Madam flamed up. “And what, sir, is it to you if I did!” she cried. And she rose sharply.
“Your pardon! I did not mean — —”
“I say, sir, what is it to you if I did?” she repeated in a tone of the utmost resentment. “If I did come from Davies Street, and come here? I don’t remember to have met you before, and I fail to see what ground you had for following me or for watching my movements. I am sure I never gave you any, and I am not used to impertinence. For the rest, I am expecting some friends — Grocott?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Show this gentleman out. Or — or perhaps I am hasty,” she continued, in a lower tone and with an abrupt return of good nature. “The last thing I should wish to be to any gentleman,” with a glance from a pair of handsome eyes. “If I have met you at any time — at my Lady Bellamy’s perhaps, sir?”
“No, ma’am, I think not.”
“Or at that good-natured creature, Conyers’ — dear delightful woman; you know her, I am sure?”
“No,” Coke said, bluntly, “I have not the honour of her ladyship’s acquaintance; and I don’t think I need trouble you farther. If there is no one else in the house, it is evident I have made a mistake. I offer my apologies, ma’am, regretting extremely that I trespassed on you.”
“I occupy the only rooms,” she answered drily. “And — Grocott, if the gentleman is quite satisfied — the door please! And send my woman to me.”
Sir Hervey bowed, muttered a last word of apology, and with a look round the room, which brought to light nothing new except a handsome mail that stood packed and strapped in a corner, he passed out. After all, his discovery explained the appearance of the bailiffs outside Wollenhope’s. The over-dressed air and easy manners of the lady he had seen were those of one not given to economy, nor, probably, too particular as to ways and means. It accounted, also, for the lady’s departure from Davies Street immediately after her arrival. Clearly Lane had misinformed the Northeys. It was not Sophia who had gone to the house in Davies Street; nor Sophia who had left that house in a gentleman’s company. Then where was she?
As he paused in the passage revolving the question and seeking half a crown to give to the man whom he had suspected without reason, a dull sound as of a muffled hammer beating wood caught his ear. He had heard it indistinctly in the parlour — it appeared to come from the upper floor; but he had given no heed to it. “What’s that?” he asked, idly, as he drew out a coin.
“That noise, your honour?”
“Yes.”
“My journeyman. Perhaps you’d like to see him,” Grocott continued with a malicious grin. “May be he’s the young lady you’re looking for. Oh, make yourself at home, sir,” he added bitterly. “A poor man mustn’t grumble if his house isn’t his own and his lodgers are insulted.”
“Here,” Coke said, and dropping the half-crown into the dirty hand extended for it, he passed out. Instantly the door clanged behind him, the chain was put up, a bolt was shot; but although Sir Hervey stood a moment uncertain which way he should go, or what he should do next, he did not notice these extreme precautions, nor the pale, ugly face of triumph that watched him from the window as he turned south to go to Arlington Street.
CHAPTER XI
THE TUG OF WAR
At the corner of Bolton Row Sir Hervey paused. He felt, to be candid, a trifle awkward in the rôle of knight-errant, a part reserved in those days for Lord Peterborough. The Northeys’ heartless cynicism, and their instant and cruel desertion of the girl, had stirred the chivalry that underlay his cold exterior. But from the first he had been aware that his status in the matter was ill-defined; he now began to see it in a worse, an absurd light. He had taken the field in the belief that Sophia had not stayed in Davies Street; that Hawkesworth, therefore, was beside the question; and that whatever folly she had committed, she had not altogether compromised herself; he now found the data on which he had acted painfully erroneous. She had not stayed in Davies Street, because she had not gone to Davies Street. But she might have joined Hawkesworth elsewhere; she might by this time be his wife; she might be gone with him never to return!
In that event Coke began to see that his part in the matter would prove to be worse than ridiculous; and he paused at the corner of Bolton Row, uncertain whether he should not go home and erase with a sore heart a foolish child’s face from his memory. His was a day of coarse things; of duchesses who talked as fishwives talk now, of madcap maids of honour, such as she —
Who, as down the stairs she jumps,
Sings over the hills and far away,
Despising doleful dumps!
of bishops seen at strange levées, of clergy bribed with livings to take strange wives; of hoyden lady Kitties, whose talk was a jumble of homely saws and taproom mock-modesties; of old men still swearing as they had sworn in Flanders in their youth. At the best it was not an age of ideals; but neither was it an age of hypocrisy, and women were plentiful. Why, then, all this trouble for one? And for one who had showed him plainly what she thought of him.
For a moment, at the corner of Bolton Row, Sophia’s fate hung in the balance. Hung so nicely, that if Coke had not paused there, but had proceeded straight through Bolton Street, to Piccadilly, and so to Arlington Street, her lot would have been very different. But the debate kept him standing long enough to bring to a point — not many yards from the corner — two figures, which had just detached themselves from the crowd about Shepherd’s Market. In the act of stepping across the gutter, he saw them, glanced carelessly at them, and stood. As the two, one behind the other, came up, almost brushing him, and turned to enter Clarges Row, he reached out his cane and touched the foremost.
“Why, Tom!” he cried. “Is it you, lad? Well met!”
HE STOOD, GRINNING IN HIS FINERY, UNABLE TO SAY A WORD
Tom — for it was he — turned at the sound of his name, and seeing who it was recoiled, as if the cane that touched him had been red hot. The colour mounted to his wig; he stood, grinning in his finery, unable to say a word. “Why, Tom!” Sir Hervey repeated, as he held out his hand, “What is it, lad? Have you bad news? You are on the same business as I am, I take it?”
Tom blushed redder and redder, and shifted his feet uneasily. “I don’t know, Sir Hervey,” he stammered. “I don’t know what your business is, you see.”
“Well, you can easily guess,” Coke answered, never doubting that Tom had heard what was forward, and had posted from Cambridge in pursuit of his sister. “Have you news? That’s the point.”
Tom had only his own affair in his mind. He wondered how much the other knew, and more than half suspected that he was being roasted. So “News?” he faltered. “What sort of news, sir?” He had known Sir Hervey all his life, and still felt for him the respect which a lad feels for the man of experience and fashion.
Coke stared at him. “What sort of news?” he exclaimed. “It isn’t possible you don’t know what has happened, boy?” Then, seeing that the person who had come up with Tom was at his elbow, listening, “Is this fellow with you?” he cried angrily. “If so, bid him stand back a little.”
“Yes, he’s with me,” Tom answered, sheepishly; and turning to the lad, who was laden with a great nosegay of flowers as well as a paper parcel from which some white Spitalfields ribbons protruded, he bade him go on. “Go on,” he said, “I’ll follow you. The last house on the right.”
Sir Hervey heard, and stared afresh. “What?” he cried. “Grocott’s?”
Tom winced, and changed his feet uneasily, cursing his folly in letting out so much. “It’s only something that — that he’s taking there,” he muttered.
“But you know about your sister?”
“Sophia?” Tom blurted out. “Oh, she’s all right. She’s all right, I tell you. You need not trouble about her.”
“Indeed? Then where is she? Where is she, man? Out with it.”
“She’s with me.”
“With you?” Sir Hervey cried, his cynicism q
uite gone. “With you?”
“Yes.”
“Was it you who — who took her from Davies Street, then?”
“To be sure,” Tom said. In his preoccupation with his own affairs his sister’s position had been forgotten. Now he began to recover himself; he began, too, to see that he had done rather a clever thing. “Yes, I was there when she met that fellow,” he continued. “Hawkesworth, you know, and I brought her away. I tell you what, Sir Hervey, that fellow’s low. He should be in the Clink. She found him out sharp, before he had time to sit down, and it’s lucky I was there to bring her away, or Lord knows what would have happened. For he’s a monstrous rascal, and the people of the house are none too good!”
“Last night was it?”
“Yes.”
“And you took her to Grocott’s?” Sir Hervey could not make the tales agree.
“Ye — es,” Tom faltered; but the word died on his lips, and he grew hot again. He saw too late that he had put his foot in a hobble from which he would find it hard to extricate himself, with all his skill. For it wanted only a few minutes of noon, and at Grocott’s, a hundred paces away, his bride was expecting him. Presently Keith, the Mayfair parson, from whom he had just come after making the last arrangements, would be expecting both! Even now he ought to be at Grocott’s; even now he ought to be on his way to the chapel in Curzon Street. And Grocott’s was in sight; from where he stood he could see the boy with the flowers and wedding favours waiting at the door. But Coke — Coke the inopportune — had hold of his elbow, and if he went to Grocott’s, would wish to go with him — would wish to see his sister, and from her would hear all about the marriage. Aye, and hearing, would interfere!
The cup of Tantalus was a little thing beside this, and Tom’s cheeks burned; the wildest projects flashed through his brain. Should he take Sir Hervey to Grocott’s, inveigle him into a bedroom and lock him up till the wedding was over? Or should he turn that instant, and take to his heels like any common pickpocket, without word or explanation, and so lead him from the place? He might do that, and return by coach himself, and ——
Coke broke the tangled thread of thought. “There is something amiss, here,” he said with decision. “She is not at Grocott’s. Or they lied to me.”
“She’s not?” Tom cried, with a sigh of relief. “You’ve been there? Then you may be sure she has gone to Arlington Street. That is it, you may be sure!”
“Aye, but they said at Grocott’s that she had not been there,” Coke retorted, looking more closely at Tom, and beginning to discern something odd in his manner. “If she’s been there at all, how do you explain that, my boy?”
“She’s been there all right,” Tom answered eagerly. “I’m bail she has! I tell you it is so! And you may be sure she has gone to Arlington Street. Go there and you’ll find her.”
“I don’t know about that. You don’t think that when your back was turned — —”
“What?”
“She went off again!”
“With Hawkesworth?” Tom cried impatiently. “I tell you she’s found him out! He’s poison to her! She’s there I tell you. Or she was.”
“But Grocott denied her!”
“Oh, nonsense!” Tom said — he was as red as fire with asking himself whom Sir Hervey had seen. “Oh, nonsense,” he repeated, hurriedly; he felt he could bear it no longer. “She was there, and she has gone to Arlington Street.”
“Very good,” Sir Hervey replied. “Then we’ll ask again. The man at the house lied to me, and I’ll have an explanation, or I’ll lay my cane across his shoulders, old as he is! There was some one I did see —— But come along! Come along. We’ll look into this, Tom.”
It was in vain Tom hung back, feebly protesting that she had gone — there was no doubt that she had gone to Arlington Street. Will-he, nill-he, he was dragged along. A moment and the two, Coke swinging his cane ominously, were half-way up the Row. In the midst of his agony Tom got a notion that his companion was taking sidelong looks at his clothes; and he grew hot and hotter, fearing what was to come. When they were within a few yards of the door, a hackney coach passed them, and, turning, came to a stand before the house.
“There! What did I say?” Sir Hervey muttered. “I take it, we are only just in time.”
“Perhaps it’s the coach that took her away,” Tom suggested, trying to restrain his companion. “Shall I go in — I know the people — and — and inquire? Yes, you’d better let me do that,” he continued eagerly, buttonholing Sir Hervey, “perhaps they did not know you. I really think you had better leave it to me, Sir Hervey. I — —”
“No, thank you,” Coke answered drily. “There’s a shorter way. Are you here to take up, my man?”
“To be sure, your honour,” the coachman answered readily. “And long life to her!”
“Eh?”
“Long life to the bride, your honour!”
“Ah!” Sir Hervey said, his face growing dark. “I thought so. I think, my lad,” he continued to Tom, as he knocked at the door, “she and somebody have made a fool of you!”
“No, no,” Tom said, distractedly. “It’s — it’s not for her.”
“We shall soon learn!” Coke answered. And he rapped again imperatively.
Tom tried to tell him the facts; but his throat was dry, his head whirled, he could not get out a word. And by-and-by Grocott’s dragging steps were heard in the passage, the latch was raised, and the door opened.
“Now, sir!” Coke cried, addressing him sharply. “What did you mean by lying to me just now? Here is the gentleman who brought Miss Maitland to your house. And if you don’t tell me, and tell me quickly, where she is, I’ll — I’ll send for the constable!”
Grocott was pale, but his face did not lose its sneering expression. “She’s gone,” he said.
“You said she had not been here.”
“Well, it was her order. I suppose,” with a touch of insolence, “a lady can be private, sir, if she chooses.”
“What time did she go?”
“Ten minutes gone.”
Tom heaved a sigh of relief. “I told you so,” he muttered. “She’s gone to Arlington Street. It’s what I told you.”
“I don’t believe it,” Coke answered. “This coach is for her. It is here to take her to the rascal we know of; and I’ll not leave till I’ve seen her. Why, man,” he continued, incensed as well as perplexed by Tom’s easiness, “have you no blood in your body that you’re ready to stand by while your sister’s fooled by a scoundrel?”
Tom smiled pitifully, and passed his tongue over his lips; he looked guiltily at Grocott, and Grocott at him. The lad’s face was on fire, the sweat stood in beads on Grocott’s forehead. Neither knew with precision the other’s position nor how much he had told. And while the two stood thus, Sir Hervey looking suspiciously from one to the other, the same dull sound Coke had heard before — a sound as of the drumming of heels on the floor — continued in the upper part of the house. The hackney coachman, an interested spectator of the scene, heard it, and looked at the higher windows in annoyance. The sound drowned the speaker’s words.
“Are you going to let me search?” Coke said at last.
Grocott shook his head. He could not speak. He was wondering what they would call the offence at the Old Bailey or Hicks’s Hall. He saw himself in the dock, with the tall spikes and bunches of herbs before him, and the gross crimson face of the Red Judge glowering at him through horn-rimmed spectacles — glowering death. Should he confess and bring her down, and with that put an end to his daughter’s hopes? Or should he stand it out, defy them all, gain time, perhaps go scot free at last?
“Well?” Coke repeated sternly; “have you made up your mind? Am I to send for the constable?”
Still Grocott found no answer. His wits were so jumbled by fear and the predicament in which he found himself, that he could not decide what to do. And while he hesitated, gaping, the matter was taken out of his hands. The door behind him opened, and the lady
whom Sir Hervey had seen before came out of the room.
She looked at the group with a mixture of weariness and impatience. “Is the gentleman not satisfied yet?” she said. “What is all this?”
“I am satisfied, madam,” Sir Hervey retorted, “that I did not hear the truth before.”
“Well, you are too late now,” she answered, “for she’s gone. She didn’t wish to see you, and there’s an end.”
“I shall not believe, ma’am — —”
“Not believe?” she cried, opening her eyes with sudden fire. “I thought you were a gentleman, sir. I suppose you will take a lady’s word?”
“If the lady will tell me for whom the coach at the door is waiting,” Sir Hervey answered quietly; and as he spoke he made good his footing by crossing the threshold. He could not see the hot, foolish face that followed him in to the passage, or he might have been enlightened sooner.
“The coach?” she said. “It is for me.”
“It is for a bride.”
“I am the bride.”
“And the bridegroom?”
Her eyes sparkled. “Come!” she cried. “How is that your affair? We poor women have impertinences enough to suffer on these occasions; but it is new to me that the questions of chance visitors are part of them! Room’s more than company, sometimes,” she added, tossing her head, her accent not quite so genteel as it had been, when she was less moved. “And I’ll be glad to see your back.”
“I beg your pardon a thousand times, ma’am,” Coke replied unmoved. “But I see no impertinence in my question — unless, indeed, you are ashamed of your bridegroom.”
“That I’m not!” she cried. “That I’m not! And” — snapping her fingers in his face— “that for you. You are impertinent! Ashamed? No, sir, I am not!”
“And God forbid I should be ashamed of my bride!” cried a husky voice behind Sir Hervey; who turned as if he had been pinched. “No, I’ll be silent no longer,” Tom continued, his face the colour of a beet, albeit his eyes overflowed with honest devotion. “I’ve played coward too long!” he went on, stretching out his arms as if he were throwing off a weight. “Let go, man” — this to Grocott, as the latter stealthily plucked his sleeve. “Sir Hervey, I didn’t tell you before, but it wasn’t because I was ashamed of my bride. Not I!” poor Tom cried bravely. “It was because I — I thought you might do something to thwart me. This lady has done me the honour of entrusting her happiness to me, and before one o’clock we shall be married. Now you know.”
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 348