Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  Her ladyship, therefore, won, and had the pleasure of viewing from the coveted window the scene between Julia and Sir George; a scene which gave her the profoundest satisfaction. What she could not see — her eyes were no longer all that they had been — she imagined. In five minutes she had torn up the last rag of the girl’s character, and proved her as bad as the worst woman that ever rode down Cheapside in a cart. Lady Dunborough was not mealy-mouthed, nor one of those who mince matters.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ she cried. ‘She will be on with that stuck-up before night, and be gone with morning. If Dunborough comes back he may whistle for her!’

  Mr. Thomasson did not doubt that her ladyship was right. But he spoke with indifferent spirit. He had had a bad night, had lain anywhere, and dressed nowhere, and was chilly and unkempt. Apart from the awe in which he stood of her ladyship, he would have returned to Oxford by the first coach that morning.

  ‘Dear me!’ Lady Dunborough announced presently. ‘I declare he is leaving her! Lord, how the slut ogles him! She is a shameless baggage if ever there was one; and ruddled to the eyes, as I can see from here. I hope the white may kill her! Well, I’ll be bound it won’t be long before he is to her again! My fine gentleman is like the rest of them — a damned impudent fellow!’

  Mr. Thomasson turned up his eyes. ‘There was something a little odd — does not your lady think so?’ — he ventured to say, ‘in her taking possession of Sir George’s rooms as she did.’

  ‘Did I not say so? Did I not say that very thing?’

  ‘It seems to prove an understanding between them before they met here last night.’

  ‘I’ll take my oath on it!’ her ladyship cried with energy. Then in a tone of exultation she continued, ‘Ah! here he is again, as I thought! And come round by the street to mask the matter! He has down beside her again. Oh, he is limed, he is limed!’ my lady continued, as she searched for her spying-glass, that she might miss no wit of the love-making.

  The tutor was all complacence. ‘It proves that your ladyship’s stratagem,’ he said, ‘was to the point last night.’

  ‘Oh, Dunborough will live to thank me for that!’ she answered. ‘Gadzooks, he will! It is first come first served with these madams. This will open his eyes if anything will.’

  ‘Still — it is to be hoped she will leave before he returns,’ Mr. Thomasson said, with a slight shiver of anticipation. He knew Mr. Dunborough’s temper.

  ‘Maybe,’ my lady answered. ‘But even if she does not—’ There she broke of, and stood peering through the window. And suddenly, ‘Lord’s sake!’ she shrieked, ‘what is this?’

  The fury of her tone, no less than the expletive — which we have ventured to soften — startled Mr. Thomasson to his feet. Approaching the window in trepidation — for her ladyship’s wrath was impartial, and as often alighted on the wrong head as the right — the tutor saw that she had dropped her quizzing-glass, and was striving with shaking hands — but without averting her eyes from the scene outside — to recover and readjust it. Curious as well as alarmed, he drew up to her, and, looking over her shoulder, discerned the seat and Julia; and, alas! seated on the bench beside Julia, not Sir George Soane, as my lady’s indifferent sight, prompted by her wishes, had persuaded her, but Mr. Dunborough!

  The tutor gasped. ‘Oh, dear!’ he said, looking round, as if for a way of retreat. ‘This is — this is most unfortunate.’

  My lady in her wrath did not heed him. Shaking her fist at her unconscious son, ‘You rascal!’ she cried. ‘You paltry, impudent fellow! You would do it before my eyes, would you? Oh, I would like to have the brooming of you! And that minx! Go down you,’ she continued, turning fiercely on the trembling, wretched Thomasson— ‘go down this instant, sir, and — and interrupt them! Don’t stand gaping there, but down to them, booby, without the loss of a moment! And bring him up before the word is said. Bring him up, do you hear?’

  ‘Bring him up?’ said Mr. Thomasson, his breath coming quickly. ‘I?’

  ‘Yes, you! Who else?’

  ‘I — I — but, my dear lady, he is — he can be very violent,’ the unhappy tutor faltered, his teeth chattering, and his cheek flabby with fright. ‘I have known him — and perhaps it would be better, considering my sacred office, to — to—’

  ‘To what, craven?’ her ladyship cried furiously.

  ‘To leave him awhile — I mean to leave him and presently—’

  Lady Dunborough’s comment was a swinging blow, which the tutor hardly avoided by springing back. Unfortunately this placed her ladyship between him and the door; and it is not likely that he would have escaped her cane a second time, if his wits, and a slice of good fortune, had not come to his assistance. In the midst of his palpitating ‘There, there, my lady! My dear good lady!’ his tune changed on a sudden to ‘See; they are parting! They are parting already. And — and I think — I really think — indeed, my lady, I am sure that she has refused him! She has not accepted him?’

  ‘Refused him!’ Lady Dunborough ejaculated in scorn. Nevertheless she lowered the cane and, raising her glass, addressed herself to the window. ‘Not accepted him? Bosh, man!’

  ‘But if Sir George had proposed to her before?’ the tutor suggested. ‘There — oh, he is coming in! He has — he has seen us.’

  It was too true. Mr. Dunborough, approaching the door with a lowering face, had looked up as if to see what witnesses there were to his discomfiture. His eyes met his mother’s. She shook her fist at him. ‘Ay, he has,’ she said, her tone more moderate. ‘And, Lord, it must be as you say! He is in a fine temper, if I am any judge.’

  ‘I think,’ said Mr. Thomasson, looking round, ‘I had better — better leave — your ladyship to see him alone.’

  ‘No,’ said my lady firmly.

  ‘But — but Mr. Dunborough,’ the tutor pleaded, ‘may like to see you alone. Yes, I am sure I had better go.’

  ‘No,’ said my lady more decisively; and she laid her hand on the hapless tutor’s arm.

  ‘But — but if your ladyship is afraid of — of his violence,’ Mr. Thomasson stuttered, ‘it will be better, surely, for me to call some — some of the servants.’

  ‘Afraid?’ Lady Dunborough cried, supremely contemptuous. ‘Do you think I am afraid of my own son? And such a son! A poor puppet,’ she continued, purposely raising her voice as a step sounded outside, and Mr. Dunborough, flinging open the door, appeared like an angry Jove on the threshold, ‘who is fooled by every ruddled woman he meets! Ay, sir, I mean you! You! Oh, I am not to be browbeaten, Dunborough!’ she went on; ‘and I will trouble you not to kick my furniture, you unmannerly puppy. And out or in’s no matter, but shut the door after you.’

  Mr. Dunborough was understood to curse everybody; after which he fell into the chair that stood next the door, and, sticking his hands into his breeches-pockets, glared at my lady, his face flushed and sombre.

  ‘Hoity-toity! are these manners?’ said she. ‘Do you see this reverend gentleman?’

  ‘Ay, and G — d — him!’ cried Mr. Dunborough, with a very strong expletive; ‘but I’ll make him smart for it by-and-by. You have ruined me among you.’

  ‘Saved you, you mean,’ said Lady Dunborough with complacency, ‘if you are worth saving — which, mind you, I very much doubt, Dunborough.’

  ‘If I had seen her last night,’ he answered, drawing a long breath, ‘it would have been different. For that I have to thank you two. You sent me to lie at Bath and thought you had got rid of me. But I am back, and I’ll remember it, my lady! I’ll remember you too, you lying sneak!’

  ‘You common, low fellow!’ said my lady.

  ‘Ay, talk away!’ said he; and then no more, but stared at the floor before him, his jaw set, and his brow as black as a thunder-cloud. He was a powerful man, and, with that face, a dangerous man. For he was honestly in love; the love was coarse, brutal, headlong, a passion to curse the woman who accepted it; but it was not the less love for that. On the contrary, it was such a
fever as fills the veins with fire and drives a man to desperate things; as was proved by his next words.

  ‘You have ruined me among you,’ he said, his tone dull and thick, like that of a man in drink. ‘If I had seen her last night, there is no knowing but what she would have had me. She would have jumped at it. You tell me why not! But she is different this morning. There is a change in her. Gad, my lady,’ with a bitter laugh, ‘she is as good a lady as you, and better! And I’d have used her gently. Now I shall carry her off. And if she crosses me I will wring her handsome neck!’

  It is noticeable that he did not adduce any reason why the night had changed her. Only he had got it firmly into his head that, but for the delay they had caused, all would be well. Nothing could move him from this.

  ‘Now I shall run away with her,’ he repeated.

  ‘She won’t go with you,’ my lady cried with scorn.

  ‘I sha’n’t ask her,’ he answered. ‘When there is no choice she will come to it. I tell you I shall carry her off. And if I am taken and hanged for it, I’ll be hanged at Papworth — before your window.’

  ‘You poor simpleton!’ she said. ‘Go home to your father.’

  ‘All right, my lady,’ he answered, without lifting his eyes from the carpet. ‘Now you know. It will be your doing. I shall force her off, and if I am taken and hanged I will be hanged at Papworth. You took fine pains last night, but I’ll take pains to-day. If I don’t have her I shall never have a wife. But I will have her.’

  ‘Fools cry for the moon,’ said my lady. ‘Any way, get out of my room. You are a fine talker, but I warrant you will take care of your neck.’

  ‘I shall carry her off and marry her,’ he repeated, his chin sunk on his breast, his hand rattling the money in his pocket.

  ‘It is a distance to Gretna,’ she answered. ‘You’ll be nearer it outside my door, my lad. So be stepping, will you? And if you take my advice, you will go to my lord.’

  ‘All right; you know,’ he said sullenly. ‘For that sneak there, if he comes in my way, I’ll break every bone in his body. Good-day, my lady. When I see you again I will have Miss with me.’

  ‘Like enough; but not Madam,’ she retorted. ‘You are not such a fool as that comes to. And there is the Act besides!’

  That was her parting shot; for all the feeling she had shown, from the opening to the close of the interview, she might have been his worst enemy. Yet after a fashion, and as a part of herself, she did love him; which was proved by her first words after the door had closed upon him.

  ‘Lord!’ she said uneasily. ‘I hope he will play no Ferrers tricks, and disgrace us all. He is a black desperate fellow, is Dunborough, when he is roused.’

  The crestfallen tutor could not in a moment recover himself; but he managed to say that he did not think Mr. Dunborough suspected Sir George; and that even if he did, the men had fought once, in which case there was less risk of a second encounter.

  ‘You don’t know him,’ my lady answered, ‘if you say that. But it is not that I mean. He’ll do some wild thing about carrying her off. From a boy he would have his toy. I’ve whipped him till the blood ran, and he’s gone to it.’

  ‘But without her consent,’ said Mr. Thomasson, ‘it would not be possible.’

  ‘I mistrust him,’ the viscountess answered. ‘So do you go and find this baggage, and drop a word to her — to go in company you understand. Lord! he might marry her that way yet. For once away she would have to marry him — ay, and he to marry her to save his neck. And fine fools we should look.’

  ‘It’s — it’s a most surprising, wonderful thing she did not take him,’ said the tutor thoughtfully.

  ‘It’s God’s mercy and her madness,’ quoth the viscountess piously. ‘She may yet. And I would rather give you a bit of a living to marry her — ay, I would, Thomasson — than be saddled with such a besom!’

  Mr. Thomasson cast a sickly glance at her ladyship. The evening before, when the danger seemed imminent, she had named two thousand pounds and a living. Tonight, the living. To-morrow — what? For the living had been promised all along and in any case. Whereas now, a remote and impossible contingency was attached to it. Alas! the tutor saw very clearly that my lady’s promises were pie-crust, made to be broken.

  She caught the look, but attributed it to another cause. ‘What do you fear, man?’ she said. ‘Sho! he is out of the house by this time.’

  Mr. Thomasson would not have ventured far on that assurance, but he had himself seen Mr. Dunborough leave the house and pass to the stables; and anxious to escape for a time from his terrible patroness, he professed himself ready. Knowing where the rooms, which the girl’s party occupied, lay, in the west wing, he did not call a servant, but went through the house to them and knocked at the door.

  He got no answer, so gently opened the door and peeped in. He discovered a pleasant airy apartment, looking by two windows over a little grass plot that flanked the house on that side, and lay under the shadow of the great Druid mound. The room showed signs of occupancy — a lady’s cloak cast over a chair, a great litter of papers on the table. But for the moment it was empty.

  He was drawing back, satisfied with his survey, when he caught the sound of a heavy tread in the corridor behind him. He turned; to his horror he discerned Mr. Dunborough striding towards him, a whip in one hand, and in the other a note; probably the note was for this very room. At the same moment Mr. Dunborough caught sight of the tutor, and bore down on him with a view halloa. Mr. Thomasson’s hair rose, his knees shook under him, he all but sank down where he was. Fortunately at the last moment his better angel came to his assistance. His hand was still on the latch of the door; to open it, to dart inside, and to shoot the bolt were the work of a second. Trembling he heard Mr. Dunborough come up and slash the door with his whip, and then, contented with this demonstration, pass on, after shouting through the panels that the tutor need not flatter himself — he would catch him by-and-by.

  Mr. Thomasson devoutly hoped he would not; and, sweating at every pore, sat down to recover himself. Though all was quiet, he suspected the enemy of lying in wait; and rather than run into his arms was prepared to stay where he was, at any risk of discovery by the occupants. Or there might be another exit. Going to one of the windows to ascertain this, he found that there was; an outside staircase of stone affording egress to the grass plot. He might go that way; but no! — at the base of the Druid mound he perceived a group of townsfolk and rustics staring at the flank of the building — staring apparently at him. He recoiled; then he remembered that Lord Chatham’s rooms lay in that wing, and also looked over the gardens. Doubtless the countryfolk were watching in the hope that the great man would show himself at a window, or that, at the worst, they might see the crumbs shaken from a tablecloth he had used.

  This alone would have deterred the tutor from a retreat so public: besides, he saw something which placed him at his ease. Beyond the group of watchers he espied three people strolling at their leisure, their backs towards him. His sight was better than Lady Dunborough’s; and he had no difficulty in making out the three to be Julia, her mother, and the attorney. They were moving towards the Bath road. Freed from the fear of interruption, he heaved a sigh of relief, and, choosing the most comfortable chair, sat down on it.

  It chanced to stand by the table, and on the table, as has been said, lay a vast litter of papers. Mr. Thomasson’s elbow rested on one. He went to move it; in the act he read the heading: ‘This is the last will and testament of me Sir Anthony Cornelius Soane, baronet, of Estcombe Hall, in the county of Wilts.’

  ‘Tut-tut!’ said the tutor. ‘That is not Soane’s will, that is his grandfather’s.’ And between idleness and curiosity, not unmingled with surprise, he read the will to the end. Beside it lay three or four narrow slips; he examined these, and found them to be extracts from a register. Apparently some one was trying to claim under the will; but Mr. Thomasson did not follow the steps or analyse the pedigree — his mind was engr
ossed by perplexity on another point. His thoughts might have been summed up in the lines —

  ‘Not that the things themselves are rich or rare,

  The wonder’s how the devil they got there’ —

  in a word, how came the papers to be in that room? ‘These must be Soane’s rooms,’ he muttered at last, looking about him. ‘And yet — that’s a woman’s cloak. And that old cowskin bag is not Sir George’s. It is odd. Ah! What is this?’

  This was a paper, written and folded brief-wise, and indorsed: ‘Statement of the Claimant’s case for the worshipful consideration of the Eight Honourable the Earl of Chatham and others the trustees of the Estcombe Hall Estate. Without Prejudice.’

  ‘So!’ said the tutor. ‘This may be intelligible.’ And having assured himself by a furtive glance through the window that the owners of the room were not returning, he settled himself to peruse it. When he again looked up, which was at a point about one-third of the way through the document, his face wore a look of rapt, incredulous, fatuous astonishment.

  CHAPTER XIV

  A GOOD MAN’S DILEMMA

  Ten minutes later Mr. Thomasson slid back the bolt, and opening the door, glanced furtively up and down the passage. Seeing no one, he came out, closed the door behind him, and humming an air from the ‘Buona Figlinola,’ which was then the fashion, returned slowly, and with apparent deliberation, to the east wing. There he hastened to hide himself in a small closet of a chamber, which he had that morning secured on the second floor, and having bolted the door behind him, he plumped down on the scanty bed, and stared at the wall, he was the prey of a vast amazement.