THE STROLLING PLATERS
He pushed on sturdily until he came to the high road, and the turn
that led to Beamond's farm. There his heart began to misgive him. The
impression which Sophia's manner had made on his mind was growing
weak; the improbability of her story rose more clearly before him.
That a woman tramping the roads in her petticoats could be Lady Coke,
the young bride of the owner of all the country side, seemed, now that
he weighed it in cold blood, impossible. And from misgiving he was not
slow in passing to repentance. How much better it would have been, he
thought, had he pursued his duty to the dead and the parish with a
single eye, instead of starting on this wild-goose chase. How much
better--and even now it was not too late. He paused; he as good as
turned. But in the end he remembered that he had given the girl his
word, and, turning his back on Beamond's farm, he walked in the
opposite direction.
He had not gone far when he saw a young man of a strange raffish
appearance coming along the road to meet him. The man swung a stick as
he walked, and looked about him with a devil-may-care air which on the
instant led the good parson to set him down for a strolling player. As
such he was for passing him with a good day, and no more. But the
other, who had also marked him from a distance, stopped when they came
to close quarters.
"Well met, Master Parson!" he cried. "And how far may you have come?"
"A mile or a little less," the vicar answered mildly. And seeing, now
that they were face to face, that the stranger was little more than a
lad, he went on to ask him if he could be of service to him.
"Have you seen a lady on the road?"
The clergyman started. "Dear, dear!" he said. "'Tis well met, indeed,
sir, and a mercy you stayed me. To be sure I have! She is no farther
away than my house at this moment!"
"The devil she is!" the young man answered heartily. "That's to the
purpose then. I was beginning to think--but never mind! Come on, and
tell her woman where she is."
"Certainly I will. Is she here?"
"She's sitting in the hedge at the next corner. It's on your way.
Lord!" with a sigh of relief, not unmixed with pride, "what a night I
have had of it!"
"Indeed, sir," his reverence said with sympathy; and as they turned to
proceed side by side, he eyed his neighbour curiously.
"Aye, indeed, and indeed!" Tom answered. "You'd say so if you'd been
called out of bed the moment you were in it, and after a long day's
tramp too! And been dragged up and down the country the whole
live-long night, my friend."
"Dear me; is it so, sir? And you were in her ladyship's company when
she was stopped, I suppose, sir?"
"I? Not at all, or it would not have happened. I've never set eyes on
her."
"Her servants fetched you then?"
"Her woman did! I've seen no more of them."
The vicar pricked up his ears. "Nor the carriage?" he ventured.
"Not I. Hasn't she got the carriage with her?"
Mr. Michieson rubbed his head. "No," he said slowly; "no, she has not.
Do I understand then, sir, that--that you are yourself a complete
stranger to the parties?"
"I? Totally. But here's her woman. She can tell you about it. Oh, you
need not look at me," Tom continued with a grin, as the vicar,
startled by the sight of the handsome gipsy-like girl, looked at him
dubiously. "She's a pretty piece, I know, to be straying the country,
but I'm not in fault. I never set eyes on the little witch until last
night." And then, "Here, child," he cried, waving his hat to her,
"I've news! Your lady is at the parson's, and all's well! Now you can
thank me that I did not let you go into the smallpox."
Lady Betty clasped her hands. Her face was radiant. "Are you sure? Are
you quite sure?" she cried, her voice trembling. "Are you sure she is
safe?"
"She is quite safe," Mr. Michieson answered slowly; and he looked in
wonder from one to the other. There was something suspiciously alike
in their tumbled finery, their dishevelled appearance. "I was even now
on my way," he continued, "to Coke Hall to convey the news to Sir
Hervey."
It was Tom's turn to utter a cry of astonishment. "To Sir Hervey?" he
said. "To Sir Hervey Coke, do you mean?"
"To be sure, sir."
"But--why, to be sure, I might have known," Tom cried. "Was she going
there?"
"She is his wife, sir."
Tom laughed with a knowing air. "Oh, but that's a flam at any rate!"
he said. "Sir Hervey's not married. I saw him myself, ten days ago."
The girl stood up. "Where?" she said.
"Where?"
"Aye, where, sir, where, since you are so free with his name?"
"In Clarges Row, in London, if you must know," Tom answered, his face
reddening at the reminiscence. "And if he'd been married, or had
thoughts of being married then, he'd have told me."
Lady Betty stared at him, her breath coming quickly; something began
to dawn in her eyes. "Told you, would he?" she said slowly. "He'd have
told you? And who may you be, if you please?"
"Well," Tom answered a trifle sharply, "my name is Maitland, and for
the matter of that, my girl, you need not judge me by my clothes. I
know Sir Hervey, and----"
He did not finish. To his indignation, to the clergyman's
astonishment, the girl went into a fit of laughter; laughing till she
cried, and drying her eyes only that she might laugh again. Sir Tom
stared and fumed and swore; while the vicar looked from one to the
other, and asked himself--not for the first time--whether they were
acting together, or the man was as innocent as he appeared to be.
One thing he could make clear, and he hastened to do it. "I don't know
why you laugh, child," he said patiently. "At the same time, the
gentleman is certainly wrong in the fact. Sir Hervey Coke is married,
for I had it from the steward some days ago, and I am to go with the
tenants to the Hall to see her ladyship."
Tom stared. "Sir Hervey Coke married!" he cried in amazement, and
forgot the girl's rudeness. "Since I saw him? Married? Impossible!
Whom do you say he has married?"
The vicar coughed. "Well, 'tis odd, sir, but it's a lady of the same
name--as yourself."
"Maitland?"
"Yes, sir! A Miss Maitland, a sister of Sir Thomas Maitland, of
Cuckfield."
Sir Tom's eyes grew wide. "Good Lord!" he cried; "Sophia!"
"A relation, sir? Do I understand you that she's of your family?"
"My sister, sir; my sister."
The clergyman stared a moment, and then without comment he walked
aside and looked over the hedge. He smiled feebly at the well-known
prospect. Was it possible, he asked himself, that they thought he
could swallow this? That they deemed him so simple, so rustic, that
such a piece of play-acting as this could impose upon him? Beyond a
doubt they were in league together; with their fine story and their
apt surprise, and "my lady" in his garden. The only point on which he
felt doubt was the advantage they looked to draw from it, since the
moment he reached the Hall the bubble must burst.
He turned by-and-by, thinking in his honest cunning to resolve that
doubt. He found Tom in a sort of maze staring at the ground, and the
girl watching him with a strange smile. For the first time the good
vicar had recourse to the wisdom of the serpent. "Had I not better go
to the Hall at once," he said blandly, "and send a carriage for my
lady?"
"Go to the Hall without seeing her?" Tom cried, awakening from his
reverie. "Not I! I go to her straight. Sophia? Sophia? Good Lord!"
"And so do I, sir, by your leave," the girl cried pertly. "And at
once. I know my duty."
"And you're the man to show us the way," Tom continued heartily,
slapping his reverence on the back. "No more going up and down at
random for me! Let's to her at once! We can find a messenger to go to
the Hall, when we have seen her. But Lord! I can't get over it! When
was she married, my girl?"
"Well," Betty answered demurely, "'twas the same day, I believe, as
your honour was to have been married."
Tom winced and looked at her askance. "You know that, you baggage, do
you?" he cried.
"So it went in the steward's room, sir!"
But the vicar, his suspicions confirmed by their decision not to go to
the Hall, hung back. "I think I had better go on," he said. "I think
Sir Hervey should be warned."
"Oh, hang Sir Hervey!" Tom answered handsomely. "Why is he not looking
after his wife? Lead on! Lead on, do you hear, man? How far is it?"
"About a mile," the vicar faltered; "I should say a--a long mile," he
added, as he reluctantly obeyed the pressure of Tom's hand.
"Well, I am glad it's no further!" the young man answered. "For I'm so
sharp set I could eat my sister. You've parson's fare, I suppose?
Bacon and eggs and small beer?" he continued, clapping the unfortunate
clergyman on the back with the utmost good humour. "Well, sir, you
shall entertain us! And while we are dining, the messenger can be
going to the Hall. Soap and a jack-towel will serve my turn, but the
girl--what's your name, child?"
"Betty, sir."
"Will be the better for the loan of your wife's shoes and a cap! And
Sophy is married? Where was it, my girl?"
"At Dr. Keith's, sir."
"The deuce it was!" Tom cried ruefully. "Then that's two hundred out
of my pocket! Were you with her, child?"
"No, sir, her ladyship hired me after she was married."
Tom looked at her. "But--but I thought," he said, "that you told me
last night that you had been brought up with your mistress?"
Betty bit her lip, unable to remember if she had told him so. "Oh,
yes, sir," she said hastily, "but that was another mistress."
"Also of the name of Sophia?"
"Yes, sir."
"And for which Sophia--were you weeping last night?" Tom asked with
irony.
Betty's face flamed; her fingers tingled also, though the slip was her
own. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to throw off
the mask, and tell the young man who she was. But for a reason, Betty
did not choose to adopt this course. Instead, she stooped, pretending
that her shoe-buckle was unfastened; when she rose there were tears in
her eyes.
"You are very unkind, sir," she said in a low voice. "I took a--a
liberty with my mistress in calling her by her name, and I--I had to
account for it, and didn't tell quite the truth."
Tom was melted, yet his eye twinkled. "Last night or to-day?" he said.
"Both, sir," she whispered demurely. "And I'm afraid, sir, I took a
liberty with you, too, talking nonsense and such like. But I'm sure,
sir--I am very sorry, and I hope you won't tell my mistress."
The girl looked so pretty, so absurdly pretty in her penitence, and
there was something so captivating in her manner, that Tom was seized
with an inordinate desire to reassure her. "Tell, child? Not I!" he
cried generously. "But I'll have a kiss for a forfeit. You owe me
that," he continued, with one eye on the vicar, who had gone on while
she tied her shoe. "Will you pay it now, my dear, or to-morrow with
interest?"
"A kiss? Oh, fie, sir!"
"Why, what is the harm in a kiss?" Tom asked; and the rogue drew a
little nearer.
"Oh, fie, sir!" Betty retorted, tossing her head, and moving farther
from him. "What harm indeed? And you told me last night I should be as
safe with you as my mistress need be!"
"Well?" Tom exclaimed triumphantly. "And shouldn't I kiss your
mistress? Isn't she my sister? And--pooh, child, don't be silly. Was
ever waiting-maid afraid of a kiss? And in daylight?"
But Betty continued to give him a wide berth. "No, sir, I'll not
suffer it!" she cried tartly. "It's you who are taking the liberty
now! And you told me last night you had seen enough of women to last
you your life!"
"That was before I saw you, my dear!" Tom answered with impudence. But
he desisted from the pursuit, and resuming a sober course along the
middle of the road, became thoughtful almost to moodiness; as if he
were not quite so sure of some things as he had been. At intervals he
glanced at Betty; who walked by his side primly conscious of his
regards, and now blushing a little, and now pouting, and now when he
was not looking, with a laughing imp dancing in her eyes that must
have effected his downfall in a moment, if he had met her gaze. As it
was he lost himself in thinking how pretty she was, and how fresh; how
sweet her voice, and how dainty her walk; how trim her figure, and----
And then he groaned; calling himself a fool, a double, treble,
deepest-dyed fool! After the lesson he had learned, after the
experience through which he had passed, was he really, really going to
fall in love again? And with his sister's maid? With a girl picked
up--his vows, his oaths, his resolutions notwithstanding--in the road!
It was too much!
And Lady Betty walking beside him, knowing all and telling nothing,
Betty the flirt? "He put his coat on me; I have worn his coat. He said
he would tie me to the gate, and he would have tied me," with a
furtive look at him out of the tail of her eye--that was the air that
ran in her mind as she walked in the sunshine. A kiss? Well, perhaps;
sometime. Who knew? And Lady Betty blushed at her thoughts. And they
came to a corner where the garden house lay off the road. The vicarage
was not yet in sight.
At the gate of the orchard the poor parson waited for them, smiling
feebly, but not meeting their eyes. He was in a state of piteous
embarrassment. Persuaded that they were cheats and adventurers,
hedge-players, if nothing worse, he knew that another man in his place
would have told them as much, and sent them about their business. But
in the kindness of his heart he could no more do this than he could
fly. On the other hand, his hair rose on end when he pictured his
wife, and what she would say when he presented them to her. What she
would do were he to demand the good fare they expected, he failed to
conceive; but at the thought, the dense holly hedge that screened the
house seemed all too thin. Alas, the thickest hedge is pervious to a
woman's tongue!
In the others' ease and unconsciousness he found something pitiful; or
he would have done so, if their doom had not involved his own
punishment. "She is here, is she?" Tom said, his hand on the gate.
The vicar nodded, speechless; he pointed in the direction of the
garden house.
Betty slipped through deftly. "Then, if you please, sir, I'll go
first," she said. "Her ladyship may need something before she sees
you--by your leave, sir?" And dropping a smiling curtsey, she coolly
closed the gate on them, and flew down the path in the direction the
vicar had indicated.
"Well, there's impudence!" Tom exclaimed. "Hang me if I know why she
should go first!" And then, as a joyful cry rang through the trees, he
looked at the vicar.
But Michieson looked elsewhere. He was listening, he was shivering
with anticipation. If that cry reached her! Tom, however, failed to
notice this; innocent and unconscious, he opened the gate and passed
through; and, thinking of his sister and his last parting from her,
went slowly across the sunlit grass until the low-hanging boughs of
the apple-trees hid him.
The parson looked up and down the road with a hunted eye. The position
was terrible. Should he go to his wife, confess and prepare her? Or
should he wait until his unwelcome guests returned to share the brunt.
Or--or should he go? Go about his business--was there not sad,
pressing business at Beamond's farm?--until the storm was overpast.
He was a good man, but he was weak. A few seconds of hesitation, and
he skulked down the road, his head bent, his eyes glancing backwards.
He fancied that he heard his wife's voice, and hurried faster and
faster from the dreaded sound. At length he reached the main road and
stood, his face hot with shame. He considered what he should do.
Beamond's? Yes, he must go about that. He must, to save his
self-respect, go about business of some kind. At a large farm two
miles away his churchwarden lived; there he could get help. The farmer
and his wife had had the disease, and were in less terror of it than
some. At any rate he could consult them: in a Christian parish people
could not lie unburied. In vital matters he was no coward, and he knew
that if no one would help him--which was possible, so great was the
panic--he would do all himself, if his strength held out.
In turning this over he tried to forget the foolish imbroglio of the
morning; yet now and again he winced, pricked in his conscience and
his manhood. After all, they had come to him for help, for food and
shelter; and who so proper to afford these as God's minister in that
place. At worst he should have sent them to one of the farms, and
allowed it out of the tithe, and taken the chance when Easter came,
and Peg discovered it. Passing the branch-road on his left, which Tom
and Betty had taken in the night, he had a distant view of a horseman
riding that way at speed: and he wondered a little, the sight being
unusual. Three minutes later he came to the roadside ale-house which
Betty had visited. The goodwife was at the door, and watched him come
up. As he passed she cried out, to learn if his reverence had news.
"None that's good, Nanny," he answered; never doubting but she had the
illness at Beamond's on her mind. And declining her offer of a mug of
ale he went on, and half a mile farther turned off the road by a lane
that led to the churchwarden's farm. He crossed the farmyard, and
found Mrs. Benacre sitting within the kitchen door, picking over
gooseberries. He begged her not to move, and asked if the goodman was
at home.
"No, your reverence, he's at the Hall," she answered. "He was leaving
hay in the Furlongs, and was fetched all in a minute this hour past,
and took the team with him. The little lad came home and told me."
The vicar started, and looked a little odd. "I wanted to see him about
poor Beamond," he said.
"'Tis true, then, your reverence?"
"Too true. There's nothing like it happened in the parish in my time."
"Dear, dear, it gives one the creeps! After all, when you've got a
good husband, what's a little marking, and be safe? There should be
something done, your reverence. 'Tis these gipsies bring it about."
The vicar set back the fine gooseberry he had selected. "What time did
her ladyship arrive yesterday?" he asked.
Mrs. Benacre lifted up her hands in astonishment. "La, didn't you
hear?" she cried. "But to be sure, you're off the road a good bit, and
all your people so taken up with they poor Beamonds too? No time at
all, your reverence! She didn't come. I take it, it's about that, Sir
Hervey has sent for Benacre. He thinks a deal of him, as his father
before him did of the old gaffer! I remember a cocking was at the
Hall," Mrs. Benacre continued, "when I was a girl--'twas a match
between the gentlemen of Sussex and the gentlemen of Essex--and the
old squire would have Benacre's father to dine with them, and made so
much of him as never was!"
The vicar had listened without hearing. "She stopped the night in
Lewes, I suppose?" he said, his eyes on the gooseberries, his heart
bumping.
"'Twasn't known, the squire being at Lewes to meet her. And to-day
I've had more to do than to go fetching and carrying, and never a soul
to speak to but they two hussies and the lad, since Benacre went on
the land. There, your reverence, there's a berry should take a prize
so far away as Croydon."
"Very fine," the parson muttered. "But I think I'll walk to the Hall
and inquire."
"'Twould be very becoming," Mrs. Benacre allowed; and made him promise
he would bring back the news.
As he went down the lane, he saw two horsemen pass the end of it at a
quick trot. When he reached the road, the riders were out of sight;
but his heart misgave him at this sign of unusual bustle. A quarter of
an hour's walking along a hot road brought him to the park gate; it
was open, and in the road was the lodge-keeper's wife, a child
clinging to her skirts. Before he could speak, "Has your reverence any
news?" she cried.
He shook his head.
"Well, was ever such a thing?" she exclaimed, lifting up her hands.
"They're gone to be sure, as if the ground had swallowed them. It's
that, or the rogues ha' drowned them in the Ouse!"
He felt himself shrinking in his clothes. "How--how did it happen?" he
muttered faintly. What had he done? What had he done?
"The postboys left them in the carriage the other side of Beamond's,"
the woman answered, delighted to gain a listener. "And went back with
fresh horses, I suppose it would be about seven this morning; they
could not get them in the night. They found the carriage gone, and
tracked it back so far almost as Chayley, and there found it, and the
woman and the two grooms with it; but not one of them could give any
account, except that their ladyships had been carried off by a gang of
men, and they three had harnessed up and escaped. The postboys came
back with the news, and about the same time Mr. Watkyns came by the
main road through Lewes, and knew naught till he was here! He was fit
to kill himself when he found her ladyship was gone," the woman
continued with zest; "and Sir Hervey was lit to kill 'em all, and
serve 'em right; and now they are searching the country, and a score
with them; but it's tolerable sure the villains ha' got away with my
lady, some think by Newhaven and foreign parts! What? Isn't your
reverence going to the house?"
"No," his reverence muttered, with a sickly smile. "No." And he turned
from the cool shadows of the chestnut avenue, that led to the Hall,
and setting his face the way he had come, hastened through the heat.
He might still prevent the worst! He might still--but he must get
home. He must get home. He had walked three miles in forty minutes in
old days; he must do it now. True, the sun was midsummer high, the
time an hour after noon, the road straight and hot, and unshaded, his
throat was parched, and he was fasting. But he must press on. He must
press on, though his legs began to tremble under him--and he was not
so young as he had been. There was the end of Benacre's Lane! He had
done a mile; but his knees were shaky, he must sit a moment on the
bank. He did so, and found the trees begin to dance before his eyes,
his thoughts to grow confused; frightened he tried to rise, but
instead he sank in a swoon, and lay inert at the foot of the bank.