The Castle Inn: Chapter 33

Chapter 33

IN THE CARRIAGE

Mr. Thomasson was mistaken in supposing that it was the jerk, caused by
the horses' start, which drew from Julia the scream he heard as the
carriage bounded forward and whirled into the night. The girl, indeed,
was in no mood to be lightly scared; she had gone through too much. But
as, believing herself alone, she sank back on the seat--at the moment
that the horses plunged forward--her hand, extended to save herself,
touched another hand: and the sudden contact in the dark, conveying to
her the certainty that she had a companion, with all the possibilities
the fact conjured up, more than excused an involuntary cry.

The answer, as she recoiled, expecting the worst, was a sound between a
sigh and a grunt; followed by silence. The coachman had got the horses
in hand again, and was driving slowly; perhaps he expected to be
stopped. She sat as far into her corner as she could, listening and
staring, enraged rather than frightened. The lamps shed no light into
the interior of the carriage, she had to trust entirely to her ears;
and, gradually, while she sat shuddering, awaiting she knew not what,
there stole on her senses, mingling with the roll of the wheels, a sound
the least expected in the world--a snore!

Irritated, puzzled, she stretched out a hand and touched a sleeve, a
man's sleeve; and at that, remembering how she had sat and wasted fears
on Mr. Thomasson before she knew who he was, she gave herself entirely
to anger. 'Who is it?' she cried sharply. 'What are you doing here?'

The snoring ceased, the man turned himself in his corner. 'Are we
there?' he murmured drowsily; and, before she could answer, was
asleep again.

The absurdity of the position pricked her. Was she always to be
travelling in dark carriages beside men who mocked her? In her
impatience she shook the man violently. 'Who are you? What are you doing
here?' she cried again.

The unseen roused himself. 'Eh?' he exclaimed. 'Who--who spoke? I--oh,
dear, dear, I must have been dreaming. I thought I heard--'

'Mr. Fishwick!' she cried; her voice breaking between tears and
laughter. 'Mr. Fishwick!' And she stretched out her hands, and found
his, and shook and held them in her joy.

The lawyer heard and felt; but, newly roused from sleep, unable to see
her, unable to understand how she came to be by his side in the
post-chaise, he shrank from her. He was dumbfounded. His mind ran on
ghosts and voices; and he was not to be satisfied until he had stopped
the carriage, and with trembling fingers brought a lamp, that he might
see her with his eyes. That done, the little attorney fairly wept
for joy.

'That I should be the one to find you!' he cried. 'That I should be the
one to bring you back! Even now I can hardly believe that you are here!
Where have you been, child? Lord bless us, we have seen strange things!'

'It was Mr. Dunborough!' she cried with indignation.

'I know, I know,' he said. 'He is behind with Sir George Soane. Sir
George and I followed you. We met him, and Sir George compelled him to
accompany us.'

'Compelled him?' she said.

'Ay, with a pistol to his head,' the lawyer answered; and chuckled and
leapt in his seat--for he had re-entered the carriage--at the
remembrance. 'Oh, Lord, I declare I have lived a year in the last two
days. And to think that I should be the one to bring you back!' he
repeated. 'To bring you back! But there, what happened to you? I know
that they set you down in the road. We learned that at Bristol this
afternoon from the villains who carried you off.'

She told him how they had found. Mr. Pomeroy's house, and taken shelter
there, and--

'You have been there until now?' he said in amazement. 'At a gentleman's
house? But did you not think, child, that we should be anxious? Were
there no horses? No servants? Didn't you think of sending word to
Marlborough?'

'He was a villain,' she answered, shuddering. Brave as she was, Mr.
Pomeroy had succeeded in frightening her. 'He would not let me go. And
if Mr. Thomasson had not stolen the key of the room and released me, and
brought me to the gate to-night, and put me in with you--'

'But how did he know that I was passing?' Mr. Fishwick cried, thrusting
back his wig and rubbing his head in perplexity. He could not yet
believe that it was chance and only chance had brought them together.

And she was equally ignorant. 'I don't know,' she said. 'He only told
me--that he would have a carriage waiting at the gate.'

'And why did he not come with you?'

'He said--I think he said he was under obligations to Mr. Pomeroy.'

'Pomeroy? Pomeroy?' the lawyer repeated slowly. 'But sure, my dear, if
he was a villain, still, having the clergyman with you you should have
been safe. This Mr. Pomeroy was not in the same case as Mr. Dunborough.
He could not have been deep in love after knowing you a dozen hours.'

'I think,' she said, but mechanically, as if her mind ran on something
else, 'that he knew who I was, and wished to make me marry him.'

'Who you were!' Mr. Fishwick repeated; and--and he groaned.

The sudden check was strange, and Julia should have remarked it. But she
did not; and after a short silence, 'How could he know?' Mr. Fishwick
asked faintly.

'I don't know,' she answered, in the same absent manner. Then with an
effort which was apparent in her tone, 'Lord Almeric Doyley was there,'
she said. 'He was there too.'

'Ah!' the lawyer replied, accepting the fact with remarkable apathy.
Perhaps his thoughts also were far away. 'He was there, was he?'

'Yes,' she said. 'He was there, and he--' then, in a changed tone, 'Did
you say that Sir George was behind us?'

'He should be,' he answered; and, occupied as she was with her own
trouble, she was struck with the gloom of the attorney's tone. 'We
settled,' he continued, 'as soon as we learned where the men had left
you, that I should start for Calne and make inquiries there, and they
should start an hour later for Chippenham and do the same there. Which
reminds me that we should be nearing Calne. You would like to
rest there?'

'I would rather go forward to Marlborough,' she answered feverishly, 'if
you could send to Chippenham to tell them I am safe? I would rather go
back at once, and quietly.'

'To be sure,' he said, patting her hand. 'To be sure, to be sure,' he
repeated, his voice shaking as if he wrestled with some emotion.
'You'll he glad to be with--with your mother.'

Julia wondered a little at his tone, but in the main he had described
her feelings. She had gone through so many things that, courageous as
she was, she longed for rest and a little time to think. She assented in
silence therefore, and, wonderful to relate, he fell silent too, and
remained so until they reached Calne. There the inn was roused; a
messenger was despatched to Chippenham; and while a relay of horses was
prepared he made her enter the house and eat and drink. Had he stayed at
that, and preserved when he re-entered the carriage the discreet silence
he had maintained before, it is probable that she would have fallen
asleep in sheer weariness, and deferred to the calmer hours of the
morning the problem that occupied her. But as they settled themselves in
their corners, and the carriage rolled out of the town, the attorney
muttered that he did not doubt Sir George would be at Marlborough to
breakfast. This set the girl's mind running. She moved restlessly, and
presently, 'When did you hear what had happened to me?' she asked.

'A few minutes after you were carried off,' he answered; 'but until Sir
George appeared, a quarter of an hour later, nothing was done.'

'And he started in pursuit?' To hear it gave her a delicious thrill
between pain and pleasure.

'Well, at first, to confess the truth,' Mr. Fishwick answered humbly, 'I
thought it was his doing, and--'

'You did?' she cried in surprise.

'Yes, I did; even I did. And until we met Mr. Dunborough, and Sir George
got the truth from him--I had no certainty. More shame to me!'

She bit her lips to keep back the confession that rose to them, and for
a little while was silent. Then, to his astonishment, 'Will he ever
forgive me?' she cried, her voice tremulous. 'How shall I tell him? I
was mad--I must have been mad.'

'My dear child,' the attorney answered in alarm, 'compose yourself. What
is it? What is the matter?'

'I, too thought it was he! I, even I. I thought that he wanted to rid
himself of me,' she cried, pouring forth her confession in shame and
abasement. 'There! I can hardly bear to tell you in the dark, and how
shall I tell him in the light?'

'Tut-tut!' Mr. Fishwick answered. 'What need to tell any one? Thoughts
are free.'

'Oh, but'--she laughed hysterically--'I was not free, and I--what do you
think I did?' She was growing more and more excited.

'Tut-tut!' the lawyer said. 'What matter?'

'I promised--to marry some one else.'

'Good Lord!' he said. The words were forced from him.

'Some one else!' she repeated. 'I was asked to be my lady, and it
tempted me! Think! It tempted me,' she continued with a second laugh,
bitterly contemptuous. 'Oh, what a worm--what a thing I am! It tempted
me. To be my lady, and to have my jewels, and to go to Ranelagh and the
masquerades! To have my box at the King's House and my frolic in the
pit! And my woman as ugly as I liked--if he might have my lips! Think of
it, think of it! That anyone should be so low! Or no, no, no!' she cried
in a different tone. 'Don't believe me! I am not that! I am not so vile!
But I thought he had tricked me, I thought he had cheated me, I thought
that this was his work, and I was mad! I think I was mad!'

'Dear, dear,' Mr. Fishwick said rubbing his head. His tone was
sympathetic; yet, strange to relate, there was no real smack of sorrow
in it. Nay, an acute ear might have caught a note of relief, of hope,
almost of eagerness. 'Dear, dear, to be sure!' he continued; 'I
suppose--it was Lord Almeric Doyley, the nobleman I saw at Oxford?'

'Yes!'

'And you don't know what to do, child?'

'To do?' she exclaimed.

'Which--I mean which you shall accept. Really,' Mr. Fishwick continued,
his brain succumbing to a kind of vertigo as he caught himself balancing
the pretensions of Sir George and Lord Almeric, 'it is a very remarkable
position for any young lady to enjoy, however born. Such a choice--'

'Choice!' she cried fiercely, out of the darkness. 'There is no choice.
Don't you understand? I told him No, no, no, a thousand times No!'

Mr. Fishwick sighed. 'But I understood you to say,' he answered meekly,
'that you did not know what to do.'

'How to tell Sir George! How to tell him.'

Mr. Fishwick was silent a moment. Then he said earnestly, 'I would not
tell him. Take my advice, child. No harm has been done. You said No to
the other.'

'I said Yes,' she retorted.

'But I thought--'

'And then I said No,' she cried, between tears and foolish laughter.
'Cannot you understand?'

Mr. Fishwick could not; but, 'Anyway, do not tell him,' he said. 'There
is no need, and before marriage men think much of that at which they
laugh afterwards.'

'And much of a woman of whom they think nothing afterwards,' she
answered.

'Yet do not tell him,' he pleaded. From the sound of his voice she knew
that he was leaning forward. 'Or at least wait. Take the advice of one
older than you, who knows the world, and wait.'

'And talk to him, listen to him, smile on his suit with a lie in my
heart? Never?' she cried. Then with a new strange pride, a faint touch
of stateliness in her tone, 'You forget who I am, Mr. Fishwick,' she
said. 'I am as much a Soane as he is, and it becomes me to--to remember
that. Believe me, I would far rather resign all hope of entering his
house, though I love him, than enter it with a secret in my heart.'

Mr. Fishwick groaned. He told himself that this would be the last straw.
This would give Sir George the handle he needed. She would never enter
that house.

'I have not been true to him,' she said. 'But I will be true now.'

'The truth is--is very costly,' Mr. Fishwick murmured almost under his
breath. 'I don't know that poor people can always afford it, child.'

'For shame!' she cried hotly. 'For shame! But there,' she continued, 'I
know you do not mean it. I know that what you bid me do you would not do
yourself. Would you have sold my cause, would you have hidden the truth
for thousands? If Sir George had come to you to bribe you, would you
have taken anything? Any sum, however large? I know you would not. My
life on it, you would not. You are an honest man,' she cried warmly.

The honest man was silent awhile. Presently he looked out of the
carriage. The moon had risen over Savernake; by its light he saw that
they were passing Manton village. In the vale on the right the tower of
Preshute Church, lifting its head from a dark bower of trees, spoke a
solemn language, seconding hers. 'God bless you!' he said in a low
voice. 'God bless you.'

A minute later the horses swerved to the right, and half a dozen lights
keeping vigil in the Castle Inn gleamed out along the dark front. The
post-chaise rolled across the open, and drew up before the door.
Julia's strange journey was over. Its stages, sombre in the retrospect,
rose before her as she stepped from the carriage: yet, had she known
all, the memories at which she shuddered would have worn a darker hue.
But it was not until a late hour of the following morning that even the
lawyer heard what had happened at Chippenham.

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