A SQUIRE OF DAMES
To one of the travellers the bustle of the town was more than welcome.
It was Thursday, market day at East Grinstead, and the post-boys
pushed their way with difficulty through streets teeming with chapmen
and butter women, and here bleating with home-going sheep, there alive
with the squeaking of pigs. Outside the White Lion a jovial half-dozen
of graziers were starting home in company; for the roads were less
safe on market evenings than on other days. In front of the Dorset
Arms, where our party was to lie, a clumsy carrier's wain, drawn by
oxen, stood waiting. The horse-block was beset by country bucks
mounting after the ordinary; and in the yard a post-chaise was being
wheeled into place for the night by the united efforts of two or three
stable-boys. Apparently it had just arrived, for the horses, still
smoking, were being led to the stable, through the press of beasts and
helpers.
Sophia heaved a sigh of relief as the stir of the crowd sank into her
mind. When Lady Betty, after they had washed and refreshed themselves,
suggested that, until the disorder in the house abated, they would be
as well strolling through the town, she made no demur; and, followed
at a distance by one of the grooms, they sallied forth. The first
thing they visited was the half-ruined church. After this they sat
awhile in the churchyard, and then from the Sackville Almshouses
watched the sun go down behind the heights of Worth Forest. They were
both pleased with the novel scene, and Lady Betty, darting her arch
glances hither and thither, and counting a score of conquests, drew
more than one smile from her grave companion. True, these were but
interludes, and poor Sophia, brooding on the future, looked sad twice
for once she looked merry; but their fright in the carriage had no
part in her depression. She had forgotten it in the sights of this
strange place, when, almost at the inn door, it was forced on her
attention.
She happened to look back to see if the groom was following, and to
her horror caught sight, not of the groom, but of the cloaked
stranger. It was evident he was dogging them, for the moment his eyes
met hers he vanished from sight. There were still many abroad, belated
riders exchanging last words before they parted, or topers cracking
jokes through open windows; and the man was lost among these before
Lady Betty had even seen him.
But Sophia had seen him; and she felt all her terrors return upon her.
Trembling at every shadow--and the shadows were thickening, the
streets were growing dark--she hurried her companion into the inn, nor
rested until she had assured herself that the carriage was under lock
and key in the chaise-house. Even then she was in two minds;
apprehending everything, seeing danger in either course. Should she
withdraw the diamonds from their hiding-place and conceal them about
her person, or in the chamber which she shared with Lady Betty? Or
should she leave them where they were in accordance with Sir Hervey's
directions?
She decided on the last course in the end, but with misgivings. The
fate of the jewels had come in her mind to be one with her fate. To
lose them while they were in her care seemed to her one with
appropriating them; and from that she shrank with an instinctive,
overmastering delicacy, that spoke more strongly than any words of the
mistake she had made in her marriage. They were his family jewels, his
mother's jewels, the jewels of the women of his house; and she panted
to restore them to his hands. She felt that only by restoring them to
him safe, unaccepted, unworn, could she retain her self-respect, or
her independence.
Naturally, Lady Betty found her anxiety excessive; and at supper,
seeing her start at every sound, rallied her on her timidity. Their
bedroom was at the back of the house, and looked through one window on
the inn-yard and the door of the chaise-house. "I see clearly you
would have been happier supping upstairs," Lady Betty whispered,
taking advantage of an instant when the servants were out of earshot.
"You do nothing but listen. Shall I go up, as if for my handkerchief,
and see that all is right?"
"Oh, no, no!" Sophia cried.
"Oh, yes, yes, is what you mean," the other retorted good-naturedly;
and was half-way across the room before Sophia could protest. "I am
going upstairs for something I've forgotten, Watkyns," Lady Betty
cried, as she passed the servant.
Sophia, listening and balancing her spoon in her hands, awaited her
return; and the moments passed, and passed, and still Lady Betty did
not come back. Sophia grew nervous and more nervous; rose at last to
follow her, and sat down again, ashamed of the impulse. At length,
when the waiter had gone out to hasten the second course, and Watkyns'
back was turned, she could bear it no longer. She jumped up and
slipped out of the room, passed two gaping servants at the foot of the
stairs, and in a moment had darted up. Without waiting for a light,
she groped her way along the narrow passage that led to the room she
shared with Lady Betty. A window on the left looked into the inn-yard
and admitted a glimmer of reflected light; but it was not this, it was
something she heard as she passed it, that brought her to a sudden
stand beside the casement. From the room she was seeking came the
sound of a low voice and a stifled laugh. An instant Sophia fancied
that Lady Betty was lingering there talking to her woman; and she felt
a spark of annoyance. Then--what she thought she could never remember.
For her eyes, looking mechanically through the panes beside her, saw,
a little short of the fatal chaise-house, a patch of bright light,
proceeding doubtless from the unshuttered window of the bedroom, and
erect in the full of it the cloaked figure of the strange rider--of
the man who had dogged them!
He was looking upwards at the illumined window, his hat raised a
little from his head, the arm that held it interposed between Sophia's
eyes and his face. Still she knew him. She had not a doubt of his
identity. The candle rays fell brightly on the thick black wig, on the
patched corner of the cloak, raised by the pose of his arm; and in a
whirl of confused thoughts and fears, Sophia felt her knees shake
under her.
A fresh whisper in the room was the signal for a low giggle. The man
bowed and moved a step nearer, still bowing; which brought his knees
against the sloping shaft of a cart that was set conveniently beneath
the window. Sophia--a shiver running down her back as she saw how
easily he could ascend--began to understand. The villain was tampering
with Lady Betty's maid! Probably he was already in league with the
woman; certainly, to judge by the sounds that reached the listener's
ear--for again she caught a suppressed titter--he was on terms with
her.
Sophia felt all a woman's rage against a woman, and wasted no further
time on thought. She had courage and to spare, her fears for the
jewels notwithstanding. In a twinkling she was at the door, had flung
it open, and, burning with indignation, had bounced into the middle of
the room, prepared to annihilate the offender. Yet not prepared for
what she saw. In the room was only Lady Betty; who, as she entered,
sprang from the window and stood confronting her with crimson cheeks.
"Betty!" Sophia gasped. "Betty?" And stood as if turned to stone; her
face growing harder and harder, and harder. At last--"Lady Betty, what
does this mean?" she asked in icy accents.
The girl giggled and shook her hair over her flushed face and wilful
eyes; but did not answer.
"What does it mean?" Sophia repeated. "I insist on an answer."
Lady Betty pouted and half turned her back. "Oh, la!" she cried, at
last, pettishly shrugging her shoulders, "Don't talk like that! You
frighten me out of my wits! Instead of talking, we'd better close the
window, unless you want him to be as wise as we are."
"Him!" Sophia cried, out of patience with the girl's audacity. "Him?
Am I to understand, then, that you have been talking through the
window? You a young lady in my company, to a man whom you never saw
until to-day? A strange man met on the road, and of whose designs you
have been warned? I cannot, I cannot believe it! I cannot believe my
eyes, Lady Betty!" she continued warmly. "You, at this window, at this
hour, talking to a common stranger? A stranger of whose designs I have
warned you? Why, if your woman, miss, if your woman were to be guilty
of such conduct, I could hardly believe it! I could hardly believe
that I saw aright!"
And honestly Sophia was horrified; shocked, as well as puzzled. So
that it seemed to her no more than fitting, no more than a late
awakening to decency when the culprit, who had accomplished--but with
trembling fingers--the closing of the window, pressed her handkerchief
to her eyes, and flung herself on the bed. Sophia saw her shoulders
heave with emotion, and hoped that at last she understood what she had
done; that at last she appreciated what others would think of such
reckless, such inexplicable conduct. And my lady prepared to drive
home the lesson. Judge of her surprise, when Lady Betty cut her first
word short by springing up as hastily as she had thrown herself down,
and disclosed a face convulsed not with sorrow, but with laughter.
"Oh, you silly, silly thing!" she cried; and before Sophia could
prevent her, she had cast her arms round her neck, and was hugging her
in a paroxysm of mirth: "Oh, you dear, silly old thing! And it's only
a week since you eloped yourself!"
"I!" Sophia cried, enraged by the ungenerous taunt. And she tried
fiercely but vainly to extricate herself.
"Yes, you! You! And were married at Dr. Keith's chapel! And now how
you talk! Mercy, ma'am, butter won't melt in your mouth now!"
"Lady Betty!" Sophia cried, in a cold rage, "let me go! Do you hear?
Let me go! How dare you talk to me like that? How dare you?" she
continued, trembling with indignation. "What has my conduct to do with
yours? Or how can you presume to mention it in the same breath? I may
have been foolish, I may have been indiscreet, but I never, never,
stooped to----"
"Call it the highway at once," said the unrepentant one, "for I know
that is what you have in your mind."
Sophia gasped. "If you can put it so clearly," she said, "I hope you
have more sense than appears from the--the----"
"Lightness of my conduct!" Lady Betty cried, with a fresh peal of
laughter. "Oh, you dear, silly old thing, I would not be your daughter
for something!"
"Lady Betty?"
"You dear, don't you Lady Betty me! A highwayman? Oh, it is too
delicious! Too diverting! Are you sure it isn't Turpin come to life
again? Or Cook of Barnet? Or the gallant Macheath from the Opera? Why,
you old dear, the man is nothing better nor worse than a--lover!"
"A lover?" Sophia cried.
"Well, yes--a lover," Lady Betty repeated, lightly enough; but to her
credit be it said, she did blush at last--a little, and folded her
handkerchief into a hard square and looked at it with an air of--of
comparative bashfulness. "Dear me, yes--a lover. He followed us from
London; and, to make the deeper impression, I suppose, made a Guy
Fawkes of himself! That's all!"
"All?" Sophia said in amazement.
"Yes, all, all, all!" Lady Betty retorted, ridding herself in an
instant of her penitent air. "All! And aren't you glad, my dear, to
find that you were frightening yourself for nothing!"
"But who is he--the gentleman?" Sophia asked faintly.
"Oh, he is not a gentleman," the little flirt answered, tossing her
head with pretty but cruel contempt. "He's"--with a giggle--"at least
he calls himself--Mr. Fanshaw."
"Mr. Fanshaw?" Sophia repeated; and first wondered and then remembered
where she had heard the name. "Can it be the same?" she exclaimed,
reddening in spite of herself as she met Lady Betty's eye. "Is he a
small, foppish man, full of monstrous airs and graces, and--and rather
underbred?"
Lady Betty clapped her hands. "Yes," she cried. "Drawn to the life!
Where did you see him? But I'll tell you if you like. 'Twas at Lane's,
ma'am!"
"Yes, it was," Sophia answered a trifle sternly. "But how do you know,
miss?"
"Well, I do know," Lady Betty answered. And again she had the grace to
blush and look down. "At least--I thought it likely. Because, you old
dear, don't you remember a note you picked up at Vauxhall gardens,
that was meant for me? Yes, I vow you do. Well, 'twas from him."
"But that doesn't explain," Sophia said keenly, "why you guessed that
I saw him at Lane's shop?"
"Oh," Lady Betty answered, wincing a little. "To be sure, no, it
doesn't. But he's--he's just Lane's son. There, now you know it!"
"Mr. Fanshaw?"
Lady Betty nodded, a little shamefacedly. "'Tis so," she said. "For
the name, it's his vanity. He's the vainest creature, he thinks every
lady is in love with him. Never was such sport as to lead him on. I am
sure I thought I should have died of laughing before you came in and
frightened me out of my wits!"
Sophia looked at her gravely. "I am sure of something else," she said.
"Now you are going to preach!" Lady Betty cried; and tried to stop her
mouth.
"No, I am not, but you gave me a promise, in my room in Arlington
Street, Betty. That you would have nothing more to do with the writer
of that note."
Lady Betty sat down on the bed and looked piteously at her companion.
"Oh, I didn't, did I?" she said; and at last she seemed to be really
troubled. "I didn't, did I? 'Twas only that I would not correspond
with him. I protest it was only that. And I have not. I've not,
indeed," she protested. "But when I found him under the window, and
heard that he was Mohocking about the country in that monstrous cloak
and hat, for all the world like the Beggar's Opera on horseback, and
all for the love of me, it was not in flesh and blood not to divert
oneself with him! He's such a creature! You've no notion what a
creature it is!"
"I've this notion," Sophia answered seriously. "If you did not
promise, you will promise. What is more, I shall send for him, and I
shall tell him, in your presence, that this ridiculous pursuit must
cease."
"But if he will not?" Lady Betty asked, with an arch look. "I am
supposed--to have charms, you know?"
"I shall tell your father."
"La, ma'am," the child retorted, with a curtsey, "you are married!
There is no doubt about that!"
Sophia reddened, but did not answer; and for a moment Betty sat on the
bed, picking the coverlet with her fingers and looking sulky. On a
sudden she leapt up and threw her arms round Sophia's neck. "Well, do
as you like!" she cried effusively. "After all, 'twill be a charming
scene, and do him good, the fright! Don't think," the little minx
continued, tossing her head disdainfully, "that I ever wish to see
him again, or would let him touch me with his little finger! Not I!
But--one does not like to----"
"We'll have no _but_, if you please," Sophia said gently, but firmly.
She had grown wondrous wise in the space of a short month. "Whatever
he is, he is no fit mate for Lady Betty Cochrane, and shall not get
her into trouble! I'll call your woman, and bid her go find him."
Fortunately the maid knocked at the door at that moment. She came,
anxious to learn if anything ailed them, and why they did not return
to finish their supper. They declined to do so, bade her have it
removed, and a pot of tea brought; then Sophia told her what she
wanted, and having instructed her, despatched her on her errand.
An assignation, through her woman, was the guise in which the affair
appeared to Mr. Fanshaw's eyes when he got the message. And great was
his joy nor less his triumph. Was ever lover, he asked himself, more
completely or more quickly favoured? Could Rochester or Bellamour, Tom
Hervey or my Lord Lincoln have made a speedier conquest? No wonder his
thoughts, always on the sanguine side, ran riot as he mounted the
stairs; or that his pulses beat to the tune of--
But he so teased me,
And he so pleased me,
What I did, you must have done!
as he followed the maid along the passage.
The only sour in his cup, indeed, arose from his costume. That he knew
to be better fitted for the road than for a lady's chamber; to be
calculated rather to strike the youthful eye and captivate the
romantic imagination at a distance than to become a somewhat puny
person at short range. As he passed an old Dutch mirror, that stood in
an angle of the stairs, he made a desperate attempt to reduce the wig,
and control the cloak; but in vain, it was only to accentuate the
boots. Worse, his guide looked to see why he lingered, caught him in
the act, and tittered; after which he was forced to affect a haughty
contempt and follow. But what would he not have given at that moment
for his olive and silver, a copy of Mr. Walpole's birth-night suit? Or
for his French grey and Mechlin, and the new tie-wig that had cost his
foolish father seven guineas at Protin, the French perruquier's? Much,
yet what mattered it, since he had conquered? Since even while he
thought of these drawbacks, he paused on the threshold of his lady's
chamber, and saw before him his divinity--pouting, mutinous, charming.
She was standing by the table waiting for him with down cast eyes, and
the most ravishing air in the world.
Strange to say he felt no doubt. It was his firm belief, born of
Wycherley and fostered on Crebillon that all women were alike, and
from the three beauty Fitzroys to Oxford Kate, were wax in the hands
of a pretty fellow. It was this belief that had spurred him to great
enterprises, if not as yet, to great conquests; and yet so powerfully
does virtue impress even the sceptics, that he faltered as he entered
the room. Besides that ladyship of hers dashed him! He could not deny
that his heart bounced painfully. But courage! As he recalled the
invitation he had received, he recovered himself. He advanced,
simpering; he was ready, at a word, to fall at her feet. "Oh, ma'am,
'tis a happiness beyond my desert," he babbled--in his heart damning
his boots, and trying to remember M. Siras' first position. "Only to
be allowed to wait on your ladyship places me in the seventh heaven!
Only to be allowed to worship at the shrine of beauty is--is a great
privilege, ma'am. But to be permitted to hope--that I am not
altogether--I mean, my lady," he amended, growing a little flustered,
"that I am not entirely----"
"What?" Lady Betty asked, eyeing him archly, her finger in her mouth,
her head on one side.
"Indifferent to your ladyship! Oh, I assure your ladyship never in all
my life have I felt so profound a----"
"Really?"
"A--an admiration of any one, never have I----"
"Said so much to a lady! That, sir, I can believe!"
This time the voice was not Betty's, and he started as if he had been
pricked. He spun round, and saw Sophia standing beside the fire, a
little behind the door through which he had entered. He had thought
himself alone with his inamorata; and his face of dismay was
ludicrous. "Oh!" he faltered, bowing hurriedly, "I beg your pardon,
ma'am, I--I did not see you."
"So I suppose," she answered, coldly, "or you would not have presumed
to say such words to a lady."
He cringed. "I am sure," he stammered, "if I have been wanting in
respect, I beg her ladyship's pardon! I am sure, I know----"
"Are you sure--you know who you are?" Sophia asked with directness.
He was all colours at once, but strove to mask the wound under a
pretty sentence. "I trust a gentleman may aspire to--to all that
beauty has to give," he simpered. "I may not, ma'am, be of her
ladyship's rank."
"No, it is clear that you are not!" Sophia answered.
"But I am a gentleman."
"The question is, are you?" she retorted. "There are gentlemen and
gentlemen. What is your claim to that name, sir?"
"S'help me, ma'am!" he exclaimed, affecting the utmost surprise and
indignation. "The Fanshaws of Warwickshire have been commonly taken
for such."
"The Fanshaws of Warwickshire?"
"Yes, my lady."
"Perhaps so. It may be so. I do not know them. But the Fanshaws of
nowhere in particular? Or shall I say the Lanes of Piccadilly?"
His face flamed scarlet below the black wig. His tongue stuck to the
roof of his mouth. His eyes flickered as if she had threatened to
strike him. For a moment he was a pitiable sight. Then with a
prodigious effort, "I--I don't know what you are talking about," he
muttered hoarsely. "I don't understand you, ma'am." But his smile was
sickly, and his eye betrayed his misery.
"Don't lie, sir," Sophia said sternly; and, poor little wretch, found
out and exposed, he writhed under her look of scorn. "We know who you
are, a tradesman's son, parading in borrowed plumes. What we do not
know, what we cannot understand," she continued with ineffable
disdain, "is how you can think to find favour in a lady's eyes. In a
lady's eyes--you! An under-bred, over-dressed apprentice, who have
never done anything to raise yourself from the rank in which you were
born! Do you know, have you an idea, sir, what you are in our eyes? Do
you know that a lady would rather marry her footman; for, at least, he
is a man. If you do not, you must be taught, sir, as the puppy is
taught with the whip. Do you understand me?"
In his deserved degradation, his eyes sought Lady Betty's face. She
was looking at him gravely; he read no hope in her eyes. What the
other woman told him then was true; and, ah, how he hated her! Ah, how
he hated her! He did not know that she scourged in him another's
offence. He did not know that of her scorn a measure fell on her own
shoulders; that she had been deluded by such an one as he was himself.
Above all, he did not know that she was resolved that the child with
her should not suffer as she had suffered!
He thought that she was moved by sheer wanton brutality; and cringing,
smarting under the lash of her tongue, seeing himself for the moment
as others saw him--a mean little jackanapes mimicking his betters--he
could have strangled her. But he was dumb.
"You had the audacity," Sophia continued, gravely, "to attend me once,
I remember, and ply me with your foolish compliments! And you have
written to this lady, you, a shopman----"
"I am not a--a shopman!" he stuttered, writhing.
"In grade you are; it were more honour to you were you one in
reality!" she retorted. "But I repeat it, you have written to this
lady, who, the better to teach you a lesson, did not at once betray
what she thought you. For the future, however, understand, sir. If you
pester her with attentions, or even cross her path, I will find those
who will cane you into behaviour. And in such a way that you will not
forget it! For the rest, let me advise you to get rid of those
preposterous clothes, change that sword for an ell-wand, and go back
to your counter. You may retire now. Or no! Pettitt!" Sophia
continued, as she opened the door, "Pettitt!" to Lady Betty's woman,
"show this person downstairs."
He sneaked out, dumb. For what was he to say? They were great ladies,
and he a person, fit company for the steward's room, a little above
the servants' hall. He bent his head under the maid's scornful eye,
hurried, stumbling in his boots, down the narrow stairs, nor did he
breathe until he reached the dark street, where his little chest
beginning to heave, he burst into scalding tears of rage.
He suffered horribly in his tenderest part--his conceit. He burned
miserably, impotently, poor weakling, to be revenged. If he could
bring those proud women to their knees! If he could see them humbled,
as they had humbled him! If he could show them that he was not the
poor creature they deemed him! If he could sear their insolent
faces--the smallpox seize them! If he could--aye, the smallpox seize
them!
Presently he slunk back to the White Lion, where he had his bed; and,
finding a fire still burning in the empty taproom--for the evening was
chilly--he took refuge there, and, laying his head on the beer-stained
table, wept anew. The next time he looked up he found that a man and
woman had entered the room, and were standing on the hearth, gazing
curiously at him.