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THE
FLIGHT OF GEORGIANA
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Works of
Robert Neilson Stephens
---
An Enemy to the King
The Continental Dragoon
The Road to Paris
A Gentleman Player
Philip Winwood
Captain Ravenshaw
The Mystery of Murray Davenport
The Bright Face of Danger
The Flight of Georgiana
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L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
Publishers
200 Summer St., Boston, Mass.
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[Illustration: “‘WHAT ’UD THE COUNTY SAY IF I EXHIBITED THIS HERE BIT O’
WRITING?’”]
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THE FLIGHT
OF GEORGIANA
A Story of Love and Peril in England in 1746
By
Robert Neilson Stephens
Author of “Philip Winwood,” “An Enemy to the King,” etc., etc.
Illustrated by
H. C. Edwards
“The lioness, you may move her
To give o’er her prey;
But you’ll ne’er stop a lover—
He will find out the way.
* * *
“If once the message greet him
That his True Love doth stay,
If Death should come and meet him,
Love will find out the way!”
—OLD BALLAD.
[Illustration: Publisher’s Logo]
Boston
⸪ L. C. Page & Company ⸪
Mdccccv
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Copyright, 1905
BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY
(INCORPORATED)
---
All rights reserved
Published August, 1905
COLONIAL PRESS
Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds & Co.
Boston, U.S.A.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. ENEMIES 1
II. FRIENDS 19
III. KNAVES 39
IV. FUGITIVES 63
V. RISKS 92
VI. THANKS 110
VII. KISSES 128
VIII. THREATS 146
IX. SWORDS 170
X. WAGERS 190
XI. PROPOSALS 212
XII. TEARS 233
XIII. SURPRISES 253
XIV. ROADS 269
XV. PISTOLS 295
XVI. HORSES 316
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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
“‘WHAT ’UD THE COUNTY SAY IF I 4
EXHIBITED THIS HERE BIT O’
WRITING?’”
“‘SAVE YOURSELF,’ SHE 101
WHISPERED, RAPIDLY. ‘YOU ARE
IN DANGER HERE’”
“THE TWO GENTLEMEN MADE THEIR 195
SWORDS RING”
“‘UNCLE, I BEG YOU, ON MY 259
KNEES—HIS LIFE!’”
“HE SNATCHED THE HANDKERCHIEF 313
FROM HER FACE”
“THE HORSES DASHED FORWARD” 333
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THE FLIGHT OF GEORGIANA
CHAPTER I
ENEMIES
A LITTLE before noon one gray day in September, 1746, a well-made young
fellow, in appearance and fact a gentleman’s servant, rode up the High
Street of a town in the North of England, and through the passageway of
an inn to the yard. Having entrusted his sorrel nag to an ostler, he
hastened to the kitchen, and proceeded to give orders to the landlady
with an absence of deference which plainly showed that he spoke not for
himself but for his master.
There are still a few English inns not unlike those of that time. This
particular house was of dull red brick, its main part extending along
the street and pierced in the middle by the passageway which led back to
the yard. In the front, the ground floor had four wide windows, and
these were matched by four above, while a fifth was over the passage
entrance. The small panes and stone facings of the windows gave the inn
that look of comfort so characteristic of eighteenth-century houses, and
this was increased by the small dormer casements in the sloping roof.
The passage itself, paved with stones worn comparatively smooth, was
capacious enough to admit a stage-coach or a carrier’s covered wagon. As
you entered it, you saw the yard beyond, which was bounded by a wing of
the main building and by stables, sheds, and sundry out-houses. Half-way
through this passage, you found at your left hand a door, which opened
to a public parlour, wherein meals were served at a common table to
stage-coach passengers and other outside guests. At the right-hand side
of the passage was a wider doorway, giving access to a small entry, from
which you might step forward into the kitchen, or rightward into the
bar, or leftward to a narrow stairway that wound steeply to the floor
above.
The kitchen was not the least attractive of these destinations,—with the
ample fire in its spacious chimney-place, the shine of the pots and pans
on its wall, the blackened beams across its low ceiling, its table
devoted to culinary business, its greater table devoted to gastronomic
business—for all guests of low station, including the servants of those
of higher station, ate in the kitchen,—and the oaken settles and
joint-stools so tempting to the tired, hungry, and thirsty traveller who
might appear in the doorway.
“And lookye, ma’am, you’ll oblige by making haste,” said the gentleman’s
servant, having communicated his orders, “for master is following so
close he may be here in a quarter of an hour. I’ll eat my bite while
he’s on the way; for he’ll be having me wait on him at table, and as
soon as he’s finished his dinner we shall be off again,—there’s eight
bad miles between here and home.”
He went to that end of the long table whereon certain cold viands stood
exposed, while the landlady set the cook and scullery-maid upon
preparations for the meal that had been ordered. She then called a
chambermaid and bade her get the Rose—the best room in the house—ready
for the meal to be served in. By this time the gentleman’s servant had
helped himself to a good slice from the round of cold beef, and a
plentiful supply of bread, had obtained a pot of beer from the tapster,
and was seated in great comfort at the table. The landlady, a fat and
tyrannical-looking creature, turned to him.
“When your master stopped here t’other day, on his way to the South,”
said she, “he had nobody with him but you. But now that he’s coming
home, he orders dinner for two in a private room, and for one in the
kitchen besides yourself. How comes that?”
“Because he’s bringing home the young mistress and her waiting-woman.”
“Young mistress, d’ye say? What, then, has Mr. Foxwell been married? Is
that what he went South for?”
“Oh, God forbid! No, ma’am, ’tis his niece, Miss Foxwell, he’s fetching
home. She’s been reared by an aunt on her mother’s side, but now her
education is finished, and, according to her grandfather’s will, she
comes home to Foxwell Court.”
“Then Foxwell Court was left to her? It seems to me I did hear summat of
that estate going to a gran’daughter.”
“’Twas left to master and her together in some way or other—my master
being the younger son, d’ye see, and she being the orphan of the elder.
They do say master would ’a’ got the most of the property but for the
wicked life he led in London,—I’ve heard he was a terrible gay man afore
he came to the country to live,—but I wasn’t with him in them days, so
can’t speak from my own knowledge.” The youth uttered an unconscious
sigh, doubtless of regret at possibilities he had missed.
“Well, from what I’ve heard now and again of goings on at Foxwell Court
since your master came to live there,” said the landlady, “he didn’t
leave all his gay ways behind him in London; but maybe report is a liar,
as the saying is, Master Caleb.”
“Oh, no doubt there’s summat of drinking, when the master can get
anybody to his mind to drink with—for, between us, Mrs. Betteridge, he
doesn’t run well with the county gentlemen—as how should he, with his
town breeding? And I don’t say there isn’t considerable gaming, and
frolics with the fair sex; but the place has been bachelor’s hall, d’ye
see,—till now the young mistress comes.”
“And now I dare say all those fine doings will have to stop,” said Mrs.
Betteridge; “—the frolics with the fair seck, at least.”
“That’ll be a pity,” said a voice behind her, whereupon the landlady,
turning indignantly, beheld the stout form and complacent ruddy visage
of her husband.
“A pity!” she echoed, in wrath and contempt. “’Tis like you to say it,
Betteridge! I hope the young lady will keep Foxwell Court clean of the
trollops. You’d be up to the same tricks in your own house if all the
maids didn’t scorn you.”
The landlord’s only reply being a placid puff of smoke from his
long-stemmed pipe, his helpmate discharged an ejaculation of disgust and
waddled away. He took her place as catechist of the serving-man, seating
himself on the opposite bench.
“What news on the road, Caleb?”
“Nothing to make a song of, as the saying is. Except at York,—we stayed
the night there. They’ve indicted a great parcel of rebels—seventy-five
all told, I hear.”
“They did better than that in Carlisle last month,—found true bills
against a hundred and nineteen. Their trials will be coming on soon.”
“Ay, before the trials at York, no doubt. Well, all I can say is, ’tis
bad weather for Scotchmen.”
“So many of ’em have come over the border to make their fortunes, ’tis
only fair some of ’em should come over to be hanged. Well, he laughs
best that laughs last. To think what a fright their army gave us last
year,—some of us, that is,—not me. Have you heard if the Pretender has
been caught yet?”
“Not I. Some think he’ll never be caught,—that he’s been picked up by a
vessel on the Scotch coast and got safe away for France.”
“A good riddance, then, say I. I don’t begrudge him his neck, seeing
there’s no fear he’ll ever ockipy the English throne. The British
Constitution is safe. Well, ’tis all over with the Jacobites; no more
‘Charlie over the Water’; they’ll have to make up their minds to drink
to King George for good and all. ’Twill be a bitter pill to swallow, for
some I could mention.”
“You can’t say that of us. My master has always been Hanoverian.”
“Ay, ay, being town bred, and a gentleman of fashion. ’Tis some of our
country gentry I’m thinking of. Well, they are singing small at present.
Lucky for them they didn’t rise and join the Pretender when he invaded
us last year.”
“There were mighty few English in his army, that’s certain.”
“Mighty few. A parcel enlisted at Manchester. And, to be sure, there was
the garrison at Carlisle that declared for him. And some had gone to
Scotland before that to meet him,—madmen, I call them. But he had no
English of any family, barring a few that came with him from France, I
hear:—chips of the old block, they were, dyed-in-the-wool Jacobites,
from the old breed, that lived abroad for their health, eh? Well, ’tis
all over now—all over now.”
Mr. Betteridge looked gratified as he said it, but there was a
suppressed sigh beneath his content. Had he, too, in his day, sometimes
held his glass over a bowl of water in drinking the king’s health?
“Except the hangings and beheadings,” he added, as an afterthought.
Caleb made no reply, being busy with his food lest his master might
arrive before he had satisfied his hunger. The post-chaise which bore
that gentleman was now approaching the town from the South, under the
guidance of a despondent-looking postilion. Within the chaise, beside
the gentleman, sat a young lady, and on the seat improvised on the bar
in front was a lady’s maid. Between the young lady and the gentleman,
who was middle-aged, silence prevailed. They did not look at each other;
and something in the air of both seemed to denote a lack of mutual
sympathy.
When we describe the gentleman as middle-aged, we mean as ages went in
the reign of George II., for it is a vulgar error to suppose that people
generally lived as long in the “good” old days as they do now. Not to
speak of the wars and the hangman, there were bad sanitation and medical
ignorance to shorten the careers of a vast number, and “drink and the
devil did for the rest.” This gentleman in the post-chaise, then, was
not over forty. Drink and the devil had made good headway upon him: one
could see that in his face, which was otherwise a face of good breeding,
wit, and accomplishment; a handsome face, lighted by keen, gray eyes,
but marred by the traces of riotous living and cynical thoughts, and by
a rooted discontent. He was tall and gracefully formed. His dress
betokened fallen fortunes. The worn velvet of his coat and breeches was
faded from a deep colour resembling that of the wine he had too much
indulged in. The embroidery of his satin waistcoat, the lace of his
three-cornered hat, the buckles of his shoes, the handle of his sword,
and the mounting of his pistols, were of silver, but badly tarnished.
His white silk stockings were mended in more places than one; his linen,
however, was immaculate. He wore his own hair, tied behind with a
ribbon.
The young lady beside him was very young, indeed; and very pretty,
indeed, having wide-open blue eyes, a delicately coloured face, a
charming little nose, an equally charming mouth, and a full, shapely
chin. Her look was at once sweet-tempered and high-spirited; for the
time being, it contained something of disapproval and rebellion. As for
this young lady’s clothes, the present historian’s admiration for
handsome dress on women is equalled by his dislike of describing it—or
hearing it described—in detail. Enough to say that her gown of dark
crimson, with its high waist, seemed to belong by nature to the small,
slender, and graceful figure it encased; and was free from the
excess—deplored by good judges then as now—so dear to overdressed
dowdiness. She had, too, the secret still lacked by some of her fair
countryfolk, of poising a hat gracefully, thus not to look top-heavy;
hers was a hat of darker shade than her gown, with a good sweep of brim.
As for the maid, on the seat in front, she, too, was rather a young
thing,—slim and tall, with a wholesome complexion, longish features, and
the artful-artless, variable-vacuous, consequential-conciliating
expression of her tribe. An honest, unlettered, shallow, not ill-meaning
creature; cast by circumstance for a super’s part in the drama of life,
never to be anything more than an accessory.
But the pretty young lady, left to her own thoughts, of what _was_ she
thinking? Did her mind cling regretfully to the life she had just
left?—to the small, well-ordered home of her widowed old aunt; the
decorous society of the staid cathedral town in the South, with its
regular and deliberate gaieties, its exceeding regard for “politeness”?
Or did it concern itself with the home for which she was bound, the
country-house she had not seen since childhood, but which she remembered
vaguely as old and half-ruinous then?—with what manner of life she was
to lead there in the society of this strange, profligate-seeming uncle,
who manifestly did not like her any more than she could find it in her
heart to like him? Or did she have some vague intimation of great things
about to happen unexpectedly?—of matters of deep import to her future
life, destined to result from the chance coming together of certain
people at the inn ahead?
Probably Miss Georgiana Foxwell had no such thought; but ’tis a fact
that at the very time when her post-chaise was coming into sight of the
church-tower of this town, other conveyances were bringing other
travellers to the same town, to the great though unintended influencing
of her destiny. To begin at the top, for that was an age of arbitrary
social distinctions, a private coach, drawn by six horses and followed
by a mounted servant, was lumbering along slowly from the North. Then
from the East cantered two well-fed horses, bearing, as anybody could
see, their owner and his man servant. From the North again, but far
behind and out of ken of the coach-and-six, came three post-horses under
saddle, one of the riders being the custodian and guide. And lastly,
somewhere between the private carriage and the hired horses, but not
within sight of either, a stage-coach ground its way over the rugged
eighteenth-century highway. Of all the vehicles and horses that raised
the dust on English roads that day, only these—with the
post-chaise—concern us.
The first to arrive at the inn, where Caleb had by this time stayed his
stomach and stepped out to look things over in the yard, were the two
well-fed horses. Their owner, a robust, red-faced, round-headed,
important-looking country gentleman of about five and thirty, slid off
his steed with agility, and, leaving the animals to the care of his man,
was met at the entry door by the landlady.
“Welcome, Squire Thornby!—a welcome to your Worship! I hope I see your
Worship very well, sir.”
He took her obsequiousness as his due, and, with no more reciprocation
than a complacent grunt, he bade her lay a cloth in the Rose and let his
man Bartholomew bring to that room a round of cold beef and a quart of
her best ale. With his snub-nosed crimson visage, he looked the part he
had been born to fill in life; and was suitably dressed for it, too, in
his brown wig, green cloth coat, brown waistcoat and breeches, large
riding-boots, and plain, three-cornered hat.
“For I’m in haste to get home,” he added, “where I’ll pay myself for a
cold dinner by a hot supper. So bestir, Mrs. Betteridge, and don’t keep
me waiting.”
“Certainly, your Worship, sir; by all means, Squire Thornby.” And she
called to a chambermaid, “Moll, lay a cloth for the Squire in the
Thistle, and be quick—”
“I said the Rose, Mrs. Betteridge. Didn’t you hear? Thistle be damned!—I
never said Thistle.”
“The Rose, Squire? The Thistle is far the better room—_far_ the better,
your Worship.”
“Lea’ me be the judge o’ that, woman. I’ll dine in the Rose, and there’s
an end.” Whereupon he turned toward the stairs.
“Your pardon, Squire,—I wouldn’t offend your Worship for anything,—but
the Rose is bespoke already for dinner-time, and truly indeed most o’
the quality that stops here prefers the Thistle.”
“But I prefer the Rose, and the quality that stop here may be hanged,
rat ’em.”
“I’m terrible sorry, your Worship. But all’s ready in the Rose for
t’other party, sir; and the gentleman as sent orders was most particular
about having the Rose—though for my part I can’t see why he should want
that room when he might ’a’ had the Thistle, and so I thought to myself
at the time, sir; and when I seed your Worship arrive just now, thinks I
to myself, how lucky it is t’other gentleman bespoke the Rose, because
now there’s the Thistle for his Worship. And sure indeed the cloth’s
laid for t’other party, and their dinner a’most cooked, and we expect
them every minute—”
Beaten down by this torrent of speech, the Squire waved his hand for
silence, and said, with surly resignation: “Oh, well, then, the Thistle.
Who is it has bespoke the Rose, drat ’em?”
“Mr. Foxwell, your Worship, a neighbour of yours, sir, if I may say so.”
The Squire gave a start, and the cloud on his brow deepened. “Foxwell!”
he echoed. “A neighbour of mine!—H’m! Yes, there is a gentleman of that
name living in my part of the county.” With a parenthetic “More’s the
pity!” under his breath, he added, in a kind of dogged, grumbling way,
“What the deuce is he dining here for?”
“Why, sir, he’s been to the South to fetch his niece home to Foxwell
Court, and they’re coming in a po’shay, and stopping here for dinner. He
sent his man Caleb ahead on horseback to order it cooked, so they
shouldn’t be delayed, for they have eight bad miles yet from here to
Foxwell Court.”
“Ecod!” said Squire Thornby, “I have the same bad miles to Thornby
Hall—or five o’ them, at least,—and I ordered a cold dinner so _I_
shouldn’t be delayed. But, damn it, now I come to think on’t, I’ll have
something cooked, so I will! I presume my belly is as much to me as Mr.
Foxwell’s is to him. I don’t see why I should eat cold while he eats
hot. Have you got anything on the fire, Mrs. Betteridge?”
He strode into the kitchen to see for himself, followed by the landlady.
“That chicken is almost done,” said he.
“’Tis what Mr. Foxwell ordered, your Worship.”
“I might ’a’ known it! The leg o’ lamb, too, I suppose. Everything for
Foxwell. Does the man think nobody else has a soul to save?”
“The leg o’ lamb isn’t his, sir. ’Tis roasting so as to be ready against
the stage-coach arrives.”
“Then I’ll have the best cut o’ that. First come, first served:—let the
stage-coach passengers take what’s left. A beggarly lot, or they’d have
coaches o’ their own to ride in. And send up a bottle o’ the best wine
you’ve got in the house. I’ll dine as well as Mr. Foxwell, rat him!”
Leaving Mrs. Betteridge to put his orders into execution, he went out to
the passage and called his man Bartholomew, to whom he communicated his
intentions.
“Very good, your Worship,” said Bartholomew, in the manner of a servant
somewhat privileged. He was a lean, hardy fellow, of his master’s own
age, with a long, astute-looking countenance. “I see Mr. Foxwell’s man
Caleb in the yard, sir.”
“Ay, and Mr. Foxwell himself will be here presently. A sight for sore
eyes, eh? If I’d ’a’ known he was coming here, I’d ’a’ stopped at the
Crown. No, damme if I would, neither! I won’t be kept from going where I
choose by any man, least of all a man I don’t like. What’s Foxwell to
me?”
“It’s small blame to you for not liking him, sir, if you’ll pardon my
saying it, after the way he acted about his gamekeeper trespassing.”
“A damned set of poachers he keeps on that place of his. ’Tis a pity for
the county he ever came into it. The neighbourhood did well enough
without him, I’m sure, all the years he was playing the rake in London
and foreign parts.”
“It makes me sick, if I may say so,” replied the faithful servant, “the
way I hear some folks sing his praises for a fine gentleman:—it does,
indeed.”
“There are some folks who are asses, Bartholomew,” said the Squire,
warmly. “Sing his praises for a fine jackanapes! Fine gentleman, d’ye
say? How can anybody be a fine gentleman on a beggarly three hundred a
year? Why, don’t you know, don’t all the county know, ’twas his poverty
drove him down here to his estate to be a plague among us? Ecod, who are
the rest of us, I wonder, solid country gentlemen of position in the
county, to be come over by this town-bred fop with his Frenchified ways?
Give me a plain, home-bred Englishman, and hang all these conceited pups
that come among us trying to put us down in talk with their London wit
and foreign manners!”
The extraordinary heat manifested by the Squire during this oration was
a warning to his man to desist from the subject, lest he might himself
become the victim of the wrath it engendered. Moreover, the outdoor
passage of an inn was a rather public place for such exhibitions, though
fortunately there was at the time no audience.
“Will you wait for dinner in your room, sir?” suggested Bartholomew,
after a moment’s cooling pause.
“No, I won’t. Tom Thornby won’t beat a retreat, neither, for any man!
I’ll stay till he comes, now that I’m here, and if he tries any of his
London airs on me, I’ll give him as good as he sends.”
Bartholomew was too well acquainted with the obstinacy of this vain,
grown-up child, his master, to oppose; and almost at that moment a
post-chaise turned in from the street, requiring both Thornby and the
man servant to stand close to the wall for safety.
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