The Castle Inn by Stanley John Weyman

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'But that is not all?' the good woman exclaimed in astonishment. 'At any
rate you'll leave your name?'

Mr. Fishwick pursed up his lips and stared at her gloomily. 'Name?' he
said at last. 'Yes, ma'am, certainly. Brown. Mr. Peter Brown, the--the
Poultry--'

'The Poultry!' she cried, gaping at him helplessly.

'Yes, the Poultry, London. Mr. Peter Brown, the Poultry, London. And now
I have other business and shall--shall return another day. I must wish
you good-morning, ma'am, Good-morning.' And thrusting his face into his
hat, Mr. Fishwick bundled precipitately into the street, and with
singular recklessness made haste to plunge into the thickest of the
traffic, leaving the good woman in a state of amazement.

Nevertheless, he reached the inn safely. When Mr. Dunborough returned
from a futile search, his failure in which condemned him to another
twenty-four hours in that company, the first thing he saw was the
attorney's gloomy face awaiting them in a dark corner of the
coffee-room. The sight reproached him subtly, he knew not why; he was in
the worst of tempers, and, for want of a better outlet, he vented his
spleen on the lawyer's head.

'D--n you!' he cried, brutally. 'Your hang-dog phiz is enough to spoil
any sport! Hang me if I believe that there is such another mumping,
whining, whimpering sneak in the 'varsal world! D'you think any one
will have luck with your tallow face within a mile of him?' Then
longing, but not daring, to turn his wrath on Sir George, 'What do you
bring him for?' he cried.

'For my convenience,' Sir George retorted, with a look of contempt that
for the time silenced the other. And that said, Soane proceeded to
explain to Mr. Fishwick, who had answered not a word, that the rogues
had got into hiding; but that by means of persons known to Mr.
Dunborough it was hoped that they would be heard from that evening or
the next. Then, struck by the attorney's sickly face, 'I am afraid you
are not well, Mr. Fishwick,' Sir George continued, more kindly. 'The
night has been too much for you. I would advise you to lie down for a
few hours and take some rest. If anything is heard I will send word
to you.'

Mr. Fishwick thanked him, without meeting his eyes; and after a minute
or two retired. Sir George looked after him, and pondered a little on
the change in his manner. Through the stress of the night Mr. Fishwick
had shown himself alert and eager, ready and not lacking in spirit; now
he had depression written large on his face, and walked and bore himself
like a man sinking under a load of despondency.

All that day the messenger from the slums was expected but did not come;
and between the two men who sat downstairs, strange relations prevailed.
Sir George did not venture to let the other out of his sight; yet there
were times when they came to the verge of blows, and nothing but the
knowledge of Sir George's swordsmanship kept Mr. Dunborough's temper
within bounds. At dinner, at which Sir George insisted that the attorney
should sit down with them, Dunborough drank his two bottles of wine, and
in his cups fell into a strain peculiarly provoking.

'Lord! you make me sick,' he said. 'All this pother about a girl that a
month ago your high mightiness would not have looked at in the street.
You are vastly virtuous now, and sneer at me; but, damme! which of us
loves the girl best? Take away her money, and will you marry her? I'd 'a
done it, without a rag to her back. But take away her money, and will
you do the same, Mr. Virtuous?'

Sir George listening darkly, and putting a great restraint on himself,
did not answer. Mr. Fishwick waited a moment, then got up suddenly, and
hurried from the room--with a movement so abrupt that he left his
wine-glass in fragments on the floor.

CHAPTER XXVIII

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 a 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.

CHAPTER XXIX

MR. POMEROY'S PLAN

Mr. Pomeroy chuckled as he went down the stairs. Things had gone so well
for him, he owed it to himself to see that they went better, he had
mounted with a firm determination to effect a breach even if it cost him
my lord's enmity. He descended, the breach made, the prize open to
competition, and my lord obliged by friendly offices and
unselfish service.

Mr. Pomeroy smiled. 'She is a saucy baggage,' he muttered, 'but I've
tamed worse. 'Tis the first step is hard, and I have taken that. Now to
deal with Mother Olney. If she were not such a fool, or if I could be
rid of her and Jarvey, and put in the Tamplins, all's done. But she'd
talk! The kitchen wench need know nothing; for visitors, there are none
in this damp old hole. Win over Mother Olney and the Parson--and I don't
see where I can fail. The wench is here, safe and tight, and bread and
water, damp and loneliness will do a great deal. She don't deserve
better treatment, hang her impudence!'

But when he appeared in the hall an hour later, his gloomy face told a
different story. 'Where's Doyley?' he growled; and stumbled over a dog,
kicked it howling into a corner. 'Has he gone to bed?'

The tutor, brooding sulkily over his wine, looked up. 'Yes,' he said, as
rudely as he dared--he was sick with disappointment. 'He is going in
the morning.'

'And a good riddance!' Pomeroy cried with an oath. 'He's off it, is he?
He gives up?'

The tutor nodded gloomily. 'His lordship is not the man,' he said, with
an attempt at his former manner, 'to--to--'

'To win the odd trick unless he holds six trumps,' Mr. Pomeroy cried.
'No, by God! he is not. You are right, Parson. But so much the better
for you and me!'

Mr. Thomasson sniffed. 'I don't follow you,' he said stiffly.

'Don't you? You weren't so dull years ago,' Mr. Pomeroy answered,
filling a glass as he stood. He held it in his hand and looked over it
at the other, who, ill at ease, fidgeted in his chair, 'You could put
two and two together then, Parson, and you can put five and five
together now. They make ten--thousand.'

'I don't follow you,' the tutor repeated, steadfastly looking away from
him.

'Why? Nothing is changed since we talked--except that he is out of it!
And that that is done for me for nothing, which I offered you five
thousand to do. But I am generous, Tommy. I am generous.'

'The next chance is mine,' Mr. Thomasson cried, with a glance of spite.

Mr. Pomeroy, looking down at him, laughed--a galling laugh. 'Lord!
Tommy, that was a hundred years ago,' he said contemptuously.

'You said nothing was changed!'

'Nothing is changed in my case,' Mr. Pomeroy answered confidently,
'except for the better. In your case everything is changed--for the
worse. Did you take her part upstairs? Are your hands clean now? Does
she see through you or does she not? Or, put it in another way, my
friend. It is your turn; what are you going to do?'

'Go,' the tutor answered viciously. 'And glad to be quit.'

Mr. Pomeroy sat down opposite him. 'No, you'll not go,' he said in a low
voice; and drinking off half his wine, set down the glass and regarded
the other over it. 'Five and five are ten, Tommy. You are no fool, and I
am no fool.'

'I am not such a fool as to put my neck in a noose,' the tutor retorted.
'And there is no other way of coming at what you want, Mr. Pomeroy.'

'There are twenty,' Pomeroy returned coolly. 'And, mark you, if I fail,
you are spun, whether you help rue or no. You are blown on, or I can
blow on you! You'll get nothing for your cut on the head.'

'And what shall I get if I stay?'

'I have told you.'

'The gallows.'

'No, Tommy. Eight hundred a year.'

Mr. Thomasson sneered incredulously, and having made it plain that he
refused to think--thought! He had risked so much in this enterprise,
gone through so much; and to lose it all! He cursed the girl's
fickleness, her coyness, her obstinacy! He hated her. And do what he
might for her now, he doubted if he could cozen her or get much from
her. Yet in that lay his only chance, apart from Mr. Pomeroy. His eye
was cunning and his tone sly when he spoke.

'You forget one thing,' he said. 'I have only to open my lips after I
leave.'

'And I am nicked?' Mr. Pomeroy answered. 'True. And you will get a
hundred guineas, and have a worse than Dunborough at your heels.'

The tutor wiped his brow. 'What do you want?' he whispered.

'That old hag of a housekeeper has turned rusty,' Pomeroy answered.
'She has got it into her head something is going to be done to the girl.
I sounded her and I cannot trust her. I could send her packing, but
Jarvey is not much better, and talks when he is drunk. The girl must be
got from here.'

Mr. Thomasson raised his eyebrows scornfully.

'You need not sneer, you fool!' Pomeroy cried with a little spirt of
rage.' 'Tis no harder than to get her here.'

'Where will you take her?'

'To Tamplin's farm by the river. There, you are no wiser, but you may
trust me. I can hang the man, and the woman is no better. They have done
this sort of thing before. Once get her there, and, sink me! she'll be
glad to see the parson!'

The tutor shuddered. The water was growing very deep. 'I'll have no part
in it!' he said hoarsely. 'No part in it, so help me God!'

'There's no part for you!' Mr. Pomeroy answered with grim patience.
'Your part is to thwart me.'

Mr. Thomasson, half risen from his chair, sat down again. 'What do you
mean?' he muttered.

'You are her friend. Your part is to help her to escape. You're to sneak
to her room to-morrow, and tell her that you'll steal the key when I'm
drunk after dinner. You'll bid her be ready at eleven, and you'll let
her out, and have a chaise waiting at the end of the avenue. The chaise
will be there, you'll put her in, you'll go back to the house. I suppose
you see it now?'

The tutor stared in wonder. 'She'll get away,' he said.

'Half a mile,' Mr. Pomeroy answered drily, as he filled his glass.' Then
I shall stop the chaise--with a pistol if you like, jump in--a merry
surprise for the nymph; and before twelve we shall be at Tamplin's. And
you'll be free of it.'

Mr. Thomasson pondered, his face flushed, his eyes moist. 'I think you
are the devil!' he said at last.

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