Sophia: A Romance

"Lady Betty!" Sophia cried, in a cold rage, "let me go! Do you hear? Let me go! How dare you talk to me like that? How dare you?" she continued, trembling with indignation. "What has my conduct to do with yours? Or how can you presume to mention it in the same breath? I may have been foolish, I may have been indiscreet, but I never, never, stooped to-"

"Call it the highway at once," said the unrepentant one, "for I know that is what you have in your mind."

Sophia gasped. "If you can put it so clearly," she said, "I hope you have more sense than appears from the-the-"

"Lightness of my conduct!" Lady Betty cried, with a fresh peal of laughter. "Oh, you dear, silly old thing, I would not be your daughter for something!"

"Lady Betty?"

"You dear, don't you Lady Betty me! A highwayman? Oh, it is too delicious! Too diverting! Are you sure it isn't Turpin come to life again? Or Cook of Barnet? Or the gallant Macheath from the Opera? Why, you old dear, the man is nothing better nor worse than a-lover!"

"A lover?" Sophia cried.

"Well, yes-a lover," Lady Betty repeated, lightly enough; but to her credit be it said, she did blush at last-a little, and folded her handkerchief into a hard square and looked at it with an air of-of comparative bashfulness. "Dear me, yes-a lover. He followed us from London; and, to make the deeper impression, I suppose, made a Guy Fawkes of himself! That's all!"

"All?" Sophia said in amazement.

"Yes, all, all, all!" Lady Betty retorted, ridding herself in an instant of her penitent air. "All! And aren't you glad, my dear, to find that you were frightening yourself for nothing!"

"But who is he-the gentleman?" Sophia asked faintly.

"Oh, he is not a gentleman," the little flirt answered, tossing her head with pretty but cruel contempt. "He's" – with a giggle-"at least he calls himself-Mr. Fanshaw."

"Mr. Fanshaw?" Sophia repeated; and first wondered and then remembered where she had heard the name. "Can it be the same?" she exclaimed, reddening in spite of herself as she met Lady Betty's eye. "Is he a small, foppish man, full of monstrous airs and graces, and-and rather underbred?"

Lady Betty clapped her hands. "Yes," she cried. "Drawn to the life! Where did you see him? But I'll tell you if you like. 'Twas at Lane's, ma'am!"

"Yes, it was," Sophia answered a trifle sternly. "But how do you know, miss?"

"Well, I do know," Lady Betty answered. And again she had the grace to blush and look down. "At least-I thought it likely. Because, you old dear, don't you remember a note you picked up at Vauxhall gardens, that was meant for me? Yes, I vow you do. Well, 'twas from him."

"But that doesn't explain," Sophia said keenly, "why you guessed that I saw him at Lane's shop?"

"Oh," Lady Betty answered, wincing a little. "To be sure, no, it doesn't. But he's-he's just Lane's son. There, now you know it!"

"Mr. Fanshaw?"

Lady Betty nodded, a little shamefacedly. "'Tis so," she said. "For the name, it's his vanity. He's the vainest creature, he thinks every lady is in love with him. Never was such sport as to lead him on. I am sure I thought I should have died of laughing before you came in and frightened me out of my wits!"

Sophia looked at her gravely. "I am sure of something else," she said.

"Now you are going to preach!" Lady Betty cried; and tried to stop her mouth.

"No, I am not, but you gave me a promise, in my room in Arlington Street, Betty. That you would have nothing more to do with the writer of that note."

Lady Betty sat down on the bed and looked piteously at her companion. "Oh, I didn't, did I?" she said; and at last she seemed to be really troubled. "I didn't, did I? 'Twas only that I would not correspond with him. I protest it was only that. And I have not. I've not, indeed," she protested. "But when I found him under the window, and heard that he was Mohocking about the country in that monstrous cloak and hat, for all the world like the Beggar's Opera on horseback, and all for the love of me, it was not in flesh and blood not to divert oneself with him! He's such a creature! You've no notion what a creature it is!"

"I've this notion," Sophia answered seriously. "If you did not promise, you will promise. What is more, I shall send for him, and I shall tell him, in your presence, that this ridiculous pursuit must cease."

"But if he will not?" Lady Betty asked, with an arch look. "I am supposed-to have charms, you know?"

"I shall tell your father."

"La, ma'am," the child retorted, with a curtsey, "you are married! There is no doubt about that!"

Sophia reddened, but did not answer; and for a moment Betty sat on the bed, picking the coverlet with her fingers and looking sulky. On a sudden she leapt up and threw her arms round Sophia's neck. "Well, do as you like!" she cried effusively. "After all, 'twill be a charming scene, and do him good, the fright! Don't think," the little minx continued, tossing her head disdainfully, "that I ever wish to see him again, or would let him touch me with his little finger! Not I! But-one does not like to-"

"We'll have no but, if you please," Sophia said gently, but firmly. She had grown wondrous wise in the space of a short month. "Whatever he is, he is no fit mate for Lady Betty Cochrane, and shall not get her into trouble! I'll call your woman, and bid her go find him."

Fortunately the maid knocked at the door at that moment. She came, anxious to learn if anything ailed them, and why they did not return to finish their supper. They declined to do so, bade her have it removed, and a pot of tea brought; then Sophia told her what she wanted, and having instructed her, despatched her on her errand.

An assignation, through her woman, was the guise in which the affair appeared to Mr. Fanshaw's eyes when he got the message. And great was his joy nor less his triumph. Was ever lover, he asked himself, more completely or more quickly favoured? Could Rochester or Bellamour, Tom Hervey or my Lord Lincoln have made a speedier conquest? No wonder his thoughts, always on the sanguine side, ran riot as he mounted the stairs; or that his pulses beat to the tune of-

But he so teased me,
And he so pleased me,
What I did, you must have done!

as he followed the maid along the passage.

The only sour in his cup, indeed, arose from his costume. That he knew to be better fitted for the road than for a lady's chamber; to be calculated rather to strike the youthful eye and captivate the romantic imagination at a distance than to become a somewhat puny person at short range. As he passed an old Dutch mirror, that stood in an angle of the stairs, he made a desperate attempt to reduce the wig, and control the cloak; but in vain, it was only to accentuate the boots. Worse, his guide looked to see why he lingered, caught him in the act, and tittered; after which he was forced to affect a haughty contempt and follow. But what would he not have given at that moment for his olive and silver, a copy of Mr. Walpole's birth-night suit? Or for his French grey and Mechlin, and the new tie-wig that had cost his foolish father seven guineas at Protin, the French perruquier's? Much, yet what mattered it, since he had conquered? Since even while he thought of these drawbacks, he paused on the threshold of his lady's chamber, and saw before him his divinity-pouting, mutinous, charming. She was standing by the table waiting for him with down cast eyes, and the most ravishing air in the world.

Strange to say he felt no doubt. It was his firm belief, born of Wycherley and fostered on Crébillon that all women were alike, and from the three beauty Fitzroys to Oxford Kate, were wax in the hands of a pretty fellow. It was this belief that had spurred him to great enterprises, if not as yet, to great conquests; and yet so powerfully does virtue impress even the sceptics, that he faltered as he entered the room. Besides that ladyship of hers dashed him! He could not deny that his heart bounced painfully. But courage! As he recalled the invitation he had received, he recovered himself. He advanced, simpering; he was ready, at a word, to fall at her feet. "Oh, ma'am, 'tis a happiness beyond my desert," he babbled-in his heart damning his boots, and trying to remember M. Siras' first position. "Only to be allowed to wait on your ladyship places me in the seventh heaven! Only to be allowed to worship at the shrine of beauty is-is a great privilege, ma'am. But to be permitted to hope-that I am not altogether-I mean, my lady," he amended, growing a little flustered, "that I am not entirely-"

"What?" Lady Betty asked, eyeing him archly, her finger in her mouth, her head on one side.

"Indifferent to your ladyship! Oh, I assure your ladyship never in all my life have I felt so profound a-"

"Really?"

"A-an admiration of any one, never have I-"

"Said so much to a lady! That, sir, I can believe!"

This time the voice was not Betty's, and he started as if he had been pricked. He spun round, and saw Sophia standing beside the fire, a little behind the door through which he had entered. He had thought himself alone with his inamorata; and his face of dismay was ludicrous. "Oh!" he faltered, bowing hurriedly, "I beg your pardon, ma'am, I-I did not see you."

"So I suppose," she answered, coldly, "or you would not have presumed to say such words to a lady."

He cringed. "I am sure," he stammered, "if I have been wanting in respect, I beg her ladyship's pardon! I am sure, I know-"

"Are you sure-you know who you are?" Sophia asked with directness.

He was all colours at once, but strove to mask the wound under a pretty sentence. "I trust a gentleman may aspire to-to all that beauty has to give," he simpered. "I may not, ma'am, be of her ladyship's rank."

"No, it is clear that you are not!" Sophia answered.

"But I am a gentleman."

"The question is, are you?" she retorted. "There are gentlemen and gentlemen. What is your claim to that name, sir?"