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

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."

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.