credit to your choice. But such luxuries are costly, and I am not
surprised that you need money. It is unfortunate that times are so hard
and money so scarce. I have just suffered a terrible loss. The death
of Lord Boscommon, whose father survives him, has turned ten thousand
pounds’ worth of post-obits into waste paper, and the failure of Johnson
and—but this does not interest your Honor. Beset as I am, I shall be
able to accommodate an old and valued client like yourself, no doubt, if
the security is satisfactory. You have good security to offer, of
course?"
"Oh! it is no use beating about the bush with you, Aarons. I have no
fresh security, but you can surely let me have a couple of thousand more
on the Yorkshire estate."
"Not a stiver," said the money-lender firmly. "Even the entailed
property is encumbered beyond its utmost value. Had you come to
announce your marriage with Miss Cheeseman, the Alderman’s daughter, or
Mrs. Goldthwaite, the banker’s widow, I do not say I would have refused
the necessary funds for the courtship and wedding on your note-of-hand.
But the Viscountess Brooke is dowerless—over head and ears in debt, and
without a penny of expectations."
"Miserable little Jew," muttered the fair dame he so pitilessly
anatomized; "Geoffrey will kill him."
"Dowerless, yes; over head and ears in debt, possibly; but not without
expectations," said Sir Geoffrey, displaying none of the anticipated
fury. "You overlook the fact that she is the favorite granddaughter of
Lady Drumloch, who, for all her miserly ways, I am credibly informed, is
enormously wealthy."
"Oho!" cried the Jew, maliciously enjoying this display of a motive not
altogether flattering to the unsuspected listener. "Your Honor is not
quite so simple as I began to fear."
"Did you really think I was fool enough to leap before looking?"
retorted Sir Geoffrey, with a fatuous laugh that set Prue’s ears
tingling. "To be sure, the wealth of Golconda could not add to the Lady
Prue’s charms, but in this wicked world one can not live on love, and as
I have little else to offer, I rejoice, for her sake as well as my own,
that she has a rich grandmother, who can not, it is to be hoped—I should
say, lamented—live long to enjoy her hoards. They will, I am convinced,
be put to excellent use by Lady Prudence Beaudesert."
"But how, if I could prove to you, Sir Geoffrey, that Lady Drumloch,
instead of being a rich miser, is a very poor old woman, whose kinsman
loans her a house to live in, and whose sole income is an annuity, from
which she has—perhaps—saved enough to bury her? I know not who may have
told you of this fabled wealth, but I am pretty sure it is not either of
her granddaughters."
"Indeed, no," said Sir Geoffrey reflectively. "No such sordid subject
has ever been broached between us. Yet I had it from a reliable
source."
"Well, I advise you to make very sure of it, Sir Geoffrey; it will be no
kindness, either to yourself or the Lady Prudence, to marry her without
either of you having anything you can call your own—except your debts."
"’Tis true," muttered the baronet. "If I can not raise a thousand
pounds—are Lady Prudence’s debts so very great?"
"I do not betray the secrets of one client to another," said Aarons,
with a sinister smile. "Even now I have acted against my own interests
in my desire to befriend two headstrong young people. Nay, I would
gladly go further, and find a rich wife for your Honor and a rich
husband for the viscountess, if you would both listen to reason."
"Thanks, good Aarons," said Sir Geoffrey, moving toward the door; "I
appreciate your good will at its full value. A rich wife—of your
providing—to pay my debts, and a rich husband, on the same terms, for
Lady Prudence, would make four fools for the benefit of one wise man."
"Your Honor flatters me!" said Aarons obsequiously. They passed out of
the room together, and as he closed the door behind him, the
money-lender remarked, in the most casual manner, "I had a visit from
the lady but an hour agone, praying me for a loan of a few hundred
pounds, at any interest, on the strength of her approaching marriage
with your Honor."
Sir Geoffrey started, and a curious light came into his cold, handsome
eyes.
"’Sdeath!" he ejaculated, "the lady doth me too much honor!"
"I was most reluctantly compelled to refuse the loan, for the same
reason that she gave for requesting it," said the usurer, as he
respectfully bowed his visitor out. "But in the meantime, if I can
serve you in any other direction, pray command me."
When he returned alone, he found Lady Prudence arranging her hood with a
weary air.
"Prithee, Mr. Aarons, is my chair at the door?" she demanded, cutting
short his apologies for detaining her. "You and your client have
well-nigh sent me to sleep with your long conference. Sure, you have
kept me shut up in the cupboard, while you transacted the business of a
dozen petitioners."
"Your ladyship was probably unable to overhear our conversation?" he
retorted, with a shrewd smile. "’Tis a pity, for it would have
interested you vastly."
"Did you, indeed, think I would condescend to listen at the keyhole?"
cried Prue, with a superb air of disdain. "Believe me, I do not take
quite so much interest in the clients of Mr. Aarons! Is my chair at the
door? Then let me begone. My grandmother will marvel at my absence,
and ask more questions than I shall be able to invent answers to."
The Jew accompanied her out to her chair, bare-headed, and as he handed
her in, said, in his voice of curiously blended humility and power, "I
shall hear from your ladyship again, when you and Sir Geoffrey have had
time for reflection."
*CHAPTER V*
*A WIDOW ON MONDAY*
That day was destined to be one of accumulated trials to Prue’s
patience. Her ruffled temper had scarcely calmed down by the time she
reached home, and found that, during her absence, communications had
been received from the attorneys of various tradespeople, warning her
that Mr. Aarons’ view of her position was by no means exaggerated.
Although she had rigidly refrained from announcing her projected
marriage, in deference to Lady Drumloch’s opposition, the news had crept
out in the mysterious way such things have of proclaiming themselves,
and had led to a general investigation of Sir Geoffrey’s solvency, by
those whose only hope of payment depended upon her future husband’s
wealth. The immediate result of these researches displayed itself in
the unanimous determination of her creditors to be paid before she could
shelter herself under the coverture of a husband whose parliamentary
privileges placed him out of their reach.
This blow was the more crushing because it came from those who had
encouraged her extravagance and played upon her vanity while she was the
favorite of the all-powerful Duchess of Marlborough, and lady-in-waiting
to the queen. Then, every temptation was thrown in her way, and the day
of reckoning was never mentioned, unless in sly allusion to the
dazzling, ever-changing panorama of her matrimonial prospects.
But, now, circumstances were different. To tell the truth, the fair
viscountess had left London a year ago under the cloud of royal
displeasure. Her extravagance at the card-table and elsewhere, her
mad-cap frolics and countless flirtations—culminating in a fatal duel
and a brilliant engagement broken off almost at the church-door—had
brought upon her a sharp rebuke from the queen, coupled with a command
to seek time for reflection and penitence in some retreat far enough
removed from the court to relieve her of its temptations.
Under this ban, she had thrown herself upon the hospitality of her
brother-in-law, himself somewhat out of favor, in consequence of his
Jacobite tendencies, and living in comparative seclusion upon his
heavily mortgaged estate in Yorkshire. There, Prue had held a little
court of fox-hunting squires and provincial notables, until, wearying
for a more congenial atmosphere, she gladly seized upon the illness of
her grandmother as an excuse for a hasty and unheralded visit to London,
where her bosom friend, Lady Barbara Sweeting, having paved the way for
her, met her with the delightful news that her escapades were forgotten
and her absence bewailed, and being on the spot, her unauthorized return
would meet with no severe reprimand, but rather with a joyous welcome.
Prue knew the advantage of striking while the iron is hot. She was well
aware of the fickleness of the great, and the importance of catching the
smile of royalty before it has had time to cool off into a frown. So,
being assured that the hand of welcome was graciously beckoning her, it
did seem the irony of fate that she must needs hang back because her
wardrobe was in Yorkshire, and her chance of redeeming or replacing it
even more distant.
At this exasperating crisis, it was only natural that her mind should
revert persistently to the one spot of light in the gloom. Was it a
beacon of hope or an illusory will-o’-the-wisp? Had Sir Geoffrey been
misled, or was he trying to mislead Mr. Aarons?
"Can grannie really be a miser?" she had asked both herself and Peggie a
dozen times in the course of the day. She longed to question Sir
Geoffrey as to the source of his information, yet dared not reveal the
little she knew, for fear he might wonder how she had come by that
little.
Peggie laughed heartily at the suggestion of Lady Drumloch’s wealth, and
vowed it must be a myth. "Could she have kept such a secret from us for
all these years?" she asked. "Never once giving us a hint of it, and
never once relaxing the austerity of her life, even now she is old and
sick? Besides, how would it help us now, if she had a cellar full of
gold, since she will not give us a guinea or a gown? You have so many
friends, Prue; will none of them help you out?"
"The women will not help me; they are only too glad to keep me out in
the cold," said Prue pettishly, "and I am neither old enough nor ugly
enough, to ask favors of a man, even a money-lender," she added,
contemptuously reminiscent of Mr. Aarons’ advances. "Pray, open the
window, coz. These distracting cares make me so faint, I feel as though
I should die for lack of air."
Peggie obeyed, and Prue, seating herself near the window, gradually
ceased her lamentations and fell silent. The outside noises floated up
confusedly—the roll of a passing carriage, the quarrelsome shouts of
waiting chairmen, and clear above all, the voice of the newsman, calling
the details of yesterday’s cock-fight and the latest scandal.
"Rumor of a great battle in the Netherlands—Arrival of a queen’s courier
with sealed despatches from the seat of war—Exciting scene in the House
of Commons—Threatened resignation of Lord Godolphin from the
Cabinet—Trial and sentence of Robin Freemantle, the highwayman. Story of
his Life and confessions—How he fell from virtue and respectability to
end his days on Tyburn Tree next Monday."
"Dost thou hear that, Peggie?" cried Prue; "the bold highwayman who
kissed me on Bleakmoor is condemned to die for other crimes, perchance
less heinous!"
"’Tis a natural death for such as he," quoth Peggie philosophically.
"And yet, he was a gallant man; young, I’ll be sworn, and handsome,
belike. It seems strange to think that such hot blood will be cold in
the veins of a corpse in less than a week—"
"Art going to wear weeds for him, coz, because he snatched a kiss from
you?" teased Peggie.
"Not I! but mayhap some poor wretch is breaking her heart because she’ll
be a widow o’ Monday," said Prue pensively.
"All her debts will be paid along with the debt of nature," said Peggie
flippantly. "Don’t you think you could easily console yourself in her
case?"
"Forsooth, yes!" cried Prue, quickly recovering her vivacity. "I would
I were like to be the widow of somebody—somebody I don’t care for, of
course—within a week. Then I could laugh at that old villain Aarons,
and the rest of the pettifoggers, with their threats of the debtors’
prison! Sure, there must be a special hell for Jews and lawyers!"
Peggie gave her hearty acquiescence and returned to her book, and for
some time no sound was heard except an occasional smothered laugh, when
Mr. Pope’s highly-spiced rhymes tickled her fancy more than usual. Prue
fell into a somber reverie, and with the tip of her taper finger between
her teeth, became so buried in thought, that a sharp little line began
to trace itself distinctly between her drawn brows. Outside, the
newsman’s voice, gradually fading in the distance, still repeated, "Buy
the life and confessions of Robin Freemantle, the notorious
highwayman—only sixpence."
Prue sprang to her feet, at last. "Margaret!" she exclaimed, and her
voice had a curiously unfamiliar ring.
Her cousin started. Prue had not called her by her full name in many a
day.
"Margaret, if this highwayman has no wife—people of that sort don’t
marry, usually—what is to prevent his marrying me, and leaving me a
widow on Monday, with all my debts buried in his coffin?"
Peggie had been so often participator and prime minister of Prue’s
exploits, that she was not easily astonished by her. But this
proposition was so entirely outside the bounds of reason, that she could
only shake her head vigorously, without even a word of protest.
"’Tis not so reckless as it seems, Peggie," said Prue, sitting down
beside her and passing a coaxing arm round her shoulders. "Listen, dear
Peg. The man must die; God’s pity on him! What can it matter to me to
be his wife for a few hours; what can it matter to him to ease me of my
debts? They will not trouble him in the next world; neither will I."
"You’ll be none the richer for such a mad freak," Peggie remonstrated.
"I’ll be out of danger of the Fleet, though!" cried Prue, renewing her
caresses. "Fancy your poor little cousin in a debtors’ prison, Peggie,
with all sorts of wretches who can not pay their butchers and bakers—and
miserable cheats and swindlers, so mean and low that they have not a
soul to help them—and fancy me just as ill-off and forlorn as they!"
Peggie began to melt. "You saw that letter from Madame Taffetine’s
lawyer, ’Unless we receive the payment, so frequently promised, within
forty-eight hours, the law will be enforced without any further delay.’
The other man is even more explicit; he threatens me with imprisonment
in so many words! Oh! Peggie, I am the most miserable girl in the
world!"
"Sir Geoffrey will marry you, and you will both be safe and happy,"
counseled Peggie.
"Sir Geoffrey! I’m not so sure I wouldn’t rather marry the highwayman!"
cried Prue. "At any rate, I can not offer myself to him, and I doubt if
he be in the mood to hurry me. Besides, there’s like to be a
dissolution of Parliament, and then he’ll be in a worse plight than I am
now. ’Tis true," she laughed, but not quite merrily, "there is Mr.
Aarons, who was kind enough to place his hand and his money-bags at my
feet, but the doors that are open to the poor Viscountess Brooke, might
be slammed in the face of the rich Lady Prudence Aarons!"
"Robin Freemantle would be better than Mr. Aarons," Peggie conceded.
"Robin Freemantle, at this moment, will do better than any one else,"
said Prue. "I tell you, Peggie, my mind is made up. You may as well
help me, for if you don’t, I’ll do it all alone—but you won’t desert me,
will you, Peggie, dearest?" So, with tears and kisses and wiles most
varied, but all through with a stubborn self-will that had often before
subdued Peggie’s feeble scruples, Prue won her at last, not merely as a
confidante, but as an accomplice.
As soon as the whimsical creature found that there was nothing to fear
from her cousin’s opposition, her spirits rose at the prospect of an
adventure even more reckless and madcap than usual. She ran on with a
thousand absurd suggestions, until Peggie, infected by her mood, offered
to visit the prison at Newgate, and lay Prue’s proposal before the
highwayman.
"You know, you told him I was your maid," she said, "and ’tis one of a
maid’s chief duties to carry messages for her mistress; messages of
doubtful discretion especially. I can remind him of the meeting on
Bleakmoor, and introduce myself as having witnessed the kiss which
ignited a flame in your heart, that can only be quenched by a marriage
_in extremis_."
"Make use of what arguments you please, Peg, and for credential, take
with you the purse he bestowed in charity on the poor widow, who now
implores a still greater favor from him. Alack! the purse is well-nigh
empty, but there’s enough left in it to bribe the jailers to admit a
lady of high degree, who comes to find out if the condemned man can put
her in the way to recover the jewelry she was robbed of on the Queen’s
Highway."
"To-day is Thursday, Prue," said Peggie, proceeding to prepare for her
errand without delay. "Thou’lt not wed o’ Friday? ’Tis unlucky!"
"Unlucky! Dost think there’s any luck, good or ill, about such a
marriage?" cried Prue, dropping suddenly into a shuddering despondency.
"Friday is as good a day as any for one’s undoing, and Saturday’s too
long; ’twould give me time to change my mind."
"There’s time enough for that now," quoth Peggie philosophically. "The
banns are not yet asked, nor even the wooing sped. ’Twere wiser,
perhaps, to repent to-day than regret to-morrow."
"Do you think so, Peggie? So do not I. If I do have to repent, it
shall not be for an opportunity missed for a coward scruple. Here, let
me tie this long, black veil over your hood, Peg; it will make you look
like a mourner, and with your handkerchief to your face, you might defy
even the sharp eyes of Lowton herself."
*CHAPTER VI*
*A MATTER OF TITLE*
As Peggie, veiled and muffled up, with the curtains of her sedan-chair
drawn—but not closely enough to interfere with her outlook—was borne
toward the city, she passed a handsome chariot, driven rapidly in the
opposite direction.
The glimpse she caught of the occupants caused her great amusement. Sir
Geoffrey Beaudesert was seated beside a young man, richly dressed and
handsome, but sallow and hollow-cheeked. This was Lord Beachcombe,
whose marriage with Lady Prudence Brooke had been abruptly broken off
about a year ago, in consequence of a scandal raised by a certain
Captain O’Keefe, who considered himself ill-used by the lady, and whose
insulting strictures upon her conduct led to a fatal duel with Sir
Geoffrey, and resulted in the promise of her hand to the champion of her
honor. The sight of Prue’s former and present lovers together, struck
Peggie as particularly funny, in connection with her own queer errand.
If she could have overheard their conversation, it would have given
additional zest to the situation.
"Faith," Lord Beachcombe was saying, "if you are really bent on marrying
the lovely widow, I wish you better luck than I had."
"I _am_ bent on it, with my whole heart and soul," Sir Geoffrey replied,
doggedly rather than enthusiastically. "_I_ am not a man to be turned
from my purpose by an idle word."
The other laughed carelessly. "No man in your condition takes warning
by other men’s misfortunes," he remarked. "But there’s still hope for
you; you are not her husband yet."
"No, but I swear I will be, and soon, too!" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey. "I
won her at the sword’s point, and by the God above us, I’ll wear her!"
"Will you bet?" demanded the other, with a sneer. Gambling was the most
fashionable vice of that day, and few subjects were too great or too
small to hang a wager upon.
"Aye, Lord Beachcombe, if you want to lose money, I’ll not deny you the
opportunity," laughed Sir Geoffrey, recovering his good humor. "What do
you want to wager? Fifty guineas? a hundred?"
"Fifty or a hundred guineas is all too small a wager for so important a
matter," said Lord Beachcombe slowly, as though considering the exact
sum demanded by the occasion. "Let us say a thousand—or five thousand."
Sir Geoffrey was staggered by the amount, but he was as ardent a gambler
as his companion, and reputed a much luckier one. "As your lordship
pleases," he replied, with well-assumed indifference. "But I warn you
that the higher the stake, the more certain I shall be to win it, even
if I have to carry the lady off by force."
"Oh! if you have to resort to force—"
"If I have to resort to force, the stake should be doubled!" exclaimed
Sir Geoffrey, "but I have no fear of that. Did your lordship say a
thousand? or was it five?"
"Let it be five thousand," returned Beachcombe. "I’ll wager five
thousand guineas that you do not marry the Viscountess Brooke
within—shall we say a month?"
Sir Geoffrey signified his satisfaction; each gentleman made a
memorandum of the bet, and as the carriage had already been standing
some minutes at Prue’s door, her betrothed alighted, thanked his friend
for his courtesy in giving him a lift, and hastened in to press his suit
with renewed ardor.
As the carriage was driven off Lord Beachcombe pulled the check-string
and ordered the coachman to drive with all speed to Newgate Prison.
Newgate Prison, in the reign of Queen Anne, was a festering sink of
iniquity and horror. Almost every crime under the sun was punishable by
death—from stealing a penny loaf to robbing a church, and from snaring a
pheasant to slaughtering a family. In fact the laws in relation to
property were far more strictly enforced than those for the protection
of human life, unless the value of the life was enhanced by the rights
of property. There, in noisome pens, criminals of every degree herded
together—men, women and children—all brought to an equality under the
shadow of the gallows. But money was just as powerful there as anywhere
else, and the prisoner who could pay might have privacy, company, the
best of food and wine—everything except cleanliness—that no power could
bring into Newgate Prison, and it needed the cleansing fires of
destruction to purge it off the face of the earth.
Robin Freemantle, the condemned highwayman, had money enough to secure
him a cell to himself. One of the poorer prisoners, for a consideration,
had swept it out, and he had hired a table and chair from the jailer at
about twice the price for which they had been bought ten years ago.
At his table he sat writing, with a bottle of wine at his elbow, and the
debris of a substantial meal on a tray. Through a barred window above
his head enough light slunk reluctantly in to show the fine athletic
form and bronzed, manly face, on which the pallor of imprisonment was
already toning down the ruddy glow of health. On the page before him he
had inscribed but four words, at which he sat gazing irresolutely while
he nibbled the feather of his pen. The key turned in the lock and a
hoarse voice outside announced, "A visitor for you, Robin Highwayman."
Lord Beachcombe walked in, and the door closed behind him.
Robin rose. "Welcome, my Lord," he said, with an unmistakable ring of
relief in his tone. "Your promptitude will do us both a good turn."
"I received your letter, fellow," said the other haughtily, "and I
confess I was curious to learn how a man of education had fallen to your
condition." His eye glanced upon Robin’s left arm, which he wore in a
sling, as though he marveled why it had been thought worth while to mend
a collar-bone upon which the neck was set so insecurely.
"Take this chair, my Lord. I have but one in my spacious apartment.
I’ll sit here." He moved to the cot and his visitor sat down, not
without some show of reluctance.
"And now, be brief," said Lord Beachcombe, watching him narrowly, "and
let me know the service _you_ wish to render _me_"—with a sneer—"and the
price you expect for it. I do not remember ever having been waylaid by
you, so you can not have stolen jewels to restore."
"Yet your lordship has some idea of what I have to offer—not to restore,
for you never possessed it—and if I die on Monday, will never know the
full worth of it until too late. Your lordship has a lawsuit pending
involving your title and estate—"
"Every one knows that," said Beachcombe irritably. "Some mysterious
person has claimed to be my elder brother. The thing is manifestly
impossible, but he appears to have interested a lawyer of sorts."