Sophia: A Romance

"I swear it is true!" Hawkesworth protested.

"She is not living with you?"

"No."

"Did you marry her?"

"Ye-ye-No!" Hawkesworth answered, uncertain for a moment which reply would be the better taken. "No; I-she left me, I tell you," he continued hurriedly, "and went on the stage against my will."

The clock-maker laughed cunningly, and his face was not pleasant to see. "She's not with you," he said, "she's not married to you, and she's not in London? You deceived her, my fine fellow, and left her. That's the story, is it? That's the story I've waited two years to hear."

"She left me," Hawkesworth answered. "Against my will, I tell you."

"Anyway she's gone, and 'twill make no difference to her what happens to you. So I'll hang you, you devil," the old man continued, with a cold chuckling determination, that chilled Hawkesworth's blood. "No, you don't," he continued, withdrawing one half of his body through the doorway, as Hawkesworth took a step towards him. "You don't pinch me that way! Another step, and I give the alarm."

Hawkesworth recalled the opinion he had held of this grasping old curmudgeon, his former landlord-who had loved his gay, flirty daughter a little, and his paltry savings more; and his heart misgave him. The alarm once given, the neighbourhood roused, at the best, and if no worse thing befel him, he would be arrested. Arrest meant the ruin of his present schemes. "Oh, come, Mr. Grocott," he faltered. "You will not do it. You'll not be so foolish."

"Why not?" the other snarled, in cruel enjoyment of his fears. "Eh! Tell me that. Why not?"

But even as he spoke Hawkesworth saw the way out of his dilemma. "Because you'll not do a thing you will repent all your life," he said, his brazen assurance returning as quickly as it had departed. "Because you'll not ruin your daughter. Have done, hold your hand, man, and in two days I'll make her a grand lady."

"You'll marry her, I suppose," old Grocott answered with a savage sneer.

"Yes, to a man of title and property."

"You're a great liar."

Hawkesworth spread out his hands in remonstrance. "Judge for yourself," he said. "Have a little patience. Listen to me two minutes, my good fellow; and then say if you'll stand in your daughter's light."

"Hang the drab! She's no daughter of mine," the old man cried fiercely. Nevertheless he listened, and Hawkesworth, sinking his voice, proceeded to tell in tones, always earnest, and at times appealing, a story that little by little won the hearer's attention. First Grocott, albeit he listened with the same apparent incredulity, closed the door. Later, his interest growing, he advanced into the room. Then he began to breathe more quickly; at length, with an oath, he struck his hand on the table beside him.

"And you say the lad is here?" he cried.

"He is here."

"Where?"

"In that room."

"By gole, let me see him!"

"If he is asleep," Hawkesworth answered, assenting with reluctance. He crossed the room and cautiously opened the door of the chamber in which Tom lay snoring. Beckoning the old man to be wary, he allowed him to peer in. Grocott looked and listened, stole forward, and, like some pale-faced ghoul, leant over the flushed features of the unconscious lad. Then he stealthily returned to the parlour, and the door between the two rooms was shut.

"Well," the Irishman asked, "are you satisfied?"

"What do you say his name is?"

"Maitland-Sir Thomas Maitland of Cuckfield."

"She'll be Lady Maitland?"

"To be sure."

"And what do you call-her now?" the clock-maker asked. He seemed to find a difficulty in pronouncing the last words.

"Clark-Mistress Oriana Clark," Hawkesworth answered. "She's at Ipswich, or was, and should be here to-morrow."

Grocott's nose curled at the name. "And what are you going to get out of this?" he continued, eyeing the other with intense suspicion.

The Irishman hesitated, but in the end determined to tell the truth, and trust to the other's self-interest. "A wife, and a plum," he said jauntily. "There's a girl, his sister, I'm going to marry; she takes ten thousand out of his share if he marries without his guardians' consent. That's it."

"Lord, you're a rascal!" Grocott ejaculated, and stared in admiration of the other's roguery. "To take ten thousand of my son-in-law's money, and tell me of it to my face. By gole, you're a cool one!"

"You can choose between that and nothing," Hawkesworth answered, confident in his recovered mastery. "You can do nothing without me, you see. No more can Oriana."

The old man winced. Somehow the name-her name had been Sarah-hurt him. "What's the name of-of the other one?" he said. "His sister-that you're going to marry?"

"Sophia," the Irishman answered.

CHAPTER IV

A DISCOVERY

The scene in the gardens had moved Sophia's feelings so deeply that, notwithstanding the glamour Hawkesworth's exploit had cast over her, a word of kindness addressed to her on her arrival in Arlington Street might have had far-reaching results. Unfortunately her sister's temper and Mr. Northey's dulness gave sweet reasonableness small place. Scarcely had the chairmen been dismissed, the chairs carried out, and the door closed on them before Mr. Northey's indignation found vent. "Sophia, I am astonished!" he said in portentous tones; and, dull as he was, he was astonished. "I could not have believed you would behave in this way!"

"The more fool you!" Mrs. Northey snapped; while the girl, white and red by turns, too proud to fly, yet dreading what was to come, hung irresolute at the foot of the stairs, apparently fumbling with her hood, and really growing harder and harder with each reproach that was levelled at her.

"After all I said to you this morning!" Mr. Northey continued, glaring at her as if he found disobedience to orders such as his a thing beyond belief. "When I had prohibited in the most particular manner all communications with that person, to go and-and meet him in a place of all places the most scandalous in which to be alone with a man."

"La, Northey, it was that made her do it!" his wife rejoined sourly. "Go to bed, miss, and we will talk to you to-morrow. I suppose you thought we were taken in with your fine tale of your brother?"

"I never said it was my brother!" Sophia cried, hotly.

"Go to bed. Do you hear? I suppose you have sense enough to do that when you are told," her sister rejoined. "We will talk to you to-morrow."

Sophia choked, but thought better of it, and turning away, crept upstairs. After all, she whispered, as her hands squeezed convulsively the poor hood that had not offended her, it mattered little. If he were good to her what recked it of others, their words, or their opinion? What had they ever done for her that she should be guided by them, or what, that she should resign the happiness of her life at their bidding? They had no real care for her. Here was no question of father or mother, or the respect due to their wishes; of kindness, love, or gratitude. Of her brother-in-law, who bullied her in his dull, frigid fashion, she knew little more than she knew of a man in the street; and her sister spared her at the best a cold selfish affection, the affection of the workman for the tools by which he hopes he may some day profit.

Naturally, her thoughts reverted to the lover who that evening had shown himself in his true colours, a hero worthy of any poor girl's affection. Sophia's eyes filled with tears, and her bosom rose and fell with soft emotion as she thought of him and pictured him; as she flushed anew beneath his ardent glances, as she recalled the past and painted a future in which she would lie safe in the haven of his love, secured from peril by the strength of his arm. What puny figures the beaux and bloods of town looked beside him! With what grace he moved among them, elbowing one and supplanting another. It was no wonder they gazed after him enviously, or behind his back vented their petty spite in sneers and innuendos, called him Teague, and muttered of Murphies and the bog of Arran. The time would come-and oh, how she prayed it might come quickly-when the world would discover the part he had played; when, in a Stuart England, he would stand forward the friend of Cecil, the agent of Ormonde, and the town would recognise in the obscurity in which he now draped himself and at which they scoffed, the cloak of the most daring and loyal conspirator that ever wrought for the rightful king!

For this was the secret he had whispered in Sophia's ear; this was the explanation he had given of the cold looks men cast on him in public. Nor was it too incredible for the belief of a romantic girl. In that year, 1742, the air in London was full of such rumours, and London, rumour said, was full of such men. The close of Sir Robert Walpole's long and peaceful administration, and the imminence of war with France, had raised the hopes of the Jacobites to the highest pitch. Though the storm did not break in open war until three years later, it already darkened the sky, and filled the capital with its rumblings. Alike in the Cabinet, where changes were frequent and great men few, and in the country where people looked for something, they hardly knew what, unrest and uneasiness prevailed. Many a sturdy squire in Lancashire and Shropshire, many a member at Westminster, from Shippon and Sir Watkyn downwards, passed his glass over the water-jug as he drank the King; and if Sophia, as she drew her withered flower from its hiding-place, that it might lie beneath her pillow through the night, prayed for King James and his cause, she did only what many a pretty Jacobite, and some who passed for Whigs, were doing at the same hour.

In the meantime, and pending the triumph for which she longed so passionately, her dear hero's pretensions helped her not a whit; on the contrary, were they known, or suspected, they would sink him lower than ever in the estimation of her family. This thought it was that, as she lay revolving matters, raised in her mind an increasing barrier between her and her sister. The Northeys were firm Whigs, pledged not less by interest than by tradition to the White Horse of Hanover. They had deserted Sir Robert at his utmost need, but merely to serve their own turn; because his faction was drooping, and another, equally Whiggish, was in the ascendant, certainly with no view to a Stuart Restoration. Her Hawkesworth's success, therefore, meant their defeat and downfall; his triumph must cost them dear. To abide by them, and abide by him, were as inconsistent as to serve God and Mammon.

Sophia, drawn to her lover by the strength of maiden fancy, saw this; she felt the interval between her and her family increase the longer she dwelt on the course to which her mind was being slowly moved. The consciousness that no compromise was possible had its effect upon her. When she was summoned to the parlour next day, a change had come over her; she went not shyly and shamefacedly, open to cajolery and kindness, as she had gone the previous day, when her opinion of her lover's merit had fallen short of the wrapt assurance that this morning uplifted her. On the contrary, she went armed with determination as solemn in her own sight as it was provoking in the eyes of older and more sagacious persons.

Mrs. Northey discerned the change the moment Sophia entered the room; and she was proportionately exasperated. "Oh, miss, so you'll follow Miss Howe, will you?" she sneered, alluding to a tale of scandal that still furnished the text for many a sermon to the young and flighty. "You'll take no advice!"

"I hope I shall know how to conduct myself better, ma'am," Sophia said proudly.