Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  ‘What is his business with Lord Chatham?’ Dr. Addington asked rather coldly. It was plain that he did not approve of Sir George’s condescension.

  ‘I have no notion,’ Soane answered, yawning. ‘But he has got a very pretty girl with him. Whether she is laying traps for Dunborough—’

  ‘The viscountess’s son?’

  ‘Just so — I cannot say. But that is the old harridan’s account of it.’

  ‘Is she here too?’

  ‘Lord, yes; and they had no end of a quarrel downstairs. There is a story about the girl and Dunborough. I’ll tell it you some time.’

  ‘I began to think — he was here on your business,’ said the doctor.

  ‘He? Oh, no,’ Sir George answered without suspicion, and turned to look for his candlestick. ‘I suppose that he is in the case I am in — wants something and comes to the fountain of honour to get it.’

  And bidding the other good-night, he went to bed; not to sleep, but to lie awake and reckon and calculate, and add a charge here to interest there, and set both against income, and find nothing remain.

  He had sneered at the old home because it had been in his family only so many generations. But there is this of evil in an old house — it is bad to live in, but worse to part from. Sir George, straining his eyes in the darkness, saw the long avenue of elms and the rooks’ nests, and the startled birds circling overhead; and at the end of the vista the wide doorway, aed. temp. Jac. 1 — saw it all more lucidly than he had seen it since the September morning when he traversed it, a boy of fourteen, with his first gun on his arm. Well, it was gone; but he was Sir George, macaroni and fashionable, arbiter of elections at White’s, and great at Almack’s, more powerful in his sphere than a belted earl! But, then, that was gone too, with the money — and — and what was left? Sir George groaned and turned on his pillow and thought of Bland and Fanny Braddock. He wondered if any one had ever left the Castle by the suicide door, and, to escape his thoughts, lit a candle and read ‘La Belle Héloïse,’ which he had in his mail.

  CHAPTER XII

  JULIA

  It is certain that if Sir George Soane had borne any other name, the girl, after the conversation which had taken place between them on the dingy staircase at Oxford, must have hated him. There is a kind of condescension from man to woman, in which the man says, ‘My good girl, not for me — but do take care of yourself,’ which a woman of the least pride finds to be of all modes of treatment the most shameful and the most humiliating. The masterful overtures of such a lover as Dunborough, who would take all by storm, are still natural, though they lack respect; a woman would be courted, and sometimes would be courted in the old rough fashion. But, for the other mode of treatment, she may be a Grizel, or as patient — a short course of that will sharpen not only her tongue, but her fingernails.

  Yet this, or something like it, Julia, who was far from being the most patient woman in the world, had suffered at Sir George’s hands; believing at the time that he was some one else, or, rather, being ignorant then and for just an hour afterwards that such a person as Sir George Soane existed. Enlightened on this point and on some others connected with it (which a sagacious reader may divine for himself) the girl’s first feeling in face of the astonishing future opening before her had been one of spiteful exultation. She hated him, and he would suffer. She hated him with all her heart and strength, and he would suffer. There were balm and sweet satisfaction in the thought.

  But presently, dwelling on the matter, she began to relent. The very completeness of the revenge which she had in prospect robbed her of her satisfaction. The man was so dependent on her, so deeply indebted to her, must suffer so much by reason of her, that the maternal instinct, which is said to be developed even in half-grown girls, took him under its protection; and when that scene occurred in the public room of the Castle Inn and he stood forward to shield her (albeit in an arrogant, careless, half-insolent way that must have wounded her in other circumstances), she was not content to forgive him only — with a smile; but long after her companion had fallen asleep, Julia sat brooding over the fire, her arms clasped about her knees; now reading the embers with parted lips and shining eyes, and now sighing gently — for ‘la femme propose, mais Dieu dispose.’ And nothing is certain.

  After this, it may not have been pure accident that cast her in Sir George’s way when he strolled out of the house next morning. A coach had come in, and was changing horses before the porch. The passengers were moving to and fro before the house, grooms and horse-boys were shouting and hissing, the guard was throwing out parcels. Soane passed through the bustle, and, strolling to the end of the High Street, saw the girl seated on a low parapet of the bridge that, near the end of the inn gardens, carries the Salisbury road over the Kennet. She wore a plain riding-coat, such as ladies then affected when they travelled and would avoid their hoops and patches. A little hood covered her hair, which, undressed and unpowdered, hung in a club behind; and she held up a plain fan between her complexion and the sun.

  Her seat, though quiet and remote from the bustle — for the Salisbury road is the less frequented of the two roads — was in view of the gates leading to the Inn; and her extreme beauty, which was that of expression as well as feature, made her a mark for a dozen furtive eyes, of which she affected to be unconscious. But as soon as Sir George’s gaze fell on her, her look met his frankly and she smiled; and then again her eyes dropped and studied the road before her, and she blushed in a way Soane found enchanting. He had been going into the town, but he turned and went to her and sat down on the bridge beside her, almost with the air of an old acquaintance. He opened the conversation by saying that it was a prodigious fine day; she agreed. That the Downs were uncommonly healthy; she said the same. And then there was silence.

  ‘Well?’ he said after a while; and he looked at her.

  ‘Well?’ she answered in the same tone. And she looked at him over the edge of her fan, her eyes laughing.

  ‘How did you sleep, child?’ he asked; while he thought, ‘Lord! How handsome she is!’

  ‘Perfectly, sir,’ she answered, ‘thanks to your excellency’s kindness.’

  Her voice as well as her eyes laughed. He stared at her, wondering at the change in her. ‘You are lively this morning,’ he said.

  ‘I cannot say the same of you, Sir George,’ she answered. ‘When you came out, and before you saw me, your face was as long as a coach-horse’s.’

  Sir George winced. He knew where his thoughts had been. ‘That was before I saw you, child,’ he said. ‘In your company—’

  ‘You are scarcely more lively,’ she answered saucily. ‘Do you flatter yourself that you are?’

  Sir George was astonished. He was aware that the girl lacked neither wit nor quickness; but hitherto he had found her passionate at one time, difficult and farouche at another, at no time playful or coquettish. Here, and this morning, she did not seem to be the same woman. She spoke with ease, laughed with the heart as well as the lips, met his eyes with freedom and without embarrassment, countered his sallies with sportiveness — in a word, carried herself towards him as though she were an equal; precisely as Lady Betty and the Honourable Fanny carried themselves. He stared at her.

  And she, seeing the look, laughed in pure happiness, knowing what was in his mind, and knowing her own mind very well. ‘I puzzle you?’ she said.

  ‘You do,’ he answered. ‘What are you doing here? And why have you taken up with that lawyer? And why are you dressed, child—’

  ‘Like this?’ she said, rising, and sitting down again. ‘You think it is above my station?’

  He shrugged his shoulders, declining to put his views into words; instead, ‘What does it all mean?’ he said.

  ‘What do you suppose?’ she asked, averting her eyes for the first time.

  ‘Well, of course — you may be here to meet Dunborough,’ he answered bluntly. ‘His mother seems to think that he is going to marry you.’

  ‘And what do you
think, sir?’

  ‘I?’ said Sir George, reverting to the easy, half-insolent tone she hated. And he tapped his Paris snuff-box and spoke with tantalising slowness. ‘Well, if that be the case, I should advise you to see that Mr. Dunborough’s surplice — covers a parson.’

  She sat still and silent for a full half-minute after he had spoken. Then she rose without a word, and without looking at him; and, walking away to the farther end of the bridge, sat down there with her shoulder turned to him.

  Soane felt himself rebuffed, and for a moment let his anger get the better of him. ‘D — n the girl, I only spoke for her own good!’ he muttered; then reflecting that if he followed her she might remove again and make him ridiculous, he rose to go into the house. But apparently that was not what she wished. He was scarcely on his legs before she turned her head, saw that he was going, and imperiously beckoned to him.

  He went to her, wondering as much at her audacity as her pettishness. When he reached her, ‘Sir George,’ she said, retaining her seat and looking gravely at him, while he stood before her like a boy undergoing correction, ‘you have twice insulted me — once in Oxford when, believing Mr. Dunborough’s hurt lay at my door, I was doing what I could to repair it; and again to-day. If you wish to see more of me, you must refrain from doing so a third time. You know, a third time — you know what a third time does. And more — one moment, if you please. I must ask you to treat me differently. I make no claim to be a gentlewoman, but my condition is altered. A relation has left me a — a fortune, and when I met you here last night I was on my way to Bath to claim it.’

  Sir George passed from the surprise into which the first part of this speech had thrown him, to surprise still greater. At last, ‘I am vastly glad to hear it,’ he said. ‘For most of us it is easier to drop a fortune than to find one.’

  ‘Is it?’ she said, and laughed musically, Then, moving her skirt to show him that he might sit down, ‘Well, I suppose it is. You have no experience of that, I hope, sir?’

  He nodded.

  ‘The gaming-table?’ she said.

  ‘Not this time,’ he answered, wondering why he told her. ‘I had a grandfather, who made a will. He had a fancy to wrap up a bombshell in the will. Now — the shell has burst.’

  ‘I am sorry,’ she said; and was silent a moment. At length, ‘Does it make — any great difference to you?’ she asked naïvely.

  Sir George looked at her as if he were studying her appearance. Then, ‘Yes, child, it does,’ he said.

  She hesitated, but seemed to make up her mind. ‘I have never asked you where you live,’ she said softly; ‘have you no house in the country?’

  He suppressed something between an oath and a groan. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I have a house.’

  ‘What do you call it?’

  ‘Estcombe Hall. It is in Wiltshire, not far from here.’

  She looked at her fan, and idly flapped it open, and again closed it in the air. ‘Is it a fine place?’ she said carelessly.

  ‘I suppose so,’ he answered, wincing.

  ‘With trees, and gardens, and woods?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And water?’

  ‘Yes. There is a river.’

  ‘You used to fish in it as a boy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Estcombe! it is a pretty name. And shall you lose it?’

  But that was too much for Soane’s equanimity. ‘Oh, d — n the girl!’ he cried, rising abruptly, but sitting down again. Then, as she recoiled, in anger real or affected, ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said formally. ‘But — it is not the custom to ask so many questions upon private matters.’

  ‘Really, Sir George?’ she said, receiving the information gravely, and raising her eyebrows. ‘Then Estcombe is your Mr. Dunborough, is it?’

  ‘If you will,’ he said, almost sullenly.

  ‘But you love it,’ she answered, studying her fan, ‘and I do not love — Mr. Dunborough!’

  Marvelling at her coolness and the nimbleness of her wit, he turned so that he looked her full in the face. ‘Miss Masterson,’ he said, ‘you are too clever for me. Will you tell me where you learned so much? ‘Fore Gad, you might have been at Mrs. Chapone’s, the way you talk.’

  ‘Mrs. Chapone’s?’ she said.

  ‘A learned lady,’ he explained.

  ‘I was at a school,’ she answered simply, ‘until I was fifteen. A godfather, whom I never knew, left money to my father to be spent on my schooling.’

  ‘Lord!’ he said. ‘And where were you at school?’

  ‘At Worcester.’

  ‘And what have you done since? — if I may ask.’

  ‘I have been at home. I should have taught children, or gone into service as a waiting-woman; but my father would keep me with him. Now I am glad of it, as this money has come to me.’

  ‘Lord! it is a perfect romance!’ he exclaimed. And on the instant he fancied that he had the key to the mystery, and her beauty. She was illegitimate — a rich man’s child! ‘Gad, Mr. Richardson should hear of it,’ he continued with more than his usual energy. ‘Pamela — why you might be Pamela!’

  ‘That if you please,’ she said quickly, ‘for certainly I shall never be Clarissa.’

  Sir George laughed. ‘With such charms it is better not to be too sure!’ he answered. And he looked at her furtively and looked away again. A coach bound eastwards came out of the gates; but it had little of his attention, though he seemed to be watching the bustle. He was thinking that if he sat much longer with this strange girl, he was a lost man. And then again he thought — what did it matter? If the best he had to expect was exile on a pittance, a consulship at Genoa, a governorship at Guadeloupe, where would he find a more beautiful, a wittier, a gayer companion? And for her birth — a fico! His great-grandfather had made money in stays; and the money was gone! No doubt there would be gibing at White’s, and shrugging at Almack’s; but a fico, too, for that — it would not hurt him at Guadeloupe, and little at Genoa. And then on a sudden the fortune of which she had talked came into his head, and he smiled. It might be a thousand; or two, three, four, at most five thousand. A fortune! He smiled and looked at her.

  He found her gazing steadily at him, her chin on her hand. Being caught, she reddened and looked, away. He took the man’s privilege, and continued to gaze, and she to flush; and presently, ‘What are you looking at?’ she said, moving uneasily.

  ‘A most beautiful face,’ he answered, with the note of sincerity in his voice which a woman’s ear never fails to appreciate.

  She rose and curtsied low, perhaps to hide the tell-tale pleasure in her eyes. ‘Thank you, sir,’ she said. And she drew back as if she intended to leave him.

  ‘But you are not — you are not offended, Julia?’

  ‘Julia?’ she answered, smiling. ‘No, but I think it is time I relieved your Highness from attendance. For one thing, I am not quite sure whether that pretty flattery was addressed to Clarissa — or to Pamela. And for another,’ she continued more coldly, seeing Sir George wince under this first stroke — he was far from having his mind made up— ‘I see Lady Dunborough watching us from the windows at the corner of the house. And I would not for worlds relieve her ladyship’s anxiety by seeming unfaithful to her son.’

  ‘You can be spiteful, then?’ Soane said, laughing.

  ‘I can — and grateful,’ she answered. ‘In proof of which I am going to make a strange request, Sir George. Do not misunderstand it. And yet — it is only that before you leave here — whatever be the circumstances under which you leave — you will see me for five minutes.’

  Sir George stared, bowed, and muttered ‘Too happy.’ Then observing, or fancying he observed, that she was anxious to be rid of him, he took his leave and went into the house.

  For a man who had descended the stairs an hour before, hipped to the last degree, with his mind on a pistol, it must be confessed that he went up with a light step; albeit, in a mighty obfuscation, as Dr. Johnson might have put it. A
kinder smile, more honest eyes he swore he had never seen, even in a plain face. Her very blushes, of which the memory set his blasé blood dancing to a faster time, were a character in themselves. But — he wondered. She had made such advances, been so friendly, dropped such hints — he wondered. He was fresh from the masquerades, from Mrs. Cornely’s assemblies, Lord March’s converse, the Chudleigh’s fantasies; the girl had made an appointment — he wondered.

  For all that, one thing was unmistakable. Life, as he went up the stairs, had taken on another and a brighter colour; was fuller, brisker, more generous. From a spare garret with one poor casement it had grown in an hour into a palace, vague indeed, but full of rich vistas and rosy distances and quivering delights. The corridor upstairs, which at his going out had filled him with distaste — there were boots in it, and water-cans — was now the Passage Beautiful; for he might meet her there. The day which, when he rose, had lain before him dull and monotonous — since Lord Chatham was too ill to see him, and he had no one with whom to game — was now full-furnished with interest, and hung with recollections — recollections of conscious eyes and the sweetest lips in the world. In a word, Julia had succeeded in that which she had set herself to do. Sir George might wonder. He was none the less in love.

  CHAPTER XIII

  A SPOILED CHILD

  Julia was right in fancying that she saw Lady Dunborough’s face at one of the windows in the south-east corner of the house. Those windows commanded both the Marlborough High Street and the Salisbury road, welcomed alike the London and the Salisbury coach, overlooked the loungers at the entrance to the town, and supervised most details of the incoming and outgoing worlds. Lady Dunborough had not been up and about half-an-hour before she remarked these advantages. In an hour her ladyship was installed in that suite, which, though in the east wing, was commonly reckoned to be one of the best in the house. Heaven knows how she did it. There is a pertinacity, shameless and violent, which gains its ends, be the crowd between never so dense. It is possible that Mr. Smith would have ousted her had he dared. It is possible he had to pay forfeit to the rightful tenants, and in private cursed her for an old jade and a brimstone. But when a viscountess sits herself down in the middle of a room and declines to budge, she cannot with decency be taken up like a sack of hops and dumped in the passage.