'll be married in two days. See if we are not.'

'The Act notwithstanding?' Mr. Pomeroy said, with a sneer.

'Oh, sink the Act!' his lordship retorted. 'But where's--where's the

door? I shall go,' he continued, gazing vacantly about him, 'go to her

at once, and tell her--tell her I shall marry her! You--you fellows are

hiding the door! You are--you are all jealous! Oh, yes! Such a shape and

such eyes! You are jealous, hang you!'

Mr. Pomeroy leaned forward and leered at the tutor. 'Shall we let him

go?' he whispered. 'It will mend somebody's chance. What say you,

Parson? You stand next. Make it six thousand instead of five, and I'll

see to it.'

'Let me go to her!' my lord hiccoughed. He was standing, holding by the

back of a chair. 'I tell you--I--where is she? You are jealous! That's

what you are! Jealous! She is fond of me--pretty charmer--and I shall

go to her!'

But Mr. Thomasson shook his head; not so much because he shrank from the

outrage which the other contemplated with a grin, as because he now

wished Lord Almeric to succeed. He thought it possible and even likely

that the girl, dazzled by his title, would be willing to take the young

sprig of nobility. And the influence of the Doyley family was great.

He shook his head therefore, and Mr. Pomeroy rebuffed, solaced himself

with a couple of glasses of punch. After that, Mr. Thomasson pleaded

fatigue as his reason for declining to take a hand at any game whatever,

and my lord continuing to maunder and flourish and stagger, the host

reluctantly suggested bed; and going to the door bawled for Jarvey and

his lordship's man. They came, but were found to be incapable of

standing when apart. The tutor and Mr. Pomeroy, therefore, took my lord

by the arms and partly shoved and partly supported him to his room.

There was a second bed in the chamber. 'You had better tumble in there,

Parson,' said Mr. Pomeroy. 'What say you? Will't do?'

'Finely,' Tommy answered. 'I am obliged to you.' And when they had

jointly loosened his lordship's cravat, and removed his wig and set the

cool jug of small beer within his reach, Mr. Pomeroy bade the other a

curt good-night, and took himself off.

Mr. Thomasson waited until his footsteps ceased to echo in the gallery,

and then, he scarcely knew why, he furtively opened the door and peeped

out. All was dark; and save for the regular tick of the pendulum on the

stairs, the house was still. Mr. Thomasson, wondering which way Julia's

room lay, stood listening until a stair creaked; and then, retiring

precipitately, locked his door. Lord Almeric, in the gloom of the green

moreen curtains that draped his huge four-poster, had fallen into a

drunken slumber. The shadow of his wig, which Pomeroy had clapped on the

wig-stand by the bed, nodded on the wall, as the draught moved the

tails. Mr. Thomasson shivered, and, removing the candle--as was his

prudent habit of nights--to the hearth, muttered that a goose was

walking over his grave, undressed quickly, and jumped into bed.

CHAPTER XXV

LORD ALMERIC'S SUIT

When Julia awoke in the morning, without start or shock, to the dreary

consciousness of all she had lost, she was still under the influence of

the despair which had settled on her spirits overnight, and had run like

a dark stain through her troubled dreams. Fatigue of body and lassitude

of mind, the natural consequences of the passion and excitement of her

adventure, combined to deaden her faculties. She rose aching in all her

limbs--yet most at heart--and wearily dressed herself; but neither saw

nor heeded the objects round her. The room to which poor puzzled Mrs.

Olney had hastily consigned her looked over a sunny stretch of park,

sprinkled with gnarled thorn-trees that poorly filled the places of the

oaks and chestnuts which the gaming-table had consumed. Still, the

outlook pleased the eye, nor was the chamber itself lacking in

liveliness. The panels on the walls, wherein needlework cockatoos and

flamingoes, wrought under Queen Anne, strutted in the care of needlework

black-boys, were faded and dull; but the pleasant white dimity with

which the bed was hung relieved and lightened them.

To Julia it was all one. Wrapped in bitter thoughts and reminiscences,

her bosom heaving from time to time with ill-restrained grief, she gave

no thought to such things, or even to her position, until Mrs. Olney

appeared and informed her that breakfast awaited her in another room.

Then, 'Can I not take it here?' she asked, shrinking painfully from the

prospect of meeting any one.

'Here?' Mrs. Olney repeated. The housekeeper never closed her mouth,

except when she spoke; for which reason, perhaps, her face faithfully

mirrored the weakness of her mind.

'Yes,' said Julia. 'Can I not take it here, if you please? I suppose--we

shall have to start by-and-by?' she added, shivering.

'By-and-by, ma'am?' Mrs. Olney answered. 'Oh, yes.'

'Then I can have it here.'

'Oh, yes, if you please to follow me, ma'am.' And she held the door

open.

Julia shrugged her shoulders, and, contesting the matter no further,

followed the good woman along a corridor and through a door which shut

off a second and shorter passage. From this three doors opened,

apparently into as many apartments. Mrs. Olney threw one wide and

ushered her into a room damp-smelling, and hung with drab, but of good

size and otherwise comfortable. The windows looked over a neglected

Dutch garden, which was so rankly overgrown that the box hedges scarce

rose above the wilderness of parterres. Beyond this, and divided from it

by a deep-sunk fence, a pool fringed with sedges and marsh-weeds carried

the eye to an alder thicket that closed the prospect.

Julia, in her relief on finding that the table was laid for one only,

paid no heed to the outlook or to the bars that crossed the windows, but

sank into a chair and mechanically ate and drank. Apprised after a while

that Mrs. Olney had returned and was watching her with fatuous

good-nature, she asked her if she knew at what hour she was to leave.

'To leave?' said the housekeeper, whose almost invariable custom it was

to repeat the last words addressed to her. 'Oh, yes, to leave.

Of course.'

'But at what time?' Julia asked, wondering whether the woman was as dull

as she seemed.

'Yes, at what time?' Then after a pause and with a phenomenal effort, 'I

will go and see--if you please.'

She returned presently. 'There are no horses,' she said. 'When they are

ready the gentleman will let you know.'

'They have sent for some?'

'Sent for some,' repeated Mrs. Olney, and nodded, but whether in assent

or imbecility it was hard to say.

After that Julia troubled her no more, but rising from her meal had

recourse to the window and her own thoughts. These were in unison with

the neglected garden and the sullen pool, which even the sunshine failed

to enliven. Her heart was torn between the sense of Sir George's

treachery--which now benumbed her brain and now awoke it to a fury of

resentment--and fond memories of words and looks and gestures, that

shook her very frame and left her sick--love-sick and trembling. She did

not look forward or form plans; nor, in the dull lethargy in which she

was for the most part sunk, was she aware of the passage of time until

Mrs. Olney came in with mouth and eyes a little wider than usual, and

announced that the gentleman was coming up.

Julia supposed that the woman referred to Mr. Thomasson; and, recalled

to the necessity of returning to Marlborough, she gave a reluctant

permission. Great was her astonishment when, a moment later, not the

tutor, but Lord Almeric, fanning himself with a laced handkerchief and

carrying his little French hat under his arm, appeared on the threshold,

and entered simpering and bowing. He was extravagantly dressed in a

mixed silk coat, pink satin waistcoat, and a mushroom stock, with

breeches of silver net and white silk stockings; and had a large pearl

pin thrust through his wig. Unhappily, his splendour, designed to

captivate the porter's daughter, only served to exhibit more plainly the

nerveless hand and sickly cheeks which he owed to last night's debauch.

Apparently he was aware of this, for his first words were, 'Oh, Lord!

What a twitter I am in! I vow and protest, ma'am, I don't know where you

get your roses of a morning. But I wish you would give me the secret.'

'Sir!' she said, interrupting him, surprise in her face. 'Or'--with a

momentary flush of confusion--'I should say, my lord, surely there must

be some mistake here.'

'None, I dare swear,' Lord Almeric answered, bowing gallantly. 'But I am

in such a twitter'--he dropped his hat and picked it up again--'I hardly

know what I am saying. To be sure, I was devilish cut last night! I hope

nothing was said to--to--oh, Lord! I mean I hope you were not much

incommoded by the night air, ma'am.'

'The night air has not hurt me, I thank you,' said Julia, who did not

take the trouble to hide her impatience.

However, my lord, nothing daunted, expressed himself monstrously glad to

hear it; monstrously glad. And after looking about him and humming and

hawing, 'Won't you sit?' he said, with a killing glance.

'I am leaving immediately,' Julia answered, and declined with coldness

the chair which he pushed forward. At another time his foppish dress

might have moved her to smiles, or his feebleness and vapid oaths to

pity. This morning she needed her pity for herself, and was in no

smiling mood. Her world had crashed around her; she would sit and weep

among the ruins, and this butterfly insect flitted between. After a

moment, as he did not speak, 'I will not detain your lordship,' she

continued, curtseying frigidly.

'Cruel beauty!' my lord answered, dropping his hat and clasping his

hands in an attitude. And then, to her astonishment, 'Look, ma'am,' he

cried with animation, 'look, I beseech you, on the least worthy of your

admirers and deign to listen to him. Listen to him while--and don't, oh,

I say, don't stare at me like that,' he continued hurriedly,

plaintiveness suddenly taking the place of grandiloquence. 'I vow and

protest I am in earnest.'

'Then you must be mad!' Julia cried in great wrath. 'You can have no

other excuse, sir, for talking to me like that!'

'Excuse!' he cried rapturously. 'Your eyes are my excuse, your lips,

your shape! Whom would they not madden, ma'am? Whom would they not

charm--insanitate--intoxicate? What man of sensibility, seeing them at

an immeasurable distance, would not hasten to lay his homage at the feet

of so divine, so perfect a creature, whom even to see is to taste of

bliss! Deign, madam, to--Oh, I say, you don't mean to say you are really

of--offended?' Lord Almeric stuttered in amazement, again falling

lamentably from the standard of address which he had conned while his

man was shaving him. 'You--you--look here--'

'You must be mad!' Julia cried, her eyes flashing lightning on the

unhappy beau. 'If you do not leave me, I will call for some one to put

you out! How dare you insult me? If there were a bell I could reach--'

Lord Almeric stared in the utmost perplexity; and fallen from his high

horse, alighted on a kind of dignity. 'Madam,' he said with a little bow

and a strut, ''tis the first time an offer of marriage from one of my

family has been called an insult! And I don't understand it. Hang me! If

we have married fools, we have married high!'

It was Julia's turn to be overwhelmed with confusion. Having nothing

less in her mind than marriage, and least of all an offer of marriage

from such a person, she had set down all he had said to impudence and

her unguarded situation. Apprised of his meaning, she experienced a

degree of shame, and muttered that she had not understood; she craved

his pardon.

'Beauty asks and beauty has!' Lord Almeric answered, bowing and kissing

the tips of his fingers, his self-esteem perfectly restored.

Julia frowned. 'You cannot be in earnest,' she said.

'Never more in earnest in my life!' he replied. 'Say the word--say

you'll have me,' he continued, pressing his little hat to his breast and

gazing over it with melting looks, 'most adorable of your sex, and I'll

call up Pomeroy, I'll call up Tommy, the old woman, too, if you choose,

and tell 'em, tell 'em all.'

'I must be dreaming,' Julia murmured, gazing at him in a kind of

fascination.

'Then if to dream is to assent, dream on, fair love!' his lordship

spouted with a grand air. And then, 'Hang it! that's--that's rather

clever of me,' he continued. 'And I mean it too! Oh, depend upon it,

there's nothing that a man won't think of when he's in love! And I am

fallen confoundedly in love with--with you, ma'am.'

'But very suddenly,' Julia replied. She was beginning to recover from

her amazement.

'You don't think that I am sincere?' he protested plaintively. 'You

doubt me! Then--'he advanced a pace towards her with hat and arms

extended, 'let the eloquence of a--a feeling heart plead for me; a

heart, too--yes, too sensible of your charms, and--and your many merits,

ma'am! Yes, most adorable of your sex. But there,' he added, breaking

off abruptly, 'I said that before, didn't I? Yes. Lord! what a memory I

have got! I am all of a twitter. I was so cut last night, I don't know

what I am saying.'

'That I believe,' Julia said with chilling severity.

'Eh, but--but you do believe I am in earnest?' he cried anxiously.

'Shall I kneel to you? Shall I call up the servants and tell them? Shall

I swear that I mean honourably? Lord! I am no Mr. Thornhill! I'll make

it as public as you like,' he continued eagerly. 'I'll send for

a bishop--'

'Spare me the bishop,' Julia rejoined with a faint smile, 'and any

farther appeals. They come, I am convinced, my lord, rather from your

head than your heart.'

'Oh, Lord, no!' he cried.

'Oh, Lord, yes,' she answered with a spice of her old archness. 'I may

have a tolerable opinion of my own attractions--women commonly have, it

is said. But I am not so foolish, my lord, as to suppose that on the

three or four occasions on which I have seen you I can have gained your

heart. To what I am to attribute your sudden--shall I call it whim or

fancy--' Julia continued with a faint blush, 'I do not know. I am

willing to suppose that you do not mean to insult me.'

Lord Almeric denied it with a woeful face.

'Or to deceive me. I am willing to suppose,' she repeated, stopping him

by a gesture as he tried to speak, 'that you are in earnest for the

time, my lord, in desiring to make me your wife, strange and sudden as

the desire appears. It is a great honour, but it is one which I must as

earnestly and positively decline.'

'Why?' he cried, gaping, and then, 'O 'swounds, ma'am, you don't mean

it?' he continued piteously. 'Not have me? Not have me? And why?'

'Because,' she said modestly, 'I do not love you, my lord.'

'Oh, but--but when we are married,' he answered eagerly, rallying his

scattered forces, 'when we are one, sweet maid--'

'That time will never come,' she replied cruelly. And then gloom

overspreading her face, 'I shall never marry, my lord. If it be any

consolation to you, no one shall be preferred to you.'

'Oh, but, damme, the desert air and all that!' Lord Almeric cried,

fanning himself violently with his hat. 'I--oh, you mustn't talk like

that, you know. Lord! you might be some queer old put of a dowager!' And

then, with a burst of sincere feeling, for his little heart was inflamed

by her beauty, and his manhood--or such of it as had survived the

lessons of Vauxhall, and Mr. Thomasson--rose in arms at sight of her

trouble, 'See here, child,' he said in his natural voice, 'say yes, and

I'll swear I'll be kind to you! Sink me if I am not! And, mind you,

you'll be my lady. You'll to Ranelagh and the masquerades with the best.

You shall have your box at the opera and the King's House; you shall

have your frolic in the pit when you please, and your own money for loo

and brag, and keep your own woman and have her as ugly as the bearded

lady, for what I care--I want nobody's lips but yours, sweet, if you'll

be kind. And, so help me, I'll stop at one bottle, my lady, and play as

small as a Churchwarden's club! And, Lord, I don't see why we should not

be as happy together as James and Betty!'

She shook her head; but kindly, with tears in her eyes and a trembling

lip. She was thinking of another who might have given her all this, or

as much as was to her taste; one with whom she had looked to be as happy

as any James and Betty. 'It is impossible, my lord,' she said.

'Honest Abraham?' he cried, very downcast.

'Oh, yes, yes!'

'S'help me, you are melting!'

'No, no!' she cried, 'it is not--it is not that! It is impossible, I

tell you. You don't know what you ask,' she continued, struggling with

the emotion that almost mastered her.

'But, curse me, I know what I want!' he answered gloomily. 'You may go

farther and fare worse! Lord, I swear you may. I'd be kind to you, and

it is not everybody would be that!'

She had turned from him that he might not see her face, and she did not

answer. He waited a moment, twiddling his hat; his face was overcast,

his mood hung between spite and pity. At last, 'Well, 'tisn't my fault,'

he said; and then relenting again, 'But there, I know what women

are--vapours one day, kissing the next. I'll try again, my lady. I am

not proud.'

She flung him a gesture that meant assent, dissent, dismissal, as he

pleased to interpret it. He took it to mean the first, and muttering,

'Well, well, have it your own way. I'll go for this time. But hang all

prudes, say I,' he withdrew reluctantly, and slowly closed the door

on her.

As soon as he was gone the tempest, which Julia's pride had enabled her

to stern for a time, broke forth in a passion of tears and sobs, and,

throwing herself on the shabby window-seat, she gave free vent to her

grief. The happy future which the little bean had dangled before her

eyes, absurdly as he had fashioned and bedecked it, reminded her all too

sharply of that which she had promised herself with one, in whose

affections she had fancied herself secure, despite the attacks of the

prettiest Abigail in the world. How fondly had her fancy depicted life

with him! With what happy blushes, what joyful tremors! And now? What

wonder that at the thought a fresh burst of grief convulsed her frame,

or that she presently passed from the extremity of grief to the

extremity of rage, and, realising anew Sir George's heartless desertion

and more cruel perfidy, rubbed her tear-stained face in the dusty chintz

of the window-seat--that had known so many childish sorrows--and there

choked the fierce, hysterical words that rose to her lips?

Or what wonder that her next thought was revenge? She sat up, with her

back to the window and the unkempt garden, whence the light stole

through the disordered masses of her hair; her face to the empty room.

Revenge? Yes, she could punish him; she could take this money from him,

she could pursue him with a woman's unrelenting spite, she could hound

him from the country, she could have all but his life. But none of these

things would restore her maiden pride; would remove from her the stain

of his false love, or rebut the insolent taunt of the eyes to which she

had bowed herself captive. If she could so beat him with his own weapons

that he should doubt his conquest, doubt her love; if she could effect

that, there was no method she would not adopt, no way she would

not take.

Pique in a woman's mind, even in the mind of the best, finds a rival the

tool readiest to hand. A wave of crimson swept across Julia's pale face,

and she stood up on her feet. Lady Almeric! Lady Almeric Doyley! Here

was a revenge, the fittest of revenges, ready to her hand, if she could

bring herself to take it. What if, in the same hour in which he heard

that his plan had gone amiss, he heard that she was to marry another?

and such another that marry almost whom he might she would take

precedence of his wife. That last was a small thought, a petty thought,

worthy of a smaller mind than Julia's; but she was a woman, and

passionate, and the charms of such a revenge in the general, came home

to her. It would show him that others valued what he had cast away; it

would convince him--she hoped, him I yet, alas! she doubted--that she

had taken his suit as lightly as he had meant it. It would give her a

home, a place, a settled position in the world.

She followed it no farther; perhaps because she would act on impulse

rather than on reason, blindly rather than on foresight. In haste, with

trembling fingers, she set a chair below the broken, frayed end of a

bell-rope that hung on the wall. Reaching it, as if she feared her

resolution might fail before the event, she pulled and pulled

frantically, until hurrying footsteps came along the passage, and Mrs.

Olney with a foolish face of alarm entered the room.

'Fetch--tell the gentleman to come back,' Julia cried, breathing

quickly.

'To come back?'

'Yes! The gentleman who was here now.'

'Oh, yes, the gentleman,' Mrs. Olney murmured. 'Your ladyship wishes

him?'

Julia's very brow turned crimson; but her resolution held. 'Yes, I wish

to see him,' she said imperiously. 'Tell him to come to me!'

She stood erect, panting and defiant, her eyes on the door while the

woman went to do her bidding--waited erect, refusing to think, her face

set hard, until far down the outer passage--Mrs. Olney had left the door

open--the sound of shuffling feet and a shrill prattle of words heralded

Lord Almeric's return. Presently he came tripping in with a smirk and a

bow, the inevitable little hat under his arm. Before he had recovered

the breath the ascent of the stairs had cost him, he was in an attitude

that made the best of his white silk stockings.

'See at your feet the most obedient of your slaves, ma'am!' he cried.

'To hear was to obey, to obey was to fly! If it's Pitt's diamond you

need, or Lady Mary's soap-box, or a new conundrum, or--hang it all! I

cannot think of anything else, but command me! I'll forth and get it,

stap me if I won't!'

'My lord, it is nothing of that kind,' Julia answered, her voice steady,

though her cheeks burned.

'Eh? what? It's not!' he babbled. 'Then what is it? Command me, whatever

it is.'

'I believe, my lord,' she said, smiling faintly, 'that a woman is always

privileged to change her mind--once.'

My lord stared. Then, gathering her meaning as much from her heightened

colour as from her words, 'What!' he screamed. 'Eh? O Lord! Do you mean

that you will have me? Eh? Have you sent for me for that? Do you really

mean that?' And he fumbled for his spy-glass that he might see her face

more clearly.

'I mean,' Julia began; and then, more firmly, 'Yes, I do mean that,' she

said, 'if you are of the same mind, my lord, as you were half an

hour ago.'

'Crikey, but I am!' Lord Almeric cried, fairly skipping in his joy. 'By

jingo! I am! Here's to you, my lady! Here's to you, ducky! Oh, Lord! but

I was fit to kill myself five minutes ago, and those fellows would have

done naught but roast me. And now I am in the seventh heaven. Ho! ho!'

he continued, with a comical pirouette of triumph, 'he laughs best who

laughs last. But there, you are not afraid of me, pretty? You'll let me

buss you?'

But Julia, with a face grown suddenly white, shrank back and held out

her hand.

'Sakes! but to seal the bargain, child,' he remonstrated, trying to get

near her.

She forced a faint smile, and, still retreating, gave him her hand to

kiss. 'Seal it on that,' she said graciously. Then, 'Your lordship will

pardon me, I am sure. I am not very well, and--and yesterday has shaken

me. Will you be so good as to leave me now, until to-morrow?'

'To-morrow!' he cried. 'To-morrow! Why, it is an age! An eternity!'

But she was determined to have until to-morrow--God knows why. And, with

a little firmness, she persuaded him, and he went.

CHAPTER XXVI

BOON COMPANIONS

Lord Almeric flew down the stairs on the wings of triumph, rehearsing at

each corner the words in which he would announce his conquest. He found

his host and the tutor sitting together in the parlour, in the middle of

a game of shilling hazard; which they were playing, the former with as

much enjoyment and the latter with as much good-humour as consisted with

the fact that Mr. Pomeroy was losing, and Mr. Thomasson played against

his will. The weather had changed for the worse since morning. The sky

was leaden, the trees were dripping, the rain hung in rows of drops

along the rails that flanked the avenue. Mr. Pomeroy cursed the damp

hole he owned and sighed for town and the Cocoa Tree. The tutor wished

he were quit of the company--and his debts. And both were so far from

suspecting what had happened upstairs, though the tutor had his hopes,

that Mr. Pomeroy was offering three to one against his friend, when Lord

Almeric danced in upon them.

'Give me joy!' he cried breathless. 'D'you hear, Pom? She'll take me,

and I have bussed her! March could not have done it quicker! She's mine,

and the pool! She is mine! Give me joy!'

Mr. Thomasson lost not a minute in rising and shaking him by the hand.

'My dear lord,' he said, in a voice rendered unusually rich and mellow

by the prospect of five thousand pounds, 'you make me infinitely happy.

You do indeed! I give your lordship joy! I assure you that it will ever

be a matter of the deepest satisfaction to me that I was the cause under

Providence of her presence here! A fine woman, my lord, and a--a

commensurate fortune!'

'A fine woman? Gad! you'd say so if you had held her in your arms!'

cried my lord, strutting and lying.

'I am sure,' Mr. Thomasson hastened to say, 'your lordship is every way

to be congratulated.'

'Gad! you'd say so, Tommy!' the other repeated with a wink. He was in

the seventh heaven of delight.

So far all went swimmingly, neither of them remarking that Mr. Pomeroy

kept silence. But at this point the tutor, whose temper it was to be

uneasy unless all were on his side, happened to turn, saw that he kept

his seat, and was struck with the blackness of his look. Anxious to

smooth over any unpleasantness, and to recall him to the requirements of

the occasion, 'Come, Mr. Pomeroy,' he cried jestingly, 'shall we drink

her ladyship, or is it too early in the day?'

Bully Pomeroy thrust his hands deep into his breeches pockets and did

not budge. ''Twill be time to drink her when the ring is on!' he said,

with an ugly sneer.

'Oh, I vow and protest that's ungenteel,' my lord complained. 'I vow and

protest it is!' he repeated querulously. 'See here, Pom, if you had won

her I'd not treat you like this!'

'Your lordship has not won her yet,' was the churlish answer.

'But she has said it, I tell you. She said she'd have me.'

'She won't be the first woman has altered her mind, nor the last,' Mr.

Pomeroy retorted with an oath. 'You may be amazing sure of that, my

lord.' And muttering something about a woman and a fool being near akin,

he spurned a dog out of his way, overset a chair, and strode cursing

from the room.

Lord Almeric stared after him, his face a queer mixture of vanity and

dismay. At last, 'Strikes me, Tommy, he's uncommon hard hit,' he said,

with a simper. 'He must have made surprising sure of her. Ah!' he

continued with a chuckle, as he passed his hand delicately over his

well-curled wig, and glanced at a narrow black-framed mirror that stood

between the windows. 'He is a bit too old for the women, is Pom. They

run to something lighter in hand. Besides, there's a--a way with the

pretty creatures, if you take me, and Pom has not got it. Now I flatter

myself I have, Tommy, and Julia--it is a sweet name, Julia, don't you

think?--Julia is of that way of thinking. Lord! I know women,' his

lordship continued, beaming the happier the longer he talked. 'It is not

what a man has, or what he has done, or even his taste in a coat or a

wig--though, mind you, a French friseur does a deal to help men to

_bonnes fortunes_--but it is a sort of a way one has. The silly

creatures cannot stand against it.'

Mr. Thomasson hastened to agree, and to vouch her future ladyship's

flame in proof of my lord's prowess. But the tutor was a timid man; and

the more perfect the contentment with which he viewed the turn things

had taken, and the more nearly within his grasp seemed his five

thousand, the graver was the misgiving with which he regarded Mr.

Pomeroy's attitude. He had no notion what shape that gentleman's

hostility might take, nor how far his truculence might aspire. But he

guessed that Lord Almeric's victory had convinced the elder man that his

task would have been easy had the cards favoured him; and when a little

later in the day he saw Pomeroy walking in the park in the drenching

rain, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his wrap-rascal and his

chin bent on his breast, he trembled. He knew that when men of Mr.

Pomeroy's class take to thinking, some one is likely to lose.

At dinner the tutor's fears were temporarily lulled. Mr. Pomeroy put in

a sulky appearance, but his gloom, it was presently manifest, was due to

the burden of an apology; which, being lamely offered and readily

accepted, he relapsed into his ordinary brusque and reckless mood,

swearing that they would have the lady down and drink her, or if that

were not pleasing, 'Damme, we'll drink her any way!' he continued. 'I

was a toad this morning. No offence meant, my lord. Lover's license, you

know. You can afford to be generous, having won the pool.'

'And the maid,' my lord said with a simper. 'Burn me! you are a good

fellow, Pom. Give me your hand. You shall see her after dinner. She said

to-morrow; but, hang me! I'll to her this evening.'

Mr. Pomeroy expressed himself properly gratified, adding demurely that

he would play no tricks.

'No, hang me! no tricks!' my lord cried somewhat alarmed. 'Not that--'

'Not that I am likely to displace your lordship, her affections once

gained,' said Mr. Pomeroy.

He lowered his face to hide a smile of bitter derision, but he might

have spared his pains; for Lord Almeric, never very wise, was blinded by

vanity. 'No, I should think not,' he said, with a conceit which came

near to deserving the other's contempt. 'I should think not, Tommy. Give

me twenty minutes of a start, as Jack Wilkes says, and you may follow as

you please. I rather fancy I brought down the bird at the first shot?'

'Certainly, my lord.'

'I did, didn't I?'

'Most certainly, your lordship did,' repeated the obsequious tutor;

who, basking in the smiles of his host's good-humour, began to think

that things would run smoothly after all. So the lady was toasted, and

toasted again. Nay, so great was Mr. Pomeroy's complaisance and so easy

his mood, he must needs have up three or four bottles of Brooks and

Hellier that had lain in the cellar half a century--the last of a

batch--and give her a third time in bumpers and no heel-taps.

But that opened Mr. Thomasson's eyes. He saw that Pomeroy had reverted

to his idea of the night before, and was bent on making the young fop

drunk, and exposing him in that state to his mistress; perhaps had the

notion of pushing him on some rudeness that, unless she proved very

compliant indeed, must ruin him for ever with her. Three was their

dinner hour; it was not yet four, yet already the young lord was flushed

and a little flustered, talked fast, swore at Jarvey, and bragged of the

girl lightly and without reserve. By six o'clock, if something were not

done, he would be unmanageable.

The tutor stood in no little awe of his host. He had tremors down his

back when he thought of his violence; nor was this dogged persistence in

a design, as cruel as it was cunning, calculated to lessen the feeling.

But he had five thousand pounds at stake, a fortune on which he had been

pluming himself since noon; it was no time for hesitation. They were

dining in the hall at the table at which they had played cards the night

before, Jarvey and Lord Almeric's servant attending them. Between the

table and the staircase was a screen. The next time Lord Almeric's glass

was filled, the tutor, in reaching something, upset the glass and its

contents over his own breeches, and amid the laughter of the other two

retired behind the screen to be wiped. There he slipped a crown into the

servant's hand, and whispered him to keep his master sober and he should

have another.

Mr. Pomeroy saw nothing and heard nothing, and for a time suspected

nothing. The servant was a crafty fellow, a London rascal, deft at

whipping away full bottles. He was an age finding a clean glass, and

slow in drawing the next cork. He filled the host's bumper, and Mr.

Thomasson's, and had but half a glass for his master. The next bottle he

impudently pronounced corked, and when Pomeroy cursed him for a liar,

brought him some in an unwashed glass that had been used for Bordeaux.

The wine was condemned, and went out; and though Pomeroy, with

unflagging spirits, roared to Jarvey to open the other bottles, the

butler had got the office, and was slow to bring them. The cheese came

and went, and left Lord Almeric cooler than it found him. The tutor was

overjoyed at the success of his tactics.

But when the board was cleared, and the bottles were set on, and the men

withdrawn, Bully Pomeroy began to push what remained of the Brooks and

Hellier after a fashion that boded an early defeat to the tutor's

precautions. It was in vain Thomasson clung to the bottle and sometimes

returned it Hertfordshire fashion. The only result was that Mr. Pomeroy

smelt a rat, gave Lord Almeric a back-hander, and sent the bottle on

again, with a grin that told the tutor he was understood.

After that Mr. Thomasson had the choice between sitting still and taking

his own part. It was neck or nothing. Lord Almeric was already

hiccoughing and would soon be talking thickly. The next time the bottle

came round, the tutor retained it, and when Lord Almeric reached, for

it, 'No, my lord,' he said, laughing; 'Venus first and Bacchus

afterwards. Your lordship has to wait on the lady. When you come down,

with Mr. Pomeroy's leave, we'll crack another bottle.'

My lord withdrew his hand more readily than the other had hoped. 'Right,

Tommy,' he said. 'I'll wait till I come down. What's that song, "Rich

the treasure, sweet the pleasure, sweet is pleasure after pain"? Oh, no,

damme! I don't mean that,' he continued. 'No. How does it go?'

Mr. Pomeroy thrust the bottle into his hands, looking daggers the while

at the tutor. 'Take another glass,' he cried boisterously. ''Swounds,

the girl will like you the better for it.'

'D'ye think so, Pom? Honest?'

'Sure of it. 'Twill give you spirit, my lord.'

'So it will.'

'At her and kiss her! Are you going to be governed all your life by that

whey-faced old Methodist? Or be your own man? Tell me that.'

'My lord, there's fifty thousand pounds upon it,' Thomasson said, his

face red. And he pushed back the bottle. The setting sun, peeping a

moment through the rain clouds and the low-browed lattice windows, flung

an angry yellow light on the board and the three flushed faces round it.

'Fifty thousand pounds,' repeated Mr. Thomasson firmly.

'Damme! so there is!' my lord answered, settling his chin in his cravat

and dusting the crumbs from his breeches. 'I'll take no more. So there!'

'I thought your lordship was a good-humoured man and no flincher,' Mr.

Pomeroy retorted with a sneer.

'Oh, I vow and protest--if you put it that way,' the weakling answered,

once more extending his hand, the fingers of which closed lovingly round

the bottle, 'I cannot refuse. Positively I cannot.'

'Fifty thousand pounds!' the tutor said, shrugging his shoulders.

Lord Almeric drew back his hand.

'Why, she'll like you the better!' Pomeroy cried fiercely, as he thrust

the bottle to him again. 'D'you think a woman doesn't love an easy

husband? And wouldn't rather have a good fellow than a thread-paper?'

'Mr. Pomeroy! Mr. Pomeroy!' the tutor said. Such words used of a lord

shocked him.

'A milksop! A thing of curds and whey!'

'After marriage, yes,' the tutor muttered, pitching his voice cleverly

in Lord Almeric's ear, and winking as he leant towards him. 'But your

lordship has a great stake in't; and to abstain one night--why, sure, my

lord, it's a small thing to do for a fine woman and a fortune.'

'Hang me! so it is!' Lord Almeric answered. 'You are a good friend to

me, Tommy.' And he flung his glass crashing into the fireplace. 'No,

Pom; you'd bubble me. You want the pretty charmer yourself. But I'll be

hanged if you shall have her. I'll walk, my boy, I'll walk, and at six

I'll go to her, and take you too. And mind you, no tricks, Pom. Lord! I

know women as well as I know my own head in the glass. You don't

bite me.'

Pomeroy, with a face like thunder, did not answer; and Lord Almeric,

walking a little unsteadily, went to the door, and a moment later became

visible through one of the windows. He stood awhile, his back towards

them, now sniffing the evening air, and now, with due regard to his

mixed silk coat, taking a pinch of snuff.

Mr. Thomasson, his heart beating, wished he had had the courage to go

with him. But this would have been to break with his host beyond

mending; and it was now too late. He was still seeking a propitiatory

phrase with which to break the oppressive silence, when Pomeroy

anticipated him.

'You think yourself vastly clever, Mr. Tutor,' he growled, his voice

hoarse with anger. 'You think a bird in the hand is worth two in the

bush, I see.'

'Ten in the bush,' Mr. Thomasson answered, affecting an easiness he did

not feel. 'Ten fives are fifty.'

'Two in the bush I said, and two in the bush I mean,' the other

retorted, his voice still low. 'Take it or leave it,' he continued, with

a muttered oath and a swift side glance at the windows, through which

Lord Almeric was still visible, walking slowly to and fro, and often

standing. 'If you want it firm, I'll put it in black and white. Ten

thousand, or security, the day after we come from church.'

The tutor was silent a moment. Then, 'It is too far in the bush,' he

answered in a low voice. 'I am willing enough to serve you, Mr. Pomeroy.

I assure you, my dear sir, I desire nothing better. But if--if his

lordship were dismissed, you'd be as far off as ever. And I should lose

my bird in hand.'

'She took him. Why should she not take me?'

'He has--no offence--a title, Mr. Pomeroy.'

'And is a fool.'

Mr. Thomasson raised his hands in deprecation. Such a saying, spoken of

a lord, really offended him. But his words went to another point.

'Besides, it's a marriage-brocage contract, and void,' he muttered.

'Void in law.'

'You don't trust me?'

''Twould be of no use, Mr. Pomeroy,' the tutor answered, gently shaking

his head, and avoiding the issue presented to him. 'You could not

persuade her. She was in such a humour to-day, my lord had special

advantages. Break it off between them, and she'll come to herself. And

she is wilful--Lord! you don't know her! Petruchio could not tame her.'

'I know nothing about Petruchio,' Mr. Pomeroy answered grimly. 'Nor who

the gentleman was. But I've ways of my own. You can leave that to me.'

But Mr. Thomasson, who had only parleyed out of compliance, took fright

at that, and rose from the table, shaking his head.

'You won't do it?' Mr. Pomeroy said.

The tutor shook his head again, with a sickly smile. ''Tis too far in

the bush,' he said.

'Ten thousand,' Mr. Pomeroy persisted, his eyes on the other's face.

'Man,' he continued forcibly, 'Do you think you will ever have such a

chance again? Ten thousand! Why, 'tis eight hundred a year. 'Tis a

gentleman's fortune.'

For a moment Mr. Thomasson did waver. Then he put the temptation from

him, and shook his head. 'You must pardon me, Mr. Pomeroy,' he said. 'I

cannot do it.'

'Will not!' Pomeroy cried harshly. 'Will not!' And would have said more,

but at that moment Jarvey entered behind him.

'Please, your honour,' the man said, 'the lady would see my lord.'

'Oh!' Pomeroy answered coarsely, 'she is impatient, is she? Devil take

her for me! And him too!' And he sat sulkily in his place.

But the interruption suited Mr. Thomasson perfectly. He went to the

outer door, and, opening it, called Lord Almeric, who, hearing what was

afoot, hurried in.

'Sent for me!' he cried, pressing his hat to his breast. 'Dear

creature!' and he kissed his fingers to the gallery. 'Positively she is

the daintiest, sweetest morsel ever wore a petticoat! I vow and protest

I am in love with her! It were brutal not to be, and she so fond! I'll

to her at once! Tell her I fly! I stay for a dash of bergamot, and I am

with her!'

'I thought that you were going to take us with you,' said Mr. Pomeroy,

watching him sourly.

'I will! 'Pon honour, I will!' replied the delighted beau. 'But she

will soon find a way to dismiss you, the cunning baggage! and then,

"Sweet is pleasure after pain." Ha! Ha! I have it aright this time.

Sweet is Plea--oh! the doting rascal! But let us to her! I vow, if she

is not civil to you, I'll--I'll be cold to her!'

CHAPTER XXVII

MR. FISHWICK'S DISCOVERY

We left Sir George Soane and his companions stranded in the little

alehouse at Bathford, waiting through the small hours of the night for a

conveyance to carry them forward to Bristol. Soap and water, a good

meal, and a brief dog's sleep, in which Soane had no share--he spent the

night walking up and down--and from which Mr. Fishwick was continually

starting with cries and moanings, did something to put them in better

plight, if in no better temper. When the dawn came, and with it the

chaise-and-four for which they had sent to Bath, they issued forth

haggard and unshaven, but resolute; and long before the shops in Bristol

had begun to look for custom, the three, with Sir George's servant,

descended before the old Bush Inn, near the Docks.

The attorney held strongly the opinion that they should not waste a

second before seeking the persons whom Mr. Dunborough had employed; the

least delay, he urged, and the men might be gone into hiding. But on

this a wrangle took place, in the empty street before the half-roused

inn; with a milk-girl and a couple of drunken sailors for witnesses. Mr.

Dunborough, who was of the party will-he, nill-he, and asked nothing

better than to take out in churlishness the pressure put upon him, stood

firmly to it, he would take no more than one person to the men. He would

take Sir George, if he pleased, but he would take no one else.

'I'll have no lawyer to make evidence!' he cried boastfully. 'And I'll

take no one but on terms. I'll have no Jemmy Twitcher with me.

That's flat.'

Mr. Fishwick in a great rage was for insisting; but Sir George stopped

him. 'On what terms?' he asked the other.

'If the girl be unharmed, we go unharmed. One and all!' Mr. Dunborough

answered. 'Damme!' he continued with a great show of bravado, 'do you

think I am going to peach on 'em? Not I. There's the offer, take it or

leave it.'

Sir George might have broken down his opposition by the same arguments

addressed to his safety which had brought him so far. But time was

everything, and Soane was on fire to know the best or worst. 'Agreed!'

he cried. 'Lead the way, sir! And do you, Mr. Fishwick, await me here.'

'We must have time,' Mr. Dunborough grumbled, hesitating, and looking

askance at the attorney--he hated him. 'I can't answer for an hour or

two. I know a place, and I know another place, and there is another

place. And they may be at one or another, or the other. D'you see?'

'I see that it is your business,' Sir George answered with a glance,

before which the other's eyes fell. 'Wait until noon, Mr. Fishwick. If

we have not returned at that hour, be good enough to swear an

information against this gentleman, and set the constables to work.'

Mr. Dunborough muttered that it lay on Sir George's head if ill came of

it; but that said, swung sulkily on his heel. Mr. Fishwick, when the two

were some way down the street, ran after Soane, and asked in a whisper

if his pistols were primed; when he returned satisfied on that point,

the servant, whom he had left at the door of the inn, had vanished. The

lawyer made a shrewd guess that he would have an eye to his master's

safety, and retired into the house with less misgiving.

He got his breakfast early, and afterwards dozed awhile, resting his

aching bones in a corner of the coffee-room. It was nine and after, and

the tide of life was roaring through the channels of the city when he

roused himself, and to divert his suspense and fend off his growing

stiffness went out to look about him. All was new to him, but he soon

wearied of the main streets, where huge drays laden with puncheons of

rum and bales of tobacco threatened to crush him, and tarry seamen,

their whiskers hanging in ringlets, jostled him at every crossing.

Turning aside into a quiet court he stood to stare at a humble wedding

which was leaving a church. He watched the party out of sight, and then,

the church-door standing open, he took the fancy to stroll into the

building. He looked about him at the maze of dusty green-cushioned pews

with little alleys winding hither and thither among them; at the great

three-decker with its huge sounding-board; at the royal escutcheon, and

the faded tables of the law, and was about to leave as aimlessly as he

had entered, when he espied the open vestry door. Popping in his head,

his eye fell on a folio bound in sheepskin, that lay open on a chest, a

pen and ink beside it.

The attorney was in that state of fatigue of body and languor of mind in

which the least trifle amuses. He tip-toed in, his hat in his hand, and

licking his lips as he thought of the law-cases that lay enshrined

between those covers, he perused a couple of entries with a kind of

professional enthusiasm. He was beginning a third, which, being by a

different hand, was a little hard to decipher, when a black gown that

hung on a hook over against him swung noiselessly outward from the wall,

and a little old man emerged from the doorway which it masked.

The lawyer, who was stooping over the register, raised himself

guiltily. 'Hallo!' he said, to cover his confusion.

'Hallo!' the old man answered with a wintry smile. 'A shilling, if you

please.' And he held out his hand.

'Oh!' said Mr. Fishwick, much chap-fallen, 'I was only just--looking out

of curiosity.'

'It is a shilling to look,' the newcomer retorted with a chuckle. 'Only

one year, I think? Just so, anno domini seventeen hundred and

sixty-seven. A shilling, if you please.'

Mr. Fishwick hesitated, but in the end professional pride swayed him, he

drew out the coin, and grudgingly handed it over. 'Well,' he said, 'it

is a shilling for nothing. But, I suppose, as you have caught me, I

must pay.'

'I've caught a many that way,' the old fellow answered as he pouched the

shilling. 'But there, I do a lot of work upon them. There is not a

better register kept anywhere than that, nor a parish clerk that knows

more about his register than I do, though I say it that should not. It

is clear and clean from old Henry Eighth, with never a break except at

the time of the siege, and, by the way, there is an entry about that

that you could see for another shilling. No? Well, if you would like to

see a year for nothing--No? Now, I know a lad, an attorney's clerk here,

name of Chatterton, would give his ears for the offer. Perhaps your name

is Smith?' the old fellow continued, looking curiously at Mr. Fishwick.

'If it is, you may like to know that the name of Smith is in the

register of burials just three hundred-and eighty-three times--was last

Friday! Oh, it is not Smith? Well, if it is Brown, it is there two

hundred and seventy times--and one over!'

'That is an odd thought of yours,' said the lawyer, staring at the

conceit.

'So many have said,' the old man chuckled. 'But it is not Brown? Jones,

perhaps? That comes two hundred and--Oh, it is not Jones?'

'It is a name you won't be likely to have once, let alone four hundred

times!' the lawyer answered, with a little pride--heaven knows why.

'What may it be, then?' the clerk asked, fairly put on his mettle. And

he drew out a pair of glasses, and settling them on his forehead looked

fixedly at his companion.

'Fishwick.'

'Fishwick! Fishwick? Well, it is not a common name, and I cannot speak

to it at this moment. But if it is here, I'll wager I'll find it for

you. D'you see, I have them here in alphabet order,' he continued,

bustling with an important air to a cupboard in the wall, whence he

produced a thick folio bound in roughened calf. 'Ay, here's Fishwick, in

the burial book, do you see, volume two, page seventeen, anno domini

1750, seventeen years gone, that is. Will you see it? 'Twill be only a

shilling. There's many pays out of curiosity to see their names.'

Mr. Fishwick shook his head.

'Dods! man, you shall!' the old clerk cried generously; and turned the

pages. 'You shall see it for what you have paid. Here you are.

"_Fourteenth of September, William Fishwick, aged eighty-one, barber,

West Quay, died the eleventh of the month_." No, man, you are looking

too low. Higher on the page! Here 'tis, do you see? Eh--what is it?

What's the matter with you?'

'Nothing,' Mr. Fishwick muttered. But he continued to stare at the page

with a face struck suddenly sallow, while the hand that rested on the

corner of the book shook as with the ague.

'Nothing?' the old man said, staring suspiciously at him. 'I do believe

it is something. I do believe it is money. Well, it is five shillings to

extract. So there!'

That seemed to change Mr. Fishwick's view. 'It might be money,' he

confessed, still speaking thickly, and as if his tongue were too large

for his mouth. 'It might be,' he repeated. 'But--I am not very well this

morning. Do you think you could get me a glass of water?'

'None of that!' the old man retorted sharply, with a sudden look of

alarm. 'I would not leave you alone with that book at this moment for

all the shillings I have taken! So if you want water you've got to

get it.'

'I am better now,' Mr. Fishwick answered. But the sweat that stood on

his brow went far to belie his words. 'I--yes, I think I'll take an

extract. Sixty-one, was he?'

'Eighty-one, eighty-one, it says. There's pen and ink, but you'll please

to give me five shillings before you write. Thank you kindly. Lord save

us, but that is not the one. You're taking out the one above it.'

'I'll have 'em all--for identification,' Mr. Fishwick replied, wiping

his forehead nervously.

'Sho! You have no need.'

'I think I will.'

'What, all?'

'Well, the one before and the one after.'

'Dods! man, but that will be fifteen shillings!' the clerk cried, aghast

at such extravagance.

'You'll only charge for the entry I want?' the lawyer said with an

effort.

'Well--we'll say five shillings for the other two.'

Mr. Fishwick closed with the offer, and with a hand which was still

unsteady paid the money and extracted the entries. Then he took his hat,

and hurriedly, his eyes averted, turned to go.

'If it's money,' the old clerk said, staring at him as if he could

never satisfy his inquisitiveness, 'you'll not forget me?'

'If it's money,' Mr. Fishwick said with a ghastly smile, 'it shall be

some in your pocket.'

'Thank you kindly. Thank you kindly, sir! Now who would ha' thought when

you stepped in here you were stepping into fortune, so to speak?'

'Just so,' Mr. Fishwick answered, a spasm distorting his face. 'Who'd

have thought it? Good morning!'

'And good-luck!' the clerk bawled after him. 'Good-luck!'

Mr. Fishwick fluttered a hand backward, but made no answer. His first

object was to escape from the court; this done, he plunged through a

stream of traffic, and having covered his trail, went on rapidly,

seeking a quiet corner. He found one in a square among some warehouses,

and standing, pulled out the copy he had made from the register. It was

neither on the first nor the second entry, however, that his eyes

dwelled, while the hand that held the paper shook as with the ague. It

was the third fascinated him:--

'_September 19th,_' it ran, '_at the Bee in Steep Street, Julia,

daughter of Anthony and Julia Soane of Estcombe, aged three, and buried

the 21st of the month_.'

Mr. Fishwick read it thrice, his lips quivering; then he slowly drew

from a separate pocket a little sheaf of papers, frayed at the corners,

and soiled with much and loving handling. He selected from these a slip;

it was one of those which Mr. Thomasson had surprised on the table in

the room at the Castle Inn. It was a copy of the attestation of birth

'of Julia, daughter of Anthony Soane, of Estcombe, England, and Julie

his wife'; the date, August, 1747; the place, Dunquerque.

The Attorney drew a long quivering breath, and put the papers up again,

the packet in the place from which he had taken it, the extract from the

Bristol register in another pocket. Then, after drawing one or two more

sighs as if his heart were going out of him, he looked dismally upwards

as in protest against heaven. At length he turned and went back to the

thoroughfare, and there, with a strangely humble air, asked a passer-by

the nearest way to Steep Street.

The man directed him; the place was near at hand. In two minutes Mr.

Fishwick found himself at the door of a small but decent grocer's shop,

over the portal of which a gilded bee seemed to prognosticate more

business than the fact performed. An elderly woman, stout and

comfortable-looking, was behind the counter. Eyeing the attorney as he

came forward, she asked him what she could do for him, and before he

could answer reached for the snuff canister.

He took the hint, requested an ounce of the best Scotch and Havannah

mixed, and while she weighed it, asked her how long she had lived there.

'Twenty-six years, sir,' she answered heartily, 'Old Style. For the New,

I don't hold with it nor them that meddle with things above them. I am

sure it brought me no profit,' she continued, rubbing her nose. 'I have

buried a good husband and two children since they gave it us!'

'Still, I suppose people died Old Style?' the lawyer ventured.

'Well, well, may be.'

'There was a death in this house seventeen years gone this September,'

he said, 'if I remember rightly.'

The woman pushed away the snuff and stared at him. 'Two, for the matter

of that,' she said sharply. 'But should I remember you?'

'No.'

'Then, if I may make so bold, what is't to you?' she retorted. 'Do you

come from Jim Masterson?'

'He is dead,' Mr. Fishwick answered.

She threw up her hands. 'Lord! And he a young man, so to speak! Poor

Jim! Poor Jim! It is ten years and more--ay, more--since I heard from

him. And the child? Is that dead too?'

'No, the child is alive,' the lawyer answered, speaking at a venture, 'I

am here on her behalf, to make some inquiries about her kinsfolk.'

The woman's honest red face softened and grew motherly. 'You may

inquire,' she said, 'you'll learn no more than I can tell you. There is

no one left that's kin to her. The father was a poor Frenchman, a

monsieur that taught the quality about here; the mother was one of his

people--she came from Canterbury, where I am told there are French and

to spare. But according to her account she had no kin left. He died the

year after the child was born, and she came to lodge with me, and lived

by teaching, as he had; but 'twas a poor livelihood, you may say, and

when she sickened, she died--just as a candle goes out.'

'When?' Mr. Fishwick asked, his eyes glued to the woman's face.

'The week Jim Masterson came to see us bringing the child from foreign

parts--that was buried with her. 'Twas said his child took the fever

from her and got its death that way. But I don't know. I don't know. It

is true they had not brought in the New Style then; but--'

'You knew him before? Masterson, I mean?'

'Why, he had courted me!' was the good-tempered answer. 'You don't know

much if you don't know that. Then my good man came along and I liked him

better, and Jim went into service and married Oxfordshire way. But when

he came to Bristol after his journey in foreign parts, 'twas natural he

should come to see me; and my husband, who was always easy, would keep

him a day or two--more's the pity, for in twenty-four hours the child he

had with him began to sicken, and died. And never was man in such a

taking, though he swore the child was not his, but one he had adopted to

serve a gentleman in trouble; and because his wife had none. Any way, it

was buried along with my lodger, and nothing would serve but he must

adopt the child she had left. It seemed ordained-like, they being of an

age, and all. And I had two children to care for, and was looking for

another that never came; and the mother had left no more than buried her

with a little help. So he took it with him, and we heard from him once

or twice, how it fared, and that his wife took to it, and the like; and

then--well, writing's a burden. But,' with renewed interest, 'she's a

well-grown girl by now, I guess?'

'Yes,' the attorney answered absently, 'she--she's a well-grown girl.'

'And is poor Jim's wife alive?'

'Yes.'

'Ah,' the good woman answered, looking thoughtfully into the street.' If

she were not--I'd think about taking to the girl myself. It's lonely at

times without chick or child. And there's the shop to tend. She could

help with that.'

The attorney winced. He was looking ill; wretchedly ill. But he had his

back to the light, and she remarked nothing save that he seemed to be a

sombre sort of body and poor company. 'What was the Frenchman's name?'

he asked after a pause.

'Parry,' said she. And then, sharply, 'Don't they call her by it?'

'It has an English sound,' he said doubtfully, evading her question.

'That is the way he called it. But it was spelled Pare, just Pare.'

'Ah,' said Mr. Fishwick. 'That explains it.' He wondered miserably why

he had asked what did not in the least matter; since, if she were not a

Soane, it mattered not who she was. After an interval he recovered

himself with a sigh. 'Well, thank you,' he continued, 'I am much obliged

to you. And now--for the moment--good-morning, ma'am. I must wish you

good-morning,' he repeated, hurriedly; and took up his snuff.

'But that is not all?' the good woman exclaimed in astonishment. 'At any

rate you'll leave your name?'

Mr. Fishwick pursed up his lips and stared at her gloomily. 'Name?' he

said at last. 'Yes, ma'am, certainly. Brown. Mr. Peter Brown, the--the

Poultry--'

'The Poultry!' she cried, gaping at him helplessly.

'Yes, the Poultry, London. Mr. Peter Brown, the Poultry, London. And now

I have other business and shall--shall return another day. I must wish

you good-morning, ma'am, Good-morning.' And thrusting his face into his

hat, Mr. Fishwick bundled precipitately into the street, and with

singular recklessness made haste to plunge into the thickest of the

traffic, leaving the good woman in a state of amazement.

Nevertheless, he reached the inn safely. When Mr. Dunborough returned

from a futile search, his failure in which condemned him to another

twenty-four hours in that company, the first thing he saw was the

attorney's gloomy face awaiting them in a dark corner of the

coffee-room. The sight reproached him subtly, he knew not why; he was in

the worst of tempers, and, for want of a better outlet, he vented his

spleen on the lawyer's head.

'D--n you!' he cried, brutally. 'Your hang-dog phiz is enough to spoil

any sport! Hang me if I believe that there is such another mumping,

whining, whimpering sneak in the 'varsal world! D'you think any one

will have luck with your tallow face within a mile of him?' Then

longing, but not daring, to turn his wrath on Sir George, 'What do you

bring him for?' he cried.

'For my convenience,' Sir George retorted, with a look of contempt that

for the time silenced the other. And that said, Soane proceeded to

explain to Mr. Fishwick, who had answered not a word, that the rogues

had got into hiding; but that by means of persons known to Mr.

Dunborough it was hoped that they would be heard from that evening or

the next. Then, struck by the attorney's sickly face, 'I am afraid you

are not well, Mr. Fishwick,' Sir George continued, more kindly. 'The

night has been too much for you. I would advise you to lie down for a

few hours and take some rest. If anything is heard I will send word

to you.'

Mr. Fishwick thanked him, without meeting his eyes; and after a minute

or two retired. Sir George looked after him, and pondered a little on

the change in his manner. Through the stress of the night Mr. Fishwick

had shown himself alert and eager, ready and not lacking in spirit; now

he had depression written large on his face, and walked and bore himself

like a man sinking under a load of despondency.

All that day the messenger from the slums was expected but did not come;

and between the two men who sat downstairs, strange relations prevailed.

Sir George did not venture to let the other out of his sight; yet there

were times when they came to the verge of blows, and nothing but the

knowledge of Sir George's swordsmanship kept Mr. Dunborough's temper

within bounds. At dinner, at which Sir George insisted that the attorney

should sit down with them, Dunborough drank his two bottles of wine, and

in his cups fell into a strain peculiarly provoking.

'Lord! you make me sick,' he said. 'All this pother about a girl that a

month ago your high mightiness would not have looked at in the street.

You are vastly virtuous now, and sneer at me; but, damme! which of us

loves the girl best? Take away her money, and will you marry her? I'd 'a

done it, without a rag to her back. But take away her money, and will

you do the same, Mr. Virtuous?'

Sir George listening darkly, and putting a great restraint on himself,

did not answer. Mr. Fishwick waited a moment, then got up suddenly, and

hurried from the room--with a movement so abrupt that he left his

wine-glass in fragments on the floor.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A ROUGH AWAKENING

Lord Almeric continued to vapour and romance as he mounted the stairs.

Mr. Pomeroy attended, sneering, at his heels. The tutor followed, and

longed to separate them. He had his fears for the one and of the other,

and was relieved when his lordship at the last moment hung back, and

with a foolish chuckle proposed a plan that did more honour to his

vanity than his taste.

'Hist!' he whispered. 'Do you two stop outside a minute, and you'll hear

how kind she'll be to me! I'll leave the door ajar, and then in a minute

do you come in and roast her! Lord, 'twill be as good as a play!'

Mr. Pomeroy shrugged his shoulders. 'As you please,' he growled. 'But I

have known a man go to shear and be shorn!'

Lord Almeric smiled loftily, and waiting for no more, winked to them,

turned the handle of the door, and simpered in.

Had Mr. Thomasson entered with him, the tutor would have seen at a

glance that he had wasted his fears; and that whatever trouble

threatened brooded in a different quarter. The girl, her face a blaze of

excitement and shame and eagerness, stood in the recess of the farther

window seat, as far from the door as she could go; her attitude the

attitude of one driven into a corner. And from that alone her lover

should have taken warning. But Lord Almeric saw nothing, feared nothing.

Crying 'Most lovely Julia!' he tripped forward to embrace her, and, the

wine emboldening him, was about to clasp her in his arms, when she

checked him by a gesture unmistakable even by a man in his

flustered state.

'My lord,' she said hurriedly, yet in a tone of pleading--and her head

hung a little, and her cheeks began to flame. 'I ask your forgiveness

for having sent for you. Alas, I have also to ask your forgiveness for a

more serious fault. One--one which you may find it less easy to pardon,'

she added, her courage failing.

'Try me!' the little beau answered with ardour; and he struck an

attitude. 'What would I not forgive to the loveliest of her sex?' And

under cover of his words he made a second attempt to come within

reach of her.

She waved him back. 'No!' she said. 'You do not understand me.'

'Understand?' he cried effusively. 'I understand enough to--but why, my

Chloe, these alarms, this bashfulness? Sure,' he spouted,

'How can I see you, and not love,

While you as Opening East are fair?

While cold as Northern Blasts you prove,

How can I love and not despair?'

And then, in wonder at his own readiness, 'S'help me! that's uncommon

clever of me,' he said. 'But when a man is in love with the most

beautiful of her sex--'

'My lord!' she cried, stamping the floor in her impatience. 'I have

something serious to say to you. Must I ask you to return to me at

another time? Or will you be good enough to listen to me now?'

'Sho, if you wish it, child,' he said lightly, taking out his snuff-box.

'And to be sure there is time enough. But between us two, sweet--'

'There is nothing between us!' she cried, impetuously snatching at the

word. 'That is what I wanted to tell you. I made a mistake when I said

that there should be. I was mad; I was wicked, if you like. Do you hear

me, my lord?' she continued passionately. 'It was a mistake. I did not

know what I was doing. And, now I do understand, I take it back.'

Lord Almeric gasped. He heard the words, but the meaning seemed

incredible, inconceivable; the misfortune, if he heard aright, was too

terrible; the humiliation too overwhelming! He had brought

listeners--and for this! 'Understand?' he cried, looking at her in a

confused, chap-fallen way. 'Hang me if I do understand! You don't mean

to say--Oh, it is impossible, stuff me! it is. You don't mean that--that

you'll not have me? After all that has come and gone, ma'am?'

She shook her head; pitying him, blaming herself, for the plight in

which she had placed him. 'I sent for you, my lord,' she said humbly,

'that I might tell you at once. I could not rest until I had told you. I

did what I could. And, believe me, I am very, very sorry.'

'But do you mean--that you--you jilt me?' he cried, still fighting off

the dreadful truth.

'Not jilt!' she said, shivering.

'That you won't have me?'

She nodded.

'After--after saying you would?' he wailed.

'I cannot,' she answered. Then, 'Cannot you understand?' she cried, her

face scarlet. 'I did not know until--until you went to kiss me.'

'But--oh, I say--but you love me?' he protested.

'No, my lord,' she said firmly. 'No. And there, you must do me the

justice to acknowledge that I never said I did.'

He dashed his hat on the floor: he was almost weeping. 'Oh, damme!' he

cried, 'a woman should not--should not treat a man like this. It's low.

It's cruel! It's--'

A knock on the door stopped him. Recollection of the listeners, whom he

had momentarily forgotten, revived, and overwhelmed him. With an oath he

sprang to shut the door, but before he could intervene Mr. Pomeroy

appeared smiling on the threshold; and behind him the reluctant tutor.

Lord Almeric swore, and Julia, affronted by the presence of strangers at

such a time, drew back, frowning. But Bully Pomeroy would see nothing.

'A thousand pardons if I intrude,' he said, bowing this way and that,

that he might hide a lurking grin. 'But his lordship was good enough to

say a while ago, that he would present us to the lady who had consented

to make him happy. We little thought last night, ma'am, that so much

beauty and so much goodness were reserved for one of us.'

Lord Almeric looked ready to cry. Julia, darkly red, was certain that

they had overheard; she stood glaring at the intruders, her foot tapping

the floor. No one answered, and Mr. Pomeroy, after looking from one to

the other in assumed surprise, pretended to hit on the reason. 'Oh, I

see; I spoil sport!' he cried with coarse joviality. 'Curse me if I

meant to! I fear we have come _mal à propos,_ my lord, and the sooner we

are gone the better.

'And though she found his usage rough,

Yet in a man 'twas well enough!'

he hummed, with his head on one side and an impudent leer. 'We are

interrupting the turtledoves, Mr. Thomasson, and had better be gone.'

'Curse you! Why did you ever come?' my lord cried furiously. 'But she

won't have me. So there! Now you know.'

Mr. Pomeroy struck an attitude of astonishment.

'Won't have you?' he cried, 'Oh, stap me! you are biting us.'

'I'm not! And you know it!' the poor little blood answered, tears of

vexation in his eyes. 'You know it, and you are roasting me!'

'Know it?' Mr. Pomeroy answered in tones of righteous indignation. 'I

know it? So far from knowing it, my dear lord, I cannot believe it! I

understood that the lady had given you her word.'

'So she did.'

'Then I cannot believe that a lady would anywhere, much less under my

roof, take it back. Madam, there must be some mistake here,' Mr. Pomeroy

continued warmly. 'It is intolerable that a man of his lordship's rank

should be so treated. I'm forsworn if he has not mistaken you.'

'He does not mistake me now,' she answered, trembling and blushing

painfully. 'What error there was I have explained to him.'

'But, damme--'

'Sir!' she said with awakening spirit, her eyes sparkling. 'What has

happened is between his lordship and myself. Interference on the part of

any one else is an intrusion, and I shall treat it as such. His lordship

understood--'

'Curse me! He does not look as if he understood,' Mr. Pomeroy cried,

allowing his native coarseness to peep through. 'Sink me, ma'am, there

is a limit to prudishness. Fine words butter no parsnips. You plighted

your troth to my guest, and I'll not see him thrown over i' this

fashion. These airs and graces are out of place. I suppose a man has

some rights under his own roof, and when his guest is jilted before his

eyes'--here Mr. Pomeroy frowned like Jove--'it is well you should know,

ma'am, that a woman no more than a man can play fast and loose at

pleasure.'

She looked at him with disdain. 'Then the sooner I leave your roof the

better, sir,' she said.

'Not so fast there, either,' he answered with an unpleasant smile. 'You

came to it when you chose, and you will leave it when we choose; and

that is flat, my girl. This morning, when my lord did you the honour to

ask you, you gave him your word. Perhaps to-morrow morning you'll be of

the same mind again. Any way, you will wait until to-morrow and see.'

'I shall not wait on your pleasure,' she cried, stung to rage.

'You will wait on it, ma'am! Or 'twill be the worse for you.'

Burning with indignation she turned to the other two, her breath coming

quick. But Mr. Thomasson gazed gloomily at the floor, and would not meet

her eyes; and Lord Almeric, who had thrown himself into a chair, was

glowering sulkily at his shoes. 'Do you mean,' she cried, 'that you will

dare to detain me, sir?'

'If you put it so,' Pomeroy answered, grinning, 'I think I dare take it

on myself.'

His voice full of mockery, his insolent eyes, stung her to the quick. 'I

will see if that be so,' she cried, fearlessly advancing on him. 'Lay a

finger on me if you dare! I am going out. Make way, sir.'

'You are not going out!' he cried between his teeth. And held his ground

in front of her.

She advanced until she was within touch of him, then her courage failed

her; they stood a second or two gazing at one another, the girl with

heaving breast and cheeks burning with indignation, the man with cynical

watchfulness. Suddenly, shrinking from actual contact with him, she

sprang aside, and was at the door before he could intercept her. But

with a rapid movement he turned on his heel, seized her round the waist

before she could open the door, dragged her shrieking from it, and with

an oath--and not without an effort--flung her panting and breathless

into the window-seat. 'There!' he cried ferociously, his blood fired by

the struggle; 'lie there! And behave yourself, my lady, or I'll find

means to quiet you. For you,' he continued, turning fiercely on the

tutor, whose face the sudden scuffle and the girl's screams had blanched

to the hue of paper, 'did you never hear a woman squeak before? And you,

my lord? Are you so dainty? But, to be sure, 'tis your lordship's

mistress,' he continued ironically. 'Your pardon. I forgot that. I

should not have handled her so roughly. However, she is none the worse,

and 'twill bring her to reason.'

But the struggle and the girl's cries had shaken my lord's nerves. 'D--n

you!' he cried hysterically, and with a stamp of the foot, 'you should

not have done that.'

'Pooh, pooh,' Mr. Pomeroy answered lightly. 'Do you leave it to me, my

lord. She does not know her own mind. 'Twill help her to find it. And

now, if you'll take my advice, you'll leave her to a night's

reflection.'

But Lord Almeric only repeated, 'You should not have done that.'

Mr. Pomeroy's face showed his scorn for the man whom a cry or two and a

struggling woman had frightened. Yet he affected to see art in it. 'I

understand. And it is the right line to take,' he said; and he laughed

unpleasantly. 'No doubt it will be put to your lordship's credit. But

now, my lord,' he continued, 'let us go. You will see she will have come

to her senses by to-morrow.'

The girl had remained passive since her defeat. But at this she rose

from the window-seat where she had crouched, slaying them with furious

glances. 'My lord,' she cried passionately, 'if you are a man, if you

are a gentleman--you'll not suffer this.'

But Lord Almeric, who had recovered from his temporary panic, and was

as angry with her as with Pomeroy, shrugged his shoulders. 'Oh, I don't

know,' he said resentfully. 'It has naught to do with me, ma'am. I don't

want you kept, but you have behaved uncommon low to me; uncommon low.

And 'twill do you good to think on it. Stap me, it will!'

And he turned on his heel and sneaked out.

Mr. Pomeroy laughed insolently. 'There is still Tommy,' he said. 'Try

him. See what he'll say to you. It amuses me to hear you plead, my dear;

you put so much spirit into it. As my lord said, before we came in, 'tis

as good as a play.'

She flung him a look of scorn, but did not answer. For Mr. Thomasson, he

shuffled his feet uncomfortably. 'There are no horses,' he faltered,

cursing his indiscreet companion. 'Mr. Pomeroy means well, I know. And

as there are no horses, even if nothing prevented you, you could not go

to-night, you see.'

Mr. Pomeroy burst into a shout of laughter and clapped the stammering

tutor (fallen miserably between two stools) on the back. 'There's a

champion for you!' he cried. 'Beauty in distress! Lord! how it fires his

blood and turns his look to flame! What! going, Tommy?' he continued, as

Mr. Thomasson, unable to bear his raillery or the girl's fiery scorn,

turned and fled ignobly. 'Well, my pretty dear, I see we are to be left

alone. And, damme! quite right too, for we are the only man and the only

woman of the party, and should come to an understanding.'

Julia looked at him with shuddering abhorrence. They were alone; the

sound of the tutor's retreating footsteps was growing faint. She pointed

to the door. 'If you do not go,' she cried, her voice shaking with rage,

'I will rouse the house! I will call your people! Do you hear me? I

will so cry to your servants that you shall not for shame dare to keep

me! I will break this window and cry for help?'

'And what do you think I should be doing meanwhile?' he retorted with an

ugly leer. 'I thought I had shown you that two could play at that game.

But there, child, I like your spirit! I love you for it! You are a girl

after my own heart, and, damme! we'll live to laugh at those two old

women yet!'

She shrank farther from him with an expression of loathing. He saw the

look, and scowled, but for the moment he kept his temper. 'Fie! the

Little Masterson playing the grand lady!' he said. 'But there, you are

too handsome to be crossed, my dear. You shall have your own way

to-night, and I'll come and talk to you to-morrow, when your head is

cooler and those two fools are out of the way. And if we quarrel then,

my beauty, we can but kiss and make it up. Look on me as your friend,'

he added, with a leer from which she shrank, 'and I vow you'll not

repent it.'

She did not answer, she only pointed to the door, and finding that he

could draw nothing from her, he went at last. On the threshold he

turned, met her eyes with a grin of meaning, and took the key from the

inside of the lock. She heard him insert it on the outside, and turn it,

and had to grip one hand with the other to stay the scream that arose in

her throat. She was brave beyond most women; but the ease with which he

had mastered her, the humiliation of contact with him, the conviction of

her helplessness in his grasp lay on her still. They filled her with

fear; which grew more definite as the light, already low in the corners

of the room, began to fail, and the shadows thickened about the dingy

furniture, and she crouched alone against the barred window, listening

for the first tread of a coming foot--and dreading the night.

CHAPTER XXIX

MR. POMEROY'S PLAN

Mr. Pomeroy chuckled as he went down the stairs. Things had gone so well

for him, he owed it to himself to see that they went better, he had

mounted with a firm determination to effect a breach even if it cost him

my lord's enmity. He descended, the breach made, the prize open to

competition, and my lord obliged by friendly offices and

unselfish service.

Mr. Pomeroy smiled. 'She is a saucy baggage,' he muttered, 'but I've

tamed worse. 'Tis the first step is hard, and I have taken that. Now to

deal with Mother Olney. If she were not such a fool, or if I could be

rid of her and Jarvey, and put in the Tamplins, all's done. But she'd

talk! The kitchen wench need know nothing; for visitors, there are none

in this damp old hole. Win over Mother Olney and the Parson--and I don't

see where I can fail. The wench is here, safe and tight, and bread and

water, damp and loneliness will do a great deal. She don't deserve

better treatment, hang her impudence!'

But when he appeared in the hall an hour later, his gloomy face told a

different story. 'Where's Doyley?' he growled; and stumbled over a dog,

kicked it howling into a corner. 'Has he gone to bed?'

The tutor, brooding sulkily over his wine, looked up. 'Yes,' he said, as

rudely as he dared--he was sick with disappointment. 'He is going in

the morning.'

'And a good riddance!' Pomeroy cried with an oath. 'He's off it, is he?

He gives up?'

The tutor nodded gloomily. 'His lordship is not the man,' he said, with

an attempt at his former manner, 'to--to--'

'To win the odd trick unless he holds six trumps,' Mr. Pomeroy cried.

'No, by God! he is not. You are right, Parson. But so much the better

for you and me!'

Mr. Thomasson sniffed. 'I don't follow you,' he said stiffly.

'Don't you? You weren't so dull years ago,' Mr. Pomeroy answered,

filling a glass as he stood. He held it in his hand and looked over it

at the other, who, ill at ease, fidgeted in his chair, 'You could put

two and two together then, Parson, and you can put five and five

together now. They make ten--thousand.'

'I don't follow you,' the tutor repeated, steadfastly looking away from

him.

'Why? Nothing is changed since we talked--except that he is out of it!

And that that is done for me for nothing, which I offered you five

thousand to do. But I am generous, Tommy. I am generous.'

'The next chance is mine,' Mr. Thomasson cried, with a glance of spite.

Mr. Pomeroy, looking down at him, laughed--a galling laugh. 'Lord!

Tommy, that was a hundred years ago,' he said contemptuously.

'You said nothing was changed!'

'Nothing is changed in my case,' Mr. Pomeroy answered confidently,

'except for the better. In your case everything is changed--for the

worse. Did you take her part upstairs? Are your hands clean now? Does

she see through you or does she not? Or, put it in another way, my

friend. It is your turn; what are you going to do?'

'Go,' the tutor answered viciously. 'And glad to be quit.'

Mr. Pomeroy sat down opposite him. 'No, you'll not go,' he said in a low

voice; and drinking off half his wine, set down the glass and regarded

the other over it. 'Five and five are ten, Tommy. You are no fool, and I

am no fool.'

'I am not such a fool as to put my neck in a noose,' the tutor retorted.

'And there is no other way of coming at what you want, Mr. Pomeroy.'

'There are twenty,' Pomeroy returned coolly. 'And, mark you, if I fail,

you are spun, whether you help rue or no. You are blown on, or I can

blow on you! You'll get nothing for your cut on the head.'

'And what shall I get if I stay?'

'I have told you.'

'The gallows.'

'No, Tommy. Eight hundred a year.'

Mr. Thomasson sneered incredulously, and having made it plain that he

refused to think--thought! He had risked so much in this enterprise,

gone through so much; and to lose it all! He cursed the girl's

fickleness, her coyness, her obstinacy! He hated her. And do what he

might for her now, he doubted if he could cozen her or get much from

her. Yet in that lay his only chance, apart from Mr. Pomeroy. His eye

was cunning and his tone sly when he spoke.

'You forget one thing,' he said. 'I have only to open my lips after I

leave.'

'And I am nicked?' Mr. Pomeroy answered. 'True. And you will get a

hundred guineas, and have a worse than Dunborough at your heels.'

The tutor wiped his brow. 'What do you want?' he whispered.

'That old hag of a housekeeper has turned rusty,' Pomeroy answered.

'She has got it into her head something is going to be done to the girl.

I sounded her and I cannot trust her. I could send her packing, but

Jarvey is not much better, and talks when he is drunk. The girl must be

got from here.'

Mr. Thomasson raised his eyebrows scornfully.

'You need not sneer, you fool!' Pomeroy cried with a little spirt of

rage.' 'Tis no harder than to get her here.'

'Where will you take her?'

'To Tamplin's farm by the river. There, you are no wiser, but you may

trust me. I can hang the man, and the woman is no better. They have done

this sort of thing before. Once get her there, and, sink me! she'll be

glad to see the parson!'

The tutor shuddered. The water was growing very deep. 'I'll have no part

in it!' he said hoarsely. 'No part in it, so help me God!'

'There's no part for you!' Mr. Pomeroy answered with grim patience.

'Your part is to thwart me.'

Mr. Thomasson, half risen from his chair, sat down again. 'What do you

mean?' he muttered.

'You are her friend. Your part is to help her to escape. You're to sneak

to her room to-morrow, and tell her that you'll steal the key when I'm

drunk after dinner. You'll bid her be ready at eleven, and you'll let

her out, and have a chaise waiting at the end of the avenue. The chaise

will be there, you'll put her in, you'll go back to the house. I suppose

you see it now?'

The tutor stared in wonder. 'She'll get away,' he said.

'Half a mile,' Mr. Pomeroy answered drily, as he filled his glass.' Then

I shall stop the chaise--with a pistol if you like, jump in--a merry

surprise for the nymph; and before twelve we shall be at Tamplin's. And

you'll be free of it.'

Mr. Thomasson pondered, his face flushed, his eyes moist. 'I think you

are the devil!' he said at last.

'Is it a bargain? And see here. His lordship has gone silly on the girl.

You can tell him before he leaves what you are going to do. He'll leave

easy, and you'll have an evidence--of your good intentions!' Mr. Pomeroy

added with a chuckle. 'Is it a bargain?'

'I'll not do it!' Mr. Thomasson cried faintly. 'I'll not do it!'

But he sat down again, their heads came together across the table; they

talked long in low voices. Presently Mr. Pomeroy fetched pen and paper

from a table in one of the windows; where they lay along with one or two

odd volumes of Crebillon, a tattered Hoyle on whist, and Foote's jest

book. A note was written and handed over, and the two rose.

Mr. Thomasson would have liked to say a word before they parted as to no

violence being contemplated or used; something smug and fair-seeming

that would go to show that his right hand did not understand what his

left was doing. But even his impudence was unequal to the task, and with

a shamefaced good-night he secured the memorandum in his pocket-book and

sneaked up to bed.

He had every opportunity of carrying out Pomeroy's suggestion to make

Lord Almeric his confidant. For when he entered the chamber which they

shared, he found his lordship awake, tossing and turning in the shade of

the green moreen curtains; in a pitiable state between chagrin and rage.

But the tutor's nerve failed him. He had few scruples--it was not that;

but he was weary and sick at heart, and for that night he felt that he

had done enough. So to all my lord's inquiries he answered as sleepily

as consisted with respect, until the effect which he did not wish to

produce was produced. The young roué's suspicions were aroused, and on

a sudden he sat up in bed, his nightcap quivering on his head.

'Tommy!' he cried feverishly. 'What is afoot downstairs? Now, do you

tell me the truth.'

'Nothing,' Mr. Thomasson answered soothingly.

'Because--well, she's played it uncommon low on me, uncommon low she's

played it,' my lord complained pathetically; 'but fair is fair, and

willing's willing! And I'll not see her hurt. Pom's none too nice, I

know, but he's got to understand that. I'm none of your Methodists,

Tommy, as you are aware, no one more so! But, s'help me! no one shall

lay a hand on her against her will!'

'My dear lord, no one is going to!' the tutor answered, quaking in his

bed.

'That is understood, is it? Because it had better be!' the little lord

continued with unusual vigour. 'I vow I have no cause to stand up for

her. She's a d--d saucy baggage, and has treated me with--with d--d

disrespect. But, oh Lord! Tommy, I'd have been a good husband to her. I

would indeed. And been kind to her. And now--she's made a fool of me!

She's made a fool of me!'

And my lord took off his nightcap, and wiped his eyes with it.

CHAPTER XXX

A GREEK GIFT

Julia, left alone, and locked in the room, passed such a night as a girl

instructed in the world's ways might have been expected to pass in her

position, and after the rough treatment of the afternoon. The room grew

dark, the dismal garden and weedy pool that closed the prospect faded

from sight; and still as she crouched by the barred window, or listened

breathless at the door, all that part of the house lay silent. Not a

sound of life came to the ear.

By turns she resented and welcomed this. At one time, pacing the floor

in a fit of rage and indignation, she was ready to dash herself against

the door, or scream and scream and scream until some one came to her. At

another the recollection of Pomeroy's sneering smile, of his insolent

grasp, revived to chill and terrify her; and she hid in the darkest

corner, hugged the solitude, and, scarcely daring to breathe, prayed

that the silence might endure for ever.

But the hours in the dark room were long and cold; and at times the

fever of rage and fear left her in the chill. Of this came another phase

through which she passed, as the night wore on and nothing happened. Her

thoughts reverted to him who should have been her protector, but had

become her betrayer--and by his treachery had plunged her into this

misery; and on a sudden a doubt of his guilt flashed into her mind and

blinded her by its brilliance. Had she done him an injustice? Had the

abduction been, after all, concerted not by him but by Mr. Thomasson and

his confederates? The setting down near Pomeroy's gate, the reception at

his house, the rough, hasty suit paid to her--were these all parts of a

drama cunningly arranged to mystify her? And was he innocent? Was _he_

still her lover, true, faithful, almost her husband?

If she could think so! She rose, and softly walked the floor in the

darkness, tears raining down her face. Oh, if she could be sure of it!

At the thought, the thought only, she glowed from head to foot with

happy shame. And fear? If this were so, if his love were still hers, and

hers the only fault--of doubting him, she feared nothing! Nothing! She

felt her way to a tray in the corner where her last meal remained

untasted, and ate and drank humbly, and for him. She might need

her strength.

She had finished, and was groping her return to the window-seat, when a

faint rustle as of some one moving on the other side of the door caught

her ear. She had fancied herself brave enough an instant before, but in

the darkness a great horror of fear came on her. She stood rooted to the

spot; and heard the noise again. It was followed by the sound of a hand

passed stealthily over the panels; a hand seeking, as she thought, for

the key; and she could have shrieked in her helplessness. But while she

stood, her face turned to stone, came instant relief, A voice, subdued

in fear, whispered, 'Hist, ma'am, hist! Are you asleep?'

She could have fallen on her knees in her thankfulness. 'No! no!' she

cried eagerly. 'Who is it?'

'It is me--Olney!' was the answer. 'Keep a heart, ma'am! They are gone

to bed. You are quite safe.'

'Can you let me out?' Julia cried. 'Oh, let me out!'

'Let you out?'

'Yes, yes! Let me out? Please let me out.'

'God forbid, ma'am!' was the horrified answer. 'He'd kill me. And he has

the key. But--'

'Yes? yes?'

'Keep your heart up, ma'am, for Jarvey'll not see you hurt; nor will I.

You may sleep easy. And good-night!'

She stole away before Julia could answer; but she left comfort. In a

glow of thankfulness the girl pushed a chair against the door, and,

wrapping herself for warmth in the folds of the shabby curtains, lay

down on the window seat. She was willing to sleep now, but the agitation

of her thoughts, the whirl of fear and hope that prevailed in them, as

she went again and again over the old ground, kept her long awake. The

moon had risen and run its course, decking the old garden with a solemn

beauty as of death, and was beginning to retreat before the dawn, when

Julia slept at last.

When she awoke it was broad daylight. A moment she gazed upwards,

wondering where she was; the next a harsh grating sound, and the echo of

a mocking laugh brought her to her feet in a panic of remembrance.

The key was still turning in the lock--she saw it move, saw it

withdrawn; but the room was empty. And while she stood staring and

listening heavy footsteps retired along the passage. The chair which she

had set against the door had been pushed back, and milk and bread stood

on the floor beside it.

She drew a deep breath; he had been there. But her worst terrors had

passed with the night. The sun was shining, filling her with scorn of

her gaoler. She panted to be face to face with him, that she might cover

him with ridicule, overwhelm him with the shafts of her woman's wit, and

show him how little she feared and how greatly she despised him.

But he did not appear; the hours passed slowly, and with the afternoon

came a clouded sky, and weariness and reaction of spirits; fatigue of

body, and something like illness; and on that a great terror. If they

drugged her in her food? The thought was like a knife in the girl's

heart, and while she still writhed on it, her ear caught the creak of a

board in the passage, and a furtive tread that came, and softly went

again, and once more returned. She stood, her heart beating; and fancied

she heard the sound of breathing on the other side of the door. Then her

eye alighted on a something white at the foot of the door, that had not

been there a minute earlier. It was a tiny note. While she gazed at it

the footsteps stole away again.

She pounced on the note and opened it, thinking it might be from Mrs.

Olney. But the opening lines smacked of other modes of speech than hers;

and though Julia had no experience of Mr. Thomasson's epistolary style,

she felt no surprise when she found the initials F.T. appended to

the message.

'Madam,' it ran. 'You are in danger here, and I in no less of being held

to account for acts which my heart abhors. Openly to oppose myself to

Mr. P.--the course my soul dictates--were dangerous for us both, and

another must be found. If he drink deep to-night, I will, heaven

assisting, purloin the key, and release you at ten, or as soon after as

may be. Jarvey, who is honest, and fears the turn things are taking,

will have a carriage waiting in the road. Be ready, hide this, and when

you are free, though I seek no return for services attended by much

risk, yet if you desire to find one, an easy way may appear of

requiting,