Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  ‘Is your name Soane?’ Mr. Smith asked with blunt-ness; he grew more suspicious as the other’s embarrassment increased.

  ‘No,’ Mr. Fishwick admitted reluctantly. ‘But this young lady’s name—’

  ‘Is Soane?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mr. Thomasson stepped forward, grim as fate. ‘That is not true,’ he said coldly. ‘I am a Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, at present in attendance on her ladyship; and I identify this person’ — he pointed to the girl— ‘as the daughter of a late servant of the College, and this woman as her mother. I have no doubt that the last thing they expected to find in this place was one who knew them.’

  The landlord nodded. ‘Joe,’ he said, turning to a servant, ‘fetch the constable. You will find him at the Falcon.’

  ‘That is talking!’ cried my lady, clapping her hands gleefully. ‘That is talking!’ And then addressing the girl, ‘Now, madam,’ she said, ‘I’ll have your pride pulled down! If I don’t have you in the stocks for this, tease my back!’

  There was a snigger at that, in the background, by the door; and a crush to get in and see how the rogues took their exposure; for my lady’s shrill voice could be heard in the hall, and half the inn was running to listen. Mrs. Masterson, who had collapsed at the mention of the constable, and could now do nothing but moan and weep, and the attorney, who spluttered vain threats in a voice quavering between fear and passion evoked little sympathy. But the girl, who through all remained silent, white, and defiant, who faced all, the fingers of one hand drumming on the table before her, and her fine eyes brooding scornfully on the crowd, drew from more than one the compliment of a quicker breath and a choking throat. She was the handsomest piece they had seen, they muttered, for many a day — as alien, from the other two as light from darkness; and it is not in man’s nature to see beauty humiliated, and feel no unpleasant emotion. If there was to be a scene, and she did not go quietly — in that case more than one in the front rank, who read the pride in her eyes, wished he were elsewhere.

  Suddenly the crowd about the door heaved. It opened slowly, and a voice, airy and indifferent, was heard remarking, ‘Ah! These are the people, are they? Poor devils! ‘Then a pause; and then, in a tone of unmistakable surprise, ‘Hallo!’ the newcomer cried as he emerged and stared at the scene before him. ‘What is this?’

  The attorney almost fell on his knees. ‘Sir George!’ he screamed. ‘My dear Sir George! Honoured sir, believe me I am innocent of any ill-meaning.’

  ‘Tut-tut!’ said Sir George, who might have just stepped out of his dressing-closet instead of his carriage, so perfect was his array, from the ruffles that fell gracefully over his wrists to the cravat that supported his chin. ‘Tut-tut! Lord, man, what is the meaning of this?’

  ‘We are going to see,’ the landlord answered drily, forestalling the lawyer’s reply. ‘I have sent for the constable, Sir George.’

  ‘But, Sir George, you’ll speak for us?’ Mr. Fishwick cried piteously, cutting the other short in his turn. ‘You will speak for us? You know me. You know that I am a respectable man. Oh, dear me, if this were told in Wallingford!’ he continued; ‘and I have a mother aged seventy! It is a mistake — a pure mistake, as I am prepared to prove. I appeal to you, sir. Both I and my friends—’

  He was stopped on that word; and very strangely. The girl turned on him, her cheeks scarlet. ‘For shame!’ she cried with indignation that seemed to her hearers inexplicable. ‘Be silent, will you?’

  Sir George stared with the others. ‘Oh!’ said Lady Dunborough, ‘so you have found your voice, have you, miss — now that there is a gentleman here?’

  ‘But — what is it all about?’ Sir George asked.

  ‘They took your rooms, sir,’ the landlord explained respectfully.

  ‘Pooh! is that all?’ Soane answered contemptuously. What moved him he could not tell; but in his mind he had chosen his side. He did not like Lady Dunborough.

  ‘But they are not,’ the landlord objected, ‘they are not the persons they say they are, Sir George.’

  ‘Chut!’ said Soane carelessly. ‘I know this person, at any rate. He is respectable enough. I don’t understand it at all. Oh, is that you, Thomasson?’

  Mr. Thomasson had fallen back a pace on Sir George’s entrance; but being recognised he came forward. ‘I think that you will acknowledge, my dear sir,’ he said persuasively — and his tone was very different from that which he had taken ten minutes earlier— ‘that at any rate — they are not proper persons to sit down with her ladyship.’

  ‘But why should they sit down with her?’ said Sir George the fashionable, slightly raising his eyebrows.

  ‘YOUR LADYSHIP’S MOST HUMBLE SERVANT,’ HE SAID.

  ‘Hem — Sir George, this is Lady Dunborough,’ replied Mr. Thomasson, not a little embarrassed.

  Soane’s eyes twinkled as he returned the viscountess’s glance. But he bowed profoundly, and with a sweep of his hat that made the rustics stare. ‘Your ladyship’s most humble servant,’ he said. ‘Allow me to hope that Mr. Dunborough is perfectly recovered. Believe me, I greatly regretted his mischance.’

  But Lady Dunborough was not so foolish as to receive his overtures according to the letter. She saw plainly that he had chosen his side — the impertinent fop, with his airs and graces! — and she was not to be propitiated. ‘Pray leave my son’s name apart,’ she answered, tossing her head contemptuously. ‘After what has happened, sir, I prefer not to discuss him with you.’

  Sir George raised his eyebrows, and bowed as profoundly as before. ‘That is entirely as your ladyship pleases,’ he said. Nevertheless he was not accustomed to be snubbed, and he set a trifle to her account.

  ‘But for that creature,’ she continued, trembling with passion, ‘I will not sleep under the same roof with her.’

  Sir George simpered. ‘I am sorry for that,’ he said. ‘For I am afraid that the Falcon in the town is not the stamp of house to suit your ladyship.’

  The viscountess gasped. ‘I should like to know why you champion her,’ she cried violently. ‘I suppose you came here to meet her.’

  ‘Alas, madam, I am not so happy,’ he answered — with such blandness that a servant by the door choked, and had to be hustled out in disgrace. ‘But since Miss — er — Masterson is here, I shall be glad to place my rooms at her — mother’s disposal.’

  ‘There are no rooms,’ said the landlord. Between the two he was growing bewildered.

  ‘There are mine,’ said Sir George drily.

  ‘But for yourself, Sir George?’

  ‘Oh, never mind me, my good man. I am here to meet Lord Chatham, and some of his people will accommodate me.’

  ‘Well, of course,’ Mr. Smith answered, rubbing his hands dubiously — for he had sent for the constable— ‘of course, Sir George — if you wish it. I did not understand for whom the rooms were ordered, or — or this unpleasantness would not have arisen.’

  ‘To be sure,’ Sir George drawled good-naturedly. ‘Give the constable half-a-crown, Smith, and charge it to me.’ And he turned on his heel.

  But at this appearance of a happy issue, Lady Dunborough’s rage and chagrin, which had been rising higher and higher with each word of the dialogue, could no longer be restrained. In an awful voice, and with a port of such majesty that an ordinary man must have shaken in his shoes before her towering headdress, ‘Am I to understand,’ she cried, ‘that, after all that has been said about these persons, you propose to harbour them?’

  The landlord looked particularly miserable; luckily he was saved from the necessity of replying by an unexpected intervention.

  ‘We are much obliged to your ladyship,’ the girl behind the table said, speaking rapidly, but in a voice rather sarcastic than vehement. ‘There were reasons why I thought it impossible that we should accept this gentleman’s offer. But the words you have applied to me, and the spirit in which your ladyship has dealt with me, make it impossible for us to withdraw and lie under the —
the vile imputations, you have chosen to cast upon me. For that reason,’ she continued with spirit, her face instinct with indignation, ‘I do accept from this gentleman — and with gratitude — what I would fain refuse. And if it be any matter to your ladyship, you have only your unmannerly words to thank for it.’

  ‘Ho! ho!’ the viscountess cried in affected contempt. ‘Are we to be called in question by creatures like these? You vixen! I spit upon you!’

  Mr. Thomasson smiled in a sickly fashion. For one thing, he began to feel hungry; he had not supped. For another, he wished that he had kept his mouth shut, or had never left Oxford. With a downcast air, ‘I think it might be better,’ he said, ‘if your ladyship were to withdraw from this company.’

  But her ladyship was at that moment as dangerous as a tigress. ‘You think?’ she cried. ‘You think? I think you are a fool!’

  A snigger from the doorway gave point to the words; on which Lady Dunborough turned wrathfully in that direction. But the prudent landlord had slipped away, Sir George also had retired, and the servants and others, concluding the sport was at an end, were fast dispersing. She saw that redress was not to be had, but that in a moment she would be left alone with her foes; and though she was bursting with spite, the prospect had no charms for her. For the time she had failed; nothing she could say would now alter that. Moreover her ladyship was vaguely conscious that in the girl, who still stood pitilessly behind the table, as expecting her to withdraw, she had met her match. The beautiful face and proud eyes that regarded her so steadfastly had a certain terror for the battered great lady, who had all to lose in a conflict, and saw dimly that coarse words had no power to hurt her adversary.

  So Lady Dunborough, after a moment’s hesitation, determined to yield the field. Gathering her skirts about her with a last gesture of contempt, she sailed towards the door, resolved not to demean herself by a single word. But halfway across the room her resolution, which had nearly cost her a fit, gave way. She turned, and withering the three travellers with a glance, ‘You — you abandoned creature!’ she cried. ‘I’ll see you in the stocks yet!’ And she swept from the room.

  Alas! the girl laughed: and my lady heard her!

  Perhaps it was that; perhaps it was the fact that she had not dined, and was leaving her supper behind her; perhaps it was only a general exasperation rendered her ladyship deaf. From one cause or another she lost something which her woman said to her — with no small appearance of excitement — as they crossed the hall. The maid said it again, but with no better success; and pressing nearer to say it a third time, when they were halfway up the stairs, she had the misfortune to step on her mistress’s train. The viscountess turned in a fury, and slapped her cheek.

  ‘You clumsy slut!’ she cried. ‘Will that teach you to be more careful?’

  The woman shrank away, one side of her face deep red, her eyes glittering. Doubtless the pain was sharp; and though the thing had happened before, it had never happened in public. But she suppressed her feelings, and answered whimpering, ‘If your ladyship pleases, I wished to tell you that Mr. Dunborough is here.’

  ‘Mr. Dunborough? Here?’ the viscountess stammered.

  ‘Yes, my lady, I saw him alighting as we passed the door.’

  CHAPTER X

  MOTHER AND SON

  Lady Dunborough stood, as if turned to stone by the news. In the great hall below, a throng of servants, the Pitt livery prominent among them, were hurrying to and fro, with a clatter of dishes and plates, a ceaseless calling of orders, a buzz of talk, and now and then a wrangle. But the lobby and staircase of the west wing, on the first floor of which she stood — and where the great man lay, at the end of a softly lighted passage, his door guarded by a man and a woman seated motionless in chairs beside it — were silent by comparison; the bulk of the guests were still at supper or busy in the east or inferior wing; and my lady had a moment to think, to trace the consequences of this inopportune arrival, and to curse, now more bitterly than before, the failure of her attempt to eject the girl from the house.

  However, she was not a woman to lie down to her antagonists, and in the depth of her stupor she had a thought. Her brow relaxed; she clutched the maid’s arm. ‘Quick,’ she whispered, ‘go and fetch Mr. Thomasson — he is somewhere below. Bring him here, but do not let Mr. Dunborough see you as you pass! Quick, woman — run!’

  The maid flew on her errand, leaving her mistress to listen and fret on the stairs, in a state of suspense almost unbearable. She caught her son’s voice in the entrance hall, from which stately arched doorways led to the side lobbies; but happily he was still at the door, engaged in railing at a servant; and so far all was well. At any moment, however, he might stride into the middle of the busy group in the hall; and then if he saw Thomasson before the tutor had had his lesson, the trick, if not the game, was lost. Her ladyship, scarcely breathing, hung over the balustrade, and at length had the satisfaction of seeing Thomasson and the woman enter the lobby at the foot of the stairs. In a trice the tutor, looking scared, and a trifle sulky — for he had been taken from his meat — stood at her side.

  Lady Dunborough drew a breath of relief, and by a sign bade the maid begone. ‘You know who is below?’ she whispered.

  Mr. Thomasson nodded. ‘I thought it was what you wished,’ he said, with something in his tone as near mutiny as he dared venture. ‘I understood that your ladyship desired to overtake him and reason with him.’

  ‘But with the girl here?’ she muttered. And yet it was true. Before she had seen this girl, she had fancied the task of turning her son to be well within her powers. Now she gravely doubted the issue; nay, was inclined to think all lost if the pair met. She told the tutor this, in curt phrase; and continued: ‘So, do you go down, man, at once, and meet him at the door; and tell him that I am here — he will discover that for himself — but that the hussy is not here. Say she is at Bath or — or anywhere you please.’

  Mr. Thomasson hesitated. ‘He will see her,’ he said.

  ‘Why should he see her?’ my lady retorted. ‘The house is full. He must presently go elsewhere. Put him on a false scent, and he will go after her hot-foot, and not find her. And in a week he will be wiser.’

  ‘It is dangerous,’ Mr. Thomasson faltered, his eyes wandering uneasily.

  ‘So am I,’ the viscountess answered in a passion. ‘And mind you, Thomasson,’ she continued fiercely, ‘you have got to side with me now! Cross me, and you shall have neither the living nor my good word; and without my word you may whistle for your sucking lord! But do my bidding, help me to checkmate this baggage, and I’ll see you have both. Why, man, rather than let him marry her, I’d pay you to marry her! I’d rather pay down a couple of thousand pounds, and the living too. D’ye hear me? But it won’t come to that if you do my bidding.’

  Still Mr. Thomasson hesitated, shrinking from the task proposed, not because he must lie to execute it, but because he must lie to Dunborough, and would suffer for it, were he found out. On the other hand, the bribe was large; the red gabled house, set in its little park, and as good as a squire’s, the hundred-acre glebe, the fat tithes and Easter dues — to say nothing of the promised pupil and freedom from his money troubles — tempted him sorely. He paused; and while he hesitated he was lost. For Mr. Dunborough, with the landlord beside him, entered the side-hall, booted, spurred, and in his horseman’s coat; and looked up and saw the pair at the head of the staircase. His face, gloomy and discontented before, grew darker. He slapped his muddy boot with his whip, and, quitting the landlord without ceremony, in three strides was up the stairs. He did not condescend to Mr. Thomasson, but turned to the viscountess.

  ‘Well, madam,’ he said with a sneer.’ Your humble servant. This is an unforeseen honour! I did not expect to meet you here.’

  ‘I expected to meet you,’ my lady answered with meaning.

  ‘Glad to give you the pleasure,’ he said, sneering again. He was evidently in the worst of tempers.’ May I ask what has set yo
u travelling?’ he continued.

  ‘Why, naught but your folly!’ the viscountess cried.

  ‘Thank you for nothing, my lady,’ he said. ‘I suppose your spy there’ — and he scowled at the tutor, whose knees shook under him— ‘has set you on this. Well, there is time. I’ll settle accounts with him by-and-by.’

  ‘Lord, my dear sir,’ Mr. Thomasson cried faintly, ‘you don’t know your friends!’

  ‘Don’t I? I think I am beginning to find them out,’ Mr. Dunborough answered, slapping his boot ominously, ‘and my enemies!’ At which the tutor trembled afresh.

  ‘Never mind him,’ quoth my lady. ‘Attend to me, Dunborough. Is it a lie, or is it not, that you are going to disgrace yourself the way I have heard?’

  ‘Disgrace myself?’ cried Mr. Dunborough hotly.

  ‘Ay, disgrace yourself.’

  ‘I’ll flay the man that says it!’

  ‘You can’t flay me,’ her ladyship retorted with corresponding spirit.’ You impudent, good-for-nothing fellow! D’you hear me? You are an impudent, good-for-nothing fellow, Dunborough, for all your airs and graces! Come, you don’t swagger over me, my lad! And as sure as you do this that I hear of, you’ll smart for it. There are Lorton and Swanton — my lord can do as he pleases with them, and they’ll go from you; and your cousin Meg, ugly and long in the tooth as she is, shall have them! You may put this beggar’s wench in my chair, but you shall smart for it as long as you live!’