THE CLOCK-MAKER
It even seemed to Sophia that his face, as he stood watching her, took
on a smirk of satisfaction, faint, but odious; and in that moment, and
for the moment, she came near to hating him. She knew that in the set
in which she moved much might be overlooked, and daily and hourly was
overlooked, in the right people. But to be lost at Vauxhall at
midnight, in the company of an unauthorised lover--this had a horribly
clandestine sound; this should be sufficient to blacken the fame of a
poor maid--or her country education was at fault. And knowing this,
and hearing the confused sounds of departure rise each moment louder
and more importunate, the girl grew frantic with impatience.
"Which way? Which way?" she cried. "Do you hear me? Which way are the
boxes, Mr. Hawkesworth? You know which way I came. Am I to think you a
dolt, sir, or--or what?"
"Or what?" he repeated, grinning feebly. To be candid, the occasion
had not been foreseen, and the Irishman, though of readiest wit, could
not on the instant make up his mind how he would act.
"Or a villain?" she cried, with a furious glance. And in the effort to
control herself, the ivory fan-sticks snapped in her small fingers as
if they had been of glass. "Take me back this instant, sir," she
continued, her head high, "or never presume to speak to me again!"
What he would have said to this is uncertain, for the good reason that
before he answered, two men appeared at the end of the alley. Catching
the sheen of Sophia's hoop skirt, where it glimmered light against the
dark of the trees, they espied the pair, took them for a pair of
lovers, and with a whoop of drunken laughter came towards them. One
was Lord P----, no soberer than before; the other a brother buck
flushed with wine to the same pitch of insolence, and ready for any
folly or mischief. Crying "So ho! A petticoat! A petticoat!" the two
Mohocks joined hands, and with a tipsy view-halloa! swept down the
green walk, expecting to carry all before them.
But it was in such an emergency as this that the Irishman was at his
best. Throwing himself between the shrinking, frightened girl and the
onset of the drunken rakes, he raised his cane with an air so
determined that the assailants thought better of their plan, and,
pausing with a volley of drunken threats, parted hands and changed
their scheme of attack. While one prepared to rush in and overturn the
man, the other made a feint aside, and, thrusting himself through the
shrubs, sprang on the girl. Sophia screamed, and tried to free
herself; but scream and effort were alike premature. With a rapid
twirl Hawkesworth avoided my lord's rush, caught him by the waist as
he blundered by, and, swinging him off his legs, flung him crashing
among the undergrowth. Then, whipping out his sword, he pricked the
other who had seized Sophia, in the fleshy part of the shoulder, and
forced him to release her; after which, plying his point before the
bully's eyes, he drove him slowly back and back. Now the man shrieked
and flinched as the glittering steel menaced his face; now he poured
forth a volley of threats and curses, as it was for a moment
withdrawn. But Hawkesworth was unmoved by either, and at length the
fellow, seeing that he was not to be intimidated either by his
lordship's name or his own menaces, thought better of it--as these
gentlemen commonly did when they were resisted; and springing back
with a parting oath, he took to his heels, and saved himself down a
bypath.
The Irishman, a little breathed by his victory, wasted no time in
vaunting it. The girl had witnessed it with worshipping eyes; he could
trust her to make the most of it. "Quick," he cried, "or we shall be
in trouble!" And sheathing his sword, he caught the trembling Sophia
by the hand, and ran with her down the path. They turned a corner; a
little way before her she saw lights, and the open space near the
booths which she had seen her brother cross. But now Hawkesworth
halted; his purpose was still fluid and uncertain. But the next moment
a shrill childish voice cried "Here she is; I've found her!" and Lady
Betty Cochrane flew towards them. A little behind her, approaching at
a more leisurely pace, was Sir Hervey Coke.
Lady Betty stared at Hawkesworth with all her eyes, and giggled. "Oh,
lord, a man!" she cried, and veiled her face, pretending to be
overcome.
"I saw my brother," Sophia faltered, covered with confusion, "and ran
down--ran down to--to meet him."
"Just so! But see here, _brother!_" Lady Betty answered with a wink.
"Go's the word, now, if you are not a fool."
Hawkesworth hesitated an instant, looking from Sophia to Sir Hervey
Coke; but he saw that nothing more could be done on the occasion, and
muttering "Another time," he turned away, and in a moment was lost in
the grove.
"She was with her brother," Lady Betty cried, turning, and
breathlessly explaining the matter to Coke, who had seen all. "Think
of that! She saw him, and followed him. That's all. Lord, I wonder,"
she continued, with a loud giggle, "if they would make such a fuss if
I were missing. I declare to goodness I'll try." And, leaving Sophia
to follow with Sir Hervey, she danced on in front until they met Mrs.
Northey, who, with her husband and several of her party, was following
in search of the culprit. Seeing she was found, the gentlemen winked
at one another behind backs, while the ladies drew down the corners of
their mouths. One of the latter laughed, maliciously expecting the
scene that would follow.
But Lady Betty had the first word, and kept it. "Lord, ma'am, what
ninnies we are!" she cried. "She was with her brother. That's all!"
"Hee, hee!" the lady tittered who had laughed before. "That's good!
Her brother!"
"Yes, she was!" Betty cried, turning on her, a very spitfire. "I
suppose seeing's believing, ma'am, though one is only fifteen, and not
forty. She saw her brother going by the--the corner there, and ran
after him while we were watching--watching the---- But oh, I beg your
pardon, ma'am, you were otherwise engaged, I think!" with a derisive
curtsey.
Unfortunately the lady who had laughed had a weakness for one of the
gentlemen in company; which was so notorious that on this even her
friends sniggered. With Mrs. Northey, however, Lady Betty's advocacy
was less effective. That pattern sister, from the moment she
discovered Sophia's absence, and divined the cause of it, had been fit
to burst with spleen. Fortunately, the coarse rating which she had
prepared, and from which neither policy nor mercy could have persuaded
her to refrain, died on her shrewish lips at the word "brother."
"Her brother?" she repeated mechanically, as she glowered at Lady
Betty. "Her brother here? What do you mean?"
"To be sure, ma'am, what I say. She saw him."
"But how did she know--that he was in London?" Mrs. Northey stammered,
forgetting herself for the moment.
"She didn't know! That's the strange part of it!" Lady Betty replied
volubly. "She saw him, ma'am, and ran after him."
"Well, anyway, you have given us enough trouble!" Mrs. Northey
retorted, addressing her sister; who stood before them trembling with
excitement, and overcome by the varied emotions of the scene through
which she had passed in the alley. "Thank you for nothing, and Master
Tom, too! Perhaps if you have quite done you'll come home. Sir Hervey,
I'll trust her to you, if you'll be troubled with her. Now, if your
ladyship will lead the way? I declare it's wondrous dark of a sudden."
The party, taking the hint, turned, and quickly made its way along the
deserted paths towards the entrance. As they trooped by twos and
threes down the Avenue of Delight many of the lamps had flickered out,
and others were guttering in the sockets, fit images of wit and
merriment that had lost their sparkle, and fell dull on jaded ears.
Coke walked in silence beside his companion until a little interval
separated them from the others. Then, "Child," he said in a tone grave
and almost severe, "are you fixed to take no warning? Are you
determined to throw away your life?"
It was his misfortune--and hers--that he chose his seasons ill. At
that moment her heart was filled to overflowing with her lover, and
her danger; his prowess, and his brave defence of her. Her eyes were
hot with joyful, happy tears hardly pent back. Her limbs trembled with
a delicious agitation; all within her was a tumult of warm feelings,
of throbbing sensibilities.
For Sir Hervey to oppose himself to her in that mood was to court
defeat; it was to associate himself with the worldliness that to her
in her rapture was the most hateful thing on earth; and he had his
reward. "Throw away my life," she cried, curtly and contemptuously,
"'tis just that, sir, I am determined not to do!"
"You are going the way to do it," he retorted.
"I should be going the way--were I to entertain the suit of a spy!"
she cried, her voice trembling as she hurled the insult at him. "Were
I to become the wife of a man who, even before he has a claim on me,
dogs my footsteps, watches my actions, defames my friends! Believe me,
sir, I thank you for nothing so much as for opening my eyes to your
merits."
"Oh, Lord!" he exclaimed in despair almost comic.
"Thank you," she said. "I see your conduct is of a piece, sir. From
the first you treated me as a child; a chattel to be conveyed to you
by my friends, with the least trouble to yourself. You scarcely
stooped to speak to me until you found another in the field, and then
'twas only to backbite a gentleman whom you dared not accuse to his
face?"
As she grew hotter he grew cool. "Well, well," he said, tapping his
snuff-box, "be easy; I sha'n't carry you off against your will."
"No, you will not!" she cried. "You will not! Don't think, if you
please, that I am afraid of you. I am afraid of no one!"
And in the fervour of her love she felt that she spoke the truth. At
that moment she was afraid of no one.
"'Tis a happy state; I hope it may continue," Coke answered placidly.
"You never had cause to fear me. After this you shall have no cause to
reproach me. I ask only one thing in return."
"You will have nothing," she said rudely.
"You will grant me this, whether you will or no!"
"Never!"
"Yes," he said, "for it is but this, and you cannot help yourself.
When you have been married to that man a month think of this moment
and of me, and remember that I warned you."
He spoke soberly, but he might have spoken to the winds for all the
good he did. She was in air, picturing her lover's strength and
prowess, his devotion, his gallantry. Once again she saw the drunken
lord lifted and flung among the shrubs, and Hawkesworth's figure as he
stood like Hector above his fallen foe. Again she saw the other bully
flinching before his steel, cursing, reviling and hiccoughing by
turns, and Hawkesworth silent, inexorable, pressing on him. She forgot
the preceding moment of dismay when she had turned to her lover for
help, and read something less than respect in his eyes; that short
moment during which he had hung in the wind uncertain what course he
would take with her. She forgot this, for she was only eighteen, and
the scene in which he had championed her had cast its glamour over
her, distorting all that had gone before. He had defended her; he was
her hero, she was his chosen. What girl of sensibility could doubt it?
Coke, who left them at the door of the house in Arlington Street,
finished the evening at White's, where, playing deep for him, he won
three hundred at hazard without speaking three unnecessary words.
Returning home with the milk in the morning, he rubbed his eyes,
surprised to find himself following Hawkesworth along Piccadilly. The
Irishman had a companion, a young lad who reeled and hiccoughed in the
cool morning air; who sung snatches of tipsy songs, and at the corner
of Berkeley Street would have fought with a night chairman if the
elder man had not dragged him on by force. The two turned up Dover
Street and Sir Hervey, after following them with his eyes, lost sight
of them, and went on, wondering why a drunken boy's voice, heard at
haphazard in the street, reminded him of Sophia.
He would have wondered less and known more had he followed them
farther. At the bottom of Hay Hill the lad freed himself from his
companion's arm, propped his shoulders against the wall of Berkeley
Gardens, and with drunken solemnity proceeded to argue a point. "I
don't understand," he said. "Why shouldn't I speak to S'phia, if I
please. Eh? S'phia's devilish good girl, why do you go and drag her
off? That's what I want to know."
"My dear lad," Hawkesworth answered with patience, "if she saw you
she'd blow the whole thing."
"Not she!" the lad hiccoughed obstinately. "She's a good little girl.
She's my twin, I tell you."
"But the others were with her."
"What others?"
"Northey."
"I shall kick Northey, when I am married," the lad proclaimed with
drunken solemnity. "That's all."
"Well, you'll be married to-morrow."
"Why not to-day? That's what I want to know. Eh? Why not to-day?"
"Because the fair Oriana is at Ipswich, and you are here," the
Irishman answered with a trace of impatience in his tone. Then under
his breath he added, "D--n the jade! This is one of her tricks. She's
never where she is wanted."
In the meantime the lad had been set in motion again, and the two had
reached the end of Davies Street at the north-west corner of the
square. Here, perceiving the other mutter, Tom--for Sophia's brother,
Tom, it was--stopped anew. "Eh? What's that?" he said. "What's that
you are saying, old tulip?"
"I was saying you were a monstrous clever fellow to win her--to-day or
to-morrow," Hawkesworth answered coolly. "And I am hanged if I know
how you did it. I can tell you a hundred gay fellows in the town are
dying to marry her. And no flinchers, either."
"'Pon honour?"
"Ay, and a hundred more would give their ears for a kiss. But lord,
out of all she must needs choose you! I vow, lad," Hawkesworth
continued with enthusiasm, "it is the most extraordinary thing that
ever was. The finest shape this side of Paris, eyes that would melt a
stone, ankles like a gossamer, a toast wherever she goes, and the
prettiest wit in the world; sink me, lad, she might have had the
richest buck in town, and she chooses you."
"Might she really? Honest now, might she?"
"That she might!"
Tom was so moved by this picture of his mistress's devotion and his
own bliss that he found it necessary to weep a little, supporting
himself by the huge link-extinguisher at the corner of Davies Street.
His wig awry, and his hat clapped on the back of it, he looked as
abandoned a young rake as the five o'clock sun ever shone upon; and
yet under his maudlin tears lay a real if passing passion. "She's an
angel!" he sobbed presently. "I shall never forget it! Never! And to
think that but for you, if your chaise had not broken down at my
elbow, just when you had picked her up after the accident at
Trumpington, I should never have known her! And--and I might have been
smugging at Cambridge now, instead of waiting to be made the happiest
of men. Oriana," he continued, clinging to the railings in a tipsy
rhapsody, "most beautiful of your sex, I vow----"
A couple of chairmen and a milk-girl were looking on grinning. "There,
bed's the word now!" Hawkesworth cried, seizing him and dragging him
on. "Bed's the word! I said we would make a night of it, and we have.
What's more, my lad," he continued in a tone too low for Tom's ear,
"if you're not so cut to-morrow, you're glad to keep the house--I'm a
Dutchman!"
This time his efforts were successful. His lodging, taken a week
before in the name of Plomer, was only a few doors distant. In two
minutes he had got Tom thither; in three, the lad, divested of his
coat, boots and neckcloth, was snoring heavily on the bed; while the
Irishman, from an armchair on the hearth, kept dark watch over him. At
length he too fell asleep, and slumbered as soundly as an innocent
child, until a muffled hammering in the parlour roused him, and he
stood up yawning and looked about him. The room, stiflingly close, lay
in semi-darkness; on the bed sprawled the young runagate, dead asleep,
his arms tossed wide. Hawkesworth stared awhile, still half asleep; at
last, thirsting for small beer, he opened the door and went into the
parlour. Here the windows were open: it was high noon. The noise the
Irishman had heard was made by a man whose head and, shoulders were
plunged in a tall clock that stood in one corner. The man was kneeling
at his task mending something in the works of the clock. The Irishman
touched him roughly with his foot.
"Sink that coffin-making!" he cried coarsely. "Do you hear? Get up!"
The clock-maker withdrew his head, looked up meekly to see who
disturbed him, and--and swore. Simultaneously Hawkesworth drew back
with a cry, and the two glared at one another. Then the man on the
floor--he wore a paper cap, and below it his fat elderly face shone
with sweat--rose quickly to his feet. "You villain!" he cried, in a
voice tremulous and scarcely articulate, so great was his passion. "I
have found you at last, have I? Where's my daughter?" and he stretched
out his open hands, crook-fingered, and shook them in the younger
man's face. "Where is my daughter?"
"Lord, man, how do I know?" Hawkesworth answered. He tried to speak
lightly, but with all his impudence he was taken aback, and showed it.
"How do you know?" the clock-maker retorted, again shaking his hands
in his face. "If you don't know, who should? Who should? By heaven, if
you don't tell me, and truly, I'll rouse the house on you. Do you
hear! I'll make you known here, you scoundrel, for what you are. This
is a respectable house, and they'll have none of you. I'll so cry you,
you shall trick no man of his daughter again. No, for I'll set the
crowd on you, and mark you."
"Hush, man, hush!" Hawkesworth answered, with an anxious glance at the
door of the chamber he had left. "You do yourself no good by this."
"No; but by heaven I can do you harm!" the other replied, and nimbly
stepping to the door that led to the stairs, he opened it, and held it
ajar. "I can do you harm! A silver tankard and twenty-seven guineas
she took with her, and I'll swear them to you. By God, I will!"
Hawkesworth's face turned a dull white. Unwelcome as the meeting and
the recognition were, he had not realised his danger until now. The
awkward circumstances connected with the tankard and the guineas had
escaped his memory. Now it was clear he must temporise. "You need not
threaten," he said doggedly. "I'll tell you all I know. She's--she's
not with me; she is on the stage. She's not in London."
"She's not with you?"
"No."
"You're a liar!" the clock-maker cried, brutally.
"I swear it is true!" Hawkesworth protested.
"She is not living with you?"
"No."
"Did you marry her?"
"Ye--ye--No!" Hawkesworth answered, uncertain for a moment which reply
would be the better taken. "No; I--she left me, I tell you," he
continued hurriedly, "and went on the stage against my will."
The clock-maker laughed cunningly, and his face was not pleasant to
see. "She's not with you," he said, "she's not married to you, and
she's not in London? You deceived her, my fine fellow, and left her.
That's the story, is it? That's the story I've waited two years to
hear."
"She left me," Hawkesworth answered. "Against my will, I tell you."
"Anyway she's gone, and 'twill make no difference to her what happens
to you. So I'll hang you, you devil," the old man continued, with a
cold chuckling determination, that chilled Hawkesworth's blood. "No,
you don't," he continued, withdrawing one half of his body through the
doorway, as Hawkesworth took a step towards him. "You don't pinch me
that way! Another step, and I give the alarm."
Hawkesworth recalled the opinion he had held of this grasping old
curmudgeon, his former landlord--who had loved his gay, flirty
daughter a little, and his paltry savings more; and his heart misgave
him. The alarm once given, the neighbourhood roused, at the best, and
if no worse thing befel him, he would be arrested. Arrest meant the
ruin of his present schemes. "Oh, come, Mr. Grocott," he faltered.
"You will not do it. You'll not be so foolish."
"Why not?" the other snarled, in cruel enjoyment of his fears. "Eh!
Tell me that. Why not?"
But even as he spoke Hawkesworth saw the way out of his dilemma.
"Because you'll not do a thing you will repent all your life," he
said, his brazen assurance returning as quickly as it had departed.
"Because you'll not ruin your daughter. Have done, hold your hand,
man, and in two days I'll make her a grand lady."
"You'll marry her, I suppose," old Grocott answered with a savage
sneer.
"Yes, to a man of title and property."
"You're a great liar."
Hawkesworth spread out his hands in remonstrance. "Judge for
yourself," he said. "Have a little patience. Listen to me two minutes,
my good fellow; and then say if you'll stand in your daughter's
light."
"Hang the drab! She's no daughter of mine," the old man cried
fiercely. Nevertheless he listened, and Hawkesworth, sinking his
voice, proceeded to tell in tones, always earnest, and at times
appealing, a story that little by little won the hearer's attention.
First Grocott, albeit he listened with the same apparent incredulity,
closed the door. Later, his interest growing, he advanced into the
room. Then he began to breathe more quickly; at length, with an oath,
he struck his hand on the table beside him.
"And you say the lad is here?" he cried.
"He is here."
"Where?"
"In that room."
"By gole, let me see him!"
"If he is asleep," Hawkesworth answered, assenting with reluctance. He
crossed the room and cautiously opened the door of the chamber in
which Tom lay snoring. Beckoning the old man to be wary, he allowed
him to peer in. Grocott looked and listened, stole forward, and, like
some pale-faced ghoul, leant over the flushed features of the
unconscious lad. Then he stealthily returned to the parlour, and the
door between the two rooms was shut.
"Well," the Irishman asked, "are you satisfied?"
"What do you say his name is?"
"Maitland--Sir Thomas Maitland of Cuckfield."
"She'll be Lady Maitland?"
"To be sure."
"And what do you call--her now?" the clock-maker asked. He seemed to
find a difficulty in pronouncing the last words.
"Clark--Mistress Oriana Clark," Hawkesworth answered. "She's at
Ipswich, or was, and should be here to-morrow."
Grocott's nose curled at the name. "And what are you going to get out
of this?" he continued, eyeing the other with intense suspicion.
The Irishman hesitated, but in the end determined to tell the truth,
and trust to the other's self-interest. "A wife, and a plum," he said
jauntily. "There's a girl, his sister, I'm going to marry; she takes
ten thousand out of his share if he marries without his guardians'
consent. That's it."
[Illustration: GROCOTT ... STOLE FORWARD, AND ... LEANT OVER THE
FLUSHED FEATURES OF THE UNCONSCIOUS LAD]
"Lord, you're a rascal!" Grocott ejaculated, and stared in admiration
of the other's roguery. "To take ten thousand of my son-in-law's
money, and tell me of it to my face. By gole, you're a cool one!"
"You can choose between that and nothing," Hawkesworth answered,
confident in his recovered mastery. "You can do nothing without me,
you see. No more can Oriana."
The old man winced. Somehow the name--her name had been Sarah--hurt
him. "What's the name of--of the other one?" he said. "His
sister--that you're going to marry?"
"Sophia," the Irishman answered.