IN DAVIES STREET
The chairmen pushed on briskly through Piccadilly and Portugal Street
until they reached the turnpike on the skirts of the town. There,
turning to the right by Berkeley Row, they reached Berkeley Square, at
that time a wide, implanted space, surrounded on three sides by new
mansions, and on the fourth by the dead wall of Berkeley House. For
lack of lighting, or perhaps by reason of the convenience the building
operations afforded, it was a favourite haunt of footpads. Sophia was
a prey to anxieties that left no room in her mind for terrors of this
class; and neither the dark lane, shadowed by the dead wall of
Berkeley Gardens nor the gloomy waste of the square, held any tremors
for her; but the chairmen hastened over this part of their journey,
and for a time her attendant squire was so little in evidence that in
the agitation into which the prospect of arrival at her lover's threw
her, she forgot his presence. She strained her eyes through the
darkness to distinguish the opening of Davies Street, and at once
longed and feared to see it. When at last the chair halted, and,
pressing her hand to her heart to still the tumult that almost stifled
her, she prepared to descend, it was with a kind of shock that she
discovered the little dandy mincing and bowing on the pavement, his
hand extended to aid her in stepping from the chair.
The vexation she had suppressed before broke out at the sight. She
bowed slightly, and avoided his hand. "I am obliged to you, sir," she
said ungraciously; "I won't trouble you farther. Good night, sir."
"But--I shall see you back to Arlington Street, ma'am?" he lisped.
"Surely at this hour an escort is more than ever necessary. I declare
it is past eight, ma'am."
It was; but the fact put in words stung her like a whip. She winced
under all that the lateness of the hour implied. It seemed intolerable
that in a crisis in which her whole life lay in the balance, in which
her being was on the rack until she found the reception that should
right her, converting her boldness into constancy, her forwardness
into courage--when she trembled on the verge of the moment in which
her lover's eyes should tell her all--it was intolerable that she
should be harassed by this prating dandy. "I shall find an escort
here," she cried harshly. "I need you no longer, sir. Good night."
"Oh, but ma'am," he protested, bowing like a Chinese mandarin, "it is
impossible I should leave you so. Surely, there is something I can do
for your ladyship."
"You can pay the chairmen!" she cried contemptuously; and turning from
him to the door before which the chair had halted, she found it half
open. In the doorway a woman, her back to the light, stood blocking
the passage. Doubtless, she had heard what had passed.
Sophia's temper died down on the instant. "Is this Mr. Wollenhope's?"
she faltered.
"Yes, ma'am."
An hour before it had seemed simple to ask for her lover. Now the
moment was come she could not do it. "May I come in?" she muttered, to
gain time.
"You wish to see me?"
"Yes."
"Is the chair to wait, ma'am?"
Sophia trembled. It was a moment before she could find her voice.
Then, "No," she answered faintly.
The woman looked hard at her, and having the light at her back, had
the advantage. "Oh!" she said at last, addressing the men, "I think
you had better wait a minute." And grudgingly making way for Sophia to
enter, she closed the door. "Now, ma'am, what is it?" she said,
standing four-square to the visitor. She was a stout, elderly woman,
with a bluff but not unkindly face.
"Mr. Hawkesworth lodges here?"
"He does, ma'am."
"Is he at home?" Sophia faltered. Under this woman's gaze she felt a
sudden overpowering shame. She was pale and red by turns. Her eyes
dropped, her confusion was not to be overlooked.
"He is not at home," the woman said shortly. And her look, hostile
before, grew harder.
Sophia caught her breath. She had not thought of this, and for a
moment she was so overpowered by the intelligence, that she had to
support herself against the wall. "When will he return, if you
please?" she asked at length, her lip quivering.
"I'm sure I couldn't say. I couldn't say at all," Mrs. Wollenhope
answered curtly. "All I know is he went out with the young gentleman
at five, and as like as not he won't be home till morning."
Sophia had much ado not to burst into tears. Apparently the woman
perceived this, and felt a touch of pity for her, for, in an altered
tone, "Is it possible," she asked, "you're the young lady he's to
marry to-morrow?"
The words were balm to the girl's heart. Here was sure footing at
last; here was something to go upon. "Yes," she said, more boldly. "I
am."
"Oh!" Mrs. Wollenhope ejaculated. "Oh!" After which she stared at the
girl, as if she found a difficulty in fitting her in with notions
previously formed. At last, "Well, miss," she said, "I think if you
could call tomorrow?" with a dry cough. "If you are to be married
to-morrow--it seems to me it might be better."
Sophia shivered. "I cannot wait," she said desperately. "I must see
him. Something has happened which he does not know, and I must see
him, I must indeed. Can I wait here? I have no where to go."
"Well, you can wait here till nine o'clock," Mrs. Wollenhope answered
less dryly. "We shut up at nine." Then, after glancing behind her, she
laid her hand on Sophia's sleeve. "My dear," she said, lowering her
voice, "begging pardon for the liberty, for I see you are a lady,
which I did not expect--if you'll take my advice you'll go back. You
will indeed. I am sure your father and mother----"
"I have neither!" Sophia said.
"Oh, dear, dear! Still, I can see you've friends, and if you'll take
my advice----"
She was cut short. "There you are again, Eliza!" cried a loud voice,
apparently from an inner room. "Always your advice! Always your
advice! Have done meddling, will you, and show the lady upstairs."
Mrs. Wollenhope shrugged her shoulders as if the interruption were no
uncommon occurrence. "Very well," she said curtly; and turning, led
the way along the passage. Sophia followed, uncertain whether to be
glad or sorry that the good woman's warning had been cut short. As she
passed the open door of a room at the foot of the stairs she had a
glimpse of a cheery sea-coal fire, and a bald-headed man in his shirt
sleeves, who was sitting on a settle beside it, a glass of punch in
his hand. He rose and muttered, "Your servant, ma'am!" as she passed;
and she went on and saw him no more. But the vision of the snug
back-parlour, with its fire and lights, and a red curtain hanging
before the window, remained with her, a picture of comfort and quiet,
as far as possible removed from the suspense and agitation in which
she had passed the last two hours.
And in which she still found herself, for as she mounted the stairs
her knees quaked under her. She was ashamed, she was frightened. At
the head of the flight, when the woman opened the door of the room and
by a gesture bade her enter, she paused and felt she could sink into
the ground. For the veriest trifle she would have gone down again. But
behind her--behind her, lay nothing that had power to draw her; to
return was to meet abuse and ridicule and shame, and that not in
Arlington Street only, for the story would be over the town: Lane the
mercer, whose shop was a hotbed of gossip, the little dandy who had
thrust himself into her company, and tracked her hither, the coachman
who had witnessed the arrest, even her own friend Lady Betty--all
would publish the tale. Girls whom she knew, and from whose
plain-spoken gossip she had turned a prudish ear, would sneer in her
face. Men like Lord Lincoln would treat her with the easy familiarity
she had seen them extend to Lady Vane, or Miss Edwards. Women she
respected, Lady Pomfret, the duchess, would freeze her with a look.
Girls, good girls like Lady Sophia, or little Miss Hamilton--no longer
would these be her company.
No, she had gone too far; it was too late to turn back; yet she felt,
as she crossed the threshold, it was the one thing she longed to do.
Though Mrs. Wollenhope hastened to light two candles that stood on a
table, the parlour and the shapes of the furniture swam before
Sophia's eyes. The two candles seemed to be four, six, eight; nay, the
room was all candles, dancing before her. She had to lean on a chair
to steady herself.
By-and-by Mrs. Wollenhope's voice, for a time heard droning dully,
became clear. "He was up above," the good woman was saying. "But he's
not here much. He lives at the taverns of the quality, mostly. 'Twas
but yesterday he told me, ma'am, he was going to be married. You can
wait here till nine, and I'll come and fetch you then, if he has not
come in. But you'd best be thinking, if you'll take my advice, what
you'll do."
"Now, Eliza!" Mr. Wollenhope roared from below; to judge from the
sound of his voice he had come to the foot of the stairs. "Advising
again, I'm bound. Always advising! Some day your tongue will get you
into trouble, my woman. You come down and leave the young lady to
herself."
"Oh, very well," Mrs. Wollenhope muttered, tossing her head
impatiently. "I'm coming. Coming!" And shielding her light with her
hand, she went out and left Sophia alone.
The girl remained where she had paused on entering, a little within
the door, her hand resting on a chair. And presently, as she looked
about her, the colour began to creep into her face. This was his home,
and at the thought she forgot the past; she dreamed of the future. His
home! Here he had sat thinking of her. Here he had written the letter!
Here, perhaps in that cupboard set low in the wainscot beside the
fire, lay the secret papers of which he had told her, the Jacobite
lists that held a life in every signature, the Ormonde letters, the
plans for the Scotch Rising, the cipher promises from France! Here,
surrounded by perils, he wrote and studied far into the night, the
pistol beside the pen, the door locked, the keyhole stopped. Here he
had lain safe and busy, while the hated Whig approvers drew their nets
elsewhere. Sophia breathed more quickly as she pictured these things;
as she told herself the story Othello told the Venetian maid. The
attraction of the man, the magic of the lover, dormant during the
stress she had suffered since she left Arlington Street, revived; the
girl's eyes grew soft, blushes mantled over her cheeks. She looked
round timidly, almost reverently, not daring to advance, not daring to
touch anything.
The room, which was not large, was wainscotted from ceiling to floor
with spacious panels, divided one from the other by fluted pillars in
shallow relief, after the fashion of that day. The two windows were
high, narrow, and roundheaded, deeply sunk in the panelling. The
fireplace, in which a few embers smouldered, was of Dutch tiles. On
the square oak table in the middle of the floor, a pack of cards lay
beside the snuffer tray, between the tall pewter candlesticks.
She noted these things greedily, and then, alas, she fell from the
clouds. Mrs. Wollenhope had said that he had lived in the rooms above
until lately! Still, he had sat here, and these were his belongings,
which she saw strewn here and there. The book laid open on the
high-backed settle that flanked one side of the hearth, and masked the
door of an inner room, had been laid there by his hand. The cloak that
hung across the back of one of the heavy Cromwell chairs was his. The
papers and inkhorn, pushed carelessly aside on one of the plain wooden
window-seats, had been placed there by him. His were the black
riding-wig, the whip, and spurs, and tasselled cane, that hung on a
hook in a corner, and the wig-case that stood on a table against the
wall, alongside a crumpled cravat, and a jug and two mugs. All
these--doubtless all these were his. Sophia, flustered and softened,
her heart beating quick with a delicious emotion, half hope, half
fear, sat down on the chair by the door and gazed at them.
He was more to her now, while she sat in his room and looked at these
things, than he had ever been; and though the moment was at hand when
his reception of her must tell her all, her distrust of him had never
been less. If he did not love her with the love she pictured, why had
he chosen her? He whose career promised so much, who under the cloak
of frivolity pursued aims so high, amid perils so real. He must love
her! He must love her! She thought this almost aloud, and seeing the
wicks of the candles growing long, rose and snuffed them; and in the
performance of this simple act of ownership, experienced a strange
thrill of pleasure.
After that she waited awhile on her feet, looking about her shyly, and
listening. Presently, hearing no sound, she stepped timidly and on
tip-toe to the side table, and lifting the crumpled cravat, smoothed
it, then, with caressing fingers, folded it neatly and laid it back.
Again she listened, wondering how long she had waited. No, that was
not a step on the stairs; and thereat her heart began to sink. The
reaction of hope deferred began to be felt. What if he did not come?
What if she waited, and nine found her still waiting--waiting vainly
in this quiet room where the lights twinkled in the polished panels,
and now and again the ash of the coal fell softly to the hearth? It
might--it might be almost nine already!
She began to succumb to a new fever of suspense, and looked about
for something to divert her thoughts. Her eyes fell on the book that
lay open on the seat of the settle. Thinking, "He has read this
to-day--his was the last hand that touched it--on this page his eyes
rested," Sophia stooped for it, and holding it carefully that she
might keep the place for him, reverently, for it was his, she carried
it to the light. The title at the head of the page was _The Irish
Register_. The name smacked so little of diversion, she thought it a
political tract--for the book was thin, no more than fifty pages or
so; and she was setting it back on the table when her eye, in the very
act of leaving the page, caught the glint, as it were, of a name.
Beside the name, on the margin, were a few pencilled words and
figures; but these, faintly scrawled, she did not heed at the moment.
"Cochrane, the Lady Elizabeth?" she muttered, repeating the name that
had caught her eye, "How strange! What can the book have to do with
Lady Betty? It must be some kind of peerage. But she is not Irish!"
To settle the question, she raised the book anew to the light, and saw
that it consisted of a list of persons' names arranged in order of
rank. Only--which seemed odd--all the names were ladies' names. Above
Cochrane, the Lady Elizabeth, appeared Cochrane, the Lady Anne; below
came Coke, the Lady Catherine, and after each name the address of the
lady followed if she were a widow, of her parents or guardians if she
were unmarried.
Sophia wondered idly what it meant, and with half her mind bent on the
matter, the other half intent on the coming of a footstep, she turned
back to the title-page of the book. She found that the fuller
description there printed ran _The Irish Register, or a list of the
Duchess Dowagers, Countesses, Widow Ladies, Maiden Ladies, Widows, and
Misses of Great Fortunes in England, as registered by the Dublin
Society_.
Even then she was very, very far from understanding. But the baldness
of the description sent a chill through her. Misses of large fortunes
in England! As fortunes went, she was a miss of large fortune. Perhaps
that was why the words grated upon her; why her heart sank, and the
room seemed to grow darker. Turning to look at the cover of the book,
she saw a slip of paper inserted towards the end to keep a place. It
projected only an eighth of an inch, but she marked it, and turned to
it; something or other--it may have been only the position of the
paper in that part of the book, it may have been the presence of the
book in her lover's room--forewarning her; for in the act of turning
the leaves, and before she came to the marker, she knew what she would
find.
And she found it. First, her name, "Maitland, Miss Sophia, at the Hon.
Mr. Northey's in Arlington Street". Then--yes, then, for that was not
all or the worst--down the narrow margin, starting at her name, ran a
note, written faintly, in a hand she knew; the same hand that had
penned her one love letter, the hand from which the quill had fallen
in the rapture of anticipation, the hand of her "humble, adoring
lover, Hector, Count Plomer"!
She knew that the note would tell her all, and for a moment her
courage failed her; she dared not read it. Her averted eyes sought
instead the cupboard in the lower wainscot, which she had fancied the
hiding place of the Jacobite cipher, the muniment chest where lay,
intrusted to his honour, the lives and fortunes of the Beauforts and
Ormondes, the Wynns and Cottons and Cecils. Was the cupboard that
indeed? Or--what was it? The light reflected from the surface of the
panels told her nothing, and she lowered the book and stood pondering.
If the note proved to be that which she still shrank from believing
it, what had she done? Or rather, what had she not done? What warnings
had she not despised, what knowledge had she not slighted, what
experience had she not overridden? How madly, how viciously, in the
face of advice, in the face of remonstrance, in modesty's own despite,
had she wrought her confusion, had she flung herself into the arms of
this man! This man who--but that was the question!
She asked herself trembling, was he what this book seemed to indicate,
or was he what she had thought him? Was he villain, or hero?
Fortune-hunter, or her true lover? The meanest of tricksters, or the
high-spirited, chivalrous gentleman, laughing at danger and smiling at
death, in whom great names and a great cause were content to place
their trust?
At last she nerved herself to learn the answer to the question. The
wicks of the candles were burning long; she snuffed them anew, and
holding the book close to the light, read the words that were
delicately traced beside her name.
"_Has 6000 guineas charged on T. M.'s estate. If T. M. marries without
consent of guardians has L10,000 more. Mrs. N. the same. T. is at
Cambridge, aged eighteen. To make all sure, T. must be married
first--query Oriana, if she can be found? Or Lucy Slee--but boys like
riper women. Not clinch with S. M. until T. is mated, nor at all if
the little Cochrane romp_ (_page 7_) _can be brought to hand. But I
doubt it, but S. M. is an easy miss, and swallows all. A perfect
goose_."
Sophia sat awhile in a chair and shivered, her face white, her head
burning. The words were so clear that, the initials notwithstanding,
it was not possible to misinterpret them; or to set on them any
construction save one. They cut her as the lash of a whip cuts the
bare flesh. It was for this--thing that she had laid aside her maiden
pride, had risked her good name, had scorned her nearest, had thrown
away all in life that was worth keeping! It was for this creature,
this thing in the shape of man, that she had over-leapt the bounds,
had left her home, had risked the perils of the streets, and the
greater perils of his company. For this--but she had not words
adequate to the loathing of her soul. Outraged womanhood, wounded
pride, contemned affection--which she had fancied love--seared her
very soul. She could have seen him killed, she could have killed him
with her own hand--or she thought she could; so completely in a moment
was her liking changed to hatred, so completely destroyed on the
instant was the trust she had placed in him.
"_And S. M. is an easy miss, and swallows all. A perfect goose!_"
Those words cut more deeply than all into her vanity. She winced, nay,
she writhed under them. Nor was that all. They had a clever, dreadful
smartness that told her they were no mere memorandum, but had served
in a letter, and tickled at once a man's conceit and a woman's ears.
Her own ears burned at the thought. "_S. M. is an easy miss, and
swallows all. A perfect goose!_" Oh, she would never recover it! She
would never regain her self-respect!
The last embers had grown grey behind the bars; the last ash had
fallen from the grate while she sat. The room was silent save for her
breathing, that now came in quick spasms as she thought of the false
lover, and now was slow and deep as she sat sunk in a shamed reverie.
On a sudden the cooling fireplace cracked. The sound roused her. She
sprang up and gazed about her in affright, remembering that she had no
longer any business there, nay, that in no room in the world had she
less business.
In the terror of the moment she flew to the door; she must go, but
whither? More than ever, now that she recognised her folly, she shrank
from her sister's scornful eyes, from Mr. Northey's disapproving
stare, from the grins of the servants, the witticisms of her friends.
The part she had played, seen as she now saw it, would make her the
laughing-stock of the town. It was the silliest, the most romantic; a
school-girl would cry fie on it. Sophia's cheek burned at the thought
of facing a single person who had ever known her; much more at the
thought of meeting her sister or Mrs. Martha, or the laced bumpkins
past whom she had flitted in that ill-omened hour. She could not go
back to Arlington Street. But then--whither could she go?
Whither indeed? It was nine o'clock; night had fallen. At such an hour
the streets were unsafe for a woman without escort, much more for a
girl of gentility. Drunken roysterers on their way from tavern to
tavern, ripe for any frolic, formed a peril worse than footpads; and
she had neither chair nor link-boys, servants nor coach, without one
or other of which she had never passed through the streets in her
life. Yet she could not stay where she was; rather would she lie
without covering in the wildest corner of the adjacent parks, or on
the lonely edge of Rosamond's pond! The mere thought that she lingered
there was enough; she shuddered with loathing, grew hot with rage. And
the impulse that had hastened her to the door returning, she hurried
out and was half-way down the stairs, when the sound of a man's voice,
uplifted in the passage below, brought her up short where she stood.
An instant only she heard it clearly. Then the tramp of feet along
the passage, masked the voice. But she had heard enough--it was
Hawkesworth's--and her eyes grew wide with terror. She should die of
shame if he found her there! If he learned, not by hearsay, but eye to
eye, that she had come of her own motion, poor, silly dupe of his
blandishments, to throw herself into his arms! That were too much; she
turned to fly.
Her first thought was to take refuge on the upper floor until he had
gone into his room and closed the door; two bounds carried her to the
landing she had left. But here she found an unexpected obstacle in a
wicket, set at the foot of the upper flight of stairs; one of those
wickets that are still to be seen in old houses, in the neighbourhood
of the nursery. By the light that issued from the half-open doorway of
the room, Sophia tugged at it furiously, but seeking the latch at the
end of the gate where the hinges were, she lost a precious moment.
When she found the fastening, the steps of the man she had fancied she
loved, and now knew she hated, were on the stairs. And the gate would
not yield! Penned on the narrow landing, with discovery tapping her on
the shoulder, she fumbled desperately with the latch, even, in
despair, flung her weight against the wicket. It held; in another
second, if she persisted, she would be seen.
With a moan of anguish she turned and darted into Hawkesworth's room,
and sprang to the table where the candles stood. Her thought was to
blow them out, then to take her chance of passing the man before they
were relighted. But as she gained the table and stooped to extinguish
them, she heard his step so near the door that she knew the sudden
extinction of the light must be seen; and her eyes at the same moment
alighting on the high-backed settle, in an instant she was behind it.
It was a step she would not have taken had she acted on anything but
the blind, unthinking impulse to hide herself. For here retreat was
cut off; she was now between her enemy and the inner room. She dared
not move, and in a few minutes at most must be discovered. But the
thing was done; there was no time to alter it. As her hoop slipped
from sight behind the wooden seat, the Irishman entered, and with a
laugh flung his hat and cane on the table. A second person appeared to
cross the threshold after him; and crouching lower, her heart beating
as if it would choke her, Sophia heard the door flung to behind them.