Sophia: A Romance

The younger girl shivered. "That must be-horrible," she whispered.

Her tone was so grave that Sophia raised her head, and smiled drearily through her tears. "You don't understand yet," she said. "It's only a form, our marriage. He offered to marry me to save me from scandal. And I agreed. But since he gave me the jewels that were his mother's, I-I am frightened, child. I know now that I have done wrong. I should not have let him persuade me."

"Why did you?" Lady Betty asked softly.

Sophia told her, with all the circumstances of Hawkesworth's villainy, Tom's infatuation, her own dilemma, Sir Hervey's offer, and the terms of it.

After a brief silence, "It was generous," Lady Betty said, her eyes shining. "I think I should-I think I could love him, my Lady Coke. And since that, you have only seen him one day?"

"That is all."

"And he kept his word? I mean-he wasn't silly?"

"No."

"He has been kind too. There is no denying that?"

"It is that which is killing me!" Sophia cried with returning excitement. "It is his kindness kills me, girl! Cannot you understand that?"

Lady Betty declined to say she could. And for quite a long time she was silent. She sat gazing from the carriage, her eyes busied, to all appearance, with the distant view of Godstone Church; but a person watching her closely might have detected a gleam of mischief, a sudden flash of amusement that leapt into them as she looked; and that could scarcely have had to do with this church. She seemed at a loss, however, for matter of comfort; or she was singularly unfortunate in the choice of it. For when she spoke again she could hit on no better topic to compose Sophia's mind than a long story, which the naughty girl had no right to know, of Sir Hervey's dealings with his old flames. It is true, nods and winks formed so large a part of the tale, and the rest was so involved, that Sophia could not even arrive at the ladies' names. "But," as Lady Betty concluded mysteriously, "it may serve to ease your mind, my dear. You may be sure he won't trouble you long. La! child, the things I've heard of him-but there, I mustn't tell you."

"No," Sophia answered primly. "Certainly not, if you please."

"Of course not. But you may take it from me, the first pretty face he sees-why, Sophy! what is it! What is it?"

No wonder she screamed. Sophia had gripped her arm with one hand; with the other she was striving to cover the treasure that lay forgotten on her lap. "What is it?" Betty repeated frantically. There is nothing more terrifying than a silent alarm ill-understood.

The next moment she saw-and understood. Beside Sophia's window, riding abreast of the carriage, in such a position that only his horse's head, by forging an instant to the front, had betrayed his presence, was a cloaked stranger. Lady Betty caught no more than a glimpse of him, but that was enough. Apart from the doubt how long he had ridden there, inspecting the jewels at his leisure, his appearance was calculated to scare less nervous travellers. Though the day was mild, he wore a heavy riding cloak, the collar of which rose to the height of his cheek bone, where it very nearly met the uncocked leaf of his hat. Between the two, an eye bright and threatening gleamed forth. The rest of his features were lost in the depths of a fierce black riding wig; but his great holsters, and long swinging sword, seemed to show that his errand was anything but peaceful.

The moment his one eye met Lady Betty's gaze, he fell back; and that instant Sophia used to close the jewel case, and turn the key. To lower the drawer to the floor of the carriage, and cover it with her skirts was the work of a second, then still trembling, she put out her head, and looked back along the road. The man had pulled his horse into a walk, and was now a hundred paces behind them. Even at that distance, his cloaked figure as he lounged along the turf beside the track, loomed a dark blot on the road.

Sophia drew in her head. "Quick!" she cried. "Do you stand up and watch him, Betty, while I put the case away. Tell me in a moment if he comes on or is likely to overtake us."

Lady Betty complied. "He is walking still," she said, her head out on one side. "Now the grooms-lazy beasts, they should have been here-are passing him, La, what a turn it gave me. He had an eye-I hope to goodness we shall never meet the wretch again."

"I hope we may never meet him after nightfall," Sophia answered with a shudder. And she clicked the drawer home, dropped the valance in front of the seat, and rose from her knees.

"I noticed one thing, the left hand corner of his cloak was patched," Lady Betty said, as she drew in her head. "And I should know his horse among a hundred: chestnut, with white forelegs and a scarred knee."

"He saw them, he must have seen them!" Sophia cried in great distress. "Oh, why did I take them out!"

"But if he meant mischief he would have stopped us then," Lady Betty replied. "The grooms were half a mile behind, and I'll be bound Watkyns was asleep."

"He dared not here, because of these houses," Sophia moaned, as they rolled by a small inn, the outpost of the little hamlet of New Chapel Green, between Lingfield and Turner's Heath. "He will wait until we are in some lonely spot, in a wood, or crossing a common, or-"

"Sho!" Lady Betty cried contemptuously-the jewels were not hers, and weighed less heavily on her mind. "We are only five miles from Grinstead, see, there is the milestone, and it is early in the afternoon. He'll not rob us here if he be Turpin himself."

"All the same," Sophia cried, "I wish the diamonds were safe at Lewes."

"Why, child, they are your own!" Lady Betty answered. "If you lose them, whose is the loss?"

But Sophia, whether she agreed or had her own views of the fact, appeared to draw little comfort from it. As the horses slowly climbed the hill and again descended the slope to Felbridge, her head was more often out of the window than in the carriage. She beckoned to the grooms to come on; she prayed Watkyns, who, sure enough, was asleep, to be on the alert; she bade the post-boys whip on. Nor did she show herself at ease, or heave a sigh of relief, until the gibbet at the twenty-ninth milestone was safely passed, and the carriage rattled over the pavement of East Grinstead.

CHAPTER XV

A SQUIRE OF DAMES

To one of the travellers the bustle of the town was more than welcome. It was Thursday, market day at East Grinstead, and the post-boys pushed their way with difficulty through streets teeming with chapmen and butter women, and here bleating with home-going sheep, there alive with the squeaking of pigs. Outside the White Lion a jovial half-dozen of graziers were starting home in company; for the roads were less safe on market evenings than on other days. In front of the Dorset Arms, where our party was to lie, a clumsy carrier's wain, drawn by oxen, stood waiting. The horse-block was beset by country bucks mounting after the ordinary; and in the yard a post-chaise was being wheeled into place for the night by the united efforts of two or three stable-boys. Apparently it had just arrived, for the horses, still smoking, were being led to the stable, through the press of beasts and helpers.

Sophia heaved a sigh of relief as the stir of the crowd sank into her mind. When Lady Betty, after they had washed and refreshed themselves, suggested that, until the disorder in the house abated, they would be as well strolling through the town, she made no demur; and, followed at a distance by one of the grooms, they sallied forth. The first thing they visited was the half-ruined church. After this they sat awhile in the churchyard, and then from the Sackville Almshouses watched the sun go down behind the heights of Worth Forest. They were both pleased with the novel scene, and Lady Betty, darting her arch glances hither and thither, and counting a score of conquests, drew more than one smile from her grave companion. True, these were but interludes, and poor Sophia, brooding on the future, looked sad twice for once she looked merry; but their fright in the carriage had no part in her depression. She had forgotten it in the sights of this strange place, when, almost at the inn door, it was forced on her attention.

She happened to look back to see if the groom was following, and to her horror caught sight, not of the groom, but of the cloaked stranger. It was evident he was dogging them, for the moment his eyes met hers he vanished from sight. There were still many abroad, belated riders exchanging last words before they parted, or topers cracking jokes through open windows; and the man was lost among these before Lady Betty had even seen him.

But Sophia had seen him; and she felt all her terrors return upon her. Trembling at every shadow-and the shadows were thickening, the streets were growing dark-she hurried her companion into the inn, nor rested until she had assured herself that the carriage was under lock and key in the chaise-house. Even then she was in two minds; apprehending everything, seeing danger in either course. Should she withdraw the diamonds from their hiding-place and conceal them about her person, or in the chamber which she shared with Lady Betty? Or should she leave them where they were in accordance with Sir Hervey's directions?

She decided on the last course in the end, but with misgivings. The fate of the jewels had come in her mind to be one with her fate. To lose them while they were in her care seemed to her one with appropriating them; and from that she shrank with an instinctive, overmastering delicacy, that spoke more strongly than any words of the mistake she had made in her marriage. They were his family jewels, his mother's jewels, the jewels of the women of his house; and she panted to restore them to his hands. She felt that only by restoring them to him safe, unaccepted, unworn, could she retain her self-respect, or her independence.

Naturally, Lady Betty found her anxiety excessive; and at supper, seeing her start at every sound, rallied her on her timidity. Their bedroom was at the back of the house, and looked through one window on the inn-yard and the door of the chaise-house. "I see clearly you would have been happier supping upstairs," Lady Betty whispered, taking advantage of an instant when the servants were out of earshot. "You do nothing but listen. Shall I go up, as if for my handkerchief, and see that all is right?"

"Oh, no, no!" Sophia cried.

"Oh, yes, yes, is what you mean," the other retorted good-naturedly; and was half-way across the room before Sophia could protest. "I am going upstairs for something I've forgotten, Watkyns," Lady Betty cried, as she passed the servant.

Sophia, listening and balancing her spoon in her hands, awaited her return; and the moments passed, and passed, and still Lady Betty did not come back. Sophia grew nervous and more nervous; rose at last to follow her, and sat down again, ashamed of the impulse. At length, when the waiter had gone out to hasten the second course, and Watkyns' back was turned, she could bear it no longer. She jumped up and slipped out of the room, passed two gaping servants at the foot of the stairs, and in a moment had darted up. Without waiting for a light, she groped her way along the narrow passage that led to the room she shared with Lady Betty. A window on the left looked into the inn-yard and admitted a glimmer of reflected light; but it was not this, it was something she heard as she passed it, that brought her to a sudden stand beside the casement. From the room she was seeking came the sound of a low voice and a stifled laugh. An instant Sophia fancied that Lady Betty was lingering there talking to her woman; and she felt a spark of annoyance. Then-what she thought she could never remember. For her eyes, looking mechanically through the panes beside her, saw, a little short of the fatal chaise-house, a patch of bright light, proceeding doubtless from the unshuttered window of the bedroom, and erect in the full of it the cloaked figure of the strange rider-of the man who had dogged them!

He was looking upwards at the illumined window, his hat raised a little from his head, the arm that held it interposed between Sophia's eyes and his face. Still she knew him. She had not a doubt of his identity. The candle rays fell brightly on the thick black wig, on the patched corner of the cloak, raised by the pose of his arm; and in a whirl of confused thoughts and fears, Sophia felt her knees shake under her.

A fresh whisper in the room was the signal for a low giggle. The man bowed and moved a step nearer, still bowing; which brought his knees against the sloping shaft of a cart that was set conveniently beneath the window. Sophia-a shiver running down her back as she saw how easily he could ascend-began to understand. The villain was tampering with Lady Betty's maid! Probably he was already in league with the woman; certainly, to judge by the sounds that reached the listener's ear-for again she caught a suppressed titter-he was on terms with her.

Sophia felt all a woman's rage against a woman, and wasted no further time on thought. She had courage and to spare, her fears for the jewels notwithstanding. In a twinkling she was at the door, had flung it open, and, burning with indignation, had bounced into the middle of the room, prepared to annihilate the offender. Yet not prepared for what she saw. In the room was only Lady Betty; who, as she entered, sprang from the window and stood confronting her with crimson cheeks.

"Betty!" Sophia gasped. "Betty?" And stood as if turned to stone; her face growing harder and harder, and harder. At last-"Lady Betty, what does this mean?" she asked in icy accents.

The girl giggled and shook her hair over her flushed face and wilful eyes; but did not answer.

"What does it mean?" Sophia repeated. "I insist on an answer."

Lady Betty pouted and half turned her back. "Oh, la!" she cried, at last, pettishly shrugging her shoulders, "Don't talk like that! You frighten me out of my wits! Instead of talking, we'd better close the window, unless you want him to be as wise as we are."

"Him!" Sophia cried, out of patience with the girl's audacity. "Him? Am I to understand, then, that you have been talking through the window? You a young lady in my company, to a man whom you never saw until to-day? A strange man met on the road, and of whose designs you have been warned? I cannot, I cannot believe it! I cannot believe my eyes, Lady Betty!" she continued warmly. "You, at this window, at this hour, talking to a common stranger? A stranger of whose designs I have warned you? Why, if your woman, miss, if your woman were to be guilty of such conduct, I could hardly believe it! I could hardly believe that I saw aright!"

And honestly Sophia was horrified; shocked, as well as puzzled. So that it seemed to her no more than fitting, no more than a late awakening to decency when the culprit, who had accomplished-but with trembling fingers-the closing of the window, pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, and flung herself on the bed. Sophia saw her shoulders heave with emotion, and hoped that at last she understood what she had done; that at last she appreciated what others would think of such reckless, such inexplicable conduct. And my lady prepared to drive home the lesson. Judge of her surprise, when Lady Betty cut her first word short by springing up as hastily as she had thrown herself down, and disclosed a face convulsed not with sorrow, but with laughter.

"Oh, you silly, silly thing!" she cried; and before Sophia could prevent her, she had cast her arms round her neck, and was hugging her in a paroxysm of mirth: "Oh, you dear, silly old thing! And it's only a week since you eloped yourself!"

"I!" Sophia cried, enraged by the ungenerous taunt. And she tried fiercely but vainly to extricate herself.

"Yes, you! You! And were married at Dr. Keith's chapel! And now how you talk! Mercy, ma'am, butter won't melt in your mouth now!"