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 pa.s.sage. 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 pa.s.sage. 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 pa.s.sage.
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 see everything without looking at it--put an idea into his head. He checked the exclamation that sprang to his lips; and as she rose to her feet he saluted her with an easy smile. "I have found you, child," he said. "Did you think you had hidden yourself?"
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 s.l.u.ttishly 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 pa.s.sion 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--"