Sophia: A Romance

Tom's face flamed. It was in vain Grocott from the doorway made signs to him to be silent. "They don't know," he blurted out.

Sir Hervey looked grave. "I am sorry for that," he said. "I am sure this lady would not wish you, Sir Tom, to do anything-anything underhand. You have your guardians' consent, of course?"

"No," Tom said flatly; "and I am not going to ask for it."

Outwardly, Sir Hervey raised his eyebrows in protest; inwardly, he saw that argument would be thrown away, and wondered what on earth he should do. He had no authority over the boy, and it was not likely that Dr. Keith, an irregular parson, would pay heed to him.

Madam Oriana, scared for a moment, discerned that he was at a loss, and smiled in triumph.

"Well, sir, have you anything more to say?" she cried.

"Not to Tom," Sir Hervey answered.

"And to me?"

"Only, ma'am, that a marriage is not valid if a false name be used."

The shot was not fired quite at large, for he had surprised Grocott calling her not Oriana, but Sallie. And, fired at large or not, her face showed that it reached the mark. Whether Captain Clark of Sabine's Foot still lived, or there had never been a Clark; whether she had foreseen the difficulty and made up her mind to run the risk, or had not thought of it at all, her scowling, beautiful face betrayed dismay as well as rage.

"What have you to do with my name?" she hissed.

"Nothing," he said politely. "But my friend here, much. I hope he knows it, and knows it correctly. That is all."

But Tom was at the end of his patience.

"I do," he cried hotly, "I do know it! And I'll trouble you, Sir Hervey, to let it alone. Oriana, don't think that anything he can say can move me. I see, Sir Hervey, that you are no true friend to us. I might have known it," he continued bitterly. "You have lived all your life where-where marriage is a bargain, and women are sold, and-you don't believe in anything else. You can't; you can't believe in anything else. But I am only sorry for you! Only-only you'll please to remember that this lady is as good as my wife, and I expect her to be treated as such. She'll not need a defender as long as I live," poor Tom continued, gallantly, though his voice shook. "Come, Oriana, the coach is waiting. In a few minutes I shall have a better right to protect you; and then let any one say a word!"

"Tom," Sir Hervey said gravely, "don't do this."

Madam marked his altered tone, and laughed derisively. "Now he's in his true colours!" she cried. "What will you do, Sir Thomas? La! they shall never say that I dragged a man to church against his will. I've more pride than that, though I may not be a dean's daughter."

Tom raised her hand and kissed it, his boyish face aglow with love. "Come, dear," he said. "What is his opinion to us? A little room, if you please, Sir Hervey. We are going."

"No," Coke answered. "You are not going! I'll not have this on my head. Hear sense, boy. If this lady be one whom you may honestly make your wife, you cannot lose, and she must gain, by waiting to be married in a proper fashion."

"And at a nice expense, too!" she cried, with a sneer.

"She is right," Tom said manfully. "I'm not going to waste my life waiting on the pleasure of a set of old fogies. Make way, Sir Hervey."

"I shall not," Coke returned, maintaining his position between the two and the door. "And if you come near me, boy-"

"Don't push me too far," Tom cried. From no one else in the world would he have endured so much. "Sir Hervey, make way!"

"If he does not, we will have him put out!" madam cried, pale with rage. "This is my room, sir! and I order you to leave it. If you are a gentleman you will go."

"I shall not," Coke said. He was really at his wits' end to know what to do. "And if the boy comes near me," he continued, "I will knock him down and hold him. He's only fit for Bedlam!"

Tom would have flown at his throat, but madam restrained him. "Grocott," she cried, "call in a couple of chairmen, and put this person out. Give them a guinea apiece, and let them throw him into the street."

Grocott hung a moment in the doorway, pale, perspiring, irresolute. He could not see the end of this.

"Do you hear, man?" madam repeated, and stamped her foot on the floor. "Call in two men. A guinea apiece if they turn him out. Go at once. I'll know whether the room is mine or his," she continued, in a fury.

"Yours, ma'am," Sir Hervey answered coolly, as Grocott shambled out. "I ask nothing better than to leave it, if Sir Thomas Maitland goes with me."

"You'll leave it without him!" she retorted contemptuously. And, as Tom made a forward movement, "Sir Thomas, you'll not interfere in this. I've had to do with nasty rogues like him before," she continued, with growing excitement and freedom, "and know the way. You're mighty fine, sir, and think to tread on me. Oh, for all your bowing, I saw you look at me when you came in as if I was so much dirt! But I'll not be put upon, and I'll let you know it. You are a jackanapes and a finicky fool, that's what you are! Aye, you are! But here they come. Now we'll see. Grocott!"

"They are coming," the clock-maker muttered, cringing in the doorway. The fine of action adopted was too violent for his taste. "But I hope the gentleman will go out quietly," he rejoined. "He must see he has no right here."

It was no question of courage; Sir Hervey had plenty of that. But he had no stomach for a low brawl; and at this moment he wished very heartily that he had let the young scapegrace go his own way. He had put his foot down, however, wisely or unwisely; and he could not now retreat.

"I shall not go," he said firmly. And as heavy, lumbering footsteps were heard coming along the passage, he turned to face the door.

"We'll see about that," Mrs. Clark cried spitefully. "Come in, men; come in! This is your gentleman."

CHAPTER XII

DON QUIXOTE

Coke had spent a dozen seasons in London; and naturally to those who lived about town his figure was almost as familiar as that of Sir Hanbury Williams, the beau of the last generation, or that of Lord Lincoln, the pride and hope of the golden youth of '42. The chairman who had never left the rank in St. James's Street in obedience to his nod was as likely as not to ask the way to Mrs. Cornely's rooms; the hackney-coachman who did not know his face and liveries was a stranger also to the front of White's, and to the cry of "Who goes home?" that on foggy evenings drew a hundred link-boys to New Palace Yard. In his present difficulty his principal, and almost his only hope of escaping from a degrading scuffle lay in this notoriety.

It bade fair to be justified. The two men who slouched into the room in obedience to Mrs. Clark's excited cry had scarcely crossed the threshold when they turned to him and grinned, and the foremost made him a sort of bow. Sir Hervey stared, and wondered where he had seen the men before; but in a twinkling his doubt, as well as the half-smothered cry that at the same instant burst from madam's lips, were explained.

"Mrs. Oriana Clark, otherwise Grocott?" the elder man muttered, and, stepping forward briskly, he laid a slip of paper on the table before her. "At suit of Margam's, of Paul's Churchyard, for forty-seven, six, eight, debt and costs. Here's the capias. And there's a detainer lodged." So much said, he seemed to feel the official part of his duty accomplished, and he turned with a wink to Grocott. "Much obliged to the old gentleman for letting us in. As pretty a capture as I ever made! Trigg, mind the door."

The miser who sees his hoarded all sink beneath the waves; the leader who, in the flush of victory, falls into the deadly ambush and knows all lost; the bride widowed on her wedding morn-these may in some degree serve to image madam at that moment. White to the lips, her eyes staring, she plucked at the front of her dress with one hand, and, leaning with the other against the wall, seemed to struggle for speech.

It was Tom who stepped forward, Tom who instinctively, like the brave soul he was, screened her from their eyes. "What is it?" he said hoarsely. "Have a care, man, whom you speak to! What do you mean, and who are you?"

"Easy asked and soon answered," the fellow replied, civilly enough. "I'm a sworn bailiff, it's a capias forty-seven, six, eight, debt and costs-that's what it is. And there's a detainer lodged, so it's no use to pay till you know where you are. The lady is here, and I am bound to take her."

"It's a mistake," Tom muttered, his voice indistinct. "There's some mistake, man. What is the name?"

"Well, it's Clark, alias Grocott on the writ; and it's Clark, alias Hawkesworth-"

"Hawkesworth?"

"Yes, Hawkesworth, on the detainer," the bailiff answered, smiling. "I don't take on myself to say which is right, but the old gentleman here should know."

At that word the unhappy woman, thwarted in the moment of success, roused herself from the first stunning effects of the blow. With a cry she tore her handkerchief into two or three pieces, and, thrusting one end into her mouth, bit on it. Then, "Silence!" she shrieked. "Silence, you dirty dog!" she continued coarsely. "How dare you lay your tongue to me? Do you hear me?"

But Tom interfered. "No, one moment," he said grimly. That word, Hawkesworth, had chilled his blood. "Let us hear what he has to say. Listen to me, man. Why should the old gentleman know?"

The man hesitated, looking from one to the other. "Well, they say he's her father," he answered at last. "At any rate he brought her up; that is, until-well, I suppose you know."

She shrieked out a denial; but Tom, without taking his eyes from the bailiff's face, put out his hand, and, gripping her arm, held her back. "Yes, man, until what?" he said hoarsely. "Speak out. Until what?"

"Well, until she went to live with Hawkesworth, your honour."

"Ah!" Tom said, his face white; only that word. But, dropping his hand from her arm, he stood back.

She should have known that all was lost then; that the game was played out. But, womanlike, she could not accept defeat. "It's a lie!" she shrieked. "A dirty, cowardly lie! It's not true! I swear it is not true! It's not true!" And breathless, panting, furious, she turned first to one and then to another, stretching out her hands, heaping senseless denial on denial. At last, when she read no relenting in the boy's face, but only the quivering of pain as he winced under the lash of her loosened tongue, she cast the mask-that had already slipped-completely away, and, turning on the old man, "You fool! oh, you fool!" she cried. "Have you nothing to say now that you have ruined me? Pay the beast, do you hear? Pay him, or I'll ruin you!"

But the clock-maker, terrified as he was, clung sullenly to his money. "There's a detainer," he muttered. "It's no good, Bess. If s no good, I tell you!"

"Well, pay the detainer! Pay that, too!" she retorted. "Pay it, you old skinflint, or I'll swear to you for gold clipping! and you'll hang at Tyburn, as your friend Jonathan Thomas did! Have a care, will you, or I'll do it, so help me!"

The old man screamed a palsied curse at her. Sir Hervey touched the lad's arm. "Come," he said sternly. And he turned to the door.

Tom shuddered, but followed at his heels as a beaten hound follows. The woman saw her last chance passing from her, sprang forward, and tried to seize his arm; tried to detain him, tried to gain his ear for a final appeal. But the bailiff interfered. "Softly, mistress, softly," he said. "You know the rules. Get the old 'un to pay, and you may do as you please."

He held her while Tom was got out, dizzy and shaking, his eyes opened to the abyss from which he had been plucked back. But, though Coke closed the door behind them, the woman's voice still followed them, and shocked and horrified them with its shrill clamour. Tom shuddered at the dreadful sound; yet lingered.

"I must get something," he muttered, avoiding his companion's eyes. "It is upstairs."

"What is it?" Coke answered impatiently. And, anxious to get the lad out of hearing, he took his arm, and urged him towards the street. "Whatever it is, I'll send my man for it."

But Tom hung back. "No," he said. "It's money. I must get it."

"For goodness' sake don't stay now," Sir Hervey protested.

But Tom, instead of complying, averted his face. "I want to pay this," he muttered. "I shall never see her again. But I would rather she-she were not taken now. That's all."

Coke stared. "Oh Lord!" he said; and he wondered. But he let Tom go upstairs; and he waited himself in the passage to cover his retreat. He heard the lad go up and push open the door of the little three-cornered room, which had been his abode for a week; the little room where he had tasted to the full of anticipation, and whence he had gone aglow with fire and joy an hour before. Coke heard him no farther, but continued to listen, and "What is that?" he muttered presently. A moment, and he followed his companion up the stairs; at the head of the flight he caught again the sound he had heard below; the sound of a muffled cry deadened by distance and obstacles, but still almost articulate. He looked after Tom; but the door of the room in which he had disappeared was half open. The sound did not issue thence. Then he thought it came from the room below; and he was on the point of turning when he saw a door close beside him in the angle of the stairs, and he listened at that. For the moment all was silent, yet Sir Hervey had his doubts. The key was in the lock, he turned it softly, and stepped into an untidy little bedroom, sordid and dull; the same, in fact, through which Sophia had been decoyed. He noticed the door at the farther end, and was crossing the floor towards it, with an unpleasant light in his eyes-for he began to guess what he should find-when the door of the room below opened, and a man came out, and came heavily up the stairs. Sir Hervey paused and looked back; another moment and Grocott reaching the open door stood glaring in.

Sir Hervey spoke only one word. "Open!" he said; and he pointed with his cane to the door of the inner room. The key was not in the lock.

The clock-maker, cringing almost to the boards, crept across the floor, and producing the key from his pocket, set it in the lock. As he did so Coke gripped him on a sudden by the nape of the neck, and irresistibly but silently forced him to his knees. And that was what Sophia saw when the door opened. Grocott kneeling, his dirty, flabby face quivering with fear, and Sir Hervey standing over him.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, and stepped back in amazement; but, so much thought given to herself, her next was for Tom. She had been a prisoner nearly two hours, in fear as well as in suspense, assailed at one time by the fancy that those who had snared her had left her to starve, at another by the dread of ill-treatment if they returned. But the affection for her brother, which had roused her from her own troubles, was still strong, and her second thought was of Tom.

She seized Sir Hervey's arm, "Thank Heaven you have come!" she cried. "Did he send you? Where is he?"

"Tom?" Coke answered cheerily. "He is all right. He is here."

"Here? And he is not married?"

"No, he is not married," Sir Hervey answered; "nor is he going to be yet awhile."

"Thank God!" she exclaimed. And then, as their eyes met, she remembered herself, and quailed, the blushes burning in her cheeks. She had not seen him since the evening at Vauxhall, when he had laboured to open her eyes to Hawkesworth's true character. The things that had happened, the things she had done since that evening crowded into her mind; she could have sunk into the floor for very shame. She did not know how much he knew or how much worse than she was he might be thinking her; and in an agony of recollection she covered her face and shrank from him.

"Come, child, come, you are safe now," he said hurriedly; he understood her feelings. "I suppose they locked you here that you might not interfere? Eh, was that it?" he continued, seizing Grocott's ear and twisting it until the old rogue grovelled on the floor. "Eh, was that it?"

"Oh, yes, yes," the clock-maker cried. "That was it! I'll beg the lady's pardon. I'll do anything! I'll-"

"You'll hang-some day!" Sir Hervey answered, releasing him with a final twist. "Begone for this time, and thank your stars I don't haul you to the nearest justice! And do you, child, come to your brother. He is in the next room."

But when Sophia had so far conquered her agitation as to be able to comply, they found no Tom there; only a scrap of paper, bearing a line or two of writing, lay on the table.

"I'm gone to enlist, or something, I don't care what. It doesn't matter," it ran. "Don't come after me, for I shan't come back. Let Sophy have my setter pup, it's at the hall. I see it now; it was a trap. If I meet H. I shall kill him. – T. M."

"He has found her out, then?" Sophia said tearfully.

"Yes," Sir Hervey answered, standing at the table and drumming on it with his fingers, while he looked at her and wondered what was to be done next. "He has found her out. In a year he will be none the worse and a little wiser."

"But if he enlists?" she murmured.

"We shall hear of it," Coke answered, "and can buy him out." And then there was silence again. And he wondered again what was to be done next.

Below, the house was quiet. Either the bailiffs had removed their prisoner, or she had been released, and she and they had gone their ways. Even Grocott, it would seem, terrified by the position in which he found himself, had taken himself off for a while, for not a sound save the measured ticking of clocks broke the silence of the house, above stairs or below. After a time, as Sophia said nothing, Sir Hervey moved to the window and looked into the Row. The coach that had waited so long was gone. A thin rain was beginning to fall, and through it a pastrycook's boy with a tray on his head was approaching the next house. Otherwise the street was empty.

"Did-did my sister send you?" she faltered at last.

"No."

"How did you find me?"

"I heard from your brother-in-law," he answered, his face still averted.

"What?"

"That you had gone to Davies Street."

"He knew?" she muttered.

"Yes."

She caught her breath. "Is it public?" she whispered. "I suppose everybody-knows."

"Well, some do, I've no doubt," he answered bluntly. "Women will worry something, and, of course, there is a-sort of a bone in it."

She shivered, humiliated by the necessity that lay upon her. She must clear herself. It had come to this, she had brought it to this, that she must clear herself even in his eyes. "My brother was there," she said indistinctly, her face covered from his gaze.

"I know," he answered.

"Do they know?"

He understood that she meant the Northeys. "No," he answered. "Not yet."

She was silent a moment. Then-"What am I to do?" she asked faintly.

She had gone through so many strange things in the last twenty-four hours that this which should have seemed the strangest of all-that she should consult him-passed with her for ordinary. But not with Coke. It showed him more clearly than before her friendlessness, her isolation, her forlornness, and these things moved him. He knew what the world would think of her escapade, what sharp-tongued gossips like Lady Harrington would make of it, what easy dames like Lady Walpole and Lady Townshend would proclaim her; and his heart was full of pity for her. He knew her innocent; he had the word of that other innocent, Tom, for it; but who would believe it? The Northeys had cast her off; perhaps when they knew all they would still cast her off. Her brother, her only witness, had taken himself away, and was a boy at most. Had he been older, he might have given the gossips the lie and forced the world to believe him, at the point of the small sword. As it was she had no one. Her aunt's misfortune was being repeated in a later generation. The penalty must be the same.

Must it? In the silence Sir Hervey heard her sigh, and his heart beat quickly. Was there no way to save her? Yes, there was one. He saw it, and with the coolness of the old gamester he took it.

"What are you to do?" he repeated thoughtfully; and turning, he sat down, and looked at her across the table, his face, voice, manner all business-like. "Well, it depends, child. I suppose you have no feeling left for-for that person?"

She shook her head, her face hidden.

"None at all?" he persisted, toying with his snuff-box, while he looked at her keenly. "Pardon me, I wish to have this clear because-because it's important."

"I would rather die," she cried passionately, "than be his wife."

He nodded. "Good," he said. "It was to be expected. Well, we must make that clear, quite clear, and-and I can hardly think your sister will still refuse to receive you."

Sophia started; her face flamed. "Has she said anything?" she muttered.

"Nothing," Coke answered. "But you left her yesterday-to join him; and you return to-day. Still-still, child, I think if we make all clear to her, quite clear, and to your brother Northey, they will be willing to overlook the matter and find you a home."

She shuddered. "You speak very plainly," she murmured faintly.

"I fear," he said, "you will hear plainer things from her. But," he continued, speaking slowly now, and in a different tone, "there is another way, child, if you are willing to take it. One other way. That way you need not see her unless you choose, you need see none of them, you need hear no plain truths. That way you may laugh at them, and what they say will be no concern of yours, nor need trouble you. But 'tisn't to be supposed that with all this you will take it."

"You mean I may go to Chalkhill?" she cried, rising impetuously. "I will, I will go gladly, I will go thankfully! I will indeed!"

"No," he said, rising also, so that only the table stood between them. "I did not mean that. There is still another way. But you are young, child, and it isn't to be supposed that you will take it."

"Young!" she exclaimed in bitter self-contempt. And then, "What way is it?" she asked. "And why should I not take it, take it gladly if I can escape-all that?"

"Because-I am not very young," he said grimly.

"You?" she exclaimed in astonishment. And then, as her eyes met his across the table, the colour rose in her cheeks. She began to understand; and she began to tremble.

"Yes," he said bluntly, "I. It shocks you, does it? But, courage, child; you understand a little, you do not understand all. Suppose for a moment that you return to Arlington Street to-day as Lady Coke; the demands of the most exacting will be satisfied. Lady Harrington herself will have nothing to say. You left yesterday, you return to-day-my wife. Those who have borne my mother's name have been wont to meet with respect; and, I doubt not, will continue to meet with it."

"And you-would do that?" she cried aghast

"I would."

"You would marry me?"

"I would."

"After all that has passed? Here? To-day?"

"Here, to-day."

For a moment she was silent. Then, "And you imagine I could consent?" she cried. "You imagine I could do that? Never! Never! I think you good, I think you noble, I thank you for your offer, Sir Hervey; I believe it to be one the world would deem you mad to make, and me mad to refuse! But," and suddenly she covered her face with her hands, as if his eyes burned her, "from what a height you must look down on me."

"I look down?" he said lamely. "Not at all. I don't understand you."

"You do not understand?" she cried, dropping her hands and meeting his eyes as suddenly as she had avoided them. "You think it possible, then, that I, who yesterday left my home, poor fool that I was, to marry one man, can give myself a few hours later to another man? You think I hold love so light a thing I can take it and give it again as I take or give a kerchief or a riband? You think I put so small a price on myself-and on you? Oh, no, no, I do not. I see, if you do not, or will not, that your offer, noble, generous, magnanimous as it is, is the sharpest taunt of all that you have it in your power to fling at me."

"That," Sir Hervey said, placidly, "is because you don't understand."

"It is impossible!" she repeated. "It is impossible!"