Fortune's My Foe

"This is no marriage," Beau Bufton said now, addressing Symson, "no marriage. You know that!"

"I know that it will give you much trouble to break it," the reverend gentleman said, with a leer of contempt. "I tie all tight. You were warned yesterday that false names would not save you. And, since she openly avows her name is Anne Pottle, in the name of Anne Pottle you are wed. Now, I require you to be gone. Observe, there is another ceremony to be performed."

While as he spoke he pointed to the door, through which a second wedding party was entering.

"I renounce her!" Bufton cried now, "renounce her for ever. It is a trick played by a wanton!" he cried. "A trick that shall never succeed. You shall be laid by the heels in Newgate-you-you-you hedge priest-Great God!" he almost screamed, breaking off, "what brings you here too?" And in his rage he made an attempt to draw his sword.

For, behind that other small party which had entered the chapel, he saw the form of a man which he remembered well-had good cause to remember-the form of Sir Geoffrey Barry, with, leaning upon his arm, a young and beautiful woman.

"I am here," the new-comer said, "to present you to a lady whom I wish you to know. Pardon me," he continued, addressing the incoming wedding party which he had followed, "if I delay your ceremony for a short moment. But I am desirous of introducing this newly made happy man to my future wife-Miss Ariadne Thorne."

CHAPTER VIII

FOREBODINGS

If ever a marriage was performed amidst extraordinary surroundings, it was that second marriage which Symson was now conducting, or rather the third that morning, since already a happy couple had been united before Beau Bufton and Anne Pottle had been joined together. A marriage this (between an actual heiress in a small way and an officer of Rich's Dragoons) hurried through by Symson after he had muttered, "Nigh midday, nigh midday, quick! or there will be no ceremony," while, from without, and from the neighbourhood of the porch, there came cries and jeers-these being from some idlers who had gathered outside-the hoarse voice of Bufton hurling imprecations, and the deeper one of Lewis Granger bidding him hold his peace. And once, a shriek-from Ariadne.

For, as Geoffrey Barry, with contempt in his cold voice, and contempt, too, upon his handsome features, had calmly presented the Beau to the real Ariadne Thorne, the other had become almost beside himself-had, indeed, exhibited so awful a picture of a man transformed by rage and despair as to appal all those who looked upon him, various as their characters and experiences of life were.

"You!" he cried. "You!" addressing Sir Geoffrey, his features distorted, his lower jaw working horribly above that monstrous chin, "You in it, too! You beggarly sailor! You! You!" Then, before any could suspect to what length his fury would carry him, he had wrenched the dress sword he carried by his side from out its sheath, and would have made a pass at the other-indeed, did half do so. But, swift as lightning, that pass was thwarted-by two people! By his newly made wife, who seized his arm even as he would have plunged the blade into Sir Geoffrey's breast, she being aided by Lewis Granger, who, with his hat, which he still carried in his hand, although they were by now outside the church, struck it up-he knocking it from out his hand, so that it fell clattering on the stones at his feet.

"Madman! Fool!" Granger whispered in his ear, "do you wish to finish your morning's work with murder? To end your days at Tyburn?" Then, turning to one of the friends of overnight, he said: "For God's sake help me to get him into the coach. He is mad."

Somehow it was done; in some way the deluded rogue was pushed and hustled into the carriage which had brought him in triumph from the spot where he had met Mrs. Pottle and Anne, and half-delirious with rage, Bufton was borne away. Yet not before he had shrieked such awful objurgations, such curses and blasphemies on the heads of all around him, including Ariadne and her lover, combined with such terrible threats of vengeance, that more than one of the women present stopped their ears.

"Now," said Geoffrey, "now, let us begone, too. Come, Ariadne, I will take you home."

Then he turned to Mrs. Pottle and Anne-who stood close by her mother's side-and bade them also return to the house in Westminster.

"Yet, my poor girl," he said to the latter, "I fear it is but coals of fire you have heaped on your own head. Your revenge for your sister's wrongs has been terrible, nay, supreme; but at what a price to you! What a price! You have closed the door against your own happiness for ever."

"I care not," Anne said. "Care not at all. When her body-poor little Kate's body-was taken from out the river-oh, mother! you remember-I swore that if ever the chance came, I would avenge her. Ah! Sir Geoffrey, Sir Geoffrey, if you had known how she besought him to fulfil his promise-to marry her-to make her an honest woman-then-you-would not-"

"I am not surprised," Geoffrey Barry answered, "knowing all, as I do now, from Miss Thorne. Yet, I fear you have paid too dearly for it."

"She would do it, Sir Jaffray," Mrs. Pottle moaned between her sobs. "She would do it, though I told her there was no call. Oh! why, why, should that monster have had two of my daughters for his victims? One of whom he undone and drove to her death, the other who can never be no honest man's wife now."

"At least," said Ariadne, "you know, Rebecca, that never will she want for aught. You know that, and you, too, Anne. Now, let us hasten to Cowley Street and away from this horrid place."

Perhaps it need scarcely be set down here that overnight, when the meeting between Ariadne and her lover had taken place, all had been explained and made clear to the latter. Indeed the girl had more than once, during the passage of that fortnight since he had parted with her at Fawnshawe Manor, resolved to write to him telling everything, only, on each occasion, her pride had stepped in. "For," she had whispered to herself, again and again, "if he loves me, as he has said so oft, then surely he cannot doubt. He was enraged at the time, deeming, in truth, that that vile fop and knave could have come in search of none but me. But, surely, reflection must convince him it was not so. Surely-surely." And then, still stirred by womanly pride, she determined that she would put the depth of his love to the test. She would summon him to her side, and, if he came, would tell him all. But she was impelled to send that summons without delay, when there reached her ears the terrible rumour that his frigate was to proceed to join the squadron of Admiral Boscawen.

Then he had come, and she had told him all, with the result which has been described.

"And so," he said now, as they sat in the parlour wherein she had yesterday listened so eagerly and with beating heart for that coming, "I should not have been sent for, only it was thought I might be off and away to the West Indies. That is it, eh?" and, from where they sat side by side on the great couch, he stroked her hair.

"No," she answered, softly, "you would have been sent for anyhow, only, perhaps, that news hastened the despatch of my message," and she looked fondly at him. "You doubted me, sir," she continued, "you know you did, and you had to be punished."

"What could I think? I heard you say those fateful words to Mrs. Pottle: 'Then he has seen him.'" Then, he added, "But, still, after what we have witnessed this morning, I wish it had not been. I wish that you had not let it happen."

"Oh, Geoffrey!" she cried, "do not reproach me, do not be angry with me. Anne was so resolute, so determined. She loved that little sister whom he ruined and drove to her death; loved her fondly. I remember after it had happened last year, when the poor child drowned herself after he cast her off, that Anne was demented. Do you know, she meditated tracking him in the streets and pistolling him with her own hands, until I persuaded her to desist from such a crime?"

"Yet now," said Geoffrey, with unconscious humour, "she has married him."

"That thought came to her when she found out that he was at Tunbridge intent on pursuing me. His valet told her that his master was there to obtain the hand of Miss Thorne, the heiress, if possible-the man not knowing that she was in attendance on me-and that decided her. She vows she would have done it even though he had not ruined her sister, as a punishment for his presumption in aspiring to me."

"Yet if he knew this poor girl through her waiting at Vauxhall and Ranelagh for Anne, how is it he should not know Anne herself?"

"It was not surprising. Anne always sang and danced arrayed in some fantastic costume, sometimes as Arlequina with a vizard, another time as a Turkish dancing girl, and, as often as not, as a shepherdess with white wig and patches. And he persuaded the poor child, poor little Kate, to say nothing to her more worldly sister, nor ever to let them come into contact."

"It is a deadly vengeance, as deadly to her as to him. Yet, I vow, he at least deserves to suffer from it. But how could she ever think of, how devise, it?"

For a moment Ariadne paused; so that it seemed to him that there was something which she had not told even now. It appeared that she had not divulged all of the plot. For Ariadne whispered now, or almost whispered, "She had a helpmate, a confederate. A man-"

"A man!" Geoffrey exclaimed. "A man! Surely not young Lord John Dallas-he who arrived at the end of the marriage-when it was too late! He who exposed her?"

"Nay; instead, one whom he has deeply injured and wronged almost as much as he wronged and ruined her sister. Whose life he blasted-"

"Ariadne! who is he?"

"The man who pretends to serve him as his creature, his hireling. He who stood by his side at the marriage; his best man."

"Great God! what duplicity, what vengeance! How has Bufton wronged any man so much that the other should do this thing? Forgive me, Ariadne, I would not say aught to wound you, nor aught against your sex, but-but-such vengeance is a woman's, not a man's."

"Yet I do think the scheme was more his than hers. Oh, Geoffrey!" she cried, suddenly, "I am terrified; terrified at what has happened, and doubly terrified at what will, I fear, happen yet. Oh! why, why, did I let it continue? Yet Geoffrey, upon my honour as a woman, I did not know all; had I done so before we came to London, I would have striven to prevent it. But, now, I fear-"

"Fear what?"

"Something worse that remains behind. For she laughs-she laughed but now when we returned here after that terrible scene, and when she was upstairs with me-laughs and says that, if she is truly tied to him by the laws, yet it will not be for long. She says, too, that the other man has not finished his business yet."

"What has this man, this Bufton, done to him, then? Surely he had no sister to be betrayed also. What can it be?"

"That she does not know, or swears she does not. But that they have met before, that he helped her to plan this scheme, I feel assured. Oh, Geoffrey, how can we put an end to further mischief?"

"Pity 'tis that it was ever begun. And, though I say it not unkindly, that you ever countenanced it."

"Nay, nay!" Ariadne cried, "misjudge me not; I never knew what was being done until the last moment. You must believe that, Geoffrey, or-or-there is no happiness in store for us. I never heard that they had met at Tunbridge, and that he was deceived into thinking she was Ariadne Thorne. I never knew, until a quarter of an hour before you came on that night, that he had been in the lime-tree avenue. And I should not have known it then but by an accident."

"An accident?"

"Yes. I was awaiting you as ever, was wondering why you were late, when I saw-it was easy enough to distinguish in the glow of the sunset-a scarlet coat in the avenue. And then-then-Anne came in hurriedly a little later, with her cloak and hood on."

"The hood I saw lying there. The one I thought you had worn, and which made me doubly suspicious."

"The same. She removed it from her head while talking to me, and, laying it down, forgot it. I asked her who the man could be who was wearing that scarlet coat, and then she told me all, or, at least, almost all. But, knowing you were coming, and wishing to tell her mother who was heart and soul in this scheme of vengeance, she left me and forgot that hood."

"Thank Heaven!" Sir Geoffrey said, "that you knew so little; as well as that you had no part in the plot. Knave, vagabond as the fellow is, I should not have liked my Ariadne to have had part in hoodwinking him."

And the girl seeing, understanding by his words, that he believed her, was happy.

After this they were silent a little while, though each was thinking, in a different way, upon the same thing. He, of what a thousand pities it was that a brave girl such as Anne Pottle should have ruined her future to obtain revenge; she, of what the future might bring-a future that, she could scarcely have told why, she dreaded and looked forward to with extreme fear.

"There are two persons," she whispered now, unconsciously drawing a little closer to her lover's arm even as she did so, "two persons whom, if he had the power to injure, he would. Geoffrey, you know those two?"

"You and I, sweetheart, is't not so? Well, what can he do-this discredited, ruined rogue? What! We shall be man and wife soon now, since there is no truth in the report that I take my ship to join Boscawen; since, too, it seems likely that she and I are doomed to inaction. Ah! if Admiral Hawke could but bring the French to action nearer home and I might be with him. Then-then-there would be a bright future before me."

As he spoke of their being man and wife the girl's heart gave a great leap. Surely, she thought, he must know how much she, too, desired that; and still, as thus she thought, she drew closer to him. But, even as she did so, she whispered:

"How that man can injure you or me I know not, my own. Yet-yet-I saw his face to-day, saw the look, the hideous look of rage and spite, he cast at you-and-oh! oh! my love," she wailed, "I fear, I fear."

"Fear nothing," he whispered back. "Fear nothing. He is a broken, bankrupt knave, and I am a king's officer; while you are to be my wife. He is harmless."

CHAPTER IX

THE END OF THE FIRST ACT

"The question now is," said Lewis Granger to Beau Bufton that night, "what is to be done? How are you, and I, which latter is perhaps of more considerable importance, to continue to exist? I have had no money for a long time, and in a short time you also will have none. What do you intend to do?"

As he spoke, he cast his eyes upon the man who now sat the picture of despair in his rooms in the Haymarket, and was, in truth, in about as miserable a frame of mind as it was possible for any person to be. Miserable and broken down in more ways than one; through lack of money as well as a lack of knowledge of where any was to come from; miserable also through the certainty that by to-morrow all London would ring with the manner in which he had been tricked and deceived. While, which was perhaps the worst of all disasters, his long-meditated plan of espousing some heiress or another was now and for ever impossible. Who would marry him, a man who might or might not be the husband of the singing, dancing girl of Ranelagh, Vauxhall, and Marylebone Gardens; what heiress, even though he could get free of Anne Pottle, would not know him in his true colours: those of a fortune-hunter?

There was no gibe nor jeer left in him now, not even of that lower-form schoolboy order, which Granger had so often derided with savage contempt. How could he ever jeer and jest at others henceforth? He, who had stood so pitiful and exposed a fool before others that morning. In the future, whatever became of him, he could sneer or scoff no more, for fear that in his teeth should be thrown his own idiocy.

But, in place of the little quips and contemptuous insolence he had been wont to pride himself upon, there had come now into his heart a passion, black and venomous, that had taken the place of those other qualities which once he had considered all-sufficient-a passion that was a thirst, a determination for revenge. Yet, against whom it was to be exercised he scarcely knew, even now. His wife, if she were his wife, perhaps; and then-afterwards-against all who had aided and abetted her, all who, knowing what was to be done, had stood by and had not interfered in the doing thereof. Undoubtedly there were two such persons, if no more. Surely the real Ariadne Thorne had known; surely, too, the man who had proclaimed himself as her future husband. The man who, on the two occasions when they had come together, had treated him with icy contempt and scorn; who had driven him from the avenue with ignominy; and had spoken to him as though he were dirt beneath his feet. Who had spoken thus to him! – to him! – whose whole system had been to treat others so.

"You do not answer me," said Lewis Granger, filling his glass as he spoke. "I have asked you what is to be done. How are you and I to live? You owe me five thousand pounds, which, as you have not married the lady who possesses twenty times that amount, I presume it is little use dunning you for. But the wherewithal to live, that is the question of the moment."

"I am ruined," Bufton said. "The Fleet Prison will ere long be my home-"

"Tush! tush!" exclaimed Granger. "Never. What! A bold cock of the walk like Algernon Bufton languish in the Fleet? Never, I say. Are there not the clubs, the gaming-houses, the credit given by dupes? You are skilful at-well-sleight of hand-"

"Clubs! gaming-houses! credit!" exclaimed Bufton. "Who will give me credit now; who play with me? Man, I am ruined. Lost. Sunk. I have but thirty gold pieces in the world."

"You will have but thirty in an hour or so, when you have shared what you possess with me; but at present you have sixty, or had when you went to your wedding to-day, and you have spent nothing since then."

"Curse you!" cried Bufton angrily. "Before God, I think you are my evil genius."

"As I was when you were at Cambridge, eh? In the Glastonbury affair?"

"No! no! I meant not that. But-but-Lewis, what is to become of me?"

"Make money. If you cannot enter clubs here, or gamble, you can do so elsewhere. There is Bath-Tunbridge I do not suggest, for reasons-painful reasons-but there is Bath. Your cleverness with your-well! – fingers and hands-should stand you in good stead."

"It will be known at Bath as well as in London. I can show my face nowhere."

"What then to do? What are you thinking of? You are burdened with me, you see; you have to keep me for ever-until, at least, the Glastonbury affair is wiped away. You do it devilish ill; I live in a garret, you in sumptuous rooms; yet it is something. Am I to keep myself henceforth? Wherefore again I say, what are you thinking of doing?"

"At present I think but of one thing. Revenge! A terrible revenge!"

"On whom?"

"On him. That man, Barry. The man who is to marry the true Ariadne Thorne; the man who, since he appeared at the church, knew very well what was taking place and let me fall into the snare like a rat into a trap."

"It will be hard to do. He is a sea-captain, a brave, stalwart-looking fellow, and-he has beaten you once. He may do so again. Moreover, I do not think he would meet you if you challenged him."

"There are other ways. Men can be hired even nowadays to do the work. A month ago Lord D'Amboise's nose was slit to the bone-perhaps his Ariadne would not like Sir Geoffrey so much if he were equally disfigured! There are many ways if one will pay-"

"But you cannot pay," said Granger, with a swift glance at him, which the other saw well enough; "that is, unless you have a secret store. You would be like enough to have one, and keep the knowledge from me."

"I have nothing; nothing but what you know of."

"Humph! perhaps. 'But what I know of!' Well, at least I know of your sixty guineas which you had when you went to your marriage this morning-your wedding with the heiress," Granger said emphatically, observing how the other winced at the word "marriage"; "I know of that. Well! come, let us decide. You say you can support me no longer, therefore I must now support myself. We must part, grievous as so doing will be to me."

"Part! You and I! When we have been so much to each other. Part! Oh, no! I-I might find a little more money somehow yet-if-if-a letter were sent to my mother saying that I was dying-now-she might consent. She-"

"I do not doubt you will find more money somewhere," Granger replied, with a very profound look of disgust for the knave on his face, "no more than I doubt that, in some way, you will wheedle the wherewithal to live out of your mother. But-you must do it by yourself. We part now. I can earn my living in a fashion. Come, divide."

"Not now; you will not take all at once-the full half? Think of my debts."

"Damn your debts! Though I have confidence in your powers, Bufton; you will by some means discover how to avoid their payment. Divide, I say."

By strong persuasion, by the force of some hold which Granger had over the Beau, the latter was at last induced to draw forth his purse, and to divide into two heaps the sum of sixty guineas which it contained, though not without much protest on his side, nor without, indeed, almost a whimper at parting with both his money and his friend. But the latter was inexorable, and he took the thirty guineas.

"And we shall meet no more?" Bufton said, "after so long a friendship. Oh! it is hard. And how-how are you going to make a living? Can you not put me in the way of doing so too?"

As he asked the question, the other started. Put him in the way of making a living! In the way of making a living! Rather, he thought suddenly to himself, put him in the way of going to a more utter ruin than that which had yet fallen on him. He must think of this. His whole life for two years had been devoted towards ruining, crushing this man who had ruined his own career at the outset of it; and, although by tricking him into the marriage made that day he had gone far towards fulfilling his purpose, he was not yet content. Anne Pottle had spoken truthfully when she told Ariadne that he had not finished his business with Bufton yet.

"It might be," he said more gently now, and speaking in a friendlier tone, "that I could put you in such a way-later. Perhaps! It may be so. We will see. You must, in truth, disappear from the Beau Monde for a time; where, therefore, can news be found of you?"

"Are we not to meet again?" Bufton asked, his face haggard from all he had gone through that day; and, perhaps-since, although half-knave and half-fool, he was still human-feeling doubly wretched at this withdrawal of his principal ally and bottle-comrade.

"Not yet. I, too, leave this part of the town now. The other, the east of the city, will be my portion for some time to come."

"What is it?" almost whispered Bufton, "what? What have you found?"

"A commercial pursuit," the other answered; "one connected with the sea and the colonies of America. Enough! No more as yet. Say, where shall I write you if aught arises that may be of benefit?"

"Send word to the 'Rummer'-no! no! they know me there. Instead, give me a house to which I may send to you. I pray you do so."

For a moment Granger paused, meditating; turning over in his mind more matters than one. Then he said, "Write to the 'Czar of Muscovy' on Tower Hill. It will find me. And," he added to himself, "it is not too near." Then, aloud, he exclaimed finally, "Now, farewell!"

And so these two men parted for the time.

That night, as Granger sat alone in his garret, while he occupied himself with flinging hastily into a valise a second suit of clothes which he possessed, some odd linen, and other necessaries, he muttered more than once to himself:

"The first act is played out, and so far it is successful. He is married to that girl, and much I doubt if he will ever free himself from the yoke. Yet it is not enough. Enough-my God! What can ever be enough? What can repay me for my own wasted life; my mother's death; the loss of the woman who loved me; and-Heaven help us both! – believed in me? Enough! What can be enough?" While, even as he mused thus, he went to a cupboard and took from out of it a bottle. "Still half full," he whispered, "still half full. Ah, well! it will be empty ere day breaks."