Sophia by Stanley J. Weyman (romantic books to read .TXT) 📕

cause to repent their confidence; for her determination needed no buttressing. Her cheek flamed, and she thrilled and trembled from head to foot as she pictured the life to which she was flying; but the cheek flamed as hotly when she painted the past and the intolerable craft and coldness of the world on which she turned her back.

The window of her room looked into Arlington Street. She stood at it gazing down on the stand of chairmen and sedans that stretched up to Portugal Street, a thoroughfare now part of Piccadilly. The end of the scaffolding outside Sir Robert Walpole's new house--the house next door--came within a few feet of the sill on which she leaned; the hoarse, beery voices of the workmen, and the clangour of the hammers, were destined to recall that day to her as long as she lived. Yet for the time she was scarcely conscious of the noise, so close was the attention with which she surveyed the street. Below, as on other days, beaux sauntered round the corner of Bennet Street on their way to White's, or stood to speak to a pretty woman in a chair. Country folk paused to look at Sir Bluestring's new house; a lad went up and down crying the Evening Post, and at the corner at the lower end of Arlington Street, then open at the south, a group of boys sat gambling for half-pence.

Sophia saw all this, but she saw no sign of him she sought, though St. James's clock tolled the three quarters after five. Eagerly she looked everywhere, her heart beating quickly. Surely Hawkesworth would be there to see the signal, and to learn his happiness with his own eyes? She leaned forward, then on a sudden she recoiled; Sir Hervey Coke, passing on the other side, had looked up; he knew, then, that she was a prisoner! Her woman's pride rebelled at the thought, and hot with anger she stood awhile in the middle of the room. Whereon St. James's clock struck six; it was the hour appointed. Without hesitation, without the loss of a moment, Sophia sprang to the window, and with a steady hand pressed her handkerchief to the pane. The die was cast.

She thought that on that something would happen; she felt sure that she would see him, would catch his eye, would receive some mark of his gratitude. But she was disappointed; and in a minute or two, after gazing with a bold bashfulness this way and that, she went back into the room, her spirits feeling the reaction. For eight and forty hours from this she had naught to do but wait; for all that time she was doomed to inaction. It seemed scarcely possible that she could wait so long; scarcely possible that she could possess herself in patience. The first hour indeed tried her so sharply that when Mrs. Martha brought her supper she was ready to be humble even to her, for the sake of five minutes' intercourse.

But Mrs. Martha's conversation was as meagre as the meal she brought, and the girl had to pass the night as best she could. Next morning, however, when the woman--after jealously unlocking the door and securing it behind her after a fashion that shook the girl with rage--set down her breakfast, the crabbed old maid was more communicative.

"Thank the Lord, it is a'most the last time I shall have to climb those stairs," she grumbled. "Aye, you may look, miss"--for Sophia was gazing at her resentfully enough--"and think yourself mighty clever! It's little you think of the trouble your fancies give such as me. There!" putting down the tray. "You may take your fill of that and not burst, either. Maybe 'tain't delicate enough for your stomach, but 'twas none of my putting."

Sophia was hungry and the meal was scanty, but pride made her avert her eyes. "Why is it almost the last time?" she asked sharply. "If they think they can break my spirit by starving me----"

"Hoity toity!" the woman said, with more than a smack of insolence. "I'd keep my breath to cool my porridge if I were you! Lord, I wouldn't have your hot temper, miss, for something. But 'twon't help you much with your Aunt Leah, from all I hear. They say she was just such a one as you once, and wilful is no word for her."

Sophia's heart began to beat. "Am I to go to her?" she asked.

"Aye, that you are, and the sooner the better for my legs, miss!"

"When?" Sophia's voice was low.

"To-morrow, no later. The chaise is ordered for six. His honour will take you himself, and I doubt you'll wish you'd brought your pigs to another market before you've been there many days. Leastways, from what I hear. 'Tis no place for a decent Christian, I'm told," the woman continued, spitefully enjoying the dismay which Sophia could not conceal. "Just thatch and hogs and mud to your knees, and never a wheeled thing, John says, in the place, nor a road, nor a mug of beer to be called beer. All poor as rats, and no one better than the other, as how should they be and six miles of a pack-road to the nearest highway? You'll whistle for your lover there, miss."

Sophia swallowed her rage. "Go down!" she said.

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"OH, LA! I DON'T WANT TO STAY!" MRS. MARTHA CRIED

"Oh, la! I don't want to stay!" Mrs. Martha cried, tossing her head. "It's not for my own amusement I've stayed so long. And no thanks for my kindness, either! I've my own good dinner downstairs, and the longer I'm here the cooler it'll be. Which some people like their dinner hot and behave themselves accordingly. But I know my duty, and by your leave, miss, I shall do it."

She bounced out of the room with that and turned the key on the outside with a noisy care that hurt the ear if it did not wound the spirit. "Nasty proud-stomached thing!" she muttered as she descended the stairs. "I hope Madam Leah will teach her what's what! And for all she's monstrous high now, I warrant she'll come to eating breast of veal as well as another. And glad to get it. What Sir 'Ervey can see in her passes me, but men and fools are all one, and it takes mighty little to tickle them if it be red and white. For my part I'm glad to be rid of her. One's tantrums is as much as I can put up with, duty or no duty."

Mrs. Martha might have taken the matter more easily had she known what was passing in the locked room she had left. Sophia's indifference was gone; she paced the floor in a fever of uncertainty. How was she to communicate with her lover? How tell him that his plans were forestalled, and that on the morrow, hours before his arrangements were mature, she would be whisked away and buried in the depths of the country, in a spot the most remote from the world? True, at the foot of his letter was the address of his lodging--at Mr. Wollenhope's in Davies Street, near Berkeley Square. And Dolly--though Sophia had never yet stooped to use her--might this evening have got a letter to him. But Dolly was gone; Dolly and all her friends were far away, and Mrs. Martha was stone. Sophia wrung her hands as she walked feverishly from door to window.

She knew nothing of the hundred channels through which a man of the world could trace her. To her eyes the door of Chalkhill bore the legend Dante had made famous. To her mind, to go to Aunt Leah was to be lost to her lover, to be lost to the world. And yet what chance of escape remained? Vainly thinking, vainly groping, she hung at the window tearing a handkerchief to pieces, while her eyes raked the street below for the least sign of him she sought. There were the same beaux strutting round the same corner, hanging on the same arms, bowing to the same chairs, ogled from the shelter of the same fans. The same hackney-coachmen quarrelled, the same boys gambled at the corner. Even Sir Hervey paused at the same hour of the afternoon, looked up as he had looked up yesterday, seemed to hesitate, finally went on. But Hawkesworth--Hawkesworth was nowhere.

Her eyes aching with long watching, the choke of coming tears in her throat, Sophia drew back at last, and was in the act of casting herself on her bed in a paroxysm of despair, when a shrill voice speaking outside her door reached her ears. The next moment she heard her name.

She sprang to the door, the weight lifted from her heart. Any happening was better than none. "Here!" she cried. "Here!" And she struck the panels with her hands.

"Where? Oh, I see," the voice answered. Then "Thank you, my good woman," it went on, "I'll trouble you no farther. I can open for myself. I see the key is in the lock."

But on that Mrs. Martha's voice was raised, loudly remonstrant. "My lady," she cried, "you don't understand! I've the strictest orders----"

"To keep her in? Just so, you foolish thing. And so you shall. But not to keep me out. Still--just to be sure I'll take the key in with me!" On which Sophia heard the key turn sharply in the lock, the door flew open, and in bounced Lady Betty. To insert the key on the inside and secure the door behind her was the work of a moment. Then she dropped the astonished Sophia an exaggerated curtsey.

"La, miss, I crave your pardon, I'm sure," she said, "for calling your name so loud on the stairs, but that silly thing would do nothing but her orders. So as she would not show me the way, I ran up myself."

"You're very kind!" Sophia said. And she stood, trembling, and feeling sudden shame of her position.

Lady Betty seemed to see this. "La! is it true they won't let you out?" she said.

Sophia muttered that it was.

The visitor's eyes roved from the meagre remains of the midday meal to the torn shreds of handkerchief that strewed the floor. "Then it's a shame! It's a black monstrous shame!" she cried, stamping on the floor. "I know what I should do if they did it to me! I should break, I should burn, I should tear! I should tear that old fright's wig off to begin! But I suppose it's your sister?"

"Yes."

Lady Betty made a face. "Horrid thing!" she exclaimed. "I never did like her! Is it because you won't--is it because you have a lover, miss?"

Sophia hesitated. "La, don't mind me. I have five!" the child cried naïvely. "I'll tell you their names if you like. They are nothing to me, the foolish things, but I should die if I hadn't as many as other girls. To see them glare at one another is the finest sport in the world."

"But you love one of them?" Sophia said shyly.

"La, no, it's for them to love me!" Lady Betty cried, tossing her head. "I should be a fool if I loved them!"

"But the letter--that I tore up?" Sophia ventured.

The child blushed, and with a queer laugh flung herself on the other's neck and kissed her. "That was from a--a lover I ought not to have," she said. "If it had been found, I should have had my ears boxed, and been sent into the country. You saved me, you duck, and I'll never forget it!"

Sophia bent on the most serious imprudence could be wise for another. "From a lover whom you ought not to have?" she said gravely. "You'll not do it again, will you?