An ominous silence was the only answer. He tried the gate a second time, in a shamefaced way. “My dear,” he cried aloud, a quaver in his patient tone, “I have come back.”
“And more shame to you,” a shrill voice answered, the speaker remaining unseen. “Do you hear me, Michieson? More shame to you, you unnatural father! Didn’t you hear me say I would not have you going to that place? And didn’t I tell you if you went you would not come here again! You thought yourself mighty clever, I’ll be bound,” the termagant continued, “to go off while I was asleep, my man! But now you’ll sleep in the garden house, for in here you don’t come! Who’s that with you?”
“A — a young lady in trouble,” he stammered.
“Where did you find her?”
“On the road, my love! In great trouble.”
“Then on the road you may leave her,” the shrew retorted. “No, my man, you don’t come over me that way. You brought the hussy from that house. Tell me she’s not been in it, if you dare? And you’d bring her in among your innocent, lawful children, would you, and give ’em their deaths! Fie,” with rising indignation, “you silly old fool! If you weren’t a natural, in place of such rubbish, you’d have been over to Sir Hervey’s and complimented madam this fine morning, and been ‘pointed chaplain. But ’tis like you. Instead of providing for your wife and children, as a man should, you’re trying to give ’em their deaths, among a lot of dead people that’ll never find you in a bit of bread to put in their bellies, or a bit of stuff to put on their backs! I tell you, Michieson, I’ve no patience with you.”
“But, my dear — —”
“Now send her packing. Do you hear me, Michieson?”
He was going to remonstrate, but Sophia intervened. Spent with fatigue, her feet sore and blistered, she felt that she could not go a yard further. Moreover, to eyes dazed by the horrors of the night, the thatched house among the rose-briars, with its hum of bees and scent of woodbine and honey-suckle, seemed a haven of peace. She raised her voice. “Mrs. Michieson,” she said, “your husband need not go to Sir Hervey’s. I am Lady Coke.”
With a cry of amazement a thin, red-faced woman, scantily dressed in an old soiled wrapper that had known a richer wearer — for Mrs. Michieson had been a lady’s maid — pushed through the bushes. She stared a moment with all her eyes; then she burst into a rude laugh. “You mean her woman, I should think,” she said. “Why, you saucy piece, you must think us fine simpletons to try for to come over us with that story. Lady Coke in her stockinged feet, indeed!”
“I have been robbed,” Sophia faltered, trying not to break down. “You are a woman. Surely you have some pity for another woman in trouble?”
“Aye, you are like enough to have been in trouble! That I can see!” the parson’s lady answered with a sneer. “But I’ll trouble you not to call me a woman!” she continued, tossing her head. “Woman, indeed! A pretty piece you are to call names, trapesing the country like a guy, and — why, whose cloak have you there? Michieson!” in a voice like vinegar. “What does this mean?”
“My dear,” he said humbly — Sophia, on the verge of tears, could say no more lest she should break down, “the — the lady was robbed on the road. She was travelling in her carriage — —”
“In her carriage?”
“And her servants ran away — as I understand,” he explained, rubbing his hands, and smiling in a sickly way, “and the postboys did not return, and — and her woman — —”
“Her woman!”
“Well, yes, my dear, so she tells me, was so frightened she stayed with the carriage. And her friend, a — another lady, escaped in the dark with some jewels — and — —”
“Michieson!” madam cried, in her most awful voice, “did you believe this — this cock and bull story that you dare to repeat to me?”
He glanced from one to the other. “Well, my dear,” he answered in confusion, “I — at least, the lady told me — —”
“Did you believe it? Yes or no! Did you believe it?”
“Well, I — —”
“Did you go to look for the carriage?”
“Yes, my dear, I did.”
“And did you find it?”
“Well, no,” the clergyman confessed. “I did not.”
“Nor the servants?”
“No, but — —”
She did not let him explain. “Now,” she cried, with shrill triumph, “you see what a fool you are! And where you’d be if it were not for me. Did she say a word about being Lady Coke until she heard her name from me? Eh? Answer me that, did she?”
Very miserable, he glanced at Sophia. “Well, no, my dear, I don’t think she did!” he admitted.
“So I thought!” madam cried. And then with a cruel gesture, “off with it, you baggage! Off with it!” she continued. “Do you think I don’t know that the moment my back is turned you’ll be gone, and a good cloak with you! No, off with it, my ragged madam, and thank your stars I don’t send you to the stocks!”
But her husband plucked up spirit at that.
“No,” he said firmly. “No, she shall keep the cloak till she can get a covering. For shame, wife, for shame,” he continued with a smack of dignity. “Do you never think that a daughter of yours may some day stand in her shoes?”
“You fool, she has got none!” his wife snarled. “And you’ll give her that cloak, at your peril.”
“She shall keep it, till she gets a covering,” he answered.
“Then she’ll keep it somewhere else, not here!” the termagant answered in a fury. “Do you call yourself a parson and go trapesing the country with a slut like that! And your lawful wife left at home?”
Sophia, white with exhaustion, could scarcely keep her feet, but at that she plucked up spirit. “The cloak I shall keep, for it is your husband’s,” she said. “For yourself, ma’am, you will bitterly repent before the day is out that you have treated me in this way.”
“Hoity-toity! you’d threaten me, would you?” the other cried viciously. “Here, Tom, Bill! Ha’ you no stones. Here’s a besom ill-speaking your mother. Ah, I thought you’d be going, ma’am,” she continued, leaning over the gate, with a grin of satisfaction. “It’ll be in the stocks you’ll sit before the day is out, I’m thinking.”
But Sophia was out of hearing; rage and indignation gave her strength. But not for long. The reception with which she had met, in a place where, of all places, peace and charity and a seat for the wretched should have been found, broke down the last remains of endurance. As soon as the turn in the road hid her from the other woman’s eyes, she sank on a bank, unable to go farther. She must eat and drink and rest, or she must die.
Fortunately, the poor vicar, worthy of a better mate, had not quite abandoned her cause. After standing a moment divided between indignation and fear, he allowed the more generous impulse to have way; he followed and found her. Shocked to read exhaustion plainly written on her face, horrified by the thought that she might die at his door, that door which day and night should have been open to the distressed, he half led and half carried her to the little garden house to which his wife had exiled him; and which by good fortune stood in an orchard, beyond, but close to the curtilage of the house. Here he left her a moment, and procuring the drudge of a servant to hand him a little bread and milk over the fence, he fed her with his own hands, and waited patiently beside her until the colour returned to her face.
Relieved by the sight, and satisfied that she was no longer in danger, he began to be troubled; glancing furtively at her and away again, and often moving to the door of the shed, which looked out on a pleasant plot of grass dappled with sunlight, and overhung by drooping boughs on which the late blossom lingered. Finally, seeing her remain languid and spiritless, he blurted out what was in his mind. “I daren’t keep you here,” he muttered, with a flush of shame. “If my wife discovers you, she may do you a mischief. And the fear of the smallpox is such, they’d stone you out of the parish if they knew you had been at Bea
mond’s — God forgive them!”
Sophia looked at him in astonishment. “But I have told you who I am,” she said. “I am Lady Coke. Surely you believe me.”
“Child!” he said in a tone of gentle reproof. “Let be. You don’t know what you say. There’s not an acre in this parish is not Sir Hervey’s, nor a house, nor a barn. Is it likely his honour’s lady would be wandering shoeless in the road?”
She laughed hysterically. Tragedy and comedy were strangely mingled this morning. “Yet it is so,” she said. “It is so.”
He shook his head in reproof, but did not answer.
“You don’t believe me?” she cried. “How far is it to Coke Hall?”
“About three miles,” he answered unwillingly.
“Then the doubt is solved. Go thither! Go thither at once!” she continued, the power to think returning, and with it the remembrance of Lady Betty’s danger. “At once!” she repeated, rising in her impatience, while a flood of colour swept over her face. “You must see Sir Hervey, and tell him that Lady Coke is here, and that Lady Betty Cochrane is missing; that we have been robbed, and he must instantly, instantly before he comes here, make search for her.”
The old parson stared. “For whom?” he stammered.
“For Lady Betty Cochrane, who was with me.”
He continued to stare; with the beginnings of doubt in his eyes. “Child,” he said, “are you sure you are not bubbling me? ‘Twill be a poor victory over a simple old man.”
“I am not! I am not!” she cried. And suddenly bethinking her of the pocket that commonly hung between the gown and petticoat, she felt for it. She had placed her rings as well as her purse in it. Alas, it was gone! The strings had yielded to rough usage.
None the less, the action went some way with him. He saw her countenance fall, he read the disappointment it expressed, he told himself that if she acted, she was the best actress in the world. “Enough,” he said, almost persuaded of the truth of her story. “I will go, ma’am. If ’tis a cheat, I forgive you beforehand. And if it is the cloak you want, take it honestly. I give it you.”
But she looked at him so wrathfully at that, that he said no more, but went. He took up his stick, and as he passed out of sight among the trees he waved his hand in token of forgiveness — if after all she was fooling him.
CHAPTER XXI
THE STROLLING PLATERS
He pushed on sturdily until he came to the high road, and the turn that led to Beamond’s farm. There his heart began to misgive him. The impression which Sophia’s manner had made on his mind was growing weak; the improbability of her story rose more clearly before him. That a woman tramping the roads in her petticoats could be Lady Coke, the young bride of the owner of all the country side, seemed, now that he weighed it in cold blood, impossible. And from misgiving he was not slow in passing to repentance. How much better it would have been, he thought, had he pursued his duty to the dead and the parish with a single eye, instead of starting on this wild-goose chase. How much better — and even now it was not too late. He paused; he as good as turned. But in the end he remembered that he had given the girl his word, and, turning his back on Beamond’s farm, he walked in the opposite direction.
He had not gone far when he saw a young man of a strange raffish appearance coming along the road to meet him. The man swung a stick as he walked, and looked about him with a devil-may-care air which on the instant led the good parson to set him down for a strolling player. As such he was for passing him with a good day, and no more. But the other, who had also marked him from a distance, stopped when they came to close quarters.
“Well met, Master Parson!” he cried. “And how far may you have come?”
“A mile or a little less,” the vicar answered mildly. And seeing, now that they were face to face, that the stranger was little more than a lad, he went on to ask him if he could be of service to him.
“Have you seen a lady on the road?”
The clergyman started. “Dear, dear!” he said. “’Tis well met, indeed, sir, and a mercy you stayed me. To be sure I have! She is no farther away than my house at this moment!”
“The devil she is!” the young man answered heartily. “That’s to the purpose then. I was beginning to think — but never mind! Come on, and tell her woman where she is.”
“Certainly I will. Is she here?”
“She’s sitting in the hedge at the next corner. It’s on your way. Lord!” with a sigh of relief, not unmixed with pride, “what a night I have had of it!”
“Indeed, sir,” his reverence said with sympathy; and as they turned to proceed side by side, he eyed his neighbour curiously.
“Aye, indeed, and indeed!” Tom answered. “You’d say so if you’d been called out of bed the moment you were in it, and after a long day’s tramp too! And been dragged up and down the country the whole live-long night, my friend.”
“Dear me; is it so, sir? And you were in her ladyship’s company when she was stopped, I suppose, sir?”
“I? Not at all, or it would not have happened. I’ve never set eyes on her.”
“Her servants fetched you then?”
“Her woman did! I’ve seen no more of them.”
The vicar pricked up his ears. “Nor the carriage?” he ventured.
“Not I. Hasn’t she got the carriage with her?”
Mr. Michieson rubbed his head. “No,” he said slowly; “no, she has not. Do I understand then, sir, that — that you are yourself a complete stranger to the parties?”
“I? Totally. But here’s her woman. She can tell you about it. Oh, you need not look at me,” Tom continued with a grin, as the vicar, startled by the sight of the handsome gipsy-like girl, looked at him dubiously. “She’s a pretty piece, I know, to be straying the country, but I’m not in fault. I never set eyes on the little witch until last night.” And then, “Here, child,” he cried, waving his hat to her, “I’ve news! Your lady is at the parson’s, and all’s well! Now you can thank me that I did not let you go into the smallpox.”
Lady Betty clasped her hands. Her face was radiant. “Are you sure? Are you quite sure?” she cried, her voice trembling. “Are you sure she is safe?”
“She is quite safe,” Mr. Michieson answered slowly; and he looked in wonder from one to the other. There was something suspiciously alike in their tumbled finery, their dishevelled appearance. “I was even now on my way,” he continued, “to Coke Hall to convey the news to Sir Hervey.”
It was Tom’s turn to utter a cry of astonishment. “To Sir Hervey?” he said. “To Sir Hervey Coke, do you mean?”
“To be sure, sir.”
“But — why, to be sure, I might have known,” Tom cried. “Was she going there?”
“She is his wife, sir.”
Tom laughed with a knowing air. “Oh, but that’s a flam at any rate!” he said. “Sir Hervey’s not married. I saw him myself, ten days ago.”
The girl stood up. “Where?” she said.
“Where?”
“Aye, where, sir, where, since you are so free with his name?”
“In Clarges Row, in London, if you must know,” Tom answered, his face reddening at the reminiscence. “And if he’d been married, or had thoughts of being married then, he’d have told me.”
Lady Betty stared at him, her breath coming quickly; something began to dawn in her eyes. “Told you, would he?” she said slowly. “He’d have told you? And who may you be, if you please?”
“Well,” Tom answered a trifle sharply, “my name is Maitland, and for the matter of that, my girl, you need not judge me by my clothes. I know Sir Hervey, and — —”
He did not finish. To his indignation, to the clergyman’s astonishment, the girl went into a fit of laughter; laughing till she cried, and drying her eyes only that she might laugh again. Sir Tom stared and fumed and swore; while the vicar looked from one to the other, and asked himself — not for the first time — whether they were acting together, or the man was as innocent as he appeared
to be.
One thing he could make clear, and he hastened to do it. “I don’t know why you laugh, child,” he said patiently. “At the same time, the gentleman is certainly wrong in the fact. Sir Hervey Coke is married, for I had it from the steward some days ago, and I am to go with the tenants to the Hall to see her ladyship.”
Tom stared. “Sir Hervey Coke married!” he cried in amazement, and forgot the girl’s rudeness. “Since I saw him? Married? Impossible! Whom do you say he has married?”
The vicar coughed. “Well, ’tis odd, sir, but it’s a lady of the same name — as yourself.”
“Maitland?”
“Yes, sir! A Miss Maitland, a sister of Sir Thomas Maitland, of Cuckfield.”
Sir Tom’s eyes grew wide. “Good Lord!” he cried; “Sophia!”
“A relation, sir? Do I understand you that she’s of your family?”
“My sister, sir; my sister.”
The clergyman stared a moment, and then without comment he walked aside and looked over the hedge. He smiled feebly at the well-known prospect. Was it possible, he asked himself, that they thought he could swallow this? That they deemed him so simple, so rustic, that such a piece of play-acting as this could impose upon him? Beyond a doubt they were in league together; with their fine story and their apt surprise, and “my lady” in his garden. The only point on which he felt doubt was the advantage they looked to draw from it, since the moment he reached the Hall the bubble must burst.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 360