The Castle Inn: Chapter 28

Chapter 28

A ROUGH AWAKENING

Lord Almeric continued to vapour and romance as he mounted the stairs.
Mr. Pomeroy attended, sneering, at his heels. The tutor followed, and
longed to separate them. He had his fears for the one and of the other,
and was relieved when his lordship at the last moment hung back, and
with a foolish chuckle proposed a plan that did more honour to his
vanity than his taste.

'Hist!' he whispered. 'Do you two stop outside a minute, and you'll hear
how kind she'll be to me! I'll leave the door ajar, and then in a minute
do you come in and roast her! Lord, 'twill be as good as a play!'

Mr. Pomeroy shrugged his shoulders. 'As you please,' he growled. 'But I
have known a man go to shear and be shorn!'

Lord Almeric smiled loftily, and waiting for no more, winked to them,
turned the handle of the door, and simpered in.

Had Mr. Thomasson entered with him, the tutor would have seen at a
glance that he had wasted his fears; and that whatever trouble
threatened brooded in a different quarter. The girl, her face a blaze of
excitement and shame and eagerness, stood in the recess of the farther
window seat, as far from the door as she could go; her attitude the
attitude of one driven into a corner. And from that alone her lover
should have taken warning. But Lord Almeric saw nothing, feared nothing.
Crying 'Most lovely Julia!' he tripped forward to embrace her, and, the
wine emboldening him, was about to clasp her in his arms, when she
checked him by a gesture unmistakable even by a man in his
flustered state.

'My lord,' she said hurriedly, yet in a tone of pleading--and her head
hung a little, and her cheeks began to flame. 'I ask your forgiveness
for having sent for you. Alas, I have also to ask your forgiveness for a
more serious fault. One--one which you may find it less easy to pardon,'
she added, her courage failing.

'Try me!' the little beau answered with ardour; and he struck an
attitude. 'What would I not forgive to the loveliest of her sex?' And
under cover of his words he made a second attempt to come within
reach of her.

She waved him back. 'No!' she said. 'You do not understand me.'

'Understand?' he cried effusively. 'I understand enough to--but why, my
Chloe, these alarms, this bashfulness? Sure,' he spouted,

'How can I see you, and not love,
While you as Opening East are fair?
While cold as Northern Blasts you prove,
How can I love and not despair?'

And then, in wonder at his own readiness, 'S'help me! that's uncommon
clever of me,' he said. 'But when a man is in love with the most
beautiful of her sex--'

'My lord!' she cried, stamping the floor in her impatience. 'I have
something serious to say to you. Must I ask you to return to me at
another time? Or will you be good enough to listen to me now?'

'Sho, if you wish it, child,' he said lightly, taking out his snuff-box.
'And to be sure there is time enough. But between us two, sweet--'

'There is nothing between us!' she cried, impetuously snatching at the
word. 'That is what I wanted to tell you. I made a mistake when I said
that there should be. I was mad; I was wicked, if you like. Do you hear
me, my lord?' she continued passionately. 'It was a mistake. I did not
know what I was doing. And, now I do understand, I take it back.'

Lord Almeric gasped. He heard the words, but the meaning seemed
incredible, inconceivable; the misfortune, if he heard aright, was too
terrible; the humiliation too overwhelming! He had brought
listeners--and for this! 'Understand?' he cried, looking at her in a
confused, chap-fallen way. 'Hang me if I do understand! You don't mean
to say--Oh, it is impossible, stuff me! it is. You don't mean that--that
you'll not have me? After all that has come and gone, ma'am?'

She shook her head; pitying him, blaming herself, for the plight in
which she had placed him. 'I sent for you, my lord,' she said humbly,
'that I might tell you at once. I could not rest until I had told you. I
did what I could. And, believe me, I am very, very sorry.'

'But do you mean--that you--you jilt me?' he cried, still fighting off
the dreadful truth.

'Not jilt!' she said, shivering.

'That you won't have me?'

She nodded.

'After--after saying you would?' he wailed.

'I cannot,' she answered. Then, 'Cannot you understand?' she cried, her
face scarlet. 'I did not know until--until you went to kiss me.'

'But--oh, I say--but you love me?' he protested.

'No, my lord,' she said firmly. 'No. And there, you must do me the
justice to acknowledge that I never said I did.'

He dashed his hat on the floor: he was almost weeping. 'Oh, damme!' he
cried, 'a woman should not--should not treat a man like this. It's low.
It's cruel! It's--'

A knock on the door stopped him. Recollection of the listeners, whom he
had momentarily forgotten, revived, and overwhelmed him. With an oath he
sprang to shut the door, but before he could intervene Mr. Pomeroy
appeared smiling on the threshold; and behind him the reluctant tutor.

Lord Almeric swore, and Julia, affronted by the presence of strangers at
such a time, drew back, frowning. But Bully Pomeroy would see nothing.
'A thousand pardons if I intrude,' he said, bowing this way and that,
that he might hide a lurking grin. 'But his lordship was good enough to
say a while ago, that he would present us to the lady who had consented
to make him happy. We little thought last night, ma'am, that so much
beauty and so much goodness were reserved for one of us.'

Lord Almeric looked ready to cry. Julia, darkly red, was certain that
they had overheard; she stood glaring at the intruders, her foot tapping
the floor. No one answered, and Mr. Pomeroy, after looking from one to
the other in assumed surprise, pretended to hit on the reason. 'Oh, I
see; I spoil sport!' he cried with coarse joviality. 'Curse me if I
meant to! I fear we have come _mal � propos,_ my lord, and the sooner we
are gone the better.

'And though she found his usage rough,
Yet in a man 'twas well enough!'

he hummed, with his head on one side and an impudent leer. 'We are
interrupting the turtledoves, Mr. Thomasson, and had better be gone.'

'Curse you! Why did you ever come?' my lord cried furiously. 'But she
won't have me. So there! Now you know.'

Mr. Pomeroy struck an attitude of astonishment.

'Won't have you?' he cried, 'Oh, stap me! you are biting us.'

'I'm not! And you know it!' the poor little blood answered, tears of
vexation in his eyes. 'You know it, and you are roasting me!'

'Know it?' Mr. Pomeroy answered in tones of righteous indignation. 'I
know it? So far from knowing it, my dear lord, I cannot believe it! I
understood that the lady had given you her word.'

'So she did.'

'Then I cannot believe that a lady would anywhere, much less under my
roof, take it back. Madam, there must be some mistake here,' Mr. Pomeroy
continued warmly. 'It is intolerable that a man of his lordship's rank
should be so treated. I'm forsworn if he has not mistaken you.'

'He does not mistake me now,' she answered, trembling and blushing
painfully. 'What error there was I have explained to him.'

'But, damme--'

'Sir!' she said with awakening spirit, her eyes sparkling. 'What has
happened is between his lordship and myself. Interference on the part of
any one else is an intrusion, and I shall treat it as such. His lordship
understood--'

'Curse me! He does not look as if he understood,' Mr. Pomeroy cried,
allowing his native coarseness to peep through. 'Sink me, ma'am, there
is a limit to prudishness. Fine words butter no parsnips. You plighted
your troth to my guest, and I'll not see him thrown over i' this
fashion. These airs and graces are out of place. I suppose a man has
some rights under his own roof, and when his guest is jilted before his
eyes'--here Mr. Pomeroy frowned like Jove--'it is well you should know,
ma'am, that a woman no more than a man can play fast and loose at
pleasure.'

She looked at him with disdain. 'Then the sooner I leave your roof the
better, sir,' she said.

'Not so fast there, either,' he answered with an unpleasant smile. 'You
came to it when you chose, and you will leave it when we choose; and
that is flat, my girl. This morning, when my lord did you the honour to
ask you, you gave him your word. Perhaps to-morrow morning you'll be of
the same mind again. Any way, you will wait until to-morrow and see.'

'I shall not wait on your pleasure,' she cried, stung to rage.

'You will wait on it, ma'am! Or 'twill be the worse for you.'

Burning with indignation she turned to the other two, her breath coming
quick. But Mr. Thomasson gazed gloomily at the floor, and would not meet
her eyes; and Lord Almeric, who had thrown himself into a chair, was
glowering sulkily at his shoes. 'Do you mean,' she cried, 'that you will
dare to detain me, sir?'

'If you put it so,' Pomeroy answered, grinning, 'I think I dare take it
on myself.'

His voice full of mockery, his insolent eyes, stung her to the quick. 'I
will see if that be so,' she cried, fearlessly advancing on him. 'Lay a
finger on me if you dare! I am going out. Make way, sir.'

'You are not going out!' he cried between his teeth. And held his ground
in front of her.

She advanced until she was within touch of him, then her courage failed
her; they stood a second or two gazing at one another, the girl with
heaving breast and cheeks burning with indignation, the man with cynical
watchfulness. Suddenly, shrinking from actual contact with him, she
sprang aside, and was at the door before he could intercept her. But
with a rapid movement he turned on his heel, seized her round the waist
before she could open the door, dragged her shrieking from it, and with
an oath--and not without an effort--flung her panting and breathless
into the window-seat. 'There!' he cried ferociously, his blood fired by
the struggle; 'lie there! And behave yourself, my lady, or I'll find
means to quiet you. For you,' he continued, turning fiercely on the
tutor, whose face the sudden scuffle and the girl's screams had blanched
to the hue of paper, 'did you never hear a woman squeak before? And you,
my lord? Are you so dainty? But, to be sure, 'tis your lordship's
mistress,' he continued ironically. 'Your pardon. I forgot that. I
should not have handled her so roughly. However, she is none the worse,
and 'twill bring her to reason.'

But the struggle and the girl's cries had shaken my lord's nerves. 'D--n
you!' he cried hysterically, and with a stamp of the foot, 'you should
not have done that.'

'Pooh, pooh,' Mr. Pomeroy answered lightly. 'Do you leave it to me, my
lord. She does not know her own mind. 'Twill help her to find it. And
now, if you'll take my advice, you'll leave her to a night's
reflection.'

But Lord Almeric only repeated, 'You should not have done that.'

Mr. Pomeroy's face showed his scorn for the man whom a cry or two and a
struggling woman had frightened. Yet he affected to see art in it. 'I
understand. And it is the right line to take,' he said; and he laughed
unpleasantly. 'No doubt it will be put to your lordship's credit. But
now, my lord,' he continued, 'let us go. You will see she will have come
to her senses by to-morrow.'

The girl had remained passive since her defeat. But at this she rose
from the window-seat where she had crouched, slaying them with furious
glances. 'My lord,' she cried passionately, 'if you are a man, if you
are a gentleman--you'll not suffer this.'

But Lord Almeric, who had recovered from his temporary panic, and was
as angry with her as with Pomeroy, shrugged his shoulders. 'Oh, I don't
know,' he said resentfully. 'It has naught to do with me, ma'am. I don't
want you kept, but you have behaved uncommon low to me; uncommon low.
And 'twill do you good to think on it. Stap me, it will!'

And he turned on his heel and sneaked out.

Mr. Pomeroy laughed insolently. 'There is still Tommy,' he said. 'Try
him. See what he'll say to you. It amuses me to hear you plead, my dear;
you put so much spirit into it. As my lord said, before we came in, 'tis
as good as a play.'

She flung him a look of scorn, but did not answer. For Mr. Thomasson, he
shuffled his feet uncomfortably. 'There are no horses,' he faltered,
cursing his indiscreet companion. 'Mr. Pomeroy means well, I know. And
as there are no horses, even if nothing prevented you, you could not go
to-night, you see.'

Mr. Pomeroy burst into a shout of laughter and clapped the stammering
tutor (fallen miserably between two stools) on the back. 'There's a
champion for you!' he cried. 'Beauty in distress! Lord! how it fires his
blood and turns his look to flame! What! going, Tommy?' he continued, as
Mr. Thomasson, unable to bear his raillery or the girl's fiery scorn,
turned and fled ignobly. 'Well, my pretty dear, I see we are to be left
alone. And, damme! quite right too, for we are the only man and the only
woman of the party, and should come to an understanding.'

Julia looked at him with shuddering abhorrence. They were alone; the
sound of the tutor's retreating footsteps was growing faint. She pointed
to the door. 'If you do not go,' she cried, her voice shaking with rage,
'I will rouse the house! I will call your people! Do you hear me? I
will so cry to your servants that you shall not for shame dare to keep
me! I will break this window and cry for help?'

'And what do you think I should be doing meanwhile?' he retorted with an
ugly leer. 'I thought I had shown you that two could play at that game.
But there, child, I like your spirit! I love you for it! You are a girl
after my own heart, and, damme! we'll live to laugh at those two old
women yet!'

She shrank farther from him with an expression of loathing. He saw the
look, and scowled, but for the moment he kept his temper. 'Fie! the
Little Masterson playing the grand lady!' he said. 'But there, you are
too handsome to be crossed, my dear. You shall have your own way
to-night, and I'll come and talk to you to-morrow, when your head is
cooler and those two fools are out of the way. And if we quarrel then,
my beauty, we can but kiss and make it up. Look on me as your friend,'
he added, with a leer from which she shrank, 'and I vow you'll not
repent it.'

She did not answer, she only pointed to the door, and finding that he
could draw nothing from her, he went at last. On the threshold he
turned, met her eyes with a grin of meaning, and took the key from the
inside of the lock. She heard him insert it on the outside, and turn it,
and had to grip one hand with the other to stay the scream that arose in
her throat. She was brave beyond most women; but the ease with which he
had mastered her, the humiliation of contact with him, the conviction of
her helplessness in his grasp lay on her still. They filled her with
fear; which grew more definite as the light, already low in the corners
of the room, began to fail, and the shadows thickened about the dingy
furniture, and she crouched alone against the barred window, listening
for the first tread of a coming foot--and dreading the night.

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