The Castle Inn: Chapter 13

Chapter 13

A SPOILED CHILD

Julia was right in fancying that she saw Lady Dunborough's face at one
of the windows in the south-east corner of the house. Those windows
commanded both the Marlborough High Street and the Salisbury road,
welcomed alike the London and the Salisbury coach, overlooked the
loungers at the entrance to the town, and supervised most details of the
incoming and outgoing worlds. Lady Dunborough had not been up and about
half-an-hour before she remarked these advantages. In an hour her
ladyship was installed in that suite, which, though in the east wing,
was commonly reckoned to be one of the best in the house. Heaven knows
how she did it. There is a pertinacity, shameless and violent, which
gains its ends, be the crowd between never so dense. It is possible that
Mr. Smith would have ousted her had he dared. It is possible he had to
pay forfeit to the rightful tenants, and in private cursed her for an
old jade and a brimstone. But when a viscountess sits herself down in
the middle of a room and declines to budge, she cannot with decency be
taken up like a sack of hops and dumped in the passage.

Her ladyship, therefore, won, and had the pleasure of viewing from the
coveted window the scene between Julia and Sir George; a scene which
gave her the profoundest satisfaction. What she could not see--her eyes
were no longer all that they had been--she imagined. In five minutes
she had torn up the last rag of the girl's character, and proved her as
bad as the worst woman that ever rode down Cheapside in a cart. Lady
Dunborough was not mealy-mouthed, nor one of those who mince matters.

'What did I tell you?' she cried. 'She will be on with that stuck-up
before night, and be gone with morning. If Dunborough comes back he may
whistle for her!'

Mr. Thomasson did not doubt that her ladyship was right. But he spoke
with indifferent spirit. He had had a bad night, had lain anywhere, and
dressed nowhere, and was chilly and unkempt. Apart from the awe in which
he stood of her ladyship, he would have returned to Oxford by the first
coach that morning.

'Dear me!' Lady Dunborough announced presently. 'I declare he is leaving
her! Lord, how the slut ogles him! She is a shameless baggage if ever
there was one; and ruddled to the eyes, as I can see from here. I hope
the white may kill her! Well, I'll be bound it won't be long before he
is to her again! My fine gentleman is like the rest of them--a damned
impudent fellow!'

Mr. Thomasson turned up his eyes. 'There was something a little
odd--does not your lady think so?'--he ventured to say, 'in her taking
possession of Sir George's rooms as she did.'

'Did I not say so? Did I not say that very thing?'

'It seems to prove an understanding between them before they met here
last night.'

'I'll take my oath on it!' her ladyship cried with energy. Then in a
tone of exultation she continued, 'Ah! here he is again, as I thought!
And come round by the street to mask the matter! He has down beside her
again. Oh, he is limed, he is limed!' my lady continued, as she searched
for her spying-glass, that she might miss no wit of the love-making.

The tutor was all complacence. 'It proves that your ladyship's
stratagem,' he said, 'was to the point last night.'

'Oh, Dunborough will live to thank me for that!' she answered.
'Gadzooks, he will! It is first come first served with these madams.
This will open his eyes if anything will.'

'Still--it is to be hoped she will leave before he returns,' Mr.
Thomasson said, with a slight shiver of anticipation. He knew Mr.
Dunborough's temper.

'Maybe,' my lady answered. 'But even if she does not--' There she broke
of, and stood peering through the window. And suddenly, 'Lord's sake!'
she shrieked, 'what is this?'

The fury of her tone, no less than the expletive--which we have ventured
to soften--startled Mr. Thomasson to his feet. Approaching the window in
trepidation--for her ladyship's wrath was impartial, and as often
alighted on the wrong head as the right--the tutor saw that she had
dropped her quizzing-glass, and was striving with shaking hands--but
without averting her eyes from the scene outside--to recover and
readjust it. Curious as well as alarmed, he drew up to her, and, looking
over her shoulder, discerned the seat and Julia; and, alas! seated on
the bench beside Julia, not Sir George Soane, as my lady's indifferent
sight, prompted by her wishes, had persuaded her, but Mr. Dunborough!

The tutor gasped. 'Oh, dear!' he said, looking round, as if for a way of
retreat. 'This is--this is most unfortunate.'

My lady in her wrath did not heed him. Shaking her fist at her
unconscious son, 'You rascal!' she cried. 'You paltry, impudent fellow!
You would do it before my eyes, would you? Oh, I would like to have the
brooming of you! And that minx! Go down you,' she continued, turning
fiercely on the trembling, wretched Thomasson--'go down this instant,
sir, and--and interrupt them! Don't stand gaping there, but down to
them, booby, without the loss of a moment! And bring him up before the
word is said. Bring him up, do you hear?'

'Bring him up?' said Mr. Thomasson, his breath coming quickly. 'I?'

'Yes, you! Who else?'

'I--I--but, my dear lady, he is--he can be very violent,' the unhappy
tutor faltered, his teeth chattering, and his cheek flabby with fright.
'I have known him--and perhaps it would be better, considering my sacred
office, to--to--'

'To what, craven?' her ladyship cried furiously.

'To leave him awhile--I mean to leave him and presently--'

Lady Dunborough's comment was a swinging blow, which the tutor hardly
avoided by springing back. Unfortunately this placed her ladyship
between him and the door; and it is not likely that he would have
escaped her cane a second time, if his wits, and a slice of good
fortune, had not come to his assistance. In the midst of his palpitating
'There, there, my lady! My dear good lady!' his tune changed on a sudden
to 'See; they are parting! They are parting already. And--and I think--I
really think--indeed, my lady, I am sure that she has refused him! She
has not accepted him?'

'Refused him!' Lady Dunborough ejaculated in scorn. Nevertheless she
lowered the cane and, raising her glass, addressed herself to the
window. 'Not accepted him? Bosh, man!'

'But if Sir George had proposed to her before?' the tutor suggested.
'There--oh, he is coming in! He has--he has seen us.'

It was too true. Mr. Dunborough, approaching the door with a lowering
face, had looked up as if to see what witnesses there were to his
discomfiture. His eyes met his mother's. She shook her fist at him. 'Ay,
he has,' she said, her tone more moderate. 'And, Lord, it must be as you
say! He is in a fine temper, if I am any judge.'

'I think,' said Mr. Thomasson, looking round, 'I had better--better
leave--your ladyship to see him alone.'

'No,' said my lady firmly.

'But--but Mr. Dunborough,' the tutor pleaded, 'may like to see you
alone. Yes, I am sure I had better go.'

'No,' said my lady more decisively; and she laid her hand on the hapless
tutor's arm.

'But--but if your ladyship is afraid of--of his violence,' Mr. Thomasson
stuttered, 'it will be better, surely, for me to call some--some of the
servants.'

'Afraid?' Lady Dunborough cried, supremely contemptuous. 'Do you think I
am afraid of my own son? And such a son! A poor puppet,' she continued,
purposely raising her voice as a step sounded outside, and Mr.
Dunborough, flinging open the door, appeared like an angry Jove on the
threshold, 'who is fooled by every ruddled woman he meets! Ay, sir, I
mean you! You! Oh, I am not to be browbeaten, Dunborough!' she went on;
'and I will trouble you not to kick my furniture, you unmannerly puppy.
And out or in's no matter, but shut the door after you.'

Mr. Dunborough was understood to curse everybody; after which he fell
into the chair that stood next the door, and, sticking his hands into
his breeches-pockets, glared at my lady, his face flushed and sombre.

'Hoity-toity! are these manners?' said she. 'Do you see this reverend
gentleman?'

'Ay, and G--d--him!' cried Mr. Dunborough, with a very strong
expletive; 'but I'll make him smart for it by-and-by. You have ruined me
among you.'

'Saved you, you mean,' said Lady Dunborough with complacency, 'if you
are worth saving--which, mind you, I very much doubt, Dunborough.'

'If I had seen her last night,' he answered, drawing a long breath, 'it
would have been different. For that I have to thank you two. You sent me
to lie at Bath and thought you had got rid of me. But I am back, and
I'll remember it, my lady! I'll remember you too, you lying sneak!'

'You common, low fellow!' said my lady.

'Ay, talk away!' said he; and then no more, but stared at the floor
before him, his jaw set, and his brow as black as a thunder-cloud. He
was a powerful man, and, with that face, a dangerous man. For he was
honestly in love; the love was coarse, brutal, headlong, a passion to
curse the woman who accepted it; but it was not the less love for that.
On the contrary, it was such a fever as fills the veins with fire and
drives a man to desperate things; as was proved by his next words.

'You have ruined me among you,' he said, his tone dull and thick, like
that of a man in drink. 'If I had seen her last night, there is no
knowing but what she would have had me. She would have jumped at it. You
tell me why not! But she is different this morning. There is a change in
her. Gad, my lady,' with a bitter laugh, 'she is as good a lady as you,
and better! And I'd have used her gently. Now I shall carry her off. And
if she crosses me I will wring her handsome neck!'

It is noticeable that he did not adduce any reason why the night had
changed her. Only he had got it firmly into his head that, but for the
delay they had caused, all would be well. Nothing could move him
from this.

'Now I shall run away with her,' he repeated.

'She won't go with you,' my lady cried with scorn.

'I sha'n't ask her,' he answered. 'When there is no choice she will come
to it. I tell you I shall carry her off. And if I am taken and hanged
for it, I'll be hanged at Papworth--before your window.'

'You poor simpleton!' she said. 'Go home to your father.'

'All right, my lady,' he answered, without lifting his eyes from the
carpet. 'Now you know. It will be your doing. I shall force her off, and
if I am taken and hanged I will be hanged at Papworth. You took fine
pains last night, but I'll take pains to-day. If I don't have her I
shall never have a wife. But I will have her.'

'Fools cry for the moon,' said my lady. 'Any way, get out of my room.
You are a fine talker, but I warrant you will take care of your neck.'

'I shall carry her off and marry her,' he repeated, his chin sunk on his
breast, his hand rattling the money in his pocket.

'It is a distance to Gretna,' she answered. 'You'll be nearer it outside
my door, my lad. So be stepping, will you? And if you take my advice,
you will go to my lord.'

'All right; you know,' he said sullenly. 'For that sneak there, if he
comes in my way, I'll break every bone in his body. Good-day, my lady.
When I see you again I will have Miss with me.'

'Like enough; but not Madam,' she retorted. 'You are not such a fool as
that comes to. And there is the Act besides!'

That was her parting shot; for all the feeling she had shown, from the
opening to the close of the interview, she might have been his worst
enemy. Yet after a fashion, and as a part of herself, she did love him;
which was proved by her first words after the door had closed upon him.

'Lord!' she said uneasily. 'I hope he will play no Ferrers tricks, and
disgrace us all. He is a black desperate fellow, is Dunborough, when he
is roused.'

The crestfallen tutor could not in a moment recover himself; but he
managed to say that he did not think Mr. Dunborough suspected Sir
George; and that even if he did, the men had fought once, in which case
there was less risk of a second encounter.

'You don't know him,' my lady answered, 'if you say that. But it is not
that I mean. He'll do some wild thing about carrying her off. From a boy
he would have his toy. I've whipped him till the blood ran, and he's
gone to it.'

'But without her consent,' said Mr. Thomasson, 'it would not be
possible.'

'I mistrust him,' the viscountess answered. 'So do you go and find this
baggage, and drop a word to her--to go in company you understand. Lord!
he might marry her that way yet. For once away she would have to marry
him--ay, and he to marry her to save his neck. And fine fools we
should look.'

'It's--it's a most surprising, wonderful thing she did not take him,'
said the tutor thoughtfully.

'It's God's mercy and her madness,' quoth the viscountess piously. 'She
may yet. And I would rather give you a bit of a living to marry her--ay,
I would, Thomasson--than be saddled with such a besom!'

Mr. Thomasson cast a sickly glance at her ladyship. The evening before,
when the danger seemed imminent, she had named two thousand pounds and a
living. Tonight, the living. To-morrow--what? For the living had been
promised all along and in any case. Whereas now, a remote and impossible
contingency was attached to it. Alas! the tutor saw very clearly that my
lady's promises were pie-crust, made to be broken.

She caught the look, but attributed it to another cause. 'What do you
fear, man?' she said. 'Sho! he is out of the house by this time.'

Mr. Thomasson would not have ventured far on that assurance, but he had
himself seen Mr. Dunborough leave the house and pass to the stables; and
anxious to escape for a time from his terrible patroness, he professed
himself ready. Knowing where the rooms, which the girl's party occupied,
lay, in the west wing, he did not call a servant, but went through the
house to them and knocked at the door.

He got no answer, so gently opened the door and peeped in. He discovered
a pleasant airy apartment, looking by two windows over a little grass
plot that flanked the house on that side, and lay under the shadow of
the great Druid mound. The room showed signs of occupancy--a lady's
cloak cast over a chair, a great litter of papers on the table. But for
the moment it was empty.

He was drawing back, satisfied with his survey, when he caught the sound
of a heavy tread in the corridor behind him. He turned; to his horror he
discerned Mr. Dunborough striding towards him, a whip in one hand, and
in the other a note; probably the note was for this very room. At the
same moment Mr. Dunborough caught sight of the tutor, and bore down on
him with a view halloa. Mr. Thomasson's hair rose, his knees shook under
him, he all but sank down where he was. Fortunately at the last moment
his better angel came to his assistance. His hand was still on the latch
of the door; to open it, to dart inside, and to shoot the bolt were the
work of a second. Trembling he heard Mr. Dunborough come up and slash
the door with his whip, and then, contented with this demonstration,
pass on, after shouting through the panels that the tutor need not
flatter himself--he would catch him by-and-by.

Mr. Thomasson devoutly hoped he would not; and, sweating at every pore,
sat down to recover himself. Though all was quiet, he suspected the
enemy of lying in wait; and rather than run into his arms was prepared
to stay where he was, at any risk of discovery by the occupants. Or
there might be another exit. Going to one of the windows to ascertain
this, he found that there was; an outside staircase of stone affording
egress to the grass plot. He might go that way; but no!--at the base of
the Druid mound he perceived a group of townsfolk and rustics staring at
the flank of the building--staring apparently at him. He recoiled; then
he remembered that Lord Chatham's rooms lay in that wing, and also
looked over the gardens. Doubtless the countryfolk were watching in the
hope that the great man would show himself at a window, or that, at the
worst, they might see the crumbs shaken from a tablecloth he had used.

This alone would have deterred the tutor from a retreat so public:
besides, he saw something which placed him at his ease. Beyond the group
of watchers he espied three people strolling at their leisure, their
backs towards him. His sight was better than Lady Dunborough's; and he
had no difficulty in making out the three to be Julia, her mother, and
the attorney. They were moving towards the Bath road. Freed from the
fear of interruption, he heaved a sigh of relief, and, choosing the most
comfortable chair, sat down on it.

It chanced to stand by the table, and on the table, as has been said,
lay a vast litter of papers. Mr. Thomasson's elbow rested on one. He
went to move it; in the act he read the heading: 'This is the last will
and testament of me Sir Anthony Cornelius Soane, baronet, of Estcombe
Hall, in the county of Wilts.'

'Tut-tut!' said the tutor. 'That is not Soane's will, that is his
grandfather's.' And between idleness and curiosity, not unmingled with
surprise, he read the will to the end. Beside it lay three or four
narrow slips; he examined these, and found them to be extracts from a
register. Apparently some one was trying to claim under the will; but
Mr. Thomasson did not follow the steps or analyse the pedigree--his mind
was engrossed by perplexity on another point. His thoughts might have
been summed up in the lines--

'Not that the things themselves are rich or rare,
The wonder's how the devil they got there'--

in a word, how came the papers to be in that room? 'These must be
Soane's rooms,' he muttered at last, looking about him. 'And yet--that's
a woman's cloak. And that old cowskin bag is not Sir George's. It is
odd. Ah! What is this?'

This was a paper, written and folded brief-wise, and indorsed:
'Statement of the Claimant's case for the worshipful consideration of
the Eight Honourable the Earl of Chatham and others the trustees of the
Estcombe Hall Estate. Without Prejudice.'

'So!' said the tutor. 'This may be intelligible.' And having assured
himself by a furtive glance through the window that the owners of the
room were not returning, he settled himself to peruse it. When he again
looked up, which was at a point about one-third of the way through the
document, his face wore a look of rapt, incredulous, fatuous
astonishment.

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