Sophia: A Romance

"What you have in your mind may be impossible," he retorted; "but not what I have in mine. I should have thought, child, that on your side, also, you had had enough of romance."

She looked at him in astonishment.

"While I," he continued, raising his eyebrows, "have outgrown it. There is no question, at least, in my offer there was no question, of love. For one thing it is out of fashion, my dear; for another, at the age I have reached, not quite the age of Methuselah, perhaps," with a smile, "but an age, as you once reminded me, at which I might be your father, I need only a lady to sit at the head of my table, to see that the maids don't rob me, or burn the Hall, and to show a pretty face to my guests when they come from town. My wife will have her own wing of the house, I mine; we need meet only at meals. To the world we shall be husband and wife; to one another, I hope, good friends. Of course," Sir Hervey continued, with a slight yawn, "there was a time when I should not have thought this an ideal marriage; when I might have looked for more. Nor should I then have-you might almost call it-insulted you, ma chère, by proposing it. But I am old enough to be content with it; and you are in an awkward position from which my name may extricate you; while you have probably had enough of what children call love. So, in fine, what do you say?"

After a long pause, "Do you mean," she asked in a low voice, "that we should be only-friends?"

"Precisely," he said. "That is just what I do mean. And nothing more."

"But have you considered," she asked, her tone still low, her voice trembling with agitation. "Have you thought of-of yourself? Why should you be sacrificed to save me from the punishment of my folly? Why should you do out of pity what you may repent all your life? Oh, it cannot, it cannot be!" she continued more rapidly and with growing excitement. "I thank you, I thank you from my heart, Sir Hervey, I believe you mean it generously, nobly, but-"

"Let us consider the question-without fudge!" he retorted, stolidly forestalling her. "Pity has little to do with it. Your folly, child, has much; because apart from that I should not have made the suggestion. For the rest, put me out of the question. The point is, will it suit you? Of course you might wish to marry some one else. You might wish to marry in fact and not in name-"

"Oh, no, no!" she cried, shuddering; and, shaken by the cruel awakening through which she had gone, she fancied that she spoke the truth.

"You are sure?"

"Quite, quite sure."

"Then I think it lies between Chalkhill and Coke Hall," he said, cheerfully. "Read that, child." And drawing from his pocket the letter in which Mr. Northey had announced her flight, he laid it before her. "If I thought you were returning to your sister I would not show it to you," he continued, watching her as she read. And then, after an interval, "Well, shall it be Coke Hall?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, shivering under the cruel, heartless phrases of the letter as under a douche of cold water. "If you really are in earnest, if you mean what you say?"

"I do."

"And you will be satisfied with-that?" she murmured, averting her eyes. "With my friendship?"

"I will," he answered. "You have my word for it."

"Then, I thank you," she muttered faintly.

And that was all, absolutely all. He opened the door, and in her sacque and Lady Betty's Tuscan, as she stood-for she had no change to make-she passed down the stairs before him, and walked beside him through the rain across a corner of Shepherd's Market. Thence they passed along Curzon Street in the direction of the little chapel with the country church porch-over against Mayfair Chapel, and conveniently near the Hercules Pillars-in which the Rev. Alexander Keith held himself ready to marry all comers, at all hours, without notice or licence.

It was the common dinner time, and the streets were quiet; they met no one whom they knew. Sophia, dazed and shaken, had scarcely power to think; she walked beside him mechanically, as in a dream, and could never remember in after days the way she went to be married, or whether she travelled the route on foot or in a chair. The famous Dr. Keith, baulked of one couple and one guinea-for that was his fee, and it included the clerk and a stamped certificate-welcomed the pair with effusion. Accustomed to unite at one hour a peer of the realm to a reigning toast, at another an apprentice to his master's daughter, he betrayed no surprise even when he recognised Sir Hervey Coke; but at once he led the way to the chapel, set the kneelers, called the witnesses, and did his part. He wondered a little, it is true, when he noticed Sophia's pallor and strange dress; but the reasons people had for marrying were nothing to him; the fee was everything, and in ten minutes the tie was tied.

Then only, as they stood waiting in the parlour while the certificate was being written, fear seized her, and a great horror, and she knew what she had done. She turned to Sir Hervey and held out her shaking hands to him, her face white and piteous. "You will be good to me?" she cried. "You will be good to me? You will keep your word?"

"While I live," he said quietly. "Why not, child?"

But, calmly as he spoke, his face, as they went out together, wore the look it wore at White's when he played deep; when, round the shaded candles, oaks, noted in Domesday, crashed down, and long-descended halls shook, and the honour of great names hung on the turn of a die. For, deep as he had played, much as he had risked, even to his home, even to his line, he had made to-day the maddest bet of all. And he knew it.

CHAPTER XIII

THE WELCOME HOME

"Your Grace is very good to call," Mrs. Northey said, working her fan with a violence that betrayed something of the restraint which she was putting on her feelings. "But, of course, the mischief is done now, the girl is gone, and-"

"I know, my dear, I know," the duchess answered soothingly. "Believe me, I am almost as sorry as if she were one of my own daughters."

"La, for the matter of that, it may be yet!" Mrs. Northey answered, unable to behave herself longer. "Begging your Grace's pardon. Of course, I hope not," she continued sourly, "but, indeed, and in truth, young ladies who show the road are very apt to follow it themselves."

"Indeed, I fear that is so; too often," her Grace answered patiently. "Too often!" She had come prepared to eat humble pie, and was not going to refuse the dish.

"I hope, at any rate, that the young lady will take the lesson to heart!" Mrs. Northey continued, with a venomous glance at Lady Betty; who, much subdued, sat half-sullen and half-frightened on a stool beside and a little behind her mother. "I hope so for her own sake."

"It is for that reason I brought her," the duchess said with dignity. "She has behaved naughtily, very naughtily. His Grace is so angry that he will not see her. To-morrow she goes into the country, where she will return to the schoolroom until we leave town. I hope that that and the scandal she has brought upon us may teach her to be more discreet in future."

"And more steady! I trust it may," Mrs. Northey said, biting her lip and looking daggers at the culprit. "I am sure she has done mischief enough. But it is easier to do than to undo, as she would find to her sorrow if it were her own case."

"Very true! Very true, indeed! Do you hear, miss?" the duchess asked, turning and sharply addressing her daughter.

"Yes, ma'am," Lady Betty whispered meekly. Quick of fence as she was with men, or with girls of her own age, she knew better than to contradict her mother.

"Go, and sit in the window, then. No, miss, with your back to it. And now," the duchess continued, when Lady Betty had withdrawn out of earshot, "tell me what you wish to be known, my dear. Anything I can do for the foolish child-she is very young, you know-I will do. And, if I make the best of it, I have friends, and they will also make the best of it."

But Mrs. Northey's face was hard as stone. "There is no best to it," she said.

"Oh, but surely in your sister's interest?" the duchess expostulated.

"Your Grace was misinformed. I have no sister," Mrs. Northey replied, her voice a trifle high, and her thin nostrils more pinched than usual. "From the moment Miss Maitland left this house in such a way as to bring scandal on my husband's name, she ceased to be my sister. Lord Northey has claims upon us. We acknowledge them."

The duchess stared, but did not answer.

"My husband has claims upon me, I acknowledge them," Mrs. Northey continued with majesty.

The duchess still stared; her manner betrayed that she was startled.

"Well, of course," she said at last, "that is what we all wish other people to do in these cases; for the sake of example, you know, and to warn the-the young. But, dear me," rubbing her nose reflectively with the corner of her snuff-box, "it's very sad! I don't know, I really don't know that I should have the courage to do it-in Betty's case now. His Grace would-would expect it, of course. But really I don't know!"

"Your Grace is the best judge in your own case," Mrs. Northey said, her breath coming a little quickly. "For our part," she added, looking upward with an air of self-denial, "Mr. Northey and I have determined to give no sanction to a connection so discreditable!"

The duchess had a vision of her own spoiled daughter laid ill in a six-shilling lodging, of a mother stealing to her under cover of darkness, and in his Grace's teeth; of a tiny baby the image of Betty at that age. And she clutched her snuff-box tightly, "I suppose the man is-is impossible?" she said impulsively.

"He is quite impossible."

"Mr. Northey has not seen him?"

"Certainly not," Mrs. Northey exclaimed, with a virtuous shudder.

"But if she-if she were brought to see what she has done in its true light?" the duchess asked weakly; her motherly instinct still impelling her to fight the young thing's battle.

"Not even then," Mrs. Northey replied with Roman firmness. "Under no circumstances, no circumstances whatever, could Mr. Northey and I countenance conduct such as hers."

"You are sure that there's-there's no mistake, my dear?"

"Not a shadow of a mistake!" madam answered with acrimony. "We have traced her to the man's lodging. She reached it after dark, and under-under the most disgraceful circumstances."

Mrs. Northey referred to the arrest by bailiffs, the news of which had reached Arlington Street through Lane the mercer. But the duchess took her to mean something quite different; and her Grace was shocked.

"Dear, dear," she said in a tone of horror; and looking instinctively at her daughter, she wished that Lady Betty had not seen so much of the girl, wished still more fervently that she had not mixed herself up with her flight. "I am infinitely sorry to hear it," she said. "Infinitely sorry! I confess I did not think her that kind of girl. My dear, you have indeed my sympathy."

Mrs. Northey, though she knew quite well what the duchess was thinking, shook her head as if she could add much more, but would not; and the duchess, her apologies made, rose to take leave; resolved to give her daughter such a wigging by the way as that young lady had never experienced. But while they stood in the act of making their adieux, Mr. Northey entered; and his dolorous head shaking, which would have done credit to a father's funeral, detained her so long, that she was still where he found her, when an exclamation from Lady Betty, who had profited by her mother's engrossment to look out of the window, startled the party.

"Oh, la, ma'am, here she is!" the girl cried. "I vow and declare she is!"

"Betty!" her Grace cried sharply. "Remember yourself. What do you mean? Come, we must be going."

"But, ma'am, she's at the door," Lady Betty replied with a giggle. And turning and thrusting her muff into her mouth-as one well understanding the crisis-she looked over it at the party, her eyes bright with mischief.

Mrs. Northey's face turned quite white. "If this-if your daughter means that the misguided girl is returning here," she cried, "I will not have it."

"It is not to be thought of!" Mr. Northey chimed in. "She would not have the audacity," he added more pompously, "after her behaviour." And he was moving to the window-while the kind-hearted duchess wished herself anywhere else-when the door opened, and the servant announced, "Sir Hervey Coke!"

The duchess gave vent to a sigh of relief, while the Northeys looked daggers at Lady Betty, the author of the false alarm. Meantime Coke advanced, his hat under his arm. "I am really no more than an ambassador," he said gaily. "My principal is downstairs waiting leave to ascend. Duchess, your humble servant! Lady Betty, yours-you grow prettier every day. Mrs. Northey, I have good news for you. You will be glad to hear that you were misinformed as to the object of your sister's departure from the house-about which you wrote to me."

"Misinformed!" Mrs. Northey exclaimed with a freezing look. "I was misinformed, sir?"

"Completely, at the time you wrote to me," Sir Hervey answered, smiling on the party. "As you will acknowledge in one moment."

"On whose authority, pray?" with a sniff.

"On mine," Coke replied. "'Twas an odd coincidence that you wrote to me, of all people."

"Why, sir, pray?"

"Because-" he began; and there he broke off and turned to the duchess, who had made a movement as if she would withdraw. "No," he said, "I hope your Grace will not go. The matter is not private."

"Private?" Mrs. Northey cried shrilly-she could control her feelings no longer. "The hussy has taken good care it shall not be that! Private, indeed? It is not her fault if there is a man in the town who is ignorant of her disgrace!"

"Nay, ma'am, softly, if you please," Sir Hervey interposed, with the least touch of sternness in his tone. "You go too far."

Mrs. Northey glared at him; she was pale with anger. "What?" she cried. "Hoity-toity! do you think I shall not say what I like about my own sister?"

"But not about my wife!" he answered firmly.

She stepped back as if he had aimed a blow at her, so great was her surprise. "What?" she shrieked. "Your wife?" While the others looked at him, thunderstruck; and Lady Betty, who, on the fringe of the group, was taking in all with childish dilated eyes, uttered a scream of delight.

"Your wife?" Mr. Northey gasped.

"Precisely," Coke answered. "My wife."

But Mrs. Northey could not, would not, believe it. She thought that he was lending himself to some cunning scheme; some plan for bringing about a reconciliation. "Your wife?" she repeated. "Do you mean that Sophia, my sister-"

"Preferred a quiet wedding à deux," he answered, helping himself to a pinch of snuff, and smiling slightly, as at the recollection. "Your Grace will understand," he continued, turning with easy politeness to the duchess, "how it amused me to read Mrs. Northey's letter under such circumstances."

But Mrs. Northey was furious. "If this be true," she said hoarsely, "but I do not believe it is, why did you do it? Tell me that? Until I know that I shall not believe it!"

Sir Hervey shrugged his shoulders. "Mr. Northey will believe it, I am sure," he said, with a look in that gentleman's direction. "For the rest, ma'am, it was rather Lady Coke's doing than mine. She heard that her brother was about to make a ruinous marriage, and discovered that he was actually in the company and under the influence of the Irishman, Hawkesworth, whom you know. There were those who should more properly have made the effort to save him, but these failed him; and the result of it was, thanks to her, he was saved. Thanks to her, and to her only," Sir Hervey repeated with a look, beneath which Mr. Northey quailed, and his wife turned green with rage, "since, as I said, those who should have interfered did not. But this effected, and Keith, who should have married her brother, being in attendance-well, we thought it better to avail ourselves of his services. 'Twould have been a pity, your Grace, to lose a guinea," Coke added, his eyes twinkling, as he turned to the duchess. "It was the best instance I've ever known of 'a guinea in time saves ninety!'"

The duchess laughed heartily. "'Twas cheap at any rate, Sir Hervey," she said. "I am sure for my part I congratulate you."

"I don't!" Mrs. Northey cried, before he could answer. "She has behaved abominably! Abominably!" she repeated, her voice quivering with spite. For, strange human nature! here was the match made, on making which she had set her heart; yet so far was she from being pleased, or even satisfied, she could have cried with mortification. "She has behaved infamously!"

"Tut, tut!" Sir Hervey cried.

But the angry woman was not to be silenced. "I shall say it!" she persisted. "I think it, and I shall say it."

"Of Miss Maitland, as often as you please," he retorted, bowing. "Of Lady Coke only at your husband's peril. Of course, if you do not wish to receive her, ma'am, that is another matter."

But on this Mr. Northey interposed. "No, no," he cried, fussily. "Mrs. Northey is vexed, if I may say so, not unnaturally vexed by the lack of confidence in her, which Sophia has shown. But that-that is quite another thing from-from disowning her. No, no, let me be the first to wish you happiness, Coke!" And with an awkward essay at heartiness, and an automaton-like grin, he shook Sir Hervey by the hand. "I'll fetch her up," he continued, "I'll fetch her up! My dear, ahem! Congratulate Sir Hervey. It is what we wanted from the first, and though it has not come about quite as we expected, nothing could give us greater pleasure. It's an alliance welcome in every respect. Yes, yes, I'll bring her up."

He hurried away, while the duchess hastened to add a few words of further congratulation, and Mrs. Northey stood silent and waiting, her face now red, now pale. She had every reason to be satisfied, for except in the matter of Tom-and there Sophia had thwarted her selfish plans-all had turned out as she wished. But not through her, there was the rub! On the contrary, she had been duped, she felt it. She had been tricked into betraying how little heart she had, how little affection for her sister; and bitterly she resented the exposure.

But even her face cleared in a degree when Sophia appeared. As the girl moved forward on Sir Hervey's arm-who went gallantly to the door to meet her-so far from exhibiting the blushing pride of a woman vain of her conquest, glorying in the trick she had played the world, she showed but the timid, frightened face of a shrinking child. Her eyes sought the floor, nervously; her bearing was the farthest removed from exultation it was possible to conceive. So different, indeed, was she from all they had looked to see in the new Lady Coke, the heroine of this odd romance, that even Mrs. Northey found the cold reconciliation on which her husband was bent more feasible, the frigid kiss more possible than she had thought; while to the duchess the bride's aspect seemed so unnatural, that she drew Sir Hervey aside and questioned him keenly.

"What have you done to her?" she said. "That a runaway bride? Why, if she had been dragged to the altar and sold to a Jew broker she could hardly look worse, or more down-hearted! Sho, man, what is it?"

"She's troubled about her brother," Coke explained elaborately. "She's saved him from a wretched match, but he's taken himself off, and we don't know where to look for him."

The good-natured duchess struck him on the shoulder with her fan. "Fudge!" she cried. "Her brother? I don't believe it."

"My dear duchess," Coke remonstrated. "Half a dozen witnesses are prepared to swear to it."

"I don't believe it any the more for that!"

"You think she's unhappy?"

"I am sure of it."

"Well," Sir Hervey answered, and for a moment a gleam which the duchess could not interpret, shone in his eyes, "wait six months! If she is not happy then-I mean," he added, hastily correcting himself, "if she does not look happy then, I have made a mistake."

The duchess stared. "Or she?"

"No, I," he answered, almost in a whisper. "I only, duchess."

She nodded, understanding somewhat; not all. "Oh!" she said; and looked him over, considering what kind of a lover she would have thought him in the old days when all men presented themselves in that capacity, and were measured by maiden eyes. She found him satisfactory. "What are your plans?" she said.

"I am going to Coke Hall to-night, to give the necessary orders. There are changes to be made."

"Quick work!" she said smiling. "Leaving her?"

"Yes."

"You are not killing her with kindness then, my friend?"

"She will follow in two or three days."

"In the meantime-does she stay here?" she asked; with a glance round the room that said much.

"Well, no," Sir Hervey answered slowly, his face growing hard. "I don't quite know-it has all been very sudden, you know."

"I'll take her if you like," the duchess said impulsively.

Sir Hervey's face grew pink. "You dear, good, great lady!" he said. "Will you do that?"

"For you, I will," she said, "if it will help you?"

"Will it not," he cried; and, stooping over her hand, he kissed it after the fashion of the day; but a little more warmly-we were going to say, a little more warmly than the duke would have approved.

While they talked, Mrs. Northey had left the room, to take order for "my lady's" packing; and Mr. Northey, who was dying for a word with her on the astonishing event, had followed, after murmuring an apology and an indistinct word about a carriage. Sophia was thus left tête-à-tête with the one person in the room who had not approached her, or offered felicitation or compliment; but who now, after assuring herself by a hurried glance that the duchess was out of hearing, hastened to deliver her mind.

"Wait till you want to elope again, miss," Lady Betty hissed, in a fierce whisper. "And see if I'll help you! Oh, you deceitful cat, you! To trick me with a long story of your lover and your wrongs, and your dear, dear Irishman! And then to come back 'my lady,' and we're all to bow down to you. Oh, you false, humdrum creature!"

Sophia, in spite of her depression, could not refrain from a smile. "My dear Lady Betty," she whispered gratefully. "I shall ever remember your kindness."

"Don't Lady Betty me, miss!" the girl retorted, thrusting her pretty, eager face close to the other's. "Do you know that I am to go into the country, ma'am? and be put to school again, and the blackboard; and lose the Ridotto on the 17th, and the frolic at the King's House Miss Ham had arranged-and all for helping you? All for helping you, ma'am! See if I ever do a good-natured thing again, as long as I live!"

"My poor Lady Betty! I am so sorry!"

"But that's not all," the angry little beauty cried. "Didn't you lead me to think, ma'am-oh yes, madam, you are now," with a swift little curtsey-"to think that 'twas all for love and the world lost! That 'twas a dear delicious elopement, almost as good as running away myself! And that all the town would be wild to hear of it, and every girl envy me for being in it! Romance? And the world well lost! Oh, you deceitful madam! But see if I ever speak to you again! That's all, my lady!"

Sophia, with a smile that trembled on the brink of tears, was about to crave her pardon, when the approach of the duchess and Sir Hervey closed her mouth. "Your sister has gone upstairs?" her Grace said.

"Only to take order for my packing," Sophia answered.

"I have just been talking to your husband," the duchess continued, and smiled faintly at the hot blush that at the word rose to Sophia's brow. "If you are willing, my dear, you shall keep Lady Betty company until he returns."

"Returns?" Sophia exclaimed.

"From Coke Hall," Sir Hervey interposed glibly. "Whither I must go to-night, sweet, to give orders for our reception. In the meantime the duchess has most kindly offered to take care of you, and has also promised that when you go into the country Lady Betty shall go with you and keep you company until the duke leaves town."

The tears rose in Sophia's eyes at this double, this wonderful proof of his thought for her; and through her tears her eyes thanked him though it was only by a swift glance, averted as soon as perceived. In a tremulous voice she made her acknowledgments to the duchess. It was most kind of her Grace. And any-any arrangement that Sir Hervey thought fit to make for her-would be to her liking.