Sophia: A Romance. Weyman Stanley John
I don't know how I can say it!"
"Say what, madam?"
"How I can take-take leave of you," she murmured, turning away her head.
"Take leave of me?" he cried. "Take leave of me?"
"Yes, oh, yes! Believe me, Mr. Hawkesworth," Sophia continued, beginning to stammer in her confusion, "I am not ungrateful for your attentions, I am not, indeed, ungrateful, but we-we must part."
"Never!" he cried, rising and looking down at her. "Never! It is not your heart that speaks now, or it speaks but a lesson it has learned."
Sophia was silent.
"It is your friends who would part us," he continued, with stern and bitter emphasis. "It is your cold-blooded, politic brother-in-law; it is your proud sister-"
"Stay, sir," Sophia said unsteadily. "She is my sister."
"She is; but she would part us!" he retorted. "Do you think that I do not understand that? Do you think that I do not know why, too? They see in me only a poor gentleman. I cannot go to them, and tell them what I have told you! I cannot," he continued, with a gesture that in the daylight might have seemed a little theatrical, but in the dusk of the alley and to a girl's romantic perceptions commended itself gallantly enough, "put my life in their hands as I have put it in yours! I cannot tell them that the day will come when Plomer Hawkesworth will stand on the steps of a throne and enjoy all that a king's gratitude can confer. When he who now runs daily, nightly, hourly the risk of Layer's fate, whose head may any morning rot on Temple Bar and his limbs on York Gates-"
Sophia interrupted him; she could bear no more. "Oh, no, no!" she cried, shuddering and covering her eyes. "God forbid! God forbid, sir! Rather-"
"Rather what, sweet?" he cried, and he caught her hand in rapture.
"Rather give up this-this dangerous life," she sobbed, overcome by the horror of the things his words had conjured up. "Let others tread such dangerous ways and run such risks. Give up the Jacobite cause, Mr. Hawkesworth, if you love me as you say you do, and I-"
"Yes? Yes?" he cried; and across his handsome face, momentarily turned from her as if he would resist her pleading, there crept a look half of derision, half of triumph. "What of you, sweet?"
But her reply was never spoken, for as he uttered the word the fireworks died down with startling abruptness, plunging the alley in which they stood into gloom. The change recalled the girl to a full and sudden sense of her position; to its risks and to its consequences, should her absence, even for a moment, be discovered. Wringing her hands in distress, in place of the words that had been on her lips, "Oh, I must go!" she cried. "I must get back at once!" And she looked for help to her lover.
He did not answer her, and she turned from him, fearing he might try to detain her. But she had not taken three steps before she paused in agitation, uncertain in the darkness which way she had come. A giggling, squealing girl ran by her into the grove, followed by a man; at the same moment a distant fanfare of French horns, with the confused noise of a multitude of feet trampling the earth at once, announced that the entertainment was over, and that the assembly was beginning to leave the gardens.
Sophia's heart stood still. What if she were missed? Worse still, what if she were left behind? "Oh," she cried, turning again to him, her hands outstretched, "which is the way? Mr. Hawkesworth, please, please show me the way! Please take me to them!"
But the Irishman did not move.
CHAPTER III
THE CLOCK-MAKER
It even seemed to Sophia that his face, as he stood watching her, took on a smirk of satisfaction, faint, but odious; and in that moment, and for the moment, she came near to hating him. She knew that in the set in which she moved much might be overlooked, and daily and hourly was overlooked, in the right people. But to be lost at Vauxhall at midnight, in the company of an unauthorised lover-this had a horribly clandestine sound; this should be sufficient to blacken the fame of a poor maid-or her country education was at fault. And knowing this, and hearing the confused sounds of departure rise each moment louder and more importunate, the girl grew frantic with impatience.
"Which way? Which way?" she cried. "Do you hear me? Which way are the boxes, Mr. Hawkesworth? You know which way I came. Am I to think you a dolt, sir, or-or what?"
"Or what?" he repeated, grinning feebly. To be candid, the occasion had not been foreseen, and the Irishman, though of readiest wit, could not on the instant make up his mind how he would act.
"Or a villain?" she cried, with a furious glance. And in the effort to control herself, the ivory fan-sticks snapped in her small fingers as if they had been of glass. "Take me back this instant, sir," she continued, her head high, "or never presume to speak to me again!"
What he would have said to this is uncertain, for the good reason that before he answered, two men appeared at the end of the alley. Catching the sheen of Sophia's hoop skirt, where it glimmered light against the dark of the trees, they espied the pair, took them for a pair of lovers, and with a whoop of drunken laughter came towards them. One was Lord P-, no soberer than before; the other a brother buck flushed with wine to the same pitch of insolence, and ready for any folly or mischief. Crying "So ho! A petticoat! A petticoat!" the two Mohocks joined hands, and with a tipsy view-halloa! swept down the green walk, expecting to carry all before them.
But it was in such an emergency as this that the Irishman was at his best. Throwing himself between the shrinking, frightened girl and the onset of the drunken rakes, he raised his cane with an air so determined that the assailants thought better of their plan, and, pausing with a volley of drunken threats, parted hands and changed their scheme of attack. While one prepared to rush in and overturn the man, the other made a feint aside, and, thrusting himself through the shrubs, sprang on the girl. Sophia screamed, and tried to free herself; but scream and effort were alike premature. With a rapid twirl Hawkesworth avoided my lord's rush, caught him by the waist as he blundered by, and, swinging him off his legs, flung him crashing among the undergrowth. Then, whipping out his sword, he pricked the other who had seized Sophia, in the fleshy part of the shoulder, and forced him to release her; after which, plying his point before the bully's eyes, he drove him slowly back and back. Now the man shrieked and flinched as the glittering steel menaced his face; now he poured forth a volley of threats and curses, as it was for a moment withdrawn. But Hawkesworth was unmoved by either, and at length the fellow, seeing that he was not to be intimidated either by his lordship's name or his own menaces, thought better of it-as these gentlemen commonly did when they were resisted; and springing back with a parting oath, he took to his heels, and saved himself down a bypath.
The Irishman, a little breathed by his victory, wasted no time in vaunting it. The girl had witnessed it with worshipping eyes; he could trust her to make the most of it. "Quick," he cried, "or we shall be in trouble!" And sheathing his sword, he caught the trembling Sophia by the hand, and ran with her down the path. They turned a corner; a little way before her she saw lights, and the open space near the booths which she had seen her brother cross. But now Hawkesworth halted; his purpose was still fluid and uncertain. But the next moment a shrill childish voice cried "Here she is; I've found her!" and Lady Betty Cochrane flew towards them. A little behind her, approaching at a more leisurely pace, was Sir Hervey Coke.
Lady Betty stared at Hawkesworth with all her eyes, and giggled. "Oh, lord, a man!" she cried, and veiled her face, pretending to be overcome.
"I saw my brother," Sophia faltered, covered with confusion, "and ran down-ran down to-to meet him."
"Just so! But see here, brother!" Lady Betty answered with a wink. "Go's the word, now, if you are not a fool."
Hawkesworth hesitated an instant, looking from Sophia to Sir Hervey Coke; but he saw that nothing more could be done on the occasion, and muttering "Another time," he turned away, and in a moment was lost in the grove.
"She was with her brother," Lady Betty cried, turning, and breathlessly explaining the matter to Coke, who had seen all. "Think of that! She saw him, and followed him. That's all. Lord, I wonder," she continued, with a loud giggle, "if they would make such a fuss if I were missing. I declare to goodness I'll try." And, leaving Sophia to follow with