CHAPTER I
THE LION AND THE JACKAL
Seventeen years have passed since the child who was to bear the name of that ship of war, in which she was born, had come into the world-upon the very day and at almost the very hour when her father had left it. Seventeen years! – full of storm and strife and battles, of thrones in danger; of one throne-that of England-almost lost to its holder by the invasion of him to whom it by birth belonged. Years full of storm and strife and battle by land and sea; of Dettingen won and Fontenoy lost, of India coming nearer to our grasp and America imperceptibly receding from it. Years full, too, of changes in many ways, especially in our own land. Of growing alteration in that old mother speech of ours which had become welded, by time and mixture of race into the superb and sonorous diction of the English Bible and of Shakespeare, and which found its last exponent in the great Defoe, but was now sinking into a jargon in which gentlemen and ladies spoke in a mincing and affected manner that was but a poor substitute for the grammar which, if they had ever known it, they had now forgotten. Gentlemen and ladies who should have been scholars, but who did not know the difference between "was" and "were" nor "is" and "are," nor the proper pronunciation of the vowel "e."
Changes, too, of clothes, of habits, customs, and morality. Scarlet and blue cloth taking the place of russet or peach-coloured satin; French dishes and kickshaws in the place of the honest beef and mutton which had made us "eat like wolves and fight like devils"; and with the dancing-master manners of Chesterfield and his imitators superseding the grace and dignity of earlier days. The rogue too was now a crafty, scheming knave who feared public opinion as much as he feared the Lord Chief Justice and his subordinates, and began at this time to think as much of his respectability as of his neck; whereby he was an infinitely less interesting vagabond than his predecessor, who revelled in his crimes, drank to the health of his friend, the gallows, and went drunk to Tyburn, damning and cursing the populace who cheered him, and jerring at the parson who sat in the cart by his side, had been.
Two things, however, God be praised! were still left in existence in this England of ours, namely, masculine courage and feminine virtue; and against them neither the vagabond nor the knave had any more chance than they had ever had or ever will have. When they succeeded they did so because their victims were either fools or wantons, and when they failed, as often enough was the case, if they did not find the gallows they found the cart-tail, or what to them, if they belonged to the upper classes, was often quite as bad-contempt and ridicule.
* * * * * * *
Seventeen years had passed, consequently the world had arrived at the year of our Lord 1758, and Beau Bufton sat in his lodgings in the Haymarket one June afternoon. In front of him, because he was a beau, there stood three wigs upon blocks, one black, the other brown, a third one golden, and upon each his eye glanced with considerable complacency-a complacency which, however, was somewhat marred by the recollection that none were paid for, and, as far as Algernon Bufton knew, were not likely to be so just yet. Which fact would not, perhaps, have been particularly painful to him except for one other, namely, that his credit was running short and his creditors were beginning to pester him. Nevertheless, he smiled approvingly upon them; not because they themselves were splendid, and would be costly-if he should ever pay his bills! – but because he considered that they would become him vastly.
"It was the golden one I wore," he muttered to himself now, "when first I won her young and virgin heart at the Wells. Ay! the golden one. I do remember very well. I assumed it because it matched the blue frock and the green silk waistcoat trimmed with gold and the black breeches of velvet. Ah! well, I will wear it again."
Then his eye, which was a dark, full one, fell upon a number of fans nailed against the wall, in the midst of which, spread out and open, was one that seemed to possess the place of honour. We know those fans because our grandmothers' grandmothers (when we had any!) left them behind after they had departed for a better world than this. We know the carved ivory sticks, the highly coloured landscape, the lover kneeling at his mistress's feet, with ever one amorous arm around her waist-as should be in such happy sylvan scenes! – also we know the blue sky and the sportive woolly sheep, as well as the bird upon the bough, the rivulet and waterfall. Thus the fan appeared on which Beau Bufton gazed now, his chin-a long one, causing him to be a man mistrusted of other men-in his hand. Yet more particularly he gazed upon two letters carved into the topmost ivory rib, and lacquered golden; two letters entwined together-the letters "A. T."
"Ah, Ariadne!" he whispered, with emotion, "although you did protest, you let me take it. Ah, Ariadne! In faith you must be mine. Those sweet clear eyes, that supple form, those gentle features, and," he concluded, perhaps a little inconsequently, "the Fanshawe Manor and the hundred thousand guineas. All-all must be mine."
Then he returned to his seat, with again the smirk of fervour on his face, while, still nursing that long chin, he pursued his meditations.
It has been said that this chin made other men mistrust him. And, it may also be said, it was of so peculiar a shape as to make people dislike him. In truth, it was a blemish to what otherwise would have been a good-looking face-a long oval face, in which were set the soft dark eyes above mentioned. But this chin, running down to a point (so that some wondered how his barber shaved it, while others said it looked like a sheep's tail stuck on to an ordinary face), spoilt all. It caused him to look crafty; it seemed to make him lisp a little as he spoke, as though its weight was more than his lower jaw could bear; and it gained his enemies, since it irritated those who regarded it. It gave him, too, a cynical appearance, which was not obnoxious to him, as he considered that it emphasised the clever things which he flattered himself he was particularly smart at saying. For the rest, he was fairly tall, not badly knit, and as lean as a greyhound.
Thinking of her whom he apostrophised as Ariadne, and of her sweet, clear eyes and supple form-with the Fanshawe Manor and the hundred thousand guineas not forgotten! – his thoughts lent themselves to other things in connection with her. To a letter he had addressed to her at Fanshawe Manor, this side of Portsmouth-one full of holy vows of admiration and esteem; a billet containing a little scrap of poetry (written for him, probably, by a garreteer of Grub Street for half-a-crown); one suggesting also that, by great good chance, he would be in the neighbourhood of Havant on a certain evening now close at hand, and that then "his wandering love-led steps" (for so he phrased it) would turn, as turns the needle to the pole, towards the avenue of limes where oft Phyllis was known to walk at eve and Philomel to warble. Perhaps, too, the gutter-poet had helped him in this charming composition!
"Ay, so I wrote," he said to himself now. "And so I did. Well! well! Now for the means. I vow they run uncommon short." Whereupon he unlocked a 'scrutoire that stood close to him, and thrusting his hand into a drawer, pulling forth a silk purse. A well-filled one, too, as it seemed by its weight; one heavy enough for any beau to carry, provided always that it was so carried simply to supply the wants of the passing hour, and was backed up by a good sound balance at Sir Mathew Decker's Bank, or at some other. But, should it happen to represent all the available cash that its owner was in possession of as his whole goods, then but a lean and sorry purse.
He turned its contents out upon the table before him, picking out amongst them five great three pound twelve shilling pieces, which he stacked carefully in a little heap by themselves.
"They look well," Beau Bufton said, while assuming the cynical smile which he practised in private, so that it should not fail him when required in public. "They give their possessor an air of sumptuousness. To draw one out 'twixt thumb and finger from a well-gallooned waistcoat, and present it to, say, Ariadne's tiring maid, or some scurvy groom, bespeaks wealth and ease. So, so. 'Tis very well."
Then he fell to counting the guineas and half-guineas which he had also tumbled out of the silken purse, though, as he did so, his chin seemed to grow longer. "Humph!" he muttered, "seventy-nine guineas in all. Devilish little. I thought there had been more. And where are more to be gotten? Seventy-nine guineas- Come in!" he cried, breaking off. Come in!" – a knock being heard at the door, Yet, even as he did so, he thrust a copy of the Universal Chronicle over the little heap, or, rather, endeavoured to do so.
"The chink of money is always agreeable to the ears of the poor," said a man who now entered the room, "especially when those ears have learnt to discriminate 'twixt gold and baser metals. And how does the illustrious Beau Bufton find his health and spirits to-day?"
The new-corner who asked this question was a man of about the same age as the Beau, neither of them being yet thirty, or within a year or so of it; yet, except in point of age, there was no similarity between them, for Bufton's clothes were of the newest and best-as why should they not be, since still the creditors were confiding; his ruffles and neck-lace were clean and expensive. But with the other man things were mighty different. His coat was cloth, 'tis true, but cloth well worn; his linen and his lace were, say, dingy; and his wig had had never a shilling spent on it at the curler's for many a long day. Also his spadroon stuck out two inches from its leathern scabbard and clinked against a heel that needed sadly the cobbler's aid. Nevertheless, he was a better-looking man than the Beau, in so far that his features were softly turned and much more manly.
"Has't done it?" asked Bufton now, his dark eye roaming over the other's worn garments, and resting with extreme displeasure on the sight of his visitor's feet, which were lifted with an indifferent air on to a neighbouring chair, across which was thrown a scarlet cloak. "Has't done it, Granger?"
"Ay! ay! She loves you, Algernon, as I do think. The letter is in her hands, and she awaits you in the lime-tree avenue. Thursday is the night. Fortunate man!"
"You have rid post haste back?"
"Post-haste! Ay, in the devil's chariot. A lumbering waggon thing from Portsmouth was my coach. A waggon lined with straw; and, for comrades, two of Knowles' sailors, drunk; a demirep; also a Jew who furnishes for the Press-gang. What travelling! What a sumptuous coach! I protest, Algy, you starve your jackal."
"Better fare next time. When we have bagged the luscious plum. Then the jackal shall be starved no longer. Meanwhile, you know-" and here he gave the well-accustomed smile and fingered his chin, so that the man called Granger began to feel his gall arising, and instantly interrupted him, saying-
"NO jokes. No bites. Starve me as you will, keep me short of money, but in the name of God, spare me your wit. My stomach is weak from heavy fasting. I desire no emetics."
"At least you yourself waste no politeness. You do not curb a bitter tongue."
"Better so, nevertheless. Better I cursed and swore, as Knowles' sailors did all through the night, than listened to your emasculated gibes. Algernon, my friend, in spite of your having won the love of a great heiress, you will never succeed in life if you fail to recognise that you are not a wit. The fourth-form little boy humour with which you regaled us once at Shrewsbury becomes not London. I do remember that humour with pain. I think you killed your little sister Lucy, by repeating your schoolboy wit to her, or perhaps you put your finishing stroke to her end by your Cambridge-"
"Be still! be still!" Beau Bufton exclaimed, wincing as the other mentioned his dead sister's name. In truth he had loved that child, and thinking himself cynical, had sometimes retailed to her his sallies made both at Shrewsbury and at Clare. And now, to hear that his humour, as he deemed it, had slain her! 'Twas too much. "Be still," he cried, "or I will find some other to do my work-to do-"
"Your dirty work! That's what I do. Because of my infirmities. My fall from the position of a gentleman. Well! I have done it. A. T. – she," and he pointed to the fan which occupied the place of honour, "loves you. If you woo her carefully, and do not weary her with your accursed flabby wit, you may win her. Then-then-why, then-oh! my God!" he exclaimed, breaking off into a strident peal of laughter, "you may be so happy together. So happy. So happy." And again he laughed.
"You have been drinking," Bufton said, fingering his chin still. "Drinking again. Come, tell me once more before you forget. About the meeting? Where, and when is it?"
"Have I not said! At the lime-tree avenue, leading up to Fanshawe Manor. Eight of the evening is the hour, and Thursday is the day. Win her-fail not to win her; she is yours for the trouble, and then there is the fortune and a large per centum for me."
"I shall not fail."
"I'll make very sure you do not. Remember, if I am a broken man-I-I can break-bah! Threats are unnecessary. Now, I want money."
Saying which he flung the Universal Chronicle aside, and then started at the sight of the little heap of gold before him. "What!" he exclaimed. "What! And three pound twelve shilling pieces, too. Gad! No Shoe Lane ordinary for me to-night."
Whereupon he took two of those coins and dropped them into his waistcoat pocket.
CHAPTER II
AN HEIRESS
The coach-it was the Self-Defence, which did the journey from the "Swan with Two Necks" in Lad Lane to the "Globe" at Portsmouth in ten hours and a quarter-had passed Purbrook, and was nearing Fanshawe, which hamlet lay, as all the world knew, or ought to have known, between the former place and Portsdown Hill, which is some five miles from Portsmouth. About which village the new road-book said, amongst other things, "On L., i,m., Fanshawe Manor, late General Thorne. Justice of the Peace, etc.; now Miss Ariadne Thorne." So that, as all who read may see, since Cary's Guide is understandable enough, the child born seventeen years ago off Cartagena, in the ship after which she was named, was now the owner of an estate. And what else she owned has already been made clear.
The June evening was delicious in its soft summer coolness as, now, the Self-Defence drew near that ancient inn, "The Hautboy," it retaining on its equally ancient sign-board its old-time spelling of Hautbois; and from the box-seat the Beau, who was the only occupant beside the coachman, made ready to descend. A very gallant beau he looked, too, as, throwing off his long light drugget cloak-assumed to fend the dust from his bravery underneath-he displayed his costly attire; attire consisting of his best laced scarlet summer coat, his blue waistcoat, which was a mass of galloon, and his best satin breeches, the whole surmounted by the golden peruke and the much-laced three-cornered hat.
"You will be a-staying at the manor then, my lord?" the coachman said now, deeming that one so fine and brave-seeming as this spark whom he had brought from London could be no other than a lord going courting the heiress of Fanshawe. "I'll go bail the lady is a-looking eagerly for you."
"Not positively at the manor," Beau Bufton replied. "Not positively, as yet. For to-night, at least, at the inn. There is, I should suppose, good accommodation for a gentleman?"
"Ay, there is, my lord; that is, if so be as how one requires not them damned French kickshaws, which they say are now the mode. But if good beef and mutton, a pullet, or- Bill," he broke off to speak to his mate, the guard, "sound the horn. The O'boy is in sight."
None descended at that old hostelry with the exception of the Beau himself, since, with the addition of one personage inside who was booked for Portsmouth, nobody but the Beau had that day travelled from London. Therefore his own descent took but very little time. A small valise was handed out from the boot, the customary fee of half-a-crown was distributed to guard and coachman, the landlady nodded to (she staring somewhat amazed at Bufton's finery all the time, and more particularly at his chin, which, she told her gossips later, gave her "a mort o' fear"), and the visitor entered the low-roofed passage. Then, as he did so, he felt his sleeve pulled gently by a woman standing in the doorway, who, on having attracted his attention, curtsied two or three times.
"Ha!" he said, glancing at her and noticing that, though plainly but comfortably dressed, she had a strangely worn and seamed face, such as those who have led an existence much exposed to the elements often possess. "Ha! It should be the good woman Mr. Granger told me of. Mrs. – Mrs. – ?"
"Pottle, your worship's honour. Miss Ariadne's nurse from the first."
"Ay, Mrs. Pottle. Well, you would speak with me? You have some news?"
"If it pleases your honour. Will your honour step this way?"
It was indeed Mrs. Pottle, one of those women who in past days had assisted at Ariadne's birth. Yet with now but little of the comeliness left for which she had once been distinguished, the rumbullion, or its substitutes in England, usquebaugh and gin, having done their work. Time also had made her grey, and in some places bald. Otherwise, she was not much changed. As for her whilom companion in the Ariadne, she was gone. She lay now within the common grave at Gibraltar.
"I shall see her to-night?" Beau Bufton asked, somewhat impatiently-eagerly-as he stepped into a side room after her. "She will be there?"
"In truth she will, the pretty thing," the woman answered, roving an eye, and that a somewhat watery one, on him, "in very truth. At eight, in the lime-tree avenue. Your worship can find it?"
"Doubtless. I may therefore rely on seeing her?"
"It is to tell you so that I'm here. Oh! sir, you will be good to her. She loves you fondly."
"Tush! What do I seek her for except to be kind?" Then he said, "Will she consent, think you, to what I desire-to-to-a speedy marriage?"
"She loves you," Mrs. Pottle replied, with a gleam in her eye, "while, as for the marriage-well! young, tender though she is, and full of a maiden's fears, she longs for it."
"She shall be gratified," Beau Bufton said, smirking and pulling at his chin so that Mrs. Pottle stared at him, wondering in her own mind if he were trying to pull it off. "I do avow she shall as soon as may be. I will go seek your parson here-"
"Not here," Mrs. Pottle said, laying on his arm a finger, which he noticed had lost the top joint-it had, in truth, been shot off by a spent bullet in an attack made by the Ariadne and Kingston on five Spanish galleys, the shot coming through the scuttle of a cabin in which she was calmly cooking-"not here. You must do that in London town. She is a maiden averse to talk and gossip. She would not suffer-"
"I will do it wher'er she pleases, so that she is mine. Now go, good woman, and tell her I shall be there. I must make a meal first and also remove the dust from off my clothes. Go now."
"There was a promise," Mrs. Pottle said, with an appearance of hesitation, of modesty, which sat strangely on her rough face. "The gentleman, your friend, he gave a promise of reward-"
"Curse me!" replied the Beau; "you waiting-women, you go-betweens, are all alike. Damme! I know there was a promise of five hundred guineas. But-when we leave the church-when all is over. Do you think I have such a sum on me now?"
"Not now, dear gentleman. Oh! no. Not now. But a little earnest. A little-"
"How much?" asked Bufton, looking at her and recognising that here was a cormorant who would do nothing for nothing. "How much?"
"A little. Just a little. A trifle. Ten guineas will not hurt a pretty man like you."
"Five," said Bufton. "Five, now. Five." Then, seeing a strange look in Mrs. Pottle's eyes, which his wonderful knowledge of human nature, whereon he so congratulated himself, did not assist him in fathoming, he said, "Well, ten, then. Here," and slowly drawing forth some loose guineas from his waistcoat, he put them in her open palm.
"A noble gentleman," said Mrs. Pottle, pocketing them in an instant, "a real gentleman. Now, sir, I go. To-night," she repeated, "in the lime avenue, at eight," and so withdrew.
Yet, doubtless because of the rough life she had led for years, her gratitude evaporated swiftly the moment she was outside the door of the room and had closed it on him; while her face assumed an expression strangely unlike that which it had worn when she thanked him for his gift.
"Curse you," she muttered to herself. "Curse you. May joy go with you," and she shook her fist and mumbled to herself.
Two hours later Beau Bufton had entered the long lime avenue, and was making his way up to where the lady of his heart was to await him. He had added somewhat to his appearance, smart as it had been before-had combed and dusted his peruke, perfumed his hands and lace, and supplemented his other adornments with a new sword, which he had brought down from London wrapped in silver paper. Now, it lay against his thigh, its ivory handle decorated with a gold sword knot, and once, as the Beau came to a portion of the avenue where it was almost dark, so thickly did the trees interlace overhead, he told himself he had done wisely to bring it. Ariadne might have other admirers-country clowns, 'tis true, yet fellows, who, nevertheless, were capable of feeling pangs of jealousy at the sight of so aristocratic a wooer as he. And-and-he thought they might attack him with clubs, or even with plebeian fists-when-well-damme! – he would run them through. A little blood-letting-the reputation of being a swordsman-would not hurt him. To win an heiress after having slain a yokel lover would make him-well! perhaps even make him the more sought after. Therefore he went on, wishing, however, that his Ariadne had not selected a part of the avenue so distant from the main road-and so near to her house; and then-then-he knew she was there and had kept the appointed meeting.
A girl came towards him from beneath the trees, shyly, almost hesitatingly; while over her fair hair she had drawn a riding-hood. And a moment later Beau Bufton had taken her hand and was impressing kisses on it, and muttering phrases such as were in use in the highest London circles, and, consequently, must be irresistible to this provincial heiress.
"I am enraptured," he murmured now, "that one so fair should deign to receive her admirer. Ah, madam, if you but knew how my thoughts have dwelt on you since you let me claim you at the Wells-"
"And stole my fan, bad man. Ah, sir, you should not have trifled thus-"
"Love, madam, knows no law. But-but-fair Ariadne-almost had I said fair and chaste Diana-may I not gaze once more in rapture on those lovely orbs, those features ever present in my memory? Will you not remove your hood?"
With no more than a brief assumption of coyness, the fair one did as her gallant desired, showing a mass of light hair beneath the hood, and, beneath that, a pair of bright eyes which glistened in the evening dusk. She had too a fresh red-and-white complexion, the whole being a very satisfactory proof of the benefits of country air and living, as opposed to the effects of what an earlier poet had rapturously spoken of as "the stench of the London flambeaux."
"Ah! I protest," Beau Bufton exclaimed now as the maiden yielded to his request, and displayed her loveliness, "once more I tremble at the sight of those charms which won my heart at Tunbridge. Ariadne, you know by my letters all that I desire-all I wish. To call you mine. To be your husband. You cannot doubt my love."
"So soon?" she said. "Oh, fie! Not yet-not for years, I vow. I am too young."
"Young! Is the heart ever too young for love? And, Ariadne, dearest one, now is the time. I protest I cannot wait."
"But there are my guardians, the lawyers. What will they say?"
"What can they say? I am of ancient family, sweet one, and allied to some of the most distinguished houses in the land. They can make no dissent."
"If 'tis to be done," the girl said, "it must not be here. Oh! I could not. Instead, in London. We go to London two weeks hence. Yet-yet-I fear," and she gazed up into his face with a look of alarm that fascinated him. For now he knew that the hundred thousand guineas were almost in his grasp.
Yet as those clear eyes met his, they also disturbed him.
"Where," he muttered, "where, dearest, have I seen such orbs as yours before? Or was't in my dreams of them? Those lovely orbs."
"I do not know," she answered. "How can I say? I have wandered little away from this old country home of mine; and at Tunbridge was the first time I have ever been in the gay world. Ah, Algernon, you will be good to me?"
"Your life shall ever be my choicest care. My most precious treasure. Dearest, may I not put up the banns to-morrow, when I return to London?"
"You will love me always?"
"Always and ever."
Then she slid her hand coyly into his, and told him it should be as he desired.
"Now," she whispered, "you must away. Sunday sen'-night we leave for Cowley Street in Lambeth. You will not, Algernon, desire a great wedding? Let it be private; with none there but Mrs. Pottle, my faithful nurse. Say that it shall be so, my own."
"It shall be ever as you wish, sweet one," Beau Bufton answered, while as he did so he laughed in his sleeve. Mrs. Pottle, her faithful nurse! The woman who had done more to bring this about in accord with his jackal's, with Lewis Granger's machinations, than any one else; the woman who was to have five hundred guineas for so bringing it about (unless he could in any way manage to avoid the payment of the money); the woman, who, that very night, had had ten guineas from him.
"Yes, yes," he whispered, "Mrs. Pottle, your faithful nurse, on your side; Lewis Granger, my hireling, on mine." While as he mentioned the latter's name he reflected that here was another who would have to be hoodwinked out of the guerdon he had stipulated for-hoodwinked out of five thousand guineas. Verily! a vast number of those guineas would drunken, ruined Lewis Granger get, when once Ariadne's fortune was in his hands. A vast number!
"Farewell, then," the girl said now. "Farewell, my beloved. Oh! do not deceive me, do not take advantage of my innocence and inexperience. Say you will not."
"Dear heart," he murmured, "who could deceive thee?" "A girl," he added to himself, "who has a hundred thousand guineas and a Hampshire manor. Who could do so?"
They parted now, she clinging to him tenderly before going away, and whispering in his ear that 99, Cowley Street, Lambeth, was where she would be a week from Sunday next, and that then she would be all his, and, meanwhile, would write often. They parted, she going up the avenue towards where the house stood, and he standing looking after her, feeling his chin and, with a contemptuous smile, drawing down the corners of his mouth.