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

grimly and ably wielded, the whip of authority. He had ridden as if horse and man were one; he had disdained weapons, and had flogged the hounds into submission and flight. Now in repose his strong figure in its plain dress wore in her eyes a new air of distinction.

She looked away and looked again, wondering if it really was so. And slowly a vivid blush spread over her pale face. The man who rode beside the wheel, the man whose figure she was appraising was--her husband. At the thought she turned with a guilty start to Lady Betty; but the poor girl, worn out by excitement and the night's vigil, had fallen asleep. Sophia's eyes went slowly back to her husband, and the carriage, leaving the road, swept through the gates into the park.

CHAPTER XXIII TWO PORTRAITS

Tom rubbed his hands in cruel anticipation. "They are coming to the Hall at four o'clock," he said. "And I wouldn't be in their shoes for a mug and a crust. Coke will swinge them," he continued with zest. "He must swinge them, like it or not! It'll be go, bag and baggage, for most of them, and some, I'm told, have been on the land time out of mind!"

He had seated himself on the broad balustrade of the terrace, with his back to the park, and his eyes on the windows of the house. Sophia, on a stone bench not far from him, gazed thoughtfully over the park as if she found refreshment merely in contemplating the far stretch of fern and sward, that, set with huge oak trees, fell away into half-seen dells of bracken and fox-gloves. Recreated by a long night's rest, her youth set off, and her freshness heightened by the dainty Tuscan and chintz sacque she had put on that morning, she was not to be known for the draggled miss who had arrived in so grievous a plight the day before. From time to time she recalled her gaze to fix it dreamily on her left hand; now reviewing the fingers, bent or straight, now laying them palm downwards on the moss-stained coping. She was so employed when the meaning of her brother's last words came tardily home to her and roused her from her reverie.

"Do you mean," she cried, "that he will put them out of their farms?"

"I should rather think he would!" said Tom. "Wouldn't you? And serve them right, the brutes!"

"But what will they do?"

"Starve for all I care!" Tom answered callously; and he flipped a pebble from the balustrade with his forefinger. He was not at his best a soft-hearted young gentleman. "And teach them to know better!" he added presently.

Sophia's face betrayed her trouble. "I don't think he would do that," she said, slowly.

"Coke?" Tom answered. "He won't have much choice, my dear. For the sake of your beaux yeux he will have to swinge them, and lustily. To let them off lightly would be to slight you; and 'twouldn't look very well, and a fortnight married. No, no, my girl. And that reminds me. Where is he? And where has he been since yesterday?"

Sophia reddened. "He has some business," she said, "which took him away at once."

"I don't think you know."

Sophia blushed more warmly, but added nothing; and fortunately Tom caught sight of a certain petticoat disappearing down the steps at the end of the terrace. It is not impossible that he had been expecting it, for he rose on the instant, muttered an unintelligible word, and went in pursuit.

Sophia sat awhile, pondering on what he had said. It was right that the offenders of yesterday should be punished; their conduct had been cruel, inhuman, barbarous. But that her home-coming should mean to any man the loss of home, shocked her. Yet she thought it possible that her brother was right; that pride, if not love, the wish to do his duty by her, if not the desire to commend himself to her, would move Sir Hervey to especial severity. What bridegroom indeed, what lover could afford to neglect so obvious a flattery? And if in her case Coke counted neither for lover nor bridegroom, what husband?

She rose. She must go at once and seek him, intercede with him, convince him that it would not please her. But two steps taken she paused, her pride in arms. After she had changed her dress and repaired her disorder the day before, she had waited, expecting that he would come to her. But he had not done so, he had not come near her; at length she had asked for him. Then she had learned with astonishment, with humiliation, that immediately after her arrival he had left the house on business.

If he could slight her in that fashion, was there any danger that out of regard to her he would do injustice to others? She laughed at the thought--yet believed all the same that there was, for men were inconsistent. But the position made intercession difficult, and instead of calling a servant and asking if he had returned she wandered into the house. She remembered that the housekeeper had begged to know when her ladyship would see the drawing-rooms; and she sent for Mrs. Stokes.

That good lady found her young mistress waiting for her in the larger of the two rooms. It was scantily furnished after the fashion of the early part of the century, with heavy chairs and a table, set at wide intervals on a parquet floor, with a couple of box-like settees, and as many buhl tables, the latter bought by Sir Hervey's mother on her wedding tour, and preserved as the apple of her eye. On either side of the open blue-tiled fire-place a roundheaded alcove exhibited shelves of Oriental china, and on the walls were half a dozen copies of Titians and Raphaels, large pictures at large intervals. All was stately, proper, a little out of fashion, but decently so. Sophia admired, yawned, said a pleasant word to Mrs. Stokes and passed into the smaller room.

There she stood, suddenly engrossed. On each side of the fireplace hung a full-length portrait. The one on the right hand, immediately before her, represented a girl in the first bloom of youth, lovely as a rose-bud, graceful as a spray of jessamine, with eyes that charmed and chained the spectator by their pure maidenliness. A great painter in his happiest vein had caught the beauty and innocence of a chosen model; as she smiled from the canvas, the dull room--for the windows were curtained--grew brighter and lighter. The visitor, as he entered, saw only that sweet face, and saw it ever more clearly; as the play-goer sees only the limited space above the footlights, and sees that grow larger the longer he looks.

It was with an effort and a sigh Sophia turned to the other picture; she looked at it and stood surprised, uncertain, faintly embarrassed. She turned to the housekeeper, "It is Sir Hervey, is it not?" she said.

"Yes, my lady," the woman answered. "At the age of twenty-one. But he is not much changed to my eyes," she added jealously.

"Of course, I did not know him then," Sophia murmured apologetically; and after a long thoughtful look she went back to the other picture. "What a very, very lovely face!" she said. "I did not know that Sir Hervey had ever had a sister. She is dead, I suppose?"

"Yes, my lady, she is dead."

"It is his sister?" with a look at the other.

The housekeeper gave back the look uncomfortably. "No, my lady," she said at last.

"No!" Sophia exclaimed, raising her eyebrows. "Then who is it, pray?"

"Well, my lady, it--it should have been removed," Mrs. Stokes explained, her embarrassment evident. "At one time it was to go to Sir Hervey's library, but 'twas thought it might be particular there. And so nothing was done about it. Sir Hervey wouldn't let it go anywhere else. But I was afraid that your ladyship might not be pleased."

Sophia stared coldly at her. "I don't understand," she said stiffly. "You have not told me who it is."

"It's Lady Anne, my lady."

"What Lady Anne?"

"Lady Anne Thoresby. I thought," the housekeeper added in a faltering tone, "your ladyship would have heard of her."

Sophia looked at the lovely young face, looked at the other portrait--of Sir Hervey in his gallant hunting-dress, gay, laughing, debonair--and she understood. "She was to have married Sir Hervey?" she said.

"Yes, my lady."

"And she died?"

"Yes, my lady, two days before their wedding-day," Mrs. Stokes answered, her garrulity beginning to get the better of her fears. "Sir Hervey was never the same again--that is to say, in old days, my lady," she added hurriedly. "He grew that silent it was wonderful, and no gentleman more pleasant before. He went abroad, and 'tis said he lost twenty thousand pounds in one night in Paris. And before that he had played no more than a gentleman should."

Sophia's eyes were full of tears.

"How did she die?" she whispered.

"Of the smallpox, my lady. And that is why Sir Hervey is so particular about it."

"How do you mean? Is he afraid of it?"

"Oh, no, my lady, far from it! He had it years ago himself. But wherever it is, he's for giving help. That's why we kept it from him that 'twas at Beamond's Farm, thinking that as your ladyship was coming, he would not wish to be in the way of it. But he was wonderful angry when he learned about it, and went off as soon as news came from his reverence; who would have sent sooner, but he was took ill yesterday. I can pretty well guess what Sir Hervey's gone about," she added sagaciously.

"What?" Sophia asked.

Mrs. Stokes hesitated, but decided to speak.

"Well, it happened once before, my lady," she said, "that they could get no one to help bury; and Sir Hervey went and set the example. You may be sure there were plenty then, as had had it, and had no cause to fear, ready to come forward to do the work. And I've not much doubt, my lady, it's for that he's gone this time. He'd stay away a night at the keeper's cottage, I expect," Mrs. Stokes continued, nodding her head sagely, "just to see to his clothes being destroyed and the like. For there's no one more careful to carry no risks, I will say that for his honour."

Sophia stared.

"But do you mean," she cried, her heart beating strangely, "that Sir Hervey would do the work with his own hands?"

"Well, it's what he did once, I know, my lady," the housekeeper answered apologetically. "It was not very becoming, to be sure, but he was not the less thought of about here, I assure your ladyship. You see, my lady, 'tis in the depth of the country, and the land is his own, and it's not as if it was in London. Where I know things are very different," Mrs. Stokes continued with pride, "for I have been there myself with the family. But about here I'm sure he was not the less considered, begging your ladyship's pardon."

"I can believe it," Sophia said, in a voice suspiciously quiet and even. And then, "Thank you, Mrs. Stokes, you can leave me now," she continued. "I shall sit here a little."

But when Mrs. Stokes, feeling herself a trifle snubbed, had withdrawn and closed the door of the outer room upon her, Sophia's eyes grew moist with tears, and the nosegay that filled the open bodice of her sacque rose and fell strangely. In that age philanthropy was not a fashion. Pope indeed had painted the Man of Ross, and there was a Charitable Corporation, lately