Sophia, Stanley J. Weyman [new ebook reader TXT] 📗

be silent. "She's not for such as me, you mean?" he said, with a mocking laugh.

"You can put it that way if you choose!"

"And yet, I think--if I were to try?"

"What?"

"I say, if I were to try?"

Sir Tom scowled across the table. "Look here!" he said, striking it heavily with his hand, "I don't like this sort of talk. I don't suppose you wish to be offensive; and we'll end it, if you please."

Hawkesworth shrugged his shoulders. "Oh, by all means, if you feel that way," he said. "Only it looks a little as if you feared for your charming sister. After all, women are women. Even Miss Sophia Maitland is a woman, and no exception to the rule, I presume?"

"Oh, hang you!" the boy cried, in a fury; and again struck his hand on the table. "Will you leave my sister's name alone? Cannot you understand--what a gentleman feels about it?"

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"HE CANNOT!"

"He cannot!"

The words came from behind Sir Tom, who forthwith sprang a yard from the settle, and stood gaping; while Hawkesworth, his glass going to shivers on the floor, clutched the table as he rose. Both stood staring, both stood amazed, and scarce believed their eyes, when Sophia, stepping from the shelter of the settle, stood before them.

"He cannot!" she repeated, with a gesture, a look, an accent that should have withered the man. "He cannot! For he does not know what a gentleman feels about anything. He does not know what a gentleman is. Look at him! Look at him!" she continued, her face white with scorn; and she fixed the astonished Irishman with an outstretched finger that could scarce have confounded him more had it been a loaded pistol set to his head. "A gentleman!" she went on passionately. "That a gentleman? Why, the air he breathes pollutes us! To be in one room with him disgraces us! That such an one should have tricked us will shame us all our lives!"

Hawkesworth tried to speak, tried to carry off the surprise; but a feeble smile was all he could compass. Even Irish wit, even native impudence were unequal to this emergency. The blow was so sudden, so unexpected, he could not in a moment arrange his thoughts, or discern his position. He saw that for some reason or other she had come to him before the time; but he could not on the instant remember how far he had disclosed his hand before her, or what she had learned from him while she lay hidden.

Naturally Tom was the quicker to recover himself. His first thought on seeing his sister was that she had got wind of his plans, and was here to prevent his marriage. And it was in this sense that he interpreted her opening words. But before she had ceased to speak, the passion which she threw into her denunciation of Hawkesworth, turned his thoughts into a new and a fiercer channel. With an oath, "Never mind him!" he cried, and stepping forward gripped her, almost brutally, by the wrist. "I'll talk with him afterwards. First, miss, what the devil are you doing here?"

"Ask him," she answered; and again pointed her finger at Hawkesworth. "Or no, I will tell you, Tom. That man, the man who calls himself your friend, and called himself my lover, has plotted to ruin us. He has schemed to get us into his net. To-morrow he would have married you to--to, I know not, whom. And when he had seen you married, and knew you had forfeited a fortune to me, then--then I should have been a fit match for him! I! I! And in the evening he would have married me! Oh, shame, shame on us, Tom, that we should have let ourselves be so deluded!"

"He would have married you!" Tom cried, dropping her hand in sheer astonishment.

"The same day!"

"Hawkesworth? This man here? He would have married you?"

"You may well say, he!" she answered, a wave of crimson flooding her cheeks and throat. "The thought kills me."

Tom looked from one to the other. "But I can't understand," he said. "I didn't know--that he knew you, even."

"And I didn't know that he knew you!" she answered bitterly. "He is a villain, and that was his plan. We were not to know."

Tom turned to the Irishman; and the latter's deprecatory shrug was vain. "What have you to say?" Tom cried in a voice almost terrible.

But Hawkesworth, who did not lack courage, was himself again, easy, alert, plausible. "Much," he said coolly. "Much, dear lad. The whole thing is a mistake. I loved your sister"--he bowed gravely in her direction, and stole a glance as he did so, to learn how she took it, and how far he still had a chance with her. "I loved her, I say, I still love her, though she has shown that she puts as little faith in me, as she can ever have entertained affection for me. But I knew her as Miss Maitland, I did not know that she was your sister. Once I think she mentioned a brother; but no more, no name. For the rest, I had as little reason to expect to find her here as you had. That I swear!"

The last words hit Tom uncomfortably; her presence in this man's room was a fact hard to swallow. The brother turned on the sister. "Is this true?" he hissed.

Sophia winced. "It is true," she faltered.

"Then what brought you here?" Tom cried, with brutal frankness.

The girl shivered; she never forgot the pain of that moment, never forgot the man who had caused her that humiliation. "Ask him!" she panted. "Or no, I will tell you, Tom. He swore that he loved me. He made me, poor silly fool that I was, believe him. He said that if I would elope with him to-morrow, he would marry me at Dr. Keith's chapel; and fearing they--my sister--would marry me against my will to--to another man, I consented. Then--they were going to send me away in the morning, and it would have been too late. I came away this afternoon to tell him, and--and----"

"There you have the explanation, Sir Thomas," Hawkesworth interposed, with an air of candid good nature. "And in all you'll say, I think, that there is nothing of which I need be ashamed. I loved your sister, she was good enough to fancy that she was not indifferent to me. My intentions were honourable, but her friends were opposed to my suit. I had her consent to elope, and if she had not on a sudden discovered, as she apparently has discovered, that her heart is not mine, we should have been married within a few days."

"To-morrow, sir, to-morrow!" Sophia cried. And would have confronted him with his letter; but it was in the folds of her dress, and she would not let him see where she kept it.

"To-morrow, certainly, if it had been your pleasure," Hawkesworth answered smoothly. "The sole, the only point it concerns me to show, is, Sir Tom, that I did not know my Miss Maitland to be your sister. I give you my word, Sir Tom, I did not!"

"Liar!" she cried, unable to contain herself.

He shrugged his shoulders, and smiled. "There is but one Sir Thomas Maitland," he said, "but there are many Maitlands. Miss Maitland may hold what opinion she pleases, and express what view of my character commends itself to her, without fear that I shall call her natural guardians to account. But I cannot allow a gentleman to doubt my word. I repeat, Sir Tom, that I did not know that this lady was your sister."

The boy listened, scowling and thinking. He had no lack of courage, and was as ready to fly at a man's throat as not. But he was young; he was summoned, suddenly and in conditions most perplexing, to protect the family honour; it was no wonder that he hesitated. At this, however, "Then why the deuce were you so ready to bet," he blurted out, "that she would be married at Keith's?"

Before Hawkesworth could frame the answer, "That is not all!" Sophia cried; and with a rapid movement she snatched from the table the book that had first opened her eyes. "Here, here," she cried, tapping it passionately. "In his own handwriting is the plot! The plot against us both! Tom, look; find it! You will find it under my name. And then he cannot deny it."

She held out the book to Tom; he went to take it. But Hawkesworth, who knew the importance of the evidence, was too quick for them. With an oath he sprang forward, held Tom back with one hand, and with the other seized the volume, and tried to get possession of it. But Sophia clung to it, screaming; and before he could wrest it from her hold, Tom, maddened by the insult and her cries, was at his breast like a wild cat.

The fury of the assault took the Irishman by surprise. He staggered against the wall, and alarmed by the girl's shrieks, let the book go. By that time, however, Sophia had had enough of the struggle. The sight of the two locked in furious conflict horrified her, her grasp relaxed, she let the book fall; and as Hawkesworth, recovering from his surprise, gripped her brother's throat and by main force bent him backwards--the lad never ceasing to rain blows on the taller man's face and shoulders--she fled to the door, opened it, and screamed for help.

Fortunately it was already on the road. Mr. Wollenhope, crying, "Lord, what is it? What is it?" was halfway up the stairs when she appeared, and close on his heels followed his wife, with a scared face. Sophia beckoned them to hasten, and wringing her hands, flew back. They followed.

They found Hawkesworth dragging the boy about, and striving savagely to force him to the floor. As soon as he saw Wollenhope, he cried with fury, "Will some one take this mad dog off me? He has tried his best to murder me. If I had not been the stronger, he would have done it!"

Wollenhope, panting with the haste he had made, seized Tom from behind and held him, while Hawkesworth disengaged himself. "You'll--you'll give me satisfaction for this!" the lad cried, gasping, and almost blubbering with rage. His wig was gone, so was his cravat; the ruffle of his shirt was torn from top to bottom.

The other was busy readjusting his dress, and staunching the blood that flowed from a cut lip. "Satisfaction, you young booby?" he answered, with savage contempt. "Send you back to school and whip you! Turn 'em out, Wollenhope! Turn them both out! That devil's cub sprang on me and tried to strangle me. It's lucky for you, sir, I don't send you to Hicks's Hall!"

"Oh, Lord, let's have none of that!" Wollenhope interposed hastily. "Mine's a respectable house, and there's been noise enough already. A little more and I shall be indicted. March, young sir, if you please. And you too, miss."

Tom swelled with fresh rage. "Do you know who I am, fellow?" he cried. "I'd have you to know----"

"I don't want to know!" Wollenhope rejoined, cutting him short. "I won't know! It's march--that's all I know. And quick, if you please," he continued, trying to edge the lad out of the room.

"But, William," his wife protested, and timidly touched his arm, "it's possible that they may not be in fault. I'm sure the young lady was very well spoken when she came."

"None of your advice!" her husband retorted.

"But, William----"

"None of your advice, I say! Do you hear? Do you understand? This gentleman is our lodger. Who the others are, I don't know,