The Castle Inn: Chapter 12

Chapter 12

JULIA

It is certain that if Sir George Soane had borne any other name, the
girl, after the conversation which had taken place between them on the
dingy staircase at Oxford, must have hated him. There is a kind of
condescension from man to woman, in which the man says, 'My good girl,
not for me--but do take care of yourself,' which a woman of the least
pride finds to be of all modes of treatment the most shameful and the
most humiliating. The masterful overtures of such a lover as Dunborough,
who would take all by storm, are still natural, though they lack
respect; a woman would be courted, and sometimes would be courted in the
old rough fashion. But, for the other mode of treatment, she may be a
Grizel, or as patient--a short course of that will sharpen not only her
tongue, but her fingernails.

Yet this, or something like it, Julia, who was far from being the most
patient woman in the world, had suffered at Sir George's hands;
believing at the time that he was some one else, or, rather, being
ignorant then and for just an hour afterwards that such a person as Sir
George Soane existed. Enlightened on this point and on some others
connected with it (which a sagacious reader may divine for himself) the
girl's first feeling in face of the astonishing future opening before
her had been one of spiteful exultation. She hated him, and he would
suffer. She hated him with all her heart and strength, and he would
suffer. There were balm and sweet satisfaction in the thought.

But presently, dwelling on the matter, she began to relent. The very
completeness of the revenge which she had in prospect robbed her of her
satisfaction. The man was so dependent on her, so deeply indebted to
her, must suffer so much by reason of her, that the maternal instinct,
which is said to be developed even in half-grown girls, took him under
its protection; and when that scene occurred in the public room of the
Castle Inn and he stood forward to shield her (albeit in an arrogant,
careless, half-insolent way that must have wounded her in other
circumstances), she was not content to forgive him only--with a smile;
but long after her companion had fallen asleep, Julia sat brooding over
the fire, her arms clasped about her knees; now reading the embers with
parted lips and shining eyes, and now sighing gently--for 'la femme
propose, mais Dieu dispose.' And nothing is certain.

After this, it may not have been pure accident that cast her in Sir
George's way when he strolled out of the house next morning. A coach had
come in, and was changing horses before the porch. The passengers were
moving to and fro before the house, grooms and horse-boys were shouting
and hissing, the guard was throwing out parcels. Soane passed through
the bustle, and, strolling to the end of the High Street, saw the girl
seated on a low parapet of the bridge that, near the end of the inn
gardens, carries the Salisbury road over the Kennet. She wore a plain
riding-coat, such as ladies then affected when they travelled and would
avoid their hoops and patches. A little hood covered her hair, which,
undressed and unpowdered, hung in a club behind; and she held up a plain
fan between her complexion and the sun.

Her seat, though quiet and remote from the bustle--for the Salisbury
road is the less frequented of the two roads--was in view of the gates
leading to the Inn; and her extreme beauty, which was that of expression
as well as feature, made her a mark for a dozen furtive eyes, of which
she affected to be unconscious. But as soon as Sir George's gaze fell on
her, her look met his frankly and she smiled; and then again her eyes
dropped and studied the road before her, and she blushed in a way Soane
found enchanting. He had been going into the town, but he turned and
went to her and sat down on the bridge beside her, almost with the air
of an old acquaintance. He opened the conversation by saying that it was
a prodigious fine day; she agreed. That the Downs were uncommonly
healthy; she said the same. And then there was silence.

'Well?' he said after a while; and he looked at her.

'Well?' she answered in the same tone. And she looked at him over the
edge of her fan, her eyes laughing.

'How did you sleep, child?' he asked; while he thought, 'Lord! How
handsome she is!'

'Perfectly, sir,' she answered, 'thanks to your excellency's kindness.'

Her voice as well as her eyes laughed. He stared at her, wondering at
the change in her. 'You are lively this morning,' he said.

'I cannot say the same of you, Sir George,' she answered. 'When you came
out, and before you saw me, your face was as long as a coach-horse's.'

Sir George winced. He knew where his thoughts had been. 'That was before
I saw you, child,' he said. 'In your company--'

'You are scarcely more lively,' she answered saucily. 'Do you flatter
yourself that you are?'

Sir George was astonished. He was aware that the girl lacked neither wit
nor quickness; but hitherto he had found her passionate at one time,
difficult and _farouche_ at another, at no time playful or coquettish.
Here, and this morning, she did not seem to be the same woman. She spoke
with ease, laughed with the heart as well as the lips, met his eyes with
freedom and without embarrassment, countered his sallies with
sportiveness--in a word, carried herself towards him as though she were
an equal; precisely as Lady Betty and the Honourable Fanny carried
themselves. He stared at her.

And she, seeing the look, laughed in pure happiness, knowing what was in
his mind, and knowing her own mind very well. 'I puzzle you?' she said.

'You do,' he answered. 'What are you doing here? And why have you taken
up with that lawyer? And why are you dressed, child--'

'Like this?' she said, rising, and sitting down again. 'You think it is
above my station?'

He shrugged his shoulders, declining to put his views into words;
instead, 'What does it all mean?' he said.

'What do you suppose?' she asked, averting her eyes for the first time.

'Well, of course--you may be here to meet Dunborough,' he answered
bluntly. 'His mother seems to think that he is going to marry you.'

'And what do you think, sir?'

'I?' said Sir George, reverting to the easy, half-insolent tone she
hated. And he tapped his Paris snuff-box and spoke with tantalising
slowness. 'Well, if that be the case, I should advise you to see that
Mr. Dunborough's surplice--covers a parson.'

She sat still and silent for a full half-minute after he had spoken.
Then she rose without a word, and without looking at him; and, walking
away to the farther end of the bridge, sat down there with her shoulder
turned to him.

Soane felt himself rebuffed, and for a moment let his anger get the
better of him. 'D--n the girl, I only spoke for her own good!' he
muttered; then reflecting that if he followed her she might remove again
and make him ridiculous, he rose to go into the house. But apparently
that was not what she wished. He was scarcely on his legs before she
turned her head, saw that he was going, and imperiously beckoned to him.

He went to her, wondering as much at her audacity as her pettishness.
When he reached her, 'Sir George,' she said, retaining her seat and
looking gravely at him, while he stood before her like a boy undergoing
correction, 'you have twice insulted me--once in Oxford when, believing
Mr. Dunborough's hurt lay at my door, I was doing what I could to repair
it; and again to-day. If you wish to see more of me, you must refrain
from doing so a third time. You know, a third time--you know what a
third time does. And more--one moment, if you please. I must ask you to
treat me differently. I make no claim to be a gentlewoman, but my
condition is altered. A relation has left me a--a fortune, and when I
met you here last night I was on my way to Bath to claim it.'

Sir George passed from the surprise into which the first part of this
speech had thrown him, to surprise still greater. At last, 'I am vastly
glad to hear it,' he said. 'For most of us it is easier to drop a
fortune than to find one.'

'Is it?' she said, and laughed musically, Then, moving her skirt to show
him that he might sit down, 'Well, I suppose it is. You have no
experience of that, I hope, sir?'

He nodded.

'The gaming-table?' she said.

'Not this time,' he answered, wondering why he told her. 'I had a
grandfather, who made a will. He had a fancy to wrap up a bombshell in
the will. Now--the shell has burst.'

'I am sorry,' she said; and was silent a moment. At length, 'Does it
make--any great difference to you?' she asked na�vely.

Sir George looked at her as if he were studying her appearance. Then,
'Yes, child, it does,' he said.

She hesitated, but seemed to make up her mind. 'I have never asked you
where you live,' she said softly; 'have you no house in the country?'

He suppressed something between an oath and a groan. 'Yes,' he said, 'I
have a house.'

'What do you call it?'

'Estcombe Hall. It is in Wiltshire, not far from here.'

She looked at her fan, and idly flapped it open, and again closed it in
the air. 'Is it a fine place?' she said carelessly.

'I suppose so,' he answered, wincing.

'With trees, and gardens, and woods?'

'Yes.'

'And water?'

'Yes. There is a river.'

'You used to fish in it as a boy?'

'Yes.'

'Estcombe! it is a pretty name. And shall you lose it?'

But that was too much for Soane's equanimity. 'Oh, d--n the girl!' he
cried, rising abruptly, but sitting down again. Then, as she recoiled,
in anger real or affected, 'I beg your pardon,' he said formally.
'But--it is not the custom to ask so many questions upon
private matters.'

'Really, Sir George?' she said, receiving the information gravely, and
raising her eyebrows. 'Then Estcombe is your Mr. Dunborough, is it?'

'If you will,' he said, almost sullenly.

'But you love it,' she answered, studying her fan, 'and I do not
love--Mr. Dunborough!'

Marvelling at her coolness and the nimbleness of her wit, he turned so
that he looked her full in the face. 'Miss Masterson,' he said, 'you are
too clever for me. Will you tell me where you learned so much? 'Fore
Gad, you might have been at Mrs. Chapone's, the way you talk.'

'Mrs. Chapone's?' she said.

'A learned lady,' he explained.

'I was at a school,' she answered simply, 'until I was fifteen. A
godfather, whom I never knew, left money to my father to be spent on my
schooling.'

'Lord!' he said. 'And where were you at school?'

'At Worcester.'

'And what have you done since?--if I may ask.'

'I have been at home. I should have taught children, or gone into
service as a waiting-woman; but my father would keep me with him. Now I
am glad of it, as this money has come to me.'

'Lord! it is a perfect romance!' he exclaimed. And on the instant he
fancied that he had the key to the mystery, and her beauty. She was
illegitimate--a rich man's child! 'Gad, Mr. Richardson should hear of
it,' he continued with more than his usual energy. 'Pamela--why you
might be Pamela!'

'That if you please,' she said quickly, 'for certainly I shall never be
Clarissa.'

Sir George laughed. 'With such charms it is better not to be too sure!'
he answered. And he looked at her furtively and looked away again. A
coach bound eastwards came out of the gates; but it had little of his
attention, though he seemed to be watching the bustle. He was thinking
that if he sat much longer with this strange girl, he was a lost man.
And then again he thought--what did it matter? If the best he had to
expect was exile on a pittance, a consulship at Genoa, a governorship at
Guadeloupe, where would he find a more beautiful, a wittier, a gayer
companion? And for her birth--a fico! His great-grandfather had made
money in stays; and the money was gone! No doubt there would be gibing
at White's, and shrugging at Almack's; but a fico, too, for that--it
would not hurt him at Guadeloupe, and little at Genoa. And then on a
sudden the fortune of which she had talked came into his head, and he
smiled. It might be a thousand; or two, three, four, at most five
thousand. A fortune! He smiled and looked at her.

He found her gazing steadily at him, her chin on her hand. Being caught,
she reddened and looked, away. He took the man's privilege, and
continued to gaze, and she to flush; and presently, 'What are you
looking at?' she said, moving uneasily.

'A most beautiful face,' he answered, with the note of sincerity in his
voice which a woman's ear never fails to appreciate.

She rose and curtsied low, perhaps to hide the tell-tale pleasure in her
eyes. 'Thank you, sir,' she said. And she drew back as if she intended
to leave him.

'But you are not--you are not offended, Julia?'

'Julia?' she answered, smiling. 'No, but I think it is time I relieved
your Highness from attendance. For one thing, I am not quite sure
whether that pretty flattery was addressed to Clarissa--or to Pamela.
And for another,' she continued more coldly, seeing Sir George wince
under this first stroke--he was far from having his mind made up--'I see
Lady Dunborough watching us from the windows at the corner of the house.
And I would not for worlds relieve her ladyship's anxiety by seeming
unfaithful to her son.'

'You can be spiteful, then?' Soane said, laughing.

'I can--and grateful,' she answered. 'In proof of which I am going to
make a strange request, Sir George. Do not misunderstand it. And yet--it
is only that before you leave here--whatever be the circumstances under
which you leave--you will see me for five minutes.'

Sir George stared, bowed, and muttered 'Too happy.' Then observing, or
fancying he observed, that she was anxious to be rid of him, he took his
leave and went into the house.

For a man who had descended the stairs an hour before, hipped to the
last degree, with his mind on a pistol, it must be confessed that he
went up with a light step; albeit, in a mighty obfuscation, as Dr.
Johnson might have put it. A kinder smile, more honest eyes he swore he
had never seen, even in a plain face. Her very blushes, of which the
memory set his _blas�_ blood dancing to a faster time, were a character
in themselves. But--he wondered. She had made such advances, been so
friendly, dropped such hints--he wondered. He was fresh from the
masquerades, from Mrs. Cornely's assemblies, Lord March's converse, the
Chudleigh's fantasies; the girl had made an appointment--he wondered.

For all that, one thing was unmistakable. Life, as he went up the
stairs, had taken on another and a brighter colour; was fuller, brisker,
more generous. From a spare garret with one poor casement it had grown
in an hour into a palace, vague indeed, but full of rich vistas and rosy
distances and quivering delights. The corridor upstairs, which at his
going out had filled him with distaste--there were boots in it, and
water-cans--was now the Passage Beautiful; for he might meet her there.
The day which, when he rose, had lain before him dull and
monotonous--since Lord Chatham was too ill to see him, and he had no one
with whom to game--was now full-furnished with interest, and hung with
recollections--recollections of conscious eyes and the sweetest lips in
the world. In a word, Julia had succeeded in that which she had set
herself to do. Sir George might wonder. He was none the less in love.

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