IN WHICH MISS PAMELA POUNCE DEMONSTRATES THE VALUE OF VIRTUE TO HER
FAMILY AND HER FRIENDS
“And I’m sure, my dear,” said Mrs. Pounce, the tears welling in her
eyes as she gazed lovingly at her eldest daughter, “’tis the golden
girl you’ve been to us!”
“Ah, you wait, mother!” cried Pamela. “Just you wait! If I don’t finish
paying off that there mortgage with the new spring fashions, call me
Tabbishaw, that’s all I say.”
The force of condemnation for vulgar stupidity could go no further on
Miss Pounce’s lips.
Farmer Pounce, seated before the kitchen fire, turned his big, grizzled
head to cast a glance no less affectionate than his wife’s upon the
good daughter.
“This time last year,” he said; then, in a ruminating voice, “ah, ’twas
a black look-out! As much as I could do to squeeze the interest on the
borrowed money and the expenses of the new loan. And Sir Jasper, with
his eye on the farm this long while, turning the screw on me, he and
lawyer Grinder between them. Cruel hard terms they made me, cruel hard,
but there, ’twasn’t as if I didn’t know their little game. Aye, aye,
they were but waiting, the both of them, to sell me up and get me out
of it all; the land my father’s father’s father called his own.”
Mrs. Pounce wept at the mere recollection. Where would they have been,
they and the little ones, but for the golden girl?
Pamela winked away a bright tear of sympathy. Everything about this
girl was bright; the spring of her chestnut hair from her white
forehead, which itself shone as with a kind of luminosity, the glance
of her full, shrewd eyes, the smile that curved her lips. Oh, above
all, it was Pamela’s smile that was bright with the gaiety and joy of
life!
“Pish, you dears,” she said now, and covered up her emotion with just
one of those flashing smiles. “Don’t be making too much of it. All
those months I wasted at old Tabbishaw’s didn’t I know in my spirit it
would all come right? Wasn’t I sure the whole time”--she played with
her capable fingers in the air--“that there was a fortune in these
hands once I could get them proper to work? And I tell you now, without
vanity--oh, I ain’t got a mite of vanity about it, ’tis my gift, the
way pigs is father’s gift--give me a yard of ribbon, a feather, and
a bit of straw, and I’ll turn you out two guineas before you can say
‘knife.’”
“Dear, to be sure,” mused Mrs. Pounce, forgetting to knead her scones.
“And think of the Christmas dinner we’ve had. A turkey fit for the
Queen’s table, though I says it as shouldn’t. And me having to sell
every one of my lovely birds last year and keep father on the salt
beef, Christmas and all! And there’s Susie, such a picture in the
bonnet you trimmed for her, at morning service, that I’d never be
surprised if Farmer Fleet’s son were to come to the scratch to-night at
Sir Jasper’s barn dance, I shouldn’t indeed.”
“I’ve got a white cambric, mother, and blue ribbons ready for her,”
said Pamela, smacking her lips with gusto, “and a Shepherdess
Dunstable. If that don’t settle him! ’Tis the very thing, so simple and
fresh, a sort of daisy-gown, father and mother, that’ll start Master
Tom thinking o’ dairies and the clean linen and the white flour in the
bin; and, ‘What a modest, nice girl,’ he’ll say, ‘The very wife for a
farmer. No nonsense of cheap finery. Only what a maid could buy for
herself and stitch at home,’ he’ll think, poor innocent, and it’s the
model for the French Queen at Trianon, where she plays at milkmaid,
you’d never believe!”
“Mercy on us!” said Mrs. Pounce, with an uncomprehending stare.
“Frenchies be queer people, to be sure.”
“And Jenny and Betty shall wear the sprigged muslin,” pursued Pamela.
“And my little pet, Peg, the robe-coat I made her out of the odds and
ends Madame Mirabel gave me from her ladies’ counter.”
“And what will you wear yourself, my dear?” asked the mother, cutting
her rolled-out paste into neat rounds.
“Is it me, mother?” Pamela hesitated. Then: “I don’t mean to go,” says
she.
“Not mean to go?” screamed the farmer’s wife, blank disappointment
writing itself on her good-humoured countenance.
“Tut! tut!” cried the farmer, and wheeled himself round in his chair.
The London girl coloured, and a shadow came over her face.
“Some one’s got to stay at home and look after little Tom,” said she
stoutly, “and him but ten months old, the poor fond lamb!”
She glanced at the wooden cradle to the left of the hearth, where,
under a patchwork quilt, a chubby miniature reproduction of the farmer
was lying, with fists clenched in a determined fashion, as if he defied
anyone to rob him of his repose.
“Why, I never heard such nonsense!” Mrs. Pounce gathered the cuttings
of paste together and dabbed them into a single lump with an irritable
hand. “And who’s minded little Tom, do ye think, all the hours, miss,
that I’ve got to be butter-making, plucking of geese, and cutting up
pig for the salting? Who but old Nance, my love, who looked after
yourself when you was no bigger than the little ’un there?”
“She’s getting very old,” said Pamela. “I caught her nodding yesterday
with the Blessing on her lap, and he as near as anything into the
cinders. Besides, my mind’s made up, and there’s no use your trying to
unmake it. I’ve my reasons, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Why, Pam, why, lovey”--Mrs. Pounce had a grimace like an infant about
to cry--“you fair break my heart. Why, ’twas all my thought, these days
and days, how I’d let neighbours see what a beauty my dear, good London
da’ter be, and as elegant as any lady!”
“If you’ve got a reason for disappointing your mother, out with it,
girl, so it’s a good ’un,” said Farmer Pounce, with some sternness.
Pamela tossed her head. She was never one for making mysteries.
“Well, father and mother, if you must know so particular, wasn’t that
Sir Jasper Standish as was driving the high curricle away from Pitfold
Church this morning? The stout gentleman, with the kind of red eye, and
it rolling?”
“Aye, aye,” grumbled the farmer, “the very man, my dear, and a hard
gentleman he be. And queer tales there are about him. ’Tis a good thing
he comes to Standish Hall but seldom. Aye, aye, ’twas him driving them
bloods in the curricle. And a mort of fine ladies and gentlemen in the
barouche. They’ll be staying Christmas, I reckon.”
“Aye,” corroborated Mrs. Pounce. “A twenty-pound jar of my best salt,
and six turkeys, no less, not to speak of the geese--aye, and a ham,
cured in that very chamber in the chimbley, child. But, dear, to be
sure, was you set against meeting Sir Jasper just for the seeing of him
step into his curricle?”
“You didn’t happen to note, mother, the gentleman who stepped in after
him?”
Farmer Pounce and his wife exchanged a scared look, and then by common
consent transferred it to their daughter. There was silence, broken
only by the cheerful song of the kettle on its chain over the embers,
and the stertorous breathing of the infant farmer in the cot.
Then, with a catch in her breath:
“Well, child?” ventured Mother Pounce.
Once more Pamela tossed her head. She was seated at a corner of the
kitchen table, needle, scissors, and workbox at her elbow, and she
turned and twisted the lilac satin rosette in her hand.
“Well,” she said at last, without looking up. “I don’t happen to want
to meet him, that’s all.”
“How, my dear?” Mrs. Pounce shot a frightened glance at her husband’s
grim face, and another at her daughter’s bright, bent head.
“Ain’t the young gentleman a friend of yours?” she asked faintly.
Pamela snapped her thread.
“You do want to know a lot, don’t you, mother dear? But there! There’s
no reason why I shouldn’t tell you. I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of.
That young gentleman has the good taste to admire me a mortal lot, but
he ain’t got the good taste, in my opinion, to admire me the right way.
He came after me to Canterbury, knowing I was due here for my Christmas
holiday, and I sent him packing, and, thinks I, ’tis done now, once for
all, and we’ll be the best of friends at a distance. And you could have
knocked me down with a feather when I see his black eye roaming round
the church this morning. Encourage him by going with you to-night? That
would never do, Pamela, my girl! says I to myself, and----”
“What dost mean by the right way, daughter?” interrupted the farmer,
who had been ruminating her words, and not found them to his liking.
The veins of his forehead were swelled; the hand that gripped the
wooden arm of his chair shook.
“I mean the wrong way. Now, father, don’t you be a-working yourself up.
I can look after myself, and ain’t that just what I’m doing? Mother, I
vow your cap will beat the one I made for the Duchess of Queensberry
all to nothing. Now, won’t the children be pleased when they find those
cakes all piping hot, mother? They ought to be in soon now--back from
Rector’s. I’d like to try the little gown on my poppet ere you put her
to rest to-night.”
* * * * *
It was the first party Sir Jasper had invited to Standish Hall since
the death of his wife, and lavish as was his hospitality, the loss
of that incomparable woman had never been more painfully felt. A
widower-forlornness was over everything. Dusty, flowerless, unkempt the
parlours; discomfort, an open negligence of refined detail, the lack of
the controlling hand, in fine, was sensible to all his guests.
The Christmas dinner was over, and the ladies had retired. If you
had cared to have examined the bottles in rows on the floor, or the
cut-glass decanters on the table, you would have found that the company
had drawn considerably on Sir Jasper’s generous cellar, and had not
scrupled to mix very freely.
Sir Jasper and his youngest male guest, Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs, were
at the height of an argument, egged on and applauded by good-natured
Squire Upshott, and that saturnine rake, Sir James Devlin, while Lawyer
Grinder, from Canterbury, leaned back, smiling grimly, his grey fingers
round his glass, his grey eyes acute, his large ears pricked outside
his scratch wig for any business advantage the holiday dissipation
should lay open.
“Pshaw! My dear fellow, the girl’s been three years in Paris, I tell
you! You’ll not have me believe she’s better than her neighbours. Why,
don’t I know all about her? Isn’t her father squatting on a bit of
land that juts into my ring fence--’pon honour, like a fly in a man’s
honey--eh, Grinder? As handsome a slut as I ever laid eyes on, if
that’s the bouncer I saw at church this morning. If you’re after her,
lad, go in and win! If not, step aside, and make room for your elders!”
Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs took a draught from the beaker in front of him,
then cast rather a wild glance at his host.
“You!” cried he. “You step in with Pamela Pounce! My dear Sir Jasper, I
do not intend to be uncivil, but the idea is too droll!”
“How now? Is Miss so difficult? You know ’tis but a milliner?”
“Ay, I know more of her, I dare swear, than you do. Difficult? Well,
Sir Jasper, you or anyone may try their chances so far as I am
concerned--I would not give that for them”--snapping his fingers. “Pure
waste! When I tell you that I have failed----”
The unconscious cockscombry was greeted with a shout of laughter.
“Hark to him!” cried old Upshott.
“Odds life!” jeered Sir Jasper. “You stimulate me! So fastidious?”
“Nay!” Young Bellairs flung a fine black eye about him. “So virtuous,”
said he, his voice sinking quite an octave deeper than its usual gay
note.
There was another laugh; and then a silence; and then Sir Jasper
repeated drawling:
“So virtuous? It all depends what the virtue is--eh, gentlemen? There’s
prudence, now--they tell me ’tis much practised of the French.”
“What am I to take out of that, sir?”
“Why lad, you may take it that Miss knows her value. With all due
deference to your good looks, you might fail where one like myself
might succeed.”
“Meaning, Sir Jasper----?”
“Meaning, Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs, that little milliners, especially if
they’ve been in Paris, may have learnt to have an eye to the main
chance.”
There was again much and loud merriment. The four other gentlemen
looked at the one handsome youth of the party as if it were agreeable
to see his comb cut.
“Gad, if there’s any betting going on it, I’ll back Jasper,” said Sir
James Devlin, with that cold smile of his which seemed to blight where
it rested. “But the mischief’s in it, who’d take up the wager at such
odds? What? Sweet, penniless Romeo in the one scale, and rich Sir Paris
in the other, and Juliet a French milliner, Pshaw!”
“Why then, Sir James,” cried Mr. Bellairs. “Romeo is none so penniless
but that he can back his own word. I’m ready to wager Sir Jasper this
moment as much as he cares to risk that Miss Pamela Pounce--who is not
French, sir, but good Kentish stock--will send him to the right-about,
as she has sent--aye, though ’tis I say it--a better man! That all his
money-bags will not weigh this nutshell”--he crushed one under his
clenched hand on the mahogany as he spoke--“against her virtue.”
Sir Jasper grew red in the face; his eyes protruded, his veins swelled.
“Why, done with you, you poor innocent----”
“Stay, stay,” intervened Sir James. “If there’s to be betting, let’s do
it proper, a’ Heaven’s name! _In primo_, what is the wager to be?”
Sir Jasper and Bellairs spoke together:
“That pretty Pounce will pounce fast enough if it is made worth her
while,” cried Sir Jasper, with a guffaw. And:
“That Sir Jasper has about as much chance of Miss Pamela Pounce’s
favour as of the Princess Royal’s,” asserted Bellairs.
“Now, tut, tut!” Sir James Devlin shook his head and clacked his
tongue. “If I’m to draw up your wager, gentlemen, you must, if you
please, be a trifle less slipshod. You can’t bet on a pun, Sir Jasper,
nor you on a high-falutin’ comparison to royal ladies, young man.
You’ve got to bet on facts, my lads. Say, that a week from to-day we
find the young person agreeably installed under the protection of our
host here, in--better say London--eh, Jasper? Might be a bit awkward,
too close to Miss’s family, what? Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs here to be given
ocular proof that circumstances alter cases. Let your charmer ask him
to tea in her new abode this day week.”
“Carry her off, carry her off, good old style. Tally-ho!” cried the
tipsy squire.
“Capital idea!” Mr. Grinder shook with amusement. “Run away with her!
Carry her off, and keep her from the hats and feathers, Sir Jasper, and
I’ll see that you get Little Pitfold at long last. We’ll foreclose for
the rest of the mortgage. Zounds, we will! Drat that girl! She’s been
paying off at an uncommon quick rate. Took my breath away, she did. We
had to give old Pounce a couple of years for the look of the thing, you
remember--never dreaming--But there! Time will be up next Lady Day,
and”--he broke into dry chuckling--“if you carry off the girl you’ll
win your wager, and get your land into the bargain. Kill two birds with
one stone.”
Jocelyn Bellairs lay back in his seat with arms folded, and a scornful
smile on his countenance. He did not care what conditions were imposed,
and the higher the stake the better for him. He was so sure of the
result.
Sir James Devlin had drawn out his tablets.
“The wager’s plain enough now,” quoth he. “Sir Jasper Standish wagers
Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs that the girl, Pamela Pounce, will give him a dish
of tea this day week, at an address hereafter to be determined, the
said Pamela Pounce being then established under the protection of the
said Jasper Standish. What are the stakes?”
“Oh, make it worth while!” eagerly cried Bellairs.
Devlin gave him a keen side-glance.
“’Tis scarce usual to make the stakes higher than you can meet, Mr.
Bellairs.”
The young man flushed darkly. But before he could reply:
“Odds my life,” exclaimed Sir Jasper. “Let’s make it worth while! What
say you to a thousand guineas?”
“Done!” cried Jocelyn eagerly. Then he added: “I’d like to make a
stipulation. If Sir James loses, let him remit the rest of that
mortgage first, whatever it is. I’ll be content with the residue.”
“’Pon my word, sir, that’s a strange proposal,” said Sir Jasper,
staring with an air which gave him an odd resemblance to an incensed
bull.
“You can cry off the whole bet, if you’re afraid of it,” taunted his
guest.
“Foh!” said Mr. Grinder. “’Tis but a matter of a hundred and
eighty-nine pounds, when all is said and done. Never niggle at that,
Sir Jasper. Go in, and win! ’Pon me soul!” cried the old sinner,
rubbing his hands, “I’d sleep better in my grave if I thought the
Standish estate had got Pitfold at last.”
“The stakes to be a thousand guineas,” murmured Devlin as he wrote,
“out of which Sir Jasper remits the rest of Farmer Pounce’s mortgage,
one hundred and eighty-nine pounds and hands the residue eight hundred
and eleven, plus the shillings for the guineas, to Mr. Jocelyn
Bellairs. Any backers? Fifty guineas on Jasper. Who’ll take me?”
Squire Upshott was too far gone, and Lawyer Grinder shook his head, so
Sir James had to content himself with jotting down: “No backers.”
“Why, zounds!” exclaimed Sir Jasper, after he had ruminated a while.
“It seems that more hangs on this betting to-night than the virtue of
Miss, after all. What? The farm that we Standishes from grandfather
down have vainly been trying to get hold of. That’s a fine idea of
yours, Grinder, odds my life, it is! A thousand guineas besides, and
as fine an armful--hark ye, Devlin, did ye notice her this morning in
church, as neat as a chestnut filly? Foh! There’s blood in her, sir,
there’s blood in her, or I’m no judge----”
He broke off. ’Twas a dashed superior smile on young puppy’s face. What
made the fellow so cocksure, in the name of all that was sly? A sudden
thought struck him.
“Look you here, Master Bellairs,” cried he, with a muffled roar. “No
collusion! No putting your head and Miss Pounce’s together to do me out
of a thousand guineas! Eh, Devlin? Eh, Grinder? No blanked tricks!”
Jocelyn’s nostrils quivered scornfully.
“I give you my word of honour, Sir Jasper,” said he, “to have no
communication in private with the young lady till your week is out.”
“Come, come!” said Sir James. “Split me, Jasper, we’re all gentlemen
here!”
The smile on the face of Mr. Bellairs became accentuated.
“I’m ready to give Sir Jasper any guarantee,” said he.
“Deuce take him! He’s like a fellow with a card up his sleeve!” thought
Sir Jasper. “Word of honour, or no word of honour, I’ll make Devlin
keep watch for me.”
When they went upstairs to the splendid, neglected drawing-room where
Lady Barbara Flyte, her niece, Miss Lesbia Ogle, and Mrs. Colonel
Dashwood were waiting to pour out tea for them, Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs
showed himself in high spirits.
“Ah, Pamela, my girl!” cried he to himself, “that was an angry look
you cast at me across your prayer-book this morning, a monstrous,
unpeaceful kind of look to a man of good will; but if this day’s work
has not wiped out old scores--A ‘filly,’ he called you. Aye, you’ll
come over the fence as clean as a bird. I’ve no fear of you, my
splendid girl, and you’ll be kinder to me, I dare swear, when next we
meet; but that won’t be this day week, at any lodging paid for by Sir
Jasper.”
* * * * *
“Why, la, Sir Jasper, what a merry tune!” And “Oh, Sir Jasper, what a
strange, pretty place!” And, “Why, Sir Jasper, ’tis the most Christmas
sight I’ve ever beheld!” And, “Pray, pray, Sir Jasper, don’t ask me
to trip it with your country bumpkins, for I vow and protest I could
never pick up those vulgar steps!” And, “Oh, Aunt Bab, do but look at
the pink roses in Goody’s cap!” And, “Oh, Miss Ogle, you’re nowhere, I
declare, beside Miss in feathers yonder, plucked from the old turkey
before mother put it in the pot.” “You’re too droll, Mrs. Dashwood!”
“Do you think, Sir Jasper, the buck in the top-boots would have me for
his partner if I simpered ever so sweet upon him?”
Sir Jasper, moving in this fire of chatter, a lady on each arm and
Miss Lesbia Ogle hanging on his coat-tails, appeared at the barn-door
when he believed his guests to be assembled. The merry tune to which
Lady Bab had alluded fell silent at his approach; there were curtseys
and dips and bows on every side, while the three fiddlers mopped their
streaming faces and, rising as one man from the wooden bench on which
they had been seated in a row, duly ducked their shock heads to their
patron.
Sir Jasper gave condescending smiles and short, indifferent nods right
and left, the while his eyes roamed, seeking, this way and that. Here
was old Mother Pounce, right enough, as large as one of her own feather
beds, in a lace cap, if you please, mighty genteel, with lavender
knots. And Farmer Pounce in his red waistcoat; confound the fellow,
with his air of independence! Aye, was there not a sort of triumph
about him? Don’t cry till you’re out of the wood, Mr. Yeoman! And split
him, what a row of young Pounces--a fine healthy litter! And, ’pon
honour, a monstrous pretty little chit in white muslin with a straw
hat! Pshaw! He had no time to waste on silly seventeen. Where was their
agreeable bone of contention; where was the handsome Pamela?
“How, now, yeoman, where is your elder daughter?”
“At home, Sir Jasper,” answered the father, with the brevity that
declines discussion.
“Sure, Sir Jasper,” put in Mrs. Pounce, conciliatingly. “My daughter
was vastly obleeged, but she was a trifle fatigued this evening.”
“She would stay and look after our Tom,” piped Susie.
“She preferred not to come, sir,” said Yeoman Pounce, frowning.
Sir Jasper’s brow had likewise gathered thunder-clouds. His eyes rolled
inward. One excuse contradicted another; the farmer’s insolence voiced
the truth. And Master Jocelyn Bellairs, who had not accompanied his
host to the dance, because forsooth, it might be difficult for him to
keep his honourable pledge--Master Jocelyn Bellairs, who had announced
his intention of taking a pleasure stroll this freezing Christmas
night--Master Jocelyn Bellairs, whose very presence at Standish Hall
demanded explanation; who was practically a self-invited visitor, where
was he? Pshaw, did they take him for a fool? Was he to be mocked in
his own house and jockeyed by his own guest? Zounds! The whole plot
was clear in a minute. A plot it was; no wonder Mr. Bellairs had that
insufferable air of certainty. He and his lady-love would soon be
laughing over the thought of how they had swindled him of a thousand
guineas. And what a spending time they would have together!
If the revelation came swift as lightning to Sir Jasper, no less
swiftly did he make up his mind for action.
It was a three-mile walk to Pitfold Farm. He would have out his
curricle, and his bloods, and be beforehand with Bellairs.
Some ten minutes later he was bowling along the frozen road at the
highest speed of his roughed horses, an astounded groom beside him.
Purpose was setting in his mind as hard as the ice in the ditches.
There was no time like the present. He had a slippery pair of young
rascals to deal with. If he was to win his wager he must carry off the
girl this very night.
* * * * *
He laid his plans with a wiliness which is not infrequently a
characteristic of gross natures. Conscious in himself of a fine
capacity for evil, such as he will be suspicious of every one and
everything; look for treachery from his most trusted friend, and
infidelity in the wife of his bosom.
He dismounted at the farmyard gate, and bade Job Stallion, the groom,
drive in alone and announce that Sir Jasper Standish had sent the
curricle for Miss Pounce, as it was her father and mother’s pleasure
she should come to the dance.
The ruse succeeded with a facility beyond his expectations. Pamela had
been finding the lonely evening disconsolate enough. Baby Tom slept,
while old Nance displayed uncommon wakefulness. The time was heavy on
Pamela’s hands, and to while it away she had had the happy thought
of trying on the pretty garments which she had prepared before Mr.
Bellairs’ appearance in church had made a call upon her prudence.
Now the reaction which so often follows self-sacrifice had set in.
She was beginning to call herself a fool, and to regret her excessive
discretion. Thus when old Nance laboured, panting, to the attic
chamber, and supplemented Job’s message with: “You’d never think of
saying nay now, Pam, my dear. Ain’t it Providence you should just have
been fitting on? And, oh, to be sure, was there ever so pure lovely a
gown? You’ll be the belle o’ the ball, my dearie, that you will, and
easy!”
Pamela never hesitated at all. She caught her travelling-cloak off the
peg, and lifted her best feathered hat from its bandbox--how could a
milliner resist such an opportunity?--pinned it on her auburn curls,
cast herself headlong down the stairs, out through the farm kitchen
like a whirlwind, and laughing, swung herself up on the curricle beside
the grinning Joe.
She was rather taken aback when this latter halted outside the farmyard
gate, and a portly figure appeared from the shadow of the oak tree. Hat
in hand, Sir Jasper pleasantly saluted her.
“Why, Miss Pounce, this is capital. Your father and mother vowed you’d
never come, but I said I was sure so good a daughter would be obedient
to her parents. Nevertheless”--he was climbing up beside her in the
high seat, while Job shut the gates behind them--“I was ready, you see,
to exercise a neighbour’s persuasion, should you persist in your cruel
resolve. The ball would be nothing without you, ’pon honour. There are
half a dozen fine young bucks with faces as long as my whip-handle
already.”
By this time Job was up on the back seat, and his master started the
chestnuts at a pace that only his own pride and temper would have urged
upon them.
“Oh, la!” cried Miss Pounce, and made a clutch for her hat. She drew
the pure keen air into her lungs, felt the wind of their passage blow
with the most delicious invigoration against her face. “Oh, la! Was
there ever anything so beautiful? ’Tis the first time I have driven by
moonlight. ’Tis the first time I have ever driven in a curricle! Oh,
’tis like flying, Sir Jasper! Oh, what a night! I vow I feel like a
bird!”
The moonlight flooded the road, hedges and trees sparkled and shimmered
white as diamonds. The sky was one mighty sapphire, darkly, wonderfully
blue. The stars, fainting in the moonlight, looked like the thousand
facets of a jewel.
“Oh,” cried Pamela again, “I’ll make a head out of it for the opera, I
will indeed! Sapphire blue ribbands and frosted silver feathers. ’Tis
an inspiration.”
This gave Sir Jasper his opening.
“Why,” said he, “’tis a monstrous pity such a monstrous fine girl as
you should have to work for her living. The moment I set eyes on you
this morning, said I to myself----”
Pamela interrupted:
“Keep your pity and your compliments, sir. They’re wasted on me.”
“Why, how now, I like your spirit. I vow, my dear, ’tis you are wasted
on such a life.”
“What if I like my work, sir?”
“You were born to wear ’em--the fine hats--not to make ’em. You were
born to be a lady, that’s what I said to myself the moment I clapped
eyes on you this morning.”
“Foh! I know ’tis gentlemen’s way to start this kind of silly talk
whenever they get with a poor girl, but I assure you, sir, I’ve no
relish for it. And as for my being a lady, I’ve seen too much of
gentlefolk. I wouldn’t thank the Lord to ha’ made me one.”
She spoke with her head up and a straight back.
“’Tis but gentlemen’s way,” she repeated to herself; “but I’ll let him
see he’ll have to respect me, lady or no lady.”
She gripped the rail of the curricle, not to give herself courage--for
she had no thought there was anything to fear--but to brace herself
the better against any further presumption. She was quite unprepared,
therefore, when he turned his bloods away from the road leading
to Standish Hall, and, with a flourish of the whip, sent them
helter-skelter up the hill on the London causeway.
The cry she gave was one more of anger than of fear. A solitary
pedestrian, coming at a swinging pace along the road which led from Sir
Jasper’s residence, heard it, and beheld the curricle as it topped the
hill, fantastically silhouetted in black against the moonlit sky. He
gave an answering shout, and started running. But he had as much chance
of overtaking the gig as if it had been a bird on the flight. He gave
up, panting, after a yard or two, stamped his foot, shook his fist at
the radiant sky, and started running again in the opposite direction.
“Where are you taking me to?”
Sir Jasper’s teeth and his eyeballs flashed horribly in the silver
light as he smiled upon Pamela.
“You’ll be uncommon grateful to me one day, my pretty little milliner.”
“Good Heaven, what do you mean, sir?”
“I dare swear you ain’t so far from being grateful now. Oh, aye! ’Tis
the regular thing to set up a hullaballoo, but I’m not to be taken in
by any tushery, and so I tell you! You may scream till you’re blue,
there ain’t a soul on the roads to hear you, and as for kicking,
’tain’t easy on a curricle, so, like a girl of sense let’s pretend
you’ve had your vapours, and you and I will have a glorious time
together. Why, who was talking of silver feathers? ’Tis golden chains
I’ll give you, my splendid child; aye, and a pearl each for your pretty
ears--I can’t see ’em under your hat, but I dare swear they’re pretty
like the rest--and maybe a diamond brooch for your kerchief. And you
shall have a house of your own and a pair of fine London maids to wait
on you, and I’ll take you about, my dear, and you will have naught to
do in the world but enjoy yourself.”
She listened in dead silence till he had finished, and then without
condescending to reply to him, turned her head over her shoulder, and
hailed the groom.
“Job Stallion, Job Stallion,” she said, “your father was reared on my
father’s land. Will you see a Kentish girl carried away to perdition
against her will, and not lift a finger to save her?”
“Job Stallion,” said Sir Jasper, snatching a pistol from the seat
beside him, “if you unfold your arms you’re a dead man.”
Then Sir Jasper and the yeoman’s daughter stared into each other’s
eyes, each drawing long, fierce breaths through dilated nostrils.
Suddenly he laughed and dropped the pistol back into its holster.
Again he sent his whip circling. The horses broke into a canter on the
downward slope, the light-hung vehicle swaying and leaping behind
them. The very intensity of their speed saved them from stumbling.
At length Pamela said in a low voice:
“At least I have a right to know where you are taking me.”
“Did I not tell you? To London.”
“You do not think I am so simple as to believe you can drive to London
with these horses to-night?”
“Why, of course not. We’ll stop at Ashford, and get a chaise and four
of the best posters money can hire. We’ll be in London to-night, never
fear. Hark, there’s nine of the clock striking from Catterford Hill.”
He pointed with his whip. Pamela saw the square tower of the little
church silver and black against the sky. A lump rose in her throat.
For the first and only time that night a burst of hysterical weeping
threatened to overwhelm her.
“I’m lost,” she said to herself, “if I don’t keep brave. If I don’t
keep my head, I’m lost.”
No strong soul ever cries vainly on courage. The anguish passed, her
spirit rose.
“Sir Jasper Standish,” said she, “why are you running away with me?
Tell me that.”
“Won’t you believe I want to make a lady of you?”
“No.”
“Well, then, the mere sight of that handsome face of yours this morning
has made me mad in love with you. Will you believe that?”
“Neither the one nor the other, sir. You see,” she went on, “I am not
kicking nor screaming, I am in your power, and I can’t help myself. I
think you’d find it better for yourself, sir, and better for me, if
you’d tell me the truth.”
Her quiet tone, the perfect composure of her face, very pale and lovely
in the moonlight as she turned it upon him, struck some faint spark of
generosity.
“By Heaven!” said he admiringly. “You’re a well-plucked one. The
truth you want. Split me, ’tis all true! But you’re right, there’s yet
another reason. I want to win a wager, my little darling!”
“What wager, sir?”
“You.” He grinned at her. “That spark of yours--he is a spark of yours,
ain’t he?--that fine young fellow, Jocelyn Bellairs, he wagered you
were too virtuous for a man to have a chance with. But I wagered him
you wasn’t. Come now, you’re a good-hearted piece. Help me to win my
wager, and I’ll make it worth your while.”
Pamela reflected profoundly. Then she gave a little laugh.
“Why, Sir Jasper!” she exclaimed. “What sad, wild creatures you
gentlemen are! It comes to this, then. I’ve got to make the best of
a bad job.” Then she swallowed hard, and said, with a still more
sprightly air, “You’ll give me a bit of supper at Ashford, I suppose,
for I’m mortal hungry.”
He broke into hoarse laughter, and cried again that, by Heaven, she was
a well-plucked one, and they’d get on first class; that she should have
the finest supper the Bear Inn could afford. If she’d stand by him, by
Jingo, he’d stand by her. There wasn’t a gentleman in England who’d be
such a friend to the woman who trusted him as he would be to her.
When they arrived at Ashford, she demanded, with a sudden air of
command, which became her, he thought, mightily, and tickled his
already high good humour to positive hilarity, that she should be
brought to a sitting-room and partake of the meal in privacy while the
post-chaise was being got ready.
“And,” quoth she, “let it be champagne, Sir Jasper, since”--she gave
him a wide, taunting smile--“’tis to be made worth my while.”
He flung an arm about her the moment the waiter had withdrawn; she
freed herself with a vigorous thrust, but as she did so, she laughed.
“Nay, drink your sillery, sir. Aye, pour me a glass. Oh, aye, I’ll
drink any toast you like. Have you not said it yourself? I’m the
best-natured girl in the world--so long as you keep your place, sir.
Why, ’tis the finest pigeon-pie I’ve tasted since Paris. You know I was
in Paris, Sir Jasper?”
Sir Jasper chuckled, winking at her.
Her fingers clenched round her knife, the while her smile would not
have misbefitted the lips of a Bacchante.
“And will you bring me to the opera, Sir Jasper? Oh, and to Ranelagh?
Oh, to think of me going to Ranelagh on a gentleman’s arm, like a lady!”
He was enraptured. He tossed the remainder of his tumbler down, and
filled himself a third, emptying the bottle. He had almost forgotten
the wager in the intoxication of his personal triumph. Dash it! It had
not taken him long to cut out young Bellairs. What a demnition handsome
piece she was. There wasn’t one of those raffish ladies he had left
behind him at Standish Hall could hold a candle to her. And odds his
life! What a pair of eyes she had, and what teeth, and what a skin!
Suddenly she dropped her knife and fork.
“Sir Jasper,” said she, with an air of great gravity, “I’ll not go a
step farther with you unless you do something for me.”
“Name it, my dear.”
“Why, sir, send Job back with a letter to my parents. And ’twill be the
best for yourself, I can tell you, as matters stand. My father wouldn’t
let the king rob him of his daughter without a fight.”
He stood staring at her doubtfully, his wide nostrils scenting mischief
like an irritated bull; she went on very quickly, “I’ll not go a step
farther with you unless you do. Give me your tablets--gentlemen always
carry them, I know. You shall see for yourself what I write.
“_Dear Father--don’t be alarmed, I’m going with Sir Jasper for a
wager. ’Tis a mere joke. He’s too grand a gentleman to let harm come
to me out of it.--Your loving daughter, Pam._”
She read it to him. He went over it himself, then once more tried to
catch her to him, vowing she was as clever as she was handsome.
“Nay, nay, nay!” She was the most imperative, tantalising creature
possible to imagine. “Now, Sir Jasper, run and give this to Job
yourself. Stay, put a guinea with it, to make the lad eager. Tell him
to ride, ride, ride, hell for leather! Isn’t that what you gentlemen
say? Hell for leather,” she repeated, laughing, as she hustled him from
the room. “Don’t come back to me till you’ve seen him start.”
He went. That third bumper of champagne on the head of so many
potations earlier in the day, after the long, cold drive, had fairly
stupefied him. He went, because her strong will drove him, without
attempting to analyse her motive. For the moment his suspicious brain
was lulled to a kind of imbecile complacence. He went pounding forth.
As soon as the sound of his heavy steps died away on the wooden boards,
Pamela was out of the room like a dart.
She had seen the dark pit of the back stairs gape on the passage as
they had passed along to the sitting-room. She was down it now, as
sure-footed as if it had been lit up. In another moment, past a pair of
staring kitchen sluts and a tapman, she was out in the back yard and
running along the village street.
She always declared afterwards that she had been as one guided. She
did not pause to reconnoitre or hesitate at a turning. Fleet and light
as a shadow, she raced through the alleys of the little town, deserted
this Christmas night, till she came to a point on the main road which
she knew Job Stallion must pass on his homeward way, and then she hid
herself.
She had not very long to wait before the beat of horses’ hoofs
resounded on the frozen ground. Hell for leather, indeed! ’Twas the
most egregious jog-trot that ever took lazy groom and unwilling horse
from warm quarters on a Christmas night!
Job Stallion let fly a terrified oath as Pamela rose out of the ditch
and laid a hand upon his bridle. He was scarcely less alarmed when he
discovered that he had to do with neither wraith nor highwaywoman,
but with his master’s prize. She cut short his “darsents” and his
whimpering expostulations very sternly.
“I am going to ride pillion behind you, Job Stallion, and you must whip
up that fat brute of a post-horse to something of a canter, for you’ve
got to carry me back home before Sir Jasper can overtake us. Thank your
stars, my lad,” she went on, “that the Lord has given you a chance of
redeeming the night’s work, for I tell you it would have gone hard with
any who had a hand in it. Men have been hanged for less!”
She kept him busy with whip and spur till the old grey mare wheezed and
bucketed along the road at a pace astonishing for her years and size.
It was somewhere midway between Ashford and Pitfold that they crossed
Mr. Bellairs riding towards them on his own rakish chestnut as if for a
race. If Pamela’s heart beat high at sight of him she did not avow her
pride and pleasure even to herself; if her bright, clear heat of anger
and triumphant determination gave place to tender, womanly emotions,
she betrayed no sign of them. She postponed explanations, and issued
instructions to Mr. Bellairs as to Job Stallion in the accents of one
who means they shall be carried out.
“You will kindly ride a hundred paces behind me, Mr. Bellairs. I
have no notion of having my name mixed up with yours or Sir Jasper’s
this night. As for you, Job, hand me over that tablet. You can keep
the guinea for yourself. And you will drop me, if you please, in the
courtyard at Standish Hall, for ’tis not too late to join the dancers
in the barn. And I mean there shall be no talk on this night’s work, if
I can help it.
“If you breathe a word, Job Stallion, you’ll wish you never were born,
or my father’s name not Jeremy Pounce! And as for you, Mr. Bellairs,
sir, you’ve won your wager--yes, I know all about it--so you owe me a
good turn, I think, and all I ask for is silence, silence! My father’s
a violent man, and it does no woman’s name any good--no, not even a
poor milliner’s--to be made such sport of as mine betwixt you two
gentlemen to-night. As for Sir Jasper, I warrant he’ll hold his tongue.
He don’t cut so fine a figure!”
And so it ended. Pamela went to the barn dance, after all, and danced
in vast condescension with several agreeable young farmers. Jocelyn
Bellairs got the rector to introduce him to Mrs. Pounce, and sitting
beside that lady, made himself so agreeable that she was, as she
expressed it, quite in a twitter. Mindful of his word passed to Sir
Jasper, he did not again approach Pamela, but the gaze with which he
followed her about the long room was eloquent enough.
When the little Pounces had nearly yawned themselves off the benches,
and Pamela’s poppet, Peg, had gone to sleep outright, her curly head
on her mother’s ample lap, it was the elegant young gentleman who
conducted Mrs. Pounce to the waiting farm cart, with as much courtesy
as if he were leading a duchess to her barouche. The moon was set. The
courtyard was fitfully illumined by torches thrust into clamps in the
wall, and by the shifting rays of the lanterns carried by the revellers.
As Pamela, standing by the cart, lifted Peg up to her mother’s extended
arms, while Mr. Bellairs obligingly held the lantern, Sir Jasper’s
curricle wheeled slowly into the yard drawn by a pair of fairly
exhausted thoroughbreds. Without stirring from his high seat, the reins
slipping from his hands, Sir Jasper stared at the picture painted on
the night as at some spectral vision.
“Why, here’s Sir Jasper!” cried an obsequious voice. “Three cheers for
Sir Jasper, lads!”
Perhaps because his appearance had been as unexpected as his
disappearance, perhaps because the sight of his dreadful face of
wrath, flamingly illumined by the red glare of a torch was enough to
choke off any demonstration, perhaps because he was too unpopular a
landlord even for so many glasses of negus and so many mince-pies
to counterbalance--however it may have been, there was but a poor
response; a faint cry, that rose and quavered away. It was almost more
deadly in its effect than an execration. Sir Jasper rolled a bloodshot
eye upon his tenants and neighbours.
“Blast you all!” he cried huskily, let himself drop from his seat, and
reeled towards the house.
* * * * *
On New Year’s day Pamela returned to London, and, on the day after,
a summons to Yeoman Pounce to attend at Mr. Grinder’s office in
Canterbury caused some perturbation to the inmates of Little Pitfold.
But when he returned he brought astounding intelligence.
“You’ll never believe it, wife!” he cried from the threshold, “but the
mortgage is paid off! Buss me, mother, we’re free of our own again!”
“Oh, ’tis our Pam! ’Tis that best of children! Oh, the surprise,
father! Oh, the slyness of it, never telling us a word! Oh, was there
ever so good a girl?”
“Lawyer Grinder,” said the farmer, letting himself drop heavily in a
chair, “kept a close mouth. He wasn’t at liberty, those were his words,
to say who it was as had paid it off. ‘But paid off it is, and that’s
enough for you, farmer,’ says he. ‘I reckon I know whom I’m beholden
to,’ I says, ‘and I’ll tell you plain, lawyer,’ says I, ‘I’m not a
man as ’ud be beholden without it was to one who, so to speak, be but
paying back what’s due to a parent.’ At that he smiles on the wrong
side of his mouth, after his fashion, wife, none best pleased, I can
tell you. As for Sir Jasper--well, he won’t get hold o’ Little Pitfold
nohow now!”
When Mrs. Pounce wrote to Pamela in London the letter was very full of
blessings on a good daughter.
“And your father is so out of himself with joy, my dear, ’tis a new
lease of life.”
And Pamela smiled as she read. Her lover, now very respectful, though
by no means less ardent, had told her the story of the wager. Who was
to say, after all, that she had not paid off the mortgage? As for the
rest, she knew when to speak and when to be silent.