The Castle Inn by Stanley John Weyman

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Apparently he was aware of this, for his first words were, 'Oh, Lord!
What a twitter I am in! I vow and protest, ma'am, I don't know where you
get your roses of a morning. But I wish you would give me the secret.'

'Sir!' she said, interrupting him, surprise in her face. 'Or'--with a
momentary flush of confusion--'I should say, my lord, surely there must
be some mistake here.'

'None, I dare swear,' Lord Almeric answered, bowing gallantly. 'But I am
in such a twitter'--he dropped his hat and picked it up again--'I hardly
know what I am saying. To be sure, I was devilish cut last night! I hope
nothing was said to--to--oh, Lord! I mean I hope you were not much
incommoded by the night air, ma'am.'

'The night air has not hurt me, I thank you,' said Julia, who did not
take the trouble to hide her impatience.

However, my lord, nothing daunted, expressed himself monstrously glad to
hear it; monstrously glad. And after looking about him and humming and
hawing, 'Won't you sit?' he said, with a killing glance.

'I am leaving immediately,' Julia answered, and declined with coldness
the chair which he pushed forward. At another time his foppish dress
might have moved her to smiles, or his feebleness and vapid oaths to
pity. This morning she needed her pity for herself, and was in no
smiling mood. Her world had crashed around her; she would sit and weep
among the ruins, and this butterfly insect flitted between. After a
moment, as he did not speak, 'I will not detain your lordship,' she
continued, curtseying frigidly.

'Cruel beauty!' my lord answered, dropping his hat and clasping his
hands in an attitude. And then, to her astonishment, 'Look, ma'am,' he
cried with animation, 'look, I beseech you, on the least worthy of your
admirers and deign to listen to him. Listen to him while--and don't, oh,
I say, don't stare at me like that,' he continued hurriedly,
plaintiveness suddenly taking the place of grandiloquence. 'I vow and
protest I am in earnest.'

'Then you must be mad!' Julia cried in great wrath. 'You can have no
other excuse, sir, for talking to me like that!'

'Excuse!' he cried rapturously. 'Your eyes are my excuse, your lips,
your shape! Whom would they not madden, ma'am? Whom would they not
charm--insanitate--intoxicate? What man of sensibility, seeing them at
an immeasurable distance, would not hasten to lay his homage at the feet
of so divine, so perfect a creature, whom even to see is to taste of
bliss! Deign, madam, to--Oh, I say, you don't mean to say you are really
of--offended?' Lord Almeric stuttered in amazement, again falling
lamentably from the standard of address which he had conned while his
man was shaving him. 'You--you--look here--'

'You must be mad!' Julia cried, her eyes flashing lightning on the
unhappy beau. 'If you do not leave me, I will call for some one to put
you out! How dare you insult me? If there were a bell I could reach--'

Lord Almeric stared in the utmost perplexity; and fallen from his high
horse, alighted on a kind of dignity. 'Madam,' he said with a little bow
and a strut, ''tis the first time an offer of marriage from one of my
family has been called an insult! And I don't understand it. Hang me! If
we have married fools, we have married high!'

It was Julia's turn to be overwhelmed with confusion. Having nothing
less in her mind than marriage, and least of all an offer of marriage
from such a person, she had set down all he had said to impudence and
her unguarded situation. Apprised of his meaning, she experienced a
degree of shame, and muttered that she had not understood; she craved
his pardon.

'Beauty asks and beauty has!' Lord Almeric answered, bowing and kissing
the tips of his fingers, his self-esteem perfectly restored.

Julia frowned. 'You cannot be in earnest,' she said.

'Never more in earnest in my life!' he replied. 'Say the word--say
you'll have me,' he continued, pressing his little hat to his breast and
gazing over it with melting looks, 'most adorable of your sex, and I'll
call up Pomeroy, I'll call up Tommy, the old woman, too, if you choose,
and tell 'em, tell 'em all.'

'I must be dreaming,' Julia murmured, gazing at him in a kind of
fascination.

'Then if to dream is to assent, dream on, fair love!' his lordship
spouted with a grand air. And then, 'Hang it! that's--that's rather
clever of me,' he continued. 'And I mean it too! Oh, depend upon it,
there's nothing that a man won't think of when he's in love! And I am
fallen confoundedly in love with--with you, ma'am.'

'But very suddenly,' Julia replied. She was beginning to recover from
her amazement.

'You don't think that I am sincere?' he protested plaintively. 'You
doubt me! Then--'he advanced a pace towards her with hat and arms
extended, 'let the eloquence of a--a feeling heart plead for me; a
heart, too--yes, too sensible of your charms, and--and your many merits,
ma'am! Yes, most adorable of your sex. But there,' he added, breaking
off abruptly, 'I said that before, didn't I? Yes. Lord! what a memory I
have got! I am all of a twitter. I was so cut last night, I don't know
what I am saying.'

'That I believe,' Julia said with chilling severity.

'Eh, but--but you do believe I am in earnest?' he cried anxiously.
'Shall I kneel to you? Shall I call up the servants and tell them? Shall
I swear that I mean honourably? Lord! I am no Mr. Thornhill! I'll make
it as public as you like,' he continued eagerly. 'I'll send for
a bishop--'

'Spare me the bishop,' Julia rejoined with a faint smile, 'and any
farther appeals. They come, I am convinced, my lord, rather from your
head than your heart.'

'Oh, Lord, no!' he cried.

'Oh, Lord, yes,' she answered with a spice of her old archness. 'I may
have a tolerable opinion of my own attractions--women commonly have, it
is said. But I am not so foolish, my lord, as to suppose that on the
three or four occasions on which I have seen you I can have gained your
heart. To what I am to attribute your sudden--shall I call it whim or
fancy--' Julia continued with a faint blush, 'I do not know. I am
willing to suppose that you do not mean to insult me.'

Lord Almeric denied it with a woeful face.

'Or to deceive me. I am willing to suppose,' she repeated, stopping him
by a gesture as he tried to speak, 'that you are in earnest for the
time, my lord, in desiring to make me your wife, strange and sudden as
the desire appears. It is a great honour, but it is one which I must as
earnestly and positively decline.'

'Why?' he cried, gaping, and then, 'O 'swounds, ma'am, you don't mean
it?' he continued piteously. 'Not have me? Not have me? And why?'

'Because,' she said modestly, 'I do not love you, my lord.'

'Oh, but--but when we are married,' he answered eagerly, rallying his
scattered forces, 'when we are one, sweet maid--'

'That time will never come,' she replied cruelly. And then gloom
overspreading her face, 'I shall never marry, my lord. If it be any
consolation to you, no one shall be preferred to you.'

'Oh, but, damme, the desert air and all that!' Lord Almeric cried,
fanning himself violently with his hat. 'I--oh, you mustn't talk like
that, you know. Lord! you might be some queer old put of a dowager!' And
then, with a burst of sincere feeling, for his little heart was inflamed
by her beauty, and his manhood--or such of it as had survived the
lessons of Vauxhall, and Mr. Thomasson--rose in arms at sight of her
trouble, 'See here, child,' he said in his natural voice, 'say yes, and
I'll swear I'll be kind to you! Sink me if I am not! And, mind you,
you'll be my lady. You'll to Ranelagh and the masquerades with the best.
You shall have your box at the opera and the King's House; you shall
have your frolic in the pit when you please, and your own money for loo
and brag, and keep your own woman and have her as ugly as the bearded
lady, for what I care--I want nobody's lips but yours, sweet, if you'll
be kind. And, so help me, I'll stop at one bottle, my lady, and play as
small as a Churchwarden's club! And, Lord, I don't see why we should not
be as happy together as James and Betty!'

She shook her head; but kindly, with tears in her eyes and a trembling
lip. She was thinking of another who might have given her all this, or
as much as was to her taste; one with whom she had looked to be as happy
as any James and Betty. 'It is impossible, my lord,' she said.

'Honest Abraham?' he cried, very downcast.

'Oh, yes, yes!'

'S'help me, you are melting!'

'No, no!' she cried, 'it is not--it is not that! It is impossible, I
tell you. You don't know what you ask,' she continued, struggling with
the emotion that almost mastered her.

'But, curse me, I know what I want!' he answered gloomily. 'You may go
farther and fare worse! Lord, I swear you may. I'd be kind to you, and
it is not everybody would be that!'

She had turned from him that he might not see her face, and she did not
answer. He waited a moment, twiddling his hat; his face was overcast,
his mood hung between spite and pity. At last, 'Well, 'tisn't my fault,'
he said; and then relenting again, 'But there, I know what women
are--vapours one day, kissing the next. I'll try again, my lady. I am
not proud.'

She flung him a gesture that meant assent, dissent, dismissal, as he
pleased to interpret it. He took it to mean the first, and muttering,
'Well, well, have it your own way. I'll go for this time. But hang all
prudes, say I,' he withdrew reluctantly, and slowly closed the door
on her.

As soon as he was gone the tempest, which Julia's pride had enabled her
to stern for a time, broke forth in a passion of tears and sobs, and,
throwing herself on the shabby window-seat, she gave free vent to her
grief. The happy future which the little bean had dangled before her
eyes, absurdly as he had fashioned and bedecked it, reminded her all too
sharply of that which she had promised herself with one, in whose
affections she had fancied herself secure, despite the attacks of the
prettiest Abigail in the world. How fondly had her fancy depicted life
with him! With what happy blushes, what joyful tremors! And now? What
wonder that at the thought a fresh burst of grief convulsed her frame,
or that she presently passed from the extremity of grief to the
extremity of rage, and, realising anew Sir George's heartless desertion
and more cruel perfidy, rubbed her tear-stained face in the dusty chintz
of the window-seat--that had known so many childish sorrows--and there
choked the fierce, hysterical words that rose to her lips?

Or what wonder that her next thought was revenge? She sat up, with her
back to the window and the unkempt garden, whence the light stole
through the disordered masses of her hair; her face to the empty room.
Revenge? Yes, she could punish him; she could take this money from him,
she could pursue him with a woman's unrelenting spite, she could hound
him from the country, she could have all but his life. But none of these
things would restore her maiden pride; would remove from her the stain
of his false love, or rebut the insolent taunt of the eyes to which she
had bowed herself captive. If she could so beat him with his own weapons
that he should doubt his conquest, doubt her love; if she could effect
that, there was no method she would not adopt, no way she would
not take.

Pique in a woman's mind, even in the mind of the best, finds a rival the
tool readiest to hand. A wave of crimson swept across Julia's pale face,
and she stood up on her feet. Lady Almeric! Lady Almeric Doyley! Here
was a revenge, the fittest of revenges, ready to her hand, if she could
bring herself to take it. What if, in the same hour in which he heard
that his plan had gone amiss, he heard that she was to marry another?
and such another that marry almost whom he might she would take
precedence of his wife. That last was a small thought, a petty thought,
worthy of a smaller mind than Julia's; but she was a woman, and
passionate, and the charms of such a revenge in the general, came home
to her. It would show him that others valued what he had cast away; it
would convince him--she hoped, him I yet, alas! she doubted--that she
had taken his suit as lightly as he had meant it. It would give her a
home, a place, a settled position in the world.

She followed it no farther; perhaps because she would act on impulse
rather than on reason, blindly rather than on foresight. In haste, with
trembling fingers, she set a chair below the broken, frayed end of a
bell-rope that hung on the wall. Reaching it, as if she feared her
resolution might fail before the event, she pulled and pulled
frantically, until hurrying footsteps came along the passage, and Mrs.
Olney with a foolish face of alarm entered the room.

'Fetch--tell the gentleman to come back,' Julia cried, breathing
quickly.

'To come back?'

'Yes! The gentleman who was here now.'

'Oh, yes, the gentleman,' Mrs. Olney murmured. 'Your ladyship wishes
him?'

Julia's very brow turned crimson; but her resolution held. 'Yes, I wish
to see him,' she said imperiously. 'Tell him to come to me!'

She stood erect, panting and defiant, her eyes on the door while the
woman went to do her bidding--waited erect, refusing to think, her face
set hard, until far down the outer passage--Mrs. Olney had left the door
open--the sound of shuffling feet and a shrill prattle of words heralded
Lord Almeric's return. Presently he came tripping in with a smirk and a
bow, the inevitable little hat under his arm. Before he had recovered
the breath the ascent of the stairs had cost him, he was in an attitude
that made the best of his white silk stockings.

'See at your feet the most obedient of your slaves, ma'am!' he cried.
'To hear was to obey, to obey was to fly! If it's Pitt's diamond you
need, or Lady Mary's soap-box, or a new conundrum, or--hang it all! I
cannot think of anything else, but command me! I'll forth and get it,
stap me if I won't!'

'My lord, it is nothing of that kind,' Julia answered, her voice steady,
though her cheeks burned.

'Eh? what? It's not!' he babbled. 'Then what is it? Command me, whatever
it is.'

'I believe, my lord,' she said, smiling faintly, 'that a woman is always
privileged to change her mind--once.'

My lord stared. Then, gathering her meaning as much from her heightened
colour as from her words, 'What!' he screamed. 'Eh? O Lord! Do you mean
that you will have me? Eh? Have you sent for me for that? Do you really
mean that?' And he fumbled for his spy-glass that he might see her face
more clearly.

'I mean,' Julia began; and then, more firmly, 'Yes, I do mean that,' she
said, 'if you are of the same mind, my lord, as you were half an
hour ago.'

'Crikey, but I am!' Lord Almeric cried, fairly skipping in his joy. 'By
jingo! I am! Here's to you, my lady! Here's to you, ducky! Oh, Lord! but
I was fit to kill myself five minutes ago, and those fellows would have
done naught but roast me. And now I am in the seventh heaven. Ho! ho!'
he continued, with a comical pirouette of triumph, 'he laughs best who
laughs last. But there, you are not afraid of me, pretty? You'll let me
buss you?'

But Julia, with a face grown suddenly white, shrank back and held out
her hand.

'Sakes! but to seal the bargain, child,' he remonstrated, trying to get
near her.

She forced a faint smile, and, still retreating, gave him her hand to
kiss. 'Seal it on that,' she said graciously. Then, 'Your lordship will
pardon me, I am sure. I am not very well, and--and yesterday has shaken
me. Will you be so good as to leave me now, until to-morrow?'

'To-morrow!' he cried. 'To-morrow! Why, it is an age! An eternity!'

But she was determined to have until to-morrow--God knows why. And, with
a little firmness, she persuaded him, and he went.

CHAPTER XXVI

BOON COMPANIONS

Lord Almeric flew down the stairs on the wings of triumph, rehearsing at
each corner the words in which he would announce his conquest. He found
his host and the tutor sitting together in the parlour, in the middle of
a game of shilling hazard; which they were playing, the former with as
much enjoyment and the latter with as much good-humour as consisted with
the fact that Mr. Pomeroy was losing, and Mr. Thomasson played against
his will. The weather had changed for the worse since morning. The sky
was leaden, the trees were dripping, the rain hung in rows of drops
along the rails that flanked the avenue. Mr. Pomeroy cursed the damp
hole he owned and sighed for town and the Cocoa Tree. The tutor wished
he were quit of the company--and his debts. And both were so far from
suspecting what had happened upstairs, though the tutor had his hopes,
that Mr. Pomeroy was offering three to one against his friend, when Lord
Almeric danced in upon them.

'Give me joy!' he cried breathless. 'D'you hear, Pom? She'll take me,
and I have bussed her! March could not have done it quicker! She's mine,
and the pool! She is mine! Give me joy!'

Mr. Thomasson lost not a minute in rising and shaking him by the hand.
'My dear lord,' he said, in a voice rendered unusually rich and mellow
by the prospect of five thousand pounds, 'you make me infinitely happy.
You do indeed! I give your lordship joy! I assure you that it will ever
be a matter of the deepest satisfaction to me that I was the cause under
Providence of her presence here! A fine woman, my lord, and a--a
commensurate fortune!'

'A fine woman? Gad! you'd say so if you had held her in your arms!'
cried my lord, strutting and lying.

'I am sure,' Mr. Thomasson hastened to say, 'your lordship is every way
to be congratulated.'

'Gad! you'd say so, Tommy!' the other repeated with a wink. He was in
the seventh heaven of delight.

So far all went swimmingly, neither of them remarking that Mr. Pomeroy
kept silence. But at this point the tutor, whose temper it was to be
uneasy unless all were on his side, happened to turn, saw that he kept
his seat, and was struck with the blackness of his look. Anxious to
smooth over any unpleasantness, and to recall him to the requirements of
the occasion, 'Come, Mr. Pomeroy,' he cried jestingly, 'shall we drink
her ladyship, or is it too early in the day?'

Bully Pomeroy thrust his hands deep into his breeches pockets and did
not budge. ''Twill be time to drink her when the ring is on!' he said,
with an ugly sneer.

'Oh, I vow and protest that's ungenteel,' my lord complained. 'I vow and
protest it is!' he repeated querulously. 'See here, Pom, if you had won
her I'd not treat you like this!'

'Your lordship has not won her yet,' was the churlish answer.

'But she has said it, I tell you. She said she'd have me.'

'She won't be the first woman has altered her mind, nor the last,' Mr.
Pomeroy retorted with an oath. 'You may be amazing sure of that, my
lord.' And muttering something about a woman and a fool being near akin,
he spurned a dog out of his way, overset a chair, and strode cursing
from the room.

Lord Almeric stared after him, his face a queer mixture of vanity and
dismay. At last, 'Strikes me, Tommy, he's uncommon hard hit,' he said,
with a simper. 'He must have made surprising sure of her. Ah!' he
continued with a chuckle, as he passed his hand delicately over his
well-curled wig, and glanced at a narrow black-framed mirror that stood
between the windows. 'He is a bit too old for the women, is Pom. They
run to something lighter in hand. Besides, there's a--a way with the
pretty creatures, if you take me, and Pom has not got it. Now I flatter
myself I have, Tommy, and Julia--it is a sweet name, Julia, don't you
think?--Julia is of that way of thinking. Lord! I know women,' his
lordship continued, beaming the happier the longer he talked. 'It is not
what a man has, or what he has done, or even his taste in a coat or a
wig--though, mind you, a French friseur does a deal to help men to
_bonnes fortunes_--but it is a sort of a way one has. The silly
creatures cannot stand against it.'

Mr. Thomasson hastened to agree, and to vouch her future ladyship's
flame in proof of my lord's prowess. But the tutor was a timid man; and
the more perfect the contentment with which he viewed the turn things
had taken, and the more nearly within his grasp seemed his five
thousand, the graver was the misgiving with which he regarded Mr.
Pomeroy's attitude. He had no notion what shape that gentleman's
hostility might take, nor how far his truculence might aspire. But he
guessed that Lord Almeric's victory had convinced the elder man that his
task would have been easy had the cards favoured him; and when a little
later in the day he saw Pomeroy walking in the park in the drenching
rain, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of his wrap-rascal and his
chin bent on his breast, he trembled. He knew that when men of Mr.
Pomeroy's class take to thinking, some one is likely to lose.

At dinner the tutor's fears were temporarily lulled. Mr. Pomeroy put in
a sulky appearance, but his gloom, it was presently manifest, was due to
the burden of an apology; which, being lamely offered and readily
accepted, he relapsed into his ordinary brusque and reckless mood,
swearing that they would have the lady down and drink her, or if that
were not pleasing, 'Damme, we'll drink her any way!' he continued. 'I
was a toad this morning. No offence meant, my lord. Lover's license, you
know. You can afford to be generous, having won the pool.'

'And the maid,' my lord said with a simper. 'Burn me! you are a good
fellow, Pom. Give me your hand. You shall see her after dinner. She said
to-morrow; but, hang me! I'll to her this evening.'

Mr. Pomeroy expressed himself properly gratified, adding demurely that
he would play no tricks.

'No, hang me! no tricks!' my lord cried somewhat alarmed. 'Not that--'

'Not that I am likely to displace your lordship, her affections once
gained,' said Mr. Pomeroy.

He lowered his face to hide a smile of bitter derision, but he might
have spared his pains; for Lord Almeric, never very wise, was blinded by
vanity. 'No, I should think not,' he said, with a conceit which came
near to deserving the other's contempt. 'I should think not, Tommy. Give
me twenty minutes of a start, as Jack Wilkes says, and you may follow as
you please. I rather fancy I brought down the bird at the first shot?'

'Certainly, my lord.'

'I did, didn't I?'

'Most certainly, your lordship did,' repeated the obsequious tutor;
who, basking in the smiles of his host's good-humour, began to think
that things would run smoothly after all. So the lady was toasted, and
toasted again. Nay, so great was Mr. Pomeroy's complaisance and so easy
his mood, he must needs have up three or four bottles of Brooks and
Hellier that had lain in the cellar half a century--the last of a
batch--and give her a third time in bumpers and no heel-taps.

But that opened Mr. Thomasson's eyes. He saw that Pomeroy had reverted
to his idea of the night before, and was bent on making the young fop
drunk, and exposing him in that state to his mistress; perhaps had the
notion of pushing him on some rudeness that, unless she proved very
compliant indeed, must ruin him for ever with her. Three was their
dinner hour; it was not yet four, yet already the young lord was flushed
and a little flustered, talked fast, swore at Jarvey, and bragged of the
girl lightly and without reserve. By six o'clock, if something were not
done, he would be unmanageable.

The tutor stood in no little awe of his host. He had tremors down his
back when he thought of his violence; nor was this dogged persistence in
a design, as cruel as it was cunning, calculated to lessen the feeling.
But he had five thousand pounds at stake, a fortune on which he had been
pluming himself since noon; it was no time for hesitation. They were
dining in the hall at the table at which they had played cards the night
before, Jarvey and Lord Almeric's servant attending them. Between the
table and the staircase was a screen. The next time Lord Almeric's glass
was filled, the tutor, in reaching something, upset the glass and its
contents over his own breeches, and amid the laughter of the other two
retired behind the screen to be wiped. There he slipped a crown into the
servant's hand, and whispered him to keep his master sober and he should
have another.

Mr. Pomeroy saw nothing and heard nothing, and for a time suspected
nothing. The servant was a crafty fellow, a London rascal, deft at
whipping away full bottles. He was an age finding a clean glass, and
slow in drawing the next cork. He filled the host's bumper, and Mr.
Thomasson's, and had but half a glass for his master. The next bottle he
impudently pronounced corked, and when Pomeroy cursed him for a liar,
brought him some in an unwashed glass that had been used for Bordeaux.
The wine was condemned, and went out; and though Pomeroy, with
unflagging spirits, roared to Jarvey to open the other bottles, the
butler had got the office, and was slow to bring them. The cheese came
and went, and left Lord Almeric cooler than it found him. The tutor was
overjoyed at the success of his tactics.

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