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

here! He was fit to kill himself when he found her ladyship was gone," the woman continued with zest; "and Sir Hervey was lit to kill 'em all, and serve 'em right; and now they are searching the country, and a score with them; but it's tolerable sure the villains ha' got away with my lady, some think by Newhaven and foreign parts! What? Isn't your reverence going to the house?"

"No," his reverence muttered, with a sickly smile. "No." And he turned from the cool shadows of the chestnut avenue, that led to the Hall, and setting his face the way he had come, hastened through the heat. He might still prevent the worst! He might still--but he must get home. He must get home. He had walked three miles in forty minutes in old days; he must do it now. True, the sun was midsummer high, the time an hour after noon, the road straight and hot, and unshaded, his throat was parched, and he was fasting. But he must press on. He must press on, though his legs began to tremble under him--and he was not so young as he had been. There was the end of Benacre's Lane! He had done a mile; but his knees were shaky, he must sit a moment on the bank. He did so, and found the trees begin to dance before his eyes, his thoughts to grow confused; frightened he tried to rise, but instead he sank in a swoon, and lay inert at the foot of the bank.

CHAPTER XXII 'TIS GO OR SWIM

It was a strange meeting between brother and sister. Tom, mindful how they had parted in Clarges Row, and with what loyalty she had striven to save him from himself--at a time when he stood in the utmost need of such efforts--was softened and touched beyond the ordinary. While Sophia, laughing and crying at once in the joy of a meeting as unexpected as it was welcome, experienced as she held Tom in her arms something nearer akin to happiness than had been hers since her marriage. The gratitude she owed to Providence for preservation amid the dangers of the night strengthened this feeling; the sunshine that flooded the orchard, the verdure under foot, the laden sprays of blossom overhead, the songs of the birds, the very strangeness of the retreat in which they met, all spoke to a heart peculiarly open at that moment to receive impressions. Tom recovered, Tom kind, formed part of the world which welcomed her back, and shamed her repining; while her brother, sheepish and affectionate, marvelled to see the little sister whom he had patronised all his life, suddenly and wonderfully transmogrified into Lady Coke.

He asked how she came to be so oddly dressed, learned that she also had fallen in with the vicar; and, when he had heard: "Well," he exclaimed, "'tis the luckiest thing your woman met me I ever knew!"

"You might have been in any part of England!" she answered, smiling through her tears. "Where were you going, Tom?"

"Why, to Coke's to be sure," he replied; "and wanted only two or three miles of it!"

"Not--not knowing?" she asked. And she blushed.

"Not the least in life! I was on the point of enlisting," he explained, colouring in his turn, "at Reading, in Tatton's foot, when a man he had sent in search of me, found me and gave me a note."

"From Sir Hervey?"

"Of course," Tom answered, "telling me I could stay at the Hall until things blew over. And--and not to make a fool of myself," he added ingenuously. "'Twas like him and I knew it was best to come, but when I was nearly there--that was last night, you know--I thought I would wait until morning and hear who were in the house before I showed myself. That is why Mistress Betty found me where she did."

Sophia could not hide her feelings on learning what Sir Hervey had done for Tom and for her; what he had done silently, without boasting, without telling her. Tom saw her tremble, saw that for some reason she was on the verge of tears, and he wondered.

"Why," he said, "what is the matter, Sophy? What is it now?"

"It's nothing, nothing," she answered hurriedly.

"I know what it is!" he replied. "You've been up all night, and had nothing to eat. You will be all right when you have had a meal. The old parson said he'd give us bacon and eggs. It should be ready by this time."

Sophia laughed hysterically. "I fear it doesn't lie with him," she said. "His wife would not let me into the house. She's afraid of the smallpox."

"Pooh!" Tom said contemptuously. "When she knows who we are she'll sing another tune."

"She won't believe," Sophia answered.

"She'll believe me," Tom said. "So let us go."

"Do you go first, sir, if you please," Lady Betty cried pertly, intervening for the first time. She had stood a little apart to allow the brother and sister to be private. "I'm sure her ladyship's not fit to be seen. And I'm not much better," she added; and then, a sudden bubble of laughter rising to the surface, she buried her face in Sophia's skirts, and affected to be engaged in repairing the disorder. Tom saw his sister's face relax in a smile, and he eyed the maid suspiciously; but before he could speak, Sophia also begged him to go, and see what reception the old clergyman had secured for them. He turned and went.

At the gate he looked back, but a wealth of apple blossom intervened; he did not see that the girls had flown into one another's arms, nor did he hear them laughing, crying, asking, answering, all at once, and out of the fulness of thankful hearts. Tom's wholesome appetite began to cry cupboard. He turned briskly up the road, discovered the wicket-gate of the parsonage, and marching to it, found to his surprise that it was locked. The obstacle was not formidable to youth, but the welcome was cold at best; and where was his friend the parson? In wonder he rattled the gate, thinking some one would come; but no one came, and out of patience he vaulted over the post, and passing round a mass of rose bushes that grew in a tangle about the pot-herb garden, he saw the door of the house standing ajar before him.

One moment; the next and before he could reach it, a boy about twelve years old, with a shock of hair and sullen eyes, looked out, saw him, and hastened to slam the door in his face. The action was unmistakable, the meaning plain; Sir Tom stood, stared, and after a moment swore. Then in a rage he advanced and kicked the door. "What do you mean?" he cried. "Open, sirrah, do you hear? Are these your manners?"

For a few seconds there was silence in the sunny herb garden with its laden air and perfumed hedges. Then a casement above creaked open, and two heads peered cautiously over the window-ledge. "Do you hear?" Tom cried, quickly espying them. "Come down and open the door, or you'll get a whipping."

But the boys, the one he had seen at the door, and another, a year or two older, preserved a sulky silence; eyeing him with evident dread and at the same time with a kind of morbid curiosity. Tom threatened, stormed, even took up a stone; they answered nothing and it was only when he had begun to retreat, fuming, towards the gate that one of them found his voice.

"You'd better be gone!" he cried shrilly. "They are coming for you."

Sir Tom turned at the sound, and went back at a white heat. "What do you mean, you young cubs?" he cried, looking up. "Who are coming for me?"

But they were dumb again, staring at him over the ledge with sombre interest. Tom repeated his question, scolded, even raised his stone, but without effect. At last he turned his back on them, and in a rage flung out of the garden.

He went out as he had entered, by vaulting the gate. As he did so, he heard a woman's shrill voice raised in anger; and he looked in the direction whence it came. He saw a knot of people coming down the road. It consisted of three or four women, and a rough-looking labourer; but while he stood eyeing them a second party, largely made up of men and boys, came in sight, following the other; and tailing behind these again came a couple of women and last of all two or three lads. The women speaking loudly, with excited gestures, appeared to be scolding the men; those on the outside of each rank hurrying a step in advance of the others, and addressing them with turned heads. Tom watched them a moment, thinking that they might be a search party sent by Coke; then he reflected that the noise would alarm his sister, and turning in at the gate he crossed the orchard.

Sophia came to meet him. "What is it?" she asked anxiously. "What is the matter, Tom?" The clamour of strident voices, the scolding of the women had preceded him. "Have you seen the clergyman? Why, they are coming here!"

"The deuce they are!" Tom answered. He looked back, and seeing through the trees that the man with the first gang had opened the gate of the orchard, he went to meet him.

"What is it?" he asked. "What are you doing here? Has Sir Hervey sent you?"

"We want no sending!" one of the women cried sharply. "'Tis enough to send us of ourselves."

"Aye, so it is!" a second chimed in with violence. "And do you keep your distance if you be one of them! Let's have no nonsense, master, for we won't stand it!"

"No, no nonsense!" cried another, as the larger party arrived and raised the number to something like a score. "She's got to go, and you with her if you be one of her company! Ain't that so?" the speaker continued, turning to her backers.

"Aye, she must go!" cried one. "We'll ha' no smallpox here!" cried another. "She'll go or swim! Out of the parish, I say!" shrieked a third.

Tom looked along the line of excited faces, faces stupid or cruel; at the best of a low type, and now brutalised by selfish panic. And his heart sank. But for the present he neither blenched nor lost his temper.

"Why, you fools," he said, thinking to reason with them, "don't you know who the lady is?"

"No, nor care!" was the shrill retort. "Nor care, do you understand that?"

And then a man stepped forward. "She's got to go," he said, "whoever she be. That's all."

"I tell you, you don't know who she is," Tom answered stubbornly. "Whose tenant are you, my man?"

"Sir Hervey's, to be sure," the fellow answered, surprised at the question.

"Well, she's his wife," Tom answered. "Do you hear? Do you understand?" he repeated, with growing indignation. "She is Lady Coke, Sir Hervey's wife. Lady Coke, Sir Hervey's wife! Get that into your heads, will you! His wife, I tell you. And if you raise a finger or wag a tongue against her, you'll repent it all your lives."

The man stared, doubting, hesitating, in part daunted. But a woman behind him--a lean vixen, her shoulders barely covered by a meagre kerchief, pushed herself to the front, and snapped her fingers in Tom's face. "That, my lady?" she cried. "That for the lie. You be a liar, my lad, that's what you be! A liar, and ought to swim with her. Neighbours," the shrew continued volubly, "she be no more my lady than I be. Madam told