Sophia: A Romance

"You think she'll not fail?" he cried, presently, as he set down his glass. "It's a week since I saw her, and-and you don't think she'll have changed her mind, do you?"

"Not she!" Hawkesworth answered.

"She'll come, you are certain."

"As certain," Hawkesworth cried gaily, "as that Dr. Keith will be ready at the chapel at twelve to the minute, dear lad. And, by the way, here's his health! Dr. Keith, and long may he live to bless the single and crown the virtuous! To give to him that hath not, and from her that hath to take away! To be the plague of all sour guardians, lockers-up of maidens, and such as would cheat Cupid; and the guardian-angel of all Nugents, Husseys, and bold fellows! Here's to the pride of Mayfair, the curse of Chancery, and the god-father of many a pretty couple-Dr. Keith!"

"Here's to him!" Tom cried, with ready enthusiasm. And then more quietly as he set down his glass, "There's one thing I'd like, to be perfectly happy, Hawkesworth, only one. I wish it were possible, but I suppose it isn't."

"What is it, lad?"

"If Sophia, my sister, could be there. They'll be sisters, you see, and-and, of course, Sophia's a girl, but there are only the two of us, for Madam Northey doesn't count. But I suppose it is not possible she should be told?"

"Quite impossible!" Hawkesworth answered with decision; and he stooped to hide a smile. The humour of the situation suited him. "Quite impossible! Ten to one she'd peach! No, no, we must not initiate her too soon, my boy; though it is likely enough she'll have her own business with Dr. Keith one of these days!"

The boy stared at him. "My sister?" he said slowly, his face growing red. "With Dr. Keith? What business could she have with him?"

"With Dr. Keith?" Hawkesworth asked lightly. "Why not the same as yours, dear boy?"

"The same as mine?"

"Yes, to be sure. Why not? Eh, why not?"

"Why not? Because she's a Maitland!" the lad answered, and his eyes flashed. "Our women don't marry that way, I'd have you to know! Why, I'd-I'd rather see her buried."

"But you're going to marry that way yourself!" Hawkesworth reasoned. The boy's innocence surprised him a little and amused him more.

"I? But I'm a man," Tom answered with dignity. "I'm different. And-and Oriana," he continued, plunging on a sudden into dreadful confusion and redness of face, "is-is different of course, because-well, because if we are not married in this way, my brother Northey would interfere, and we could not be married at all. Oriana is an angel, and-and because she loves me, is willing to be married in this way. That's all, you see."

"I see. But you would not like your sister to be married on the quiet?"

Tom glared at him. "No," he said curtly. "And for the why, it is my business."

"To be sure it is! Of course it is. And yet, Sir Tom," Hawkesworth continued, his tone provoking, "I would not mind wagering you a hundred it is the way she will be married, when her time comes."

"My sister?"

"Yes."

"Done with you!" the lad cried.

"Nay, I don't mind going farther," Hawkesworth continued. "I'll wager you the same sum that she does it within the year."

"This year?"

"A year from to-day."

Tom jumped up in heat. "What the devil do you mean?" he cried. Then he sat down again. "But what matter!" he said, "I'll take you."

Hawkesworth as he pulled out his betting book turned his head aside to hide a smile. "I note it," he said. "'P. H. bets Sir Thomas Maitland a hundred that Miss Sophia Maitland is married at Dr. Keith's chapel; and another hundred that the marriage is within the year.'"

"Right!" Tom said, glowering at him. His boyish estimate of the importance of his family, and of the sacredness of his womankind, sucked the flavour from the bet; ordinarily the young scapegrace loved a wager.

Hawkesworth put up his book again. "Good," he said. "You'll see that that will be two hundred in my pocket some day."

"Not it!" Tom answered, rudely. "My sister is not that sort! And perhaps the sooner you know it, the better," he added, aggressively.

"Why, lad, what do you mean?"

"Just what I said!" Tom answered shortly. "It was English. When my sister is to be married, we shall make a marriage for her. She's not-but the less said the better," he continued, breaking off with a frown.

Hawkesworth knew that it would be prudent to quit the subject, but his love of teasing, or his sense of the humour of the situation, would not let him 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?"

"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."