Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  ‘You admit it, I am sure?’ he persisted.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered resolutely.

  ‘And that to — to resume, in fact, the old terms would be — impossible,’

  ‘Quite impossible.’ Her tone was as hard as his was easy.

  ‘I thought so,’ Sir George continued complacently. ‘Still, I could not, of course, leave you here, child. As I have said, my friends think that something should be done for you; and I am only too happy to do it. I have consulted them, and we have talked the matter over. By the way,’ with a look round, ‘perhaps your mother should be here — Mrs. Masterson, I mean? Is she in the house?’

  ‘No,’ she answered, her face flaming scarlet; for pride had conquered pain. She hated him. Oh, how she hated him and the hideous dress which in her foolish dream — when, hearing him at the door, she had looked for something very different — she had hurriedly put on; and the loose tangle of hair which she had dragged with trembling fingers from its club so that it now hung sluttishly over her ear. She longed, as she had never longed before, to confront him in all her beauty; to be able to say to him, ‘Choose where you will, can you buy form or face like this?’ Instead she stood before him, prisoned in this shapeless dress, a slattern, a drab, a thing whereat to curl the lip.

  ‘Well, I am sorry she is not here,’ he resumed. ‘It would have given a — a kind of legality to the offer,’ he continued with an easy laugh. ‘To tell you the truth, the amount was not fixed by me, but by my friend, Dr. Addington, who interested himself in your behalf. He thought that an allowance of a hundred guineas a year, child, properly secured, would place you in comfort, and — and obviate all this,’ with a negligent wave of the hand that took in the garden and the half-scoured stone, ‘at the same time,’ he added, ‘that it would not be unworthy of the donor.’ And he bowed, smiling.

  ‘A hundred guineas?’ she said slowly. ‘A year?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Properly secured?’

  ‘To be sure, child.’

  ‘On your word?’ with a sudden glance at him. ‘Of course, I could not ask better security! Surely, sir, there’s but one thing to be said. ’Tis too generous, too handsome!’

  ‘Tut-tut!’ he answered, wondering at her way of taking it.

  ‘Far too handsome — seeing that I have no claim on you, Sir George, and have only put you to great expense.’

  ‘Pooh! Pooh!’

  ‘And — trouble. A vast deal of trouble,’ she repeated in an odd tone of raillery, while her eyes, grown hard and mocking, raked him mercilessly. ‘So much for so little! I could not — I could not accept it. A hundred guineas a year, Sir George, from one in your position to one in mine, would only lay me open to the tongue of slander. You had better say — fifty.’

  ‘Oh, no!’

  ‘Or — thirty, I am sure thirty were ample! Say thirty guineas a year, dear sir; and leave me my character.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ he answered, a trifle discomfited. Strange, she was seizing her old position. The weapon he had wrought for her punishment was being turned against himself.

  ‘Or, I don’t know that thirty is not too much!’ she continued, her eyes unnaturally bright, her voice keen as a razor.’ ’Twould have been enough if offered through your lawyers. But at your own mouth, Sir George, ten shillings a week should do, and handsomely! Which reminds me — it was a kind thought to come yourself to see me; I wonder why you did.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘to be frank, it was Dr. Addington—’

  ‘Oh, Dr. Addington — Dr. Addington suggested it! Because I fancied — it could not give you pleasure to see me like this?’ she continued with a flashing eye, her passion for a brief moment breaking forth. ‘Or to go back a month or two and call me child? Or to speak to me as to your chambermaid? Or even to give me ten shillings a week?’

  ‘No,’ he said gravely; ‘perhaps not, my dear.’

  She winced and her eyes flashed; but she controlled herself. ‘Still, I shall take your ten shillings a week,’ she said. ‘And — and is that all? Or is there anything else?’

  ‘Only this,’ he said firmly. ‘You’ll please to remember that the ten shillings a week is of your own choosing. You’ll do me that justice at least. A hundred guineas a year was the allowance I proposed. And — I bet a guinea you ask for it, my dear, before the year is out!’

  She was like a tigress outraged; she writhed under the insult. And yet, because to give vent to her rage were also to bare her heart to his eyes, she had to restrain herself, and endure even this with a scarlet cheek. She had thought to shame him by accepting the money he offered; by accepting it in the barest form. The shame was hers; it did not seem to touch him a whit. At last, ‘You are mistaken,’ she answered, in a voice she strove to render steady. ‘I shall not! And now, if there is nothing more, sir—’

  ‘There is,’ he said. ‘Are you sufficiently punished?’

  She looked at him wildly — suddenly, irresistibly compelled to do so by a new tone in his voice. ‘Punished!’ she stammered, almost inaudibly. ‘For what?’

  ‘Do you not know?’

  ‘No,’ she muttered, her heart fluttering strangely.

  ‘For this travesty,’ he answered; and coolly, as he stood before her, he twitched the sleeve of her shapeless gown, looking masterfully down at her the while, so that her eyes fell before his. ‘Did you think it kind to me or fair to me,’ he continued, almost sternly, ‘to make that difficult, Julia, which my honour required, and which you knew that my honour required? Which, if I had not come to do, you would have despised me in your heart, and presently with your lips? Did you think it fair to widen the distance between us by this — this piece of play-acting? Give me your hand.’

  She obeyed, trembling, tongue-tied. He held it an instant, looked at it, and dropped it almost contemptuously. ‘It has not cleaned that step before,’ he said. ‘Now put up your hair.’

  She did so with shaking fingers, her cheeks pale, tears oozing from under her lowered eyelashes. He devoured her with his gaze.

  ‘Now go to your room,’ he said. ‘Take off that rag and come to me properly dressed.’

  ‘How?’ she whispered.

  ‘As my wife.’

  ‘It is impossible,’ she cried with a gesture of despair; ‘It is impossible.’

  ‘Is that the answer you would have given me at Manton Corner?’

  ‘Oh no, no!’ she cried. ‘But everything is changed.’

  ‘Nothing is changed.’

  ‘You said so,’ she retorted feverishly. ‘You said that it was changed!’

  ‘And have you, too, told the whole truth?’ he retorted. ‘Go, silly child! If you are determined to play Pamela to the end, at least you shall play it in other guise than this. ’Tis impossible to touch you! And yet, if you stand long and tempt me, I vow, sweet, I shall fall!’

  To his astonishment she burst into hysterical laughter. ‘I thought men wooed — with promises!’ she cried. ‘Why don’t you tell me I shall have my jewels; and my box at the Opera and the King’s House? And go to Vauxhall and the Masquerades? And have my frolic in the pit with the best? And keep my own woman as ugly as I please? He did; and I said Yes to him! Why don’t you say the same?’

  Sir George was prepared for almost anything, but not for that. His face grew dark. ‘He did? Who did?’ he asked grimly, his eyes on her face.

  ‘Lord Almeric! And I said Yes to him — for three hours.’

  ‘Lord Almeric?’

  ‘Yes! For three hours,’ she answered with a laugh, half hysterical, half despairing. ‘If you must know, I thought you had carried me off to — to get rid of my claim — and me! I thought — I thought you had only been playing with me,’ she continued, involuntarily betraying by her tone how deep had been her misery. ‘I was only Pamela, and ’twas cheaper, I thought, to send me to the Plantations than to marry me.’

  ‘And Lord Almeric offered you marriage?’

  ‘I might have been my lady,’ she cried in bitter ab
asement. ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you accepted him?’

  ‘Yes! Yes, I accepted him.’

  ‘And then— ‘Pon honour, ma’am, you are good at surprises. I fear I don’t follow the course of events,’ Sir George said icily.

  ‘Then I changed my mind — the same day,’ she replied. She was shaking on her feet with emotion; but in his jealousy he had no pity on her weakness. ‘You know, a woman may change her mind once, Sir George,’ she added with a feeble smile.

  ‘I find that I don’t know as much about women — as I thought I did,’ Sir George answered grimly. ‘You seem, ma’am, to be much sought after. One man can hardly hope to own you. Pray have you any other affairs to confess?’

  ‘I have told you — all,’ she said.

  His face dark, he hung a moment between love and anger; looking at her. Then, ‘Did he kiss you?’ he said between his teeth. ‘No!’ she cried fiercely.

  ‘You swear it?’

  She flashed a look at him.

  But he had no mercy. ‘Why not?’ he persisted, moving a step nearer her. ‘You were betrothed to him. You engaged yourself to him, ma’am. Why not?’

  ‘Because — I did not love him,’ she answered so faintly he scarcely heard.

  He drew a deep breath. ‘May I kiss you?’ he said.

  She looked long at him, her face quivering between tears and smiles, a great joy dawning in the depths of her eyes. ‘If my lord wills,’ she said at last, ‘when I have done his bidding and — and changed — and dressed as—’

  But he did not wait.

  CHAPTER XXXVIII

  THE CLERK OF THE LEASES

  When Sir George left the house, an hour later, it happened that the first person he met in the street was Mr. Fishwick. For a day or two after the conference at the Castle Inn the attorney had gone about, his ears on the stretch to catch the coming footstep. The air round him quivered with expectation. Something would happen. Sir George would do something. But with each day that passed eventless, the hope and expectation grew weaker; the care with which the attorney avoided his guest’s eyes, more marked; until by noon of this day he had made up his mind that if Sir George came at all, it would be as the wolf and not as the sheep-dog. While Julia, proud and mute, was resolving that if her lover came she would save him from himself by showing him how far he had to stoop, the attorney in the sourness of defeat and a barren prospect — for he scarcely knew which way to turn for a guinea — was resolving that the ewe-lamb must be guarded and all precautions taken to that end.

  When he saw the gentleman issue from his door therefore, still more when Sir George with a kindly smile held out his hand, a condescension which the attorney could not remember that he had ever extended to him before, Mr. Fishwick’s prudence took fright. ‘Too much honoured, Sir George,’ he said, bowing low. Then stiffly, and looking from his visitor to the house and back again, ‘But, pardon me, sir, if there is any matter of business, any offer to be made to my client, it were well, I think — if it were made through me.’

  I thank you,’ Sir George answered. ‘I do not think that there is anything more to be done. I have made my offer.’

  ‘Oh!’ the lawyer cried.

  ‘And it has been accepted,’ Soane continued, smiling at his dismay. ‘I believe that you have been a good friend to your client, Mr. Fishwick. I shall be obliged if you will allow her to remain under your roof until to-morrow, when she has consented to honour me by becoming my wife.’

  ‘Your wife?’ Mr. Fishwick ejaculated, his face a picture of surprise. ‘To-morrow?’

  ‘I brought a licence with me,’ Sir George answered. ‘I am now on my way to secure the services of a clergyman.’

  The tears stood in Mr. Fishwick’s eyes, and his voice shook. ‘I felicitate you, sir,’ he said, taking off his hat. ‘God bless you, sir. Sir George, you are a very noble gentleman!’ And then, remembering himself, he hastened to beg the gentleman’s pardon for the liberty he had taken.

  Sir George nodded kindly. ‘There is a letter for you in the house, Mr. Fishwick,’ he said, ‘which I was asked to convey to you. For the present, good-day.’

  Mr. Fishwick stood and watched him go with eyes wide with astonishment; nor was it until he had passed from sight that the lawyer turned and went into his house. On a bench in the passage he found a letter. It was formally directed after the fashion of those days ‘To Mr. Peter Fishwick, Attorney at Law, at Wallingford in Berkshire, by favour of Sir George Soane of Estcombe, Baronet.’

  ‘Lord save us, ’tis an honour,’ the attorney muttered. ‘What is it?’ and with shaking hands he cut the thread that confined the packet. The letter, penned by Dr. Addington, was to this effect:

  ‘Sir, — I am directed by the Right Honourable the Earl of Chatham, Lord Keeper of His Majesty’s Privy Seal, to convey to you his lordship’s approbation of the conduct displayed by you in a late transaction. His lordship, acknowledging no higher claim to employment than probity, nor any more important duty in the disposition of patronage than the reward of integrity, desires me to intimate that the office of Clerk of the Leases in the Forest of Dean, which is vacant and has been placed at his command, is open for your acceptance. He is informed that the emoluments of the office arising from fees amount in good years to five hundred pounds, and in bad years seldom fall below four hundred.

  His lordship has made me the channel of this communication, that I may take the opportunity of expressing my regret that a misunderstanding at one time arose between us. Accept, sir, this friendly assurance of a change of sentiment, and allow me to

  ‘Have the honour to be, sir,

  ‘Your obedient servant,

  ‘J. Addington.’

  ‘Clerk of the Leases — in the Forest of Dean — have been known in bad years — to fall to four hundred!’ Mr. Fishwick ejaculated, his eyes like saucers. ‘Oh, Lord, I am dreaming! I must be dreaming! If I don’t get my cravat untied, I shall have a lit! Four hundred in bad years! It’s a — oh, it’s incredible! They’ll not believe it! I vow they’ll not believe it!’

  But when he turned to seek them, he saw that they had stolen a march on him, that they knew it already and believed it! Between him and the tiny plot of grass, the urn, and the espalier, which, still caught the last beams of the setting sun, he surprised two happy faces spying on his joy — the one beaming through a hundred puckers with a mother’s tearful pride; the other, the most beautiful in the world, and now softened and elevated by every happy emotion.

  Mr. Dunborough stood his trial at the next Salisbury assizes, and, being acquitted of the murder of Mr. Pomeroy, was found guilty of manslaughter. He pleaded his clergy, went through the formality of being branded in the hand with a cold iron, and was discharged on payment of his fees. He lived to be the fifth Viscount Dunborough, a man neither much worse nor much better than his neighbours; and dying at a moderate age — in his bed, of gout in the stomach — escaped the misfortune which awaited some of his friends; who, living beyond the common span, found themselves shunned by a world which could find no worse to say of them than that they lived in their age as all men of fashion had lived in their youth.

  Mr. Thomasson was less fortunate. Bully Pomeroy’s dying words and the evidence of the man Tamplin were not enough to bring the crime home to him. But representations were made to his college, and steps were taken to compel him to resign his Fellowship. Before these came to an issue, he was arrested for debt, and thrown into the Fleet. There he lingered for a time, sinking into a lower and lower state of degradation, and making ever more and more piteous appeals to the noble pupils who owed so much of their knowledge of the world to his guidance. Beyond this point his career is not to be traced, but it is improbable that it was either creditable to him or edifying to his friends.

  To-day the old Bath road is silent, or echoes only the fierce note of the cyclist’s bell. The coaches and curricles, wigs and hoops, bolstered saddles and carriers’ waggons are gone with the beaux and fine ladies and gentlemen’s g
entlemen whose environment they were; and the Castle Inn is no longer an inn. Under the wide eaves that sheltered the love passages of Sir George and Julia, in the panelled halls that echoed the steps of Dutch William and Duke Chandos, through the noble rooms that a Seymour built that Seymours might be born and die under their frescoed ceilings, the voices of boys and tutors now sound. The boys are divided from the men of that day by four generations, the tutors from the man we have depicted, by a moral gulf infinitely greater. Yet is the change in a sense outward only; for where the heart of youth beats, there, and not behind fans or masks, the ‘Stand!’ of the highwayman, or the ‘Charge!’ of the hero, lurks the high romance.

  Nor on the outside is all changed at the Castle Inn. Those who in this quiet lap of the Wiltshire Downs are busy moulding the life of the future are reverent of the past. The old house stands stately, high-roofed, almost unaltered, its great pillared portico before it; hard by are the Druids’ Mound, and Preshute Church in the lap of trees. Much water has run under the bridge that spans the Kennet since Sir George and Julia sat on the parapet and watched the Salisbury coach come in; the bridge that was of wood is of brick — but there it is, and the Kennet still flows under it, watering the lawns and flowering shrubs that Lady Hertford loved. Still can we trace in fancy the sweet-briar hedge and the border of pinks which she planted by the trim canal; and a bowshot from the great school can lose all knowledge of the present in the crowding memories which the Duelling Green and the Bowling Alley, trodden by the men and women of a past generation, awaken in the mind.

  THE END

  WHEN LOVE CALLS

  CONTENTS

  I.

  II

  A Strange Invitation

  The Invisible Portraits.

  Along the Garonne.

  I.

  HER STORY

  “Clare,” I said, “I wish that we had brought some better clothes, if it were only one frock. You look the oddest figure.”