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

days; at length, when hours only remain, the last meal is an epoch on the hither side of which we sit almost content. It was so with Sophia when she had once started. They were to dine at Lewes; until Lewes was reached she put away the future, and strove to enjoy the hours that intervened.

The weather was so foul that at starting they took Lady Betty's maid into the carriage, and pitied Watkyns, who had no choice but to sit outside, with his hat pulled down to his collar, and the rain running out of his pockets. The wild hilly road through Ashdown Forest, that on a fine day charms the modern eye, presented to them only dreary misty tops and deep sloughy bottoms; the latter so delaying them--for twice in the first six miles they stuck fast--that it was noon when they reached Sheffield Green. Dane Hill was slowly climbed, the horses straining and the wheels creaking; but, this difficulty surmounted, they had a view of flatter country ahead, though spread out under heavy rains; and they became more hopeful. "We cannot be far from Lewes, now," Lady Betty said cheerfully. "I wonder what Watkyns thinks. Pettitt, put your head out and ask him."

Pettitt did so, not very willingly, and after exchanging a few words with the man drew in a scared face. "He says, my lady, we sha'n't be there till half after two at the best," she announced. "Nor then if the water is out. He says if it goes on raining another hour, he does not know if we shall ever reach it." It will be noticed that Watkyns, with the rain running down his back, was a pessimist.

"Ever reach it?" Lady Betty retorted. "What rubbish! But, la, suppose we are stopped, and have to lie in the fields? Pettitt, did you ever sleep in a field?"

Pettitt fairly jumped with indignation. "Me, my lady!" she cried. "I should think I knew better! And was brought up better. Not I, indeed!"

"Well," Betty answered mischievously, "if we have to sleep in the carriage, I give you notice, Pettitt, there'll not be room for you! But I daresay you'll be dry enough--underneath, if we choose a nice place."

Pettitt's eyes were wide with horror. "Underneath?" she gasped.

"To be sure! Or we might find a haystack," Lady Betty continued, with a face of the greatest seriousness. "The men could lie on one side and you on the other----"

"Me, my lady! A haystack? Never!"

"Oh, it is no use to say never," Lady Betty answered; "these things often happen when one travels. And after all, you would have the one side to yourself, and it would be quite nice and proper. And if there were no mice or rats in the stack----"

The maid shrieked feebly.

"As there often are in haystacks, I am sure you would do as well as we should in the carriage. And--oh, la!" in a different tone, "who is that? How he scared me!"

A horseman going the same way had come up with the carriage; as she spoke, he passed it at a rapid trot. The two ladies poked their heads forward, and followed him with their eyes. "It's Mr. Fanshaw," Sophia muttered in great surprise.

"Fanshaw?" Lady Betty cried, springing up in excitement, and as quickly sitting down again. "La, so it is! You don't think the stupid is going to follow us after what you said? If he does"--with a giggle--"I don't know what they'll say at Coke Hall. How he does bump, to be sure! And how hot he is!"

"He ought to have returned to London!"

"Well, I'm sure I thought you'd frightened him!" Lady Betty answered demurely.

Sophia said nothing, but thought the more. What did the man mean? He had collapsed so easily the night before, he had been so completely prostrated by her hard words, she had taken it for certain he would abandon the pursuit. Yet here he was, still with his back to London, still in attendance on them. Was it possible that he had some hold over Lady Betty? She asked Pettitt, whose face, as she sat clutching a basket and looking nervously out of the window, was a picture of misery, where he had lain at East Grinstead.

"At the other inn," Pettitt answered tearfully. "I saw him in the street this morning, my lady, talking to two men. I'm sure I little thought then that I might have to lie in--oh, Lord ha' mercy, we're over!"

She squealed, the ladies clutched one another, the carriage lurched heavily. It jolted forward a yard or two at a dangerous slant, and came to a sudden stand. The road undermined by the heavy rain had given way; and the near wheels had sunk into the hole, while those on the other side stood on solid ground. A little more and the carriage must have turned over. While Watkyns climbed down in haste, and the grooms dismounted, the three inside skipped out, to find themselves standing in the rain, in a little valley between two softly-rounded hills, that sloped upwards until they were lost in the fog. There was nothing else for it; they had to wait with what patience they might, until the three servants with a couple of bars, which travellers in those days carried for the purpose, had lifted the vehicle by sheer strength from the pit into which it had settled. Then word was passed to the horses, the postboys cracked their whips, and, with a bound, the carriage stood again on firm ground.

So far good; but in surmounting the difficulty, half an hour had been wasted. It was nearly two o'clock; they were barely half way to Lewes. The patient Watkyns, holding the door for them to enter, advised that they could not now be in before four. "If then," he added ominously. "I fear, my lady, the ford on this side of Chayley is like to be deep. I don't know how 'twill be, my lady, but we'll do our best."

"You must not drown us!" Lady Betty cried gaily; but had better have held her tongue, for her woman, between damp and fright, began to cry, and was hardly scolded into silence.

So, half-past two, which should have seen them at Lewes, found them ploughing through heavy mud at a foot's pace behind sobbing horses; the rain, the roads, and the desolate landscape, all bearing out the evil repute of Sussex highways. Abreast of the windmill at Plumpton by-road they found dry going, which lasted for half a mile, and the increase of speed cheered even the despairing Pettitt. But at the foot of the descent they stuck fast once more, in a hole ill-mended with faggots; and for a fair hundred yards the men had to push and pull. They lost another half-hour here, so that it wanted little of half-past three when they came, weary and despondent, to the ford below Chayley, about six miles short of Lewes. The grooms were mired to the knees, Watkyns was little better, all were in a poor humour. Lady Betty's woman clung and screeched on the least alarm; and on all the steady drizzle and the heavy road had wrought depressingly.

"Shall we have difficulty in crossing?" Sophia asked nervously, as they drew towards the ford, and saw a brown line of water swirling athwart the road. A horseman and two or three country folk were on the bank, gauging the stream with their eyes.

Watkyns shook his head. "I doubt it's not to be done at all, my lady," he said. "Here's one stopped already, unless I am mistaken."

"But we can't stay here," Sophia protested, looking with longing at the roofs and spire that rose above the trees beyond the stream. On the bank on which they stood was a single hovel of mud, fast melting under the steady downpour.

"I'll see what they say, my lady," Watkyns answered, and leaving the carriage thirty paces from the water, he went forward and joined the little group that conferred on the brink. The grooms moved on also, while the leading postboy, standing up in his stirrups, scanned the current with evident misgiving.

"'Tis Fanshaw on the horse," Sophia said in a low tone.

"So it is!" Lady Betty answered. "He's afraid to cross, it is clear! You don't think we shall have to spend the night here?"

The horses hanging their heads in the rain, the dripping postboys, the splashed carriage, the three faces peering anxiously at the flood, through which they must pass to gain shelter--a more desolate group it were hard to conceive; unless it was that which talked and argued on the bank, and from which Watkyns presently detached himself. He came back to the carriage.

"It's not to be done, my lady," he said, his face troubled. "There's but one opinion of that. It's a mud bottom, they tell me, and if the horses dragged the carriage in, they could never pull it through. Most likely they wouldn't face the water. It must fall a foot they say, before it'll be safe to try it."

The maid shrieked. Even Sophia looked scared. "But what are we to do?" she said. "We cannot spend the night here."

"Well, my lady, the gentleman says if we keep down the water this side, there's a paved ford a mile lower that should be passable. It's not far from Fletching, and we could very likely cross there or get shelter in Fletching, if your ladyship should not choose to risk it."

"But how does the gentleman know?" Sophia asked sharply.

"He's of this country," Watkyns answered. "Leastwise bred here, my lady, this side of Lewes, and says he knows the roads. It's what he's going to do himself. And I don't know what else we can do, if your ladyship pleases."

"Well," Sophia said doubtfully, "if you think so?"

"Oh, yes," Lady Betty cried impulsively. "Let us go! We can't sit here all night. It must be nearly four now."

"It's all that, my lady."

"And we shall have it dark, if we stay here. And shall really have to lie under a haystack. Besides, you may be sure he'll not lead us into much danger!" she continued, with a contemptuous look at Mr. Fanshaw. "If we take care to go only where he goes we shall not run much risk."

As if he heard what she was saying, Mr. Fanshaw at that moment turned his horse, and passed the carriage; he was on his way to take the lane that ran down stream. A countryman plodded at his stirrup, and Sir Hervey's grooms followed. After them came a second countryman with a sack drawn over his shoulders. As this man passed the carriage Sophia leaned from the window and called to him.

"Does this lane lead to a better ford, my man?" she asked.

The fellow stared at Lady Betty's pretty face and eager eyes. "Aye, there's a ford," he answered, the rain dripping off his nose.

"A better ford than this?"

"Ay, 'tis paved."

"And how far from here is it?"

"A mile, or may be a mile and a bit."

Sophia gave him a shilling. She nodded to Watkyns. "I think we had better go," she said. "But I hope it may not be a long round," she continued with a sort of foreboding. "I shall be glad when we are in the main road again."

The horses' heads once turned, however, things seemed to go better. The sky grew lighter, the rain ceased, the lane, willow-lined, and in places invaded by the swollen stream that ran beside it, proved to be passable. Even the mile and a bit turned out to be no more than two miles, and in half an hour, the cavalcade, to which Mr. Fanshaw, moving in front, had the air of belonging, reached