Sophia: A Romance

"I have not dared to return and see," she answered. "We might do so now, if you will be kind enough to accompany me."

"To be sure, to be sure. Let us go, child."

But when they had crossed the ridge-keeping as far as they could from the door of the plague-stricken house-he was no whit surprised to find no carriage, no servants, no maid. From the brow of the hill they could trace with their eyes the desolate valley and the road by which she had come; but nowhere on the road, or beside it, was any sign of life. Sophia had been so much shaken by the events of the night that she had forgotten the possibility of rescue at the hands of her own people. Now that the notion was suggested to her, she found the absence of the carriage, of Watkyns, of the grooms, inexplicable. And she said so; but the very expression of her astonishment, following abruptly on his suggestion that the carriage should be there, did but deepen the good parson's doubts. She had spun her tale, he thought, without providing for this point, and now sought to cover the blot by exclamations of surprise.

He had not the heart, however, good honest soul as he was, to unmask her; on the contrary, he suffered as great embarrassment as if the deceit had been his own. He found himself constrained to ask in what way he could help her; and when she suggested that she should rest at his house, he assented. But with little spirit.

"If it be not too far?" she said; struck by his tone, and with a thought also for her unshod feet.

"It's-it's about a mile," he answered.

"Well, I must walk it."

"You don't think-I could send," he suggested weakly, "and-and make inquiries-for your people, ma'am?"

"If you please, when I am there," she said; and that left him no resource but to start with her. But as they went, amid all the care she was forced to give to her steps, she noticed that he regarded her oddly; that he looked askance at her when he thought her eyes elsewhere, and looked away guiltily when she caught him in the act.

They plodded some half-mile, then turned to the right, and a trifle farther came in sight of a little hamlet that nestled among chestnut trees in a dimple of the hill-face. As they approached this, his uneasiness became more marked; nor was Sophia left in ignorance of its cause. The first house to which they came was a neat thatched cottage beside the church. A low wicket-gate gave access to the garden, and over this appeared for a moment an angry woman's face, turned in the direction whence they came. It was gone as soon as seen; but Sophia, from a faltered word which dropped from her companion, learned to whom it belonged; and when he tried the wicket-gate she was not surprised to see it was fastened. He tried it nervously, his face grown red; then he raised his voice. "My love," he cried, "I have come back. I think you did not see us. Will you please to open the gate?"

An ominous silence was the only answer. He tried the gate a second time, in a shamefaced way. "My dear," he cried aloud, a quaver in his patient tone, "I have come back."

"And more shame to you," a shrill voice answered, the speaker remaining unseen. "Do you hear me, Michieson? More shame to you, you unnatural father! Didn't you hear me say I would not have you going to that place? And didn't I tell you if you went you would not come here again! You thought yourself mighty clever, I'll be bound," the termagant continued, "to go off while I was asleep, my man! But now you'll sleep in the garden house, for in here you don't come! Who's that with you?"

"A-a young lady in trouble," he stammered.

"Where did you find her?"

"On the road, my love! In great trouble."

"Then on the road you may leave her," the shrew retorted. "No, my man, you don't come over me that way. You brought the hussy from that house. Tell me she's not been in it, if you dare? And you'd bring her in among your innocent, lawful children, would you, and give 'em their deaths! Fie," with rising indignation, "you silly old fool! If you weren't a natural, in place of such rubbish, you'd have been over to Sir Hervey's and complimented madam this fine morning, and been 'pointed chaplain. But 'tis like you. Instead of providing for your wife and children, as a man should, you're trying to give 'em their deaths, among a lot of dead people that'll never find you in a bit of bread to put in their bellies, or a bit of stuff to put on their backs! I tell you, Michieson, I've no patience with you."

"But, my dear-"

"Now send her packing. Do you hear me, Michieson?"

He was going to remonstrate, but Sophia intervened. Spent with fatigue, her feet sore and blistered, she felt that she could not go a yard further. Moreover, to eyes dazed by the horrors of the night, the thatched house among the rose-briars, with its hum of bees and scent of woodbine and honey-suckle, seemed a haven of peace. She raised her voice. "Mrs. Michieson," she said, "your husband need not go to Sir Hervey's. I am Lady Coke."

With a cry of amazement a thin, red-faced woman, scantily dressed in an old soiled wrapper that had known a richer wearer-for Mrs. Michieson had been a lady's maid-pushed through the bushes. She stared a moment with all her eyes; then she burst into a rude laugh. "You mean her woman, I should think," she said. "Why, you saucy piece, you must think us fine simpletons to try for to come over us with that story. Lady Coke in her stockinged feet, indeed!"

"I have been robbed," Sophia faltered, trying not to break down. "You are a woman. Surely you have some pity for another woman in trouble?"

"Aye, you are like enough to have been in trouble! That I can see!" the parson's lady answered with a sneer. "But I'll trouble you not to call me a woman!" she continued, tossing her head. "Woman, indeed! A pretty piece you are to call names, trapesing the country like a guy, and-why, whose cloak have you there? Michieson!" in a voice like vinegar. "What does this mean?"

"My dear," he said humbly-Sophia, on the verge of tears, could say no more lest she should break down, "the-the lady was robbed on the road. She was travelling in her carriage-"

"In her carriage?"

"And her servants ran away-as I understand," he explained, rubbing his hands, and smiling in a sickly way, "and the postboys did not return, and-and her woman-"

"Her woman!"

"Well, yes, my dear, so she tells me, was so frightened she stayed with the carriage. And her friend, a-another lady, escaped in the dark with some jewels-and-"

"Michieson!" madam cried, in her most awful voice, "did you believe this-this cock and bull story that you dare to repeat to me?"

He glanced from one to the other. "Well, my dear," he answered in confusion, "I-at least, the lady told me-"

"Did you believe it? Yes or no! Did you believe it?"

"Well, I-"

"Did you go to look for the carriage?"

"Yes, my dear, I did."

"And did you find it?"

"Well, no," the clergyman confessed. "I did not."

"Nor the servants?"

"No, but-"

She did not let him explain. "Now," she cried, with shrill triumph, "you see what a fool you are! And where you'd be if it were not for me. Did she say a word about being Lady Coke until she heard her name from me? Eh? Answer me that, did she?"

Very miserable, he glanced at Sophia. "Well, no, my dear, I don't think she did!" he admitted.

"So I thought!" madam cried. And then with a cruel gesture, "off with it, you baggage! Off with it!" she continued. "Do you think I don't know that the moment my back is turned you'll be gone, and a good cloak with you! No, off with it, my ragged madam, and thank your stars I don't send you to the stocks!"

But her husband plucked up spirit at that.

"No," he said firmly. "No, she shall keep the cloak till she can get a covering. For shame, wife, for shame," he continued with a smack of dignity. "Do you never think that a daughter of yours may some day stand in her shoes?"

"You fool, she has got none!" his wife snarled. "And you'll give her that cloak, at your peril."

"She shall keep it, till she gets a covering," he answered.

"Then she'll keep it somewhere else, not here!" the termagant answered in a fury. "Do you call yourself a parson and go trapesing the country with a slut like that! And your lawful wife left at home?"

Sophia, white with exhaustion, could scarcely keep her feet, but at that she plucked up spirit. "The cloak I shall keep, for it is your husband's," she said. "For yourself, ma'am, you will bitterly repent before the day is out that you have treated me in this way."

"Hoity-toity! you'd threaten me, would you?" the other cried viciously. "Here, Tom, Bill! Ha' you no stones. Here's a besom ill-speaking your mother. Ah, I thought you'd be going, ma'am," she continued, leaning over the gate, with a grin of satisfaction. "It'll be in the stocks you'll sit before the day is out, I'm thinking."

But Sophia was out of hearing; rage and indignation gave her strength. But not for long. The reception with which she had met, in a place where, of all places, peace and charity and a seat for the wretched should have been found, broke down the last remains of endurance. As soon as the turn in the road hid her from the other woman's eyes, she sank on a bank, unable to go farther. She must eat and drink and rest, or she must die.

Fortunately, the poor vicar, worthy of a better mate, had not quite abandoned her cause. After standing a moment divided between indignation and fear, he allowed the more generous impulse to have way; he followed and found her. Shocked to read exhaustion plainly written on her face, horrified by the thought that she might die at his door, that door which day and night should have been open to the distressed, he half led and half carried her to the little garden house to which his wife had exiled him; and which by good fortune stood in an orchard, beyond, but close to the curtilage of the house. Here he left her a moment, and procuring the drudge of a servant to hand him a little bread and milk over the fence, he fed her with his own hands, and waited patiently beside her until the colour returned to her face.

Relieved by the sight, and satisfied that she was no longer in danger, he began to be troubled; glancing furtively at her and away again, and often moving to the door of the shed, which looked out on a pleasant plot of grass dappled with sunlight, and overhung by drooping boughs on which the late blossom lingered. Finally, seeing her remain languid and spiritless, he blurted out what was in his mind. "I daren't keep you here," he muttered, with a flush of shame. "If my wife discovers you, she may do you a mischief. And the fear of the smallpox is such, they'd stone you out of the parish if they knew you had been at Beamond's-God forgive them!"