The Castle Inn: Chapter 37

Chapter 37

A HANDSOME ALLOWANCE

The physician might not have deemed his friend so sensible--or so
insensible--had he known that the young man proposed to make the offer
of that allowance in person. Nor to Sir George Soane himself, when he
alighted five days later before The George Inn at Wallingford, did the
offer seem the light and easy thing,

'Of smiles and tears compact,'

it had appeared at Marlborough. He recalled old clashes of wit, and here
and there a spark struck out between them, that, alighting on the flesh,
had burned him. Meanwhile the arrival of so fine a gentleman, travelling
in a post-chaise and four, drew a crowd about the inn. To give the
idlers time to disperse, as well as to remove the stains of the road, he
entered the house, and, having bespoken dinner and the best rooms,
inquired the way to Mr. Fishwick the attorney's. By this time his
servant had blabbed his name; and the story of the duel at Oxford being
known, with some faint savour of his fashion, the landlord was his most
obedient, and would fain have guided his honour to the place cap
in hand.

Rid of him, and informed that the house he sought was neighbour on the
farther side, of the Three Tuns, near the bridge, Sir George strolled
down the long clean street that leads past Blackstone's Church, then in
the building, to the river; Sinodun Hill and the Berkshire Downs,
speaking evening peace, behind him. He paused before a dozen neat houses
with brass knockers and painted shutters, and took each in turn for the
lawyer's. But when he came to the real Mr. Fishwick's, and found it a
mere cottage, white and decent, but no more than a cottage, he thought
that he was mistaken. Then the name of 'Mr. Peter Fishwick,
Attorney-at-Law,' not in the glory of brass, but painted in white
letters on the green door, undeceived him; and, opening the wicket of
the tiny garden, he knocked with the head of his cane on the door.

The appearance of a stately gentleman in a laced coat and a sword,
waiting outside Fishwick's, opened half the doors in the street; but not
that one at which Sir George stood. He had to knock again and again
before he heard voices whispering inside. At last a step came tapping
down the bricked passage, a bolt was withdrawn, and an old woman, in a
coarse brown dress and a starched mob, looked out. She betrayed no
surprise on seeing so grand a gentleman, but told his honour, before he
could speak, that the lawyer was not at home.

'It is not Mr. Fishwick I want to see,' Sir George answered civilly.
Through the brick passage he had a glimpse, as through a funnel, of
green leaves climbing on a tiny treillage, and of a broken urn on a
scrap of sward. 'You have a young lady staying here?' he continued.

The old woman's stiff grey eyebrows grew together. 'No!' she said
sharply. 'Nothing of the kind!'

'A Miss Masterson.'

'No' she snapped, her face more and more forbidding. 'We have no Misses
here, and no baggages for fine gentlemen! You have come to the wrong
house!' And she tried to shut the door in his face.

He was puzzled and a little affronted; but he set his foot between the
door and the post, and balked her. 'One moment, my good woman,' he
said. 'This is Mr. Fishwick's, is it not?'

'Ay, 'tis,' she answered, breathing hard with indignation. 'But if it is
him your honour wants to see, you must come when he is at home. He is
not at home to-day.'

'I don't want to see him,' Sir George said. 'I want to speak to the
young lady who is staying here.'

'And I tell you that there is no young lady staying here!' she retorted
wrathfully. 'There is no soul in the house but me and my serving girl,
and she's at the wash-tub. It is more like the Three Tuns you want!
There's a flaunting gipsy-girl there if you like--but the less said
about her the better.'

Sir George stood and stared at the woman. At last, on a sudden
suspicion, 'Is your servant from Oxford?' he said.

She seemed to consider him before she answered. 'Well, if she is?' she
said grudgingly. 'What then?'

'Is her name Masterson?'

Again she seemed to hesitate. At last, 'May be and may be not!' she
snapped, with a sniff of contempt.

He saw that it was, and for an instant the hesitation was on his side.
Then, 'Let me come in!' he said abruptly. 'You are doing your son's
client little good by this!' And when she had slowly and grudgingly made
way for him to enter, and the door was shut behind him, 'Where is she?'
he asked almost savagely. 'Take me to her!'

The old dame muttered something unintelligible. Then, 'She's in the back
part,' she said, 'but she'll not wish to see you. Don't blame me if she
pins a clout to your skirts.'

Yet she moved aside, and the way lay open--down the brick passage. It
must be confessed that for an instant, just one instant, Sir George
wavered, his face hot; for the third part of a second the dread of the
ridiculous, the temptation to turn and go as he had come were on him.
Nor need he, for this, forfeit our sympathies, or cease to be a hero. It
was the age, be it remembered, of the artificial. Nature, swathed in
perukes and ruffles, powder and patches, and stifled under a hundred
studied airs and grimaces, had much ado to breathe. Yet it did breathe;
and Sir George, after that brief hesitation, did go on. Three steps
carried him down the passage. Another, and the broken urn and tiny
treillage brought him up short, but on the greensward, in the sunlight,
with the air of heaven fanning his brow. The garden was a very
duodecimo; a single glance showed him its whole extent--and Julia.

She was not at the wash-tub, as the old lady had said; but on her knees,
scouring a step that led to a side-door, her drugget gown pinned up
about her. She raised her head as he appeared, and met his gaze
defiantly, her face flushing red with shame or some kindred feeling. He
was struck by a strange likeness between her hard look and the frown
with which the old woman at the door had received him; and this, or
something in the misfit of her gown, or the glimpse he had of a stocking
grotesquely fine in comparison of the stuff from which it peeped--or
perhaps the cleanliness of the step she was scouring, since he seemed to
instant, just one instant, Sir George wavered, his face hot; for the
third part of a second the dread of the ridiculous, the temptation to
turn and go as he had come were on him. Nor need he, for this, forfeit
our sympathies, or cease to be a hero. It was the age, be it remembered,
of the artificial. Nature, swathed in perukes and ruffles, powder and
patches, and stifled under a hundred studied airs and grimaces, had much
ado to breathe. Yet it did breathe; and Sir George, after that brief
hesitation, did go on. Three steps carried him down the passage.
Another, and the broken urn and tiny treillage brought him up short, but
on the greensward, in the sunlight, with the air of heaven fanning his
brow. The garden was a very duodecimo; a single glance showed him its
whole extent--and Julia.

She met his gaze sullenly. 'You have found me to no purpose,' she said.
Her tone matched her look.

The look and the words together awoke an odd pang in his heart. He had
seen her arch, pitiful, wrathful, contemptuous, even kind; but never
sullen. The new mood gave him the measure of her heart; but his tone
lost nothing of its airiness. 'I hope not,' he said, 'for we think you
have behaved vastly well in the matter, child. Remarkably well! And
that, let me tell you, is not only my own sentiment, but the opinion of
my friends who perfectly approve of the arrangement I have come to
propose. You may accept it, therefore, without the least scruple.'

'Arrangement?' she muttered. Her cheeks, darkly red a moment before,
began to fade.

'Yes,' he said. 'I hope you will think it not ungenerous. It will rid
you of the need to do this--sort of thing, and put you--put you in a
comfortable position. Of course, you know,' he continued in a tone of
patronage, under which her heart burned if her cheeks did not, 'that a
good deal of water has run under the bridge since we talked in the
garden at Marlborough? That things are changed.'

Her eyelids quivered under the cruel stroke. But her only answer was,
'They are.' Yet she wondered how and why; for if she had thought herself
an heiress, he had not--then.

'You admit it, I am sure?' he persisted.

'Yes,' she answered resolutely.

'And that to--to resume, in fact, the old terms would be--impossible,'

'Quite impossible.' Her tone was as hard as his was easy.

'I thought so,' Sir George continued complacently. 'Still, I could not,
of course, leave you here, child. As I have said, my friends think that
something should be done for you; and I am only too happy to do it. I
have consulted them, and we have talked the matter over. By the way,'
with a look round, 'perhaps your mother should be here--Mrs. Masterson,
I mean? Is she in the house?'

'No,' she answered, her face flaming scarlet; for pride had conquered
pain. She hated him. Oh, how she hated him and the hideous dress which
in her foolish dream--when, hearing him at the door, she had looked for
something very different--she had hurriedly put on; and the loose tangle
of hair which she had dragged with trembling fingers from its club so
that it now hung sluttishly over her ear. She longed, as she had never
longed before, to confront him in all her beauty; to be able to say to
him, 'Choose where you will, can you buy form or face like this?'
Instead she stood before him, prisoned in this shapeless dress, a
slattern, a drab, a thing whereat to curl the lip.

'Well, I am sorry she is not here,' he resumed. 'It would have given
a--a kind of legality to the offer,' he continued with an easy laugh.
'To tell you the truth, the amount was not fixed by me, but by my
friend, Dr. Addington, who interested himself in your behalf. He thought
that an allowance of a hundred guineas a year, child, properly secured,
would place you in comfort, and--and obviate all this,' with a negligent
wave of the hand that took in the garden and the half-scoured stone, 'at
the same time,' he added, 'that it would not be unworthy of the donor.'
And he bowed, smiling.

'A hundred guineas?' she said slowly. 'A year?'

'Yes.'

'Properly secured?'

'To be sure, child.'

'On your word?' with a sudden glance at him. 'Of course, I could not ask
better security! Surely, sir, there's but one thing to be said. 'Tis too
generous, too handsome!'

'Tut-tut!' he answered, wondering at her way of taking it.

'Far too handsome--seeing that I have no claim on you, Sir George, and
have only put you to great expense.'

'Pooh! Pooh!'

'And--trouble. A vast deal of trouble,' she repeated in an odd tone of
raillery, while her eyes, grown hard and mocking, raked him mercilessly.
'So much for so little! I could not--I could not accept it. A hundred
guineas a year, Sir George, from one in your position to one in mine,
would only lay me open to the tongue of slander. You had better
say--fifty.'

'Oh, no!'

'Or--thirty, I am sure thirty were ample! Say thirty guineas a year,
dear sir; and leave me my character.'

'Nonsense,' he answered, a trifle discomfited. Strange, she was seizing
her old position. The weapon he had wrought for her punishment was being
turned against himself.

'Or, I don't know that thirty is not too much!' she continued, her eyes
unnaturally bright, her voice keen as a razor.' 'Twould have been enough
if offered through your lawyers. But at your own mouth, Sir George, ten
shillings a week should do, and handsomely! Which reminds me--it was a
kind thought to come yourself to see me; I wonder why you did.'

'Well,' he said, 'to be frank, it was Dr. Addington--'

'Oh, Dr. Addington--Dr. Addington suggested it! Because I fancied--it
could not give you pleasure to see me like this?' she continued with a
flashing eye, her passion for a brief moment breaking forth. 'Or to go
back a month or two and call me child? Or to speak to me as to your
chambermaid? Or even to give me ten shillings a week?'

'No,' he said gravely; 'perhaps not, my dear.'

She winced and her eyes flashed; but she controlled herself. 'Still, I
shall take your ten shillings a week,' she said. 'And--and is that all?
Or is there anything else?'

'Only this,' he said firmly. 'You'll please to remember that the ten
shillings a week is of your own choosing. You'll do me that justice at
least. A hundred guineas a year was the allowance I proposed. And--I bet
a guinea you ask for it, my dear, before the year is out!'

She was like a tigress outraged; she writhed under the insult. And yet,
because to give vent to her rage were also to bare her heart to his
eyes, she had to restrain herself, and endure even this with a scarlet
cheek. She had thought to shame him by accepting the money he offered;
by accepting it in the barest form. The shame was hers; it did not seem
to touch him a whit. At last, 'You are mistaken,' she answered, in a
voice she strove to render steady. 'I shall not! And now, if there is
nothing more, sir--'

'There is,' he said. 'Are you sufficiently punished?'

She looked at him wildly--suddenly, irresistibly compelled to do so by a
new tone in his voice. 'Punished!' she stammered, almost inaudibly.
'For what?'

'Do you not know?'

'No,' she muttered, her heart fluttering strangely.

'For this travesty,' he answered; and coolly, as he stood before her, he
twitched the sleeve of her shapeless gown, looking masterfully down at
her the while, so that her eyes fell before his. 'Did you think it kind
to me or fair to me,' he continued, almost sternly, 'to make that
difficult, Julia, which my honour required, and which you knew that my
honour required? Which, if I had not come to do, you would have despised
me in your heart, and presently with your lips? Did you think it fair
to widen the distance between us by this--this piece of play-acting?
Give me your hand.'

She obeyed, trembling, tongue-tied. He held it an instant, looked at it,
and dropped it almost contemptuously. 'It has not cleaned that step
before,' he said. 'Now put up your hair.'

She did so with shaking fingers, her cheeks pale, tears oozing from
under her lowered eyelashes. He devoured her with his gaze.

'Now go to your room,' he said. 'Take off that rag and come to me
properly dressed.'

'How?' she whispered.

'As my wife.'

'It is impossible,' she cried with a gesture of despair; 'It is
impossible.'

'Is that the answer you would have given me at Manton Corner?'

'Oh no, no!' she cried. 'But everything is changed.'

'Nothing is changed.'

'You said so,' she retorted feverishly. 'You said that it was changed!'

'And have you, too, told the whole truth?' he retorted. 'Go, silly
child! If you are determined to play Pamela to the end, at least you
shall play it in other guise than this. 'Tis impossible to touch you!
And yet, if you stand long and tempt me, I vow, sweet, I shall fall!'

To his astonishment she burst into hysterical laughter. 'I thought men
wooed--with promises!' she cried. 'Why don't you tell me I shall have my
jewels; and my box at the Opera and the King's House? And go to Vauxhall
and the Masquerades? And have my frolic in the pit with the best? And
keep my own woman as ugly as I please? He did; and I said Yes to him!
Why don't you say the same?'

Sir George was prepared for almost anything, but not for that. His face
grew dark. 'He did? Who did?' he asked grimly, his eyes on her face.

'Lord Almeric! And I said Yes to him--for three hours.'

'Lord Almeric?'

'Yes! For three hours,' she answered with a laugh, half hysterical, half
despairing. 'If you must know, I thought you had carried me off to--to
get rid of my claim--and me! I thought--I thought you had only been
playing with me,' she continued, involuntarily betraying by her tone how
deep had been her misery. 'I was only Pamela, and 'twas cheaper, I
thought, to send me to the Plantations than to marry me.'

'And Lord Almeric offered you marriage?'

'I might have been my lady,' she cried in bitter abasement. 'Yes.'

'And you accepted him?'

'Yes! Yes, I accepted him.'

'And then--'Pon honour, ma'am, you are good at surprises. I fear I don't
follow the course of events,' Sir George said icily.

'Then I changed my mind--the same day,' she replied. She was shaking on
her feet with emotion; but in his jealousy he had no pity on her
weakness. 'You know, a woman may change her mind once, Sir George,' she
added with a feeble smile.

'I find that I don't know as much about women--as I thought I did,' Sir
George answered grimly. 'You seem, ma'am, to be much sought after. One
man can hardly hope to own you. Pray have you any other affairs
to confess?'

'I have told you--all,' she said.

His face dark, he hung a moment between love and anger; looking at her.
Then, 'Did he kiss you?' he said between his teeth. 'No!' she
cried fiercely.

'You swear it?'

She flashed a look at him.

But he had no mercy. 'Why not?' he persisted, moving a step nearer her.
'You were betrothed to him. You engaged yourself to him, ma'am.
Why not?'

'Because--I did not love him,' she answered so faintly he scarcely
heard.

He drew a deep breath. 'May I kiss you?' he said.

She looked long at him, her face quivering between tears and smiles, a
great joy dawning in the depths of her eyes. 'If my lord wills,' she
said at last, 'when I have done his bidding and--and changed--and
dressed as--'

But he did not wait.

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