The Castle Inn Part 8

Sir George reddened at a sudden thought he had. 'And her father unburied!' he cried, rising to his feet. This Macaroni was human, after all.

Mr. Thoma.s.son stared in astonishment. 'You know?' he said. 'Oh fie, Sir George, have you been hunting already? Fie! Fie! And all London to choose from!'

But Sir George simply repeated, 'And her father not buried, man?'

'Yes,' Mr. Thoma.s.son answered with simplicity. 'He was buried this morning. Oh, that is all right.'

'This morning? And the girl went from that--to Dunborough's bedside?'

Sir George exclaimed in indignation.

'It was a piece of the oddest luck,' Mr. Thoma.s.son answered, smirking, and not in the least comprehending the other's feeling. 'He was lodged in Magdalen yesterday; this morning a messenger was despatched to Pembroke for clothes and such-like for him. The girl's mother has always nursed in Pembroke, and they sent for her to help. But she was that minute home from the burial, and would not go. Then up steps the girl and "I'll go," says she--heaven knows why or what took her, except the contrariness of woman. However, there she is! D'ye see?' And Mr.

Thoma.s.son winked.

'Tommy,' said Sir George, staring at him, 'I see that you're a d--d rascal!'

The tutor, easy and smiling, protested. 'Fie, Sir George,' he said.

'What harm is in it? To tend the sick, my dear sir, is a holy office.

And if in this case harm come of it--' and he spread out his hands and paused.

'As you know it will,' Sir George cried impulsively.

But Mr. Thoma.s.son shrugged his shoulders. 'On the contrary, I know nothing,' he answered. 'But--if it does, Mr. Dunborough's position is such that--hem! Well, we are men of the world, Sir George, and the girl might do worse.'

Sir George had heard the sentiment before, and without debate or protest. Now it disgusted him. 'Faugh, man!' he said, rising. 'Have done! You sicken me. Go and bore Lord Almeric--if he has not gone to Paris to save his ridiculous skin!'

But Mr. Thoma.s.son, who had borne abuse of himself with Christian meekness, could not hear that unmoved. 'My dear Sir George, my dear friend,' he urged very seriously, and with a shocked face, 'you should not say things like that of his lordship. You really should not! My lord is a most excellent and--'

'Pure a.s.s!' said Soane with irritation. 'And I wish you would go and divert him instead of boring me.'

'Dear, dear, Sir George!' Mr. Thoma.s.son wailed. 'But you do not mean it?

And I brought you such good news, as I thought. One might--one really might suppose that you wished our poor friend the worst.'

'I wish him no worse a friend!' Sir George responded sharply; and then, heedless of his visitor's protestations and excuses and offers of a.s.sistance, would see him to the door.

It was more easy, however, to be rid of him--the fine gentleman of the time standing on scant ceremony with his inferiors--than of the annoyance, the smart, the vexation, his news left behind him. Sir George was not in love. He would have laughed at the notion. The girl was absolutely and immeasurably below him; a girl of the people. He had seen her once only. In reason, therefore--and polite good breeding enforced the demand--he should have viewed Mr. Dunborough's conquest with easy indifference, and complimented him with a jest founded on the prowess of Mars and the smiles of Venus.

But the girl's rare beauty had caught Sir George's fancy; the scene in which he had taken part with her had captivated an imagination not easily inveigled. On the top of these impressions had come a period of good resolutions prescribed by imminent danger; and on the top of that twenty-four hours of solitude--a thing rare in the life he led. Result, that Sir George, picturing the girl's fate, her proud, pa.s.sionate face, and her future, felt a sting at once selfish and unselfish, a pang at once generous and vicious. Perhaps at the bottom of his irritation lay the feeling that if she was to be any man's prey she might be his. But on the whole his feelings were surprisingly honest; they had their root in a better nature, that, deep sunk under the surface of breeding and habit, had been wholesomely stirred by the events of the last few days.

Still, the good and the evil in the man were so far in conflict that, had he been asked as he walked to Magdalen what he proposed to do should he get speech with the girl, it is probable he would not have known what to answer. Courtesy, nay, decency required that he should, inquire after his antagonist. If he saw the girl--and he had a sneaking desire to see her--well. If he did not see her--still well; there was an end of a foolish imbroglio, which had occupied him too long already. In an hour he could be in his post-chaise, and a mile out of town.

As it chanced, the surgeons in attendance on Dunborough had enjoined quiet, and forbidden visitors. The staircase on which the rooms lay--a bare, dusty, unfurnished place--was deserted; and the girl herself opened the door to him, her finger on her lips. He looked for a blush and a glance of meaning, a little play of conscious eyes and hands, a something of remembrance and coquetry; and had his hat ready in his hand and a smile on his lips. But she had neither smile nor blush for him; on the contrary, when the dim light that entered the dingy staircase disclosed who awaited her, she drew back a pace with a look of dislike and embarra.s.sment.

'My good girl,' he said, speaking on the spur of the moment--for the reception took him aback--'what is it? What is the matter?'

She did not answer, but looked at him with solemn eyes, condemning him.

Even so Sir George was not blind to the whiteness of her throat, to the heavy coils of her dark hair, and the smooth beauty of her brow. And suddenly he thought he understood; and a chill ran through him. 'My G--d!' he said, startled; 'he is not dead?'

She closed the door behind her, and stood, her hand on the latch. 'No, he is not dead,' she said stiffly, voice and look alike repellent. 'But he has not you to thank for that.'

'Eh?'

'How can you come here with that face,' she continued with sudden pa.s.sion--and he began to find her eyes intolerable--'and ask for him?

You who--fie, sir! Go home! Go home and thank G.o.d that you have not his blood upon your hands--you--who might to-day be Cain!'

He gasped. 'Good Lord!' he said unaffectedly. And then, 'Why, you are the girl who yesterday would have me kill him!' he cried with indignation; 'who came out of town to meet me, brought me in, and would have matched me with him as coolly as ever sportsman set c.o.c.k in pit!

Ay, you! And now you blame me! My girl, blame yourself! Call yourself Cain, if you please!'

'I do,' she said unblenching. 'But I have my excuse. G.o.d forgive me none the less!' Her eyes filled as she said it. 'I had and have my excuse.

But you--a gentleman! What part had you in this? Who were you to kill your fellow-creature--at the word of a distraught girl?'

Sir George saw his opening and jumped for it viciously. 'I fear you honour me too much,' he said, in the tone of elaborate politeness, which was most likely to embarra.s.s a woman in her position. 'Most certainly you do, if you are really under the impression that I fought Mr.

Dunborough on your account, my girl!'

'Did you not?' she stammered; and the new-born doubt in her eyes betrayed her trouble.

'Mr. Dunborough struck me, because I would not let him fire on the crowd,' Sir George explained, blandly raising his quizzing gla.s.s, but not using it. 'That was why I fought him. And that is my excuse. You see, my dear,' he continued familiarly, 'we have each an excuse. But I am not a hypocrite.'

'Why do you call me that?' she exclaimed; distress and shame at the mistake she had made contending with her anger.

'Because, my pretty Methodist,' he answered coolly, 'your hate and your love are too near neighbours. Cursing and nursing, killing and billing, come not so nigh one another in my vocabulary. But with women--some women--it is different.'

Her cheeks burned with shame, but her eyes flashed pa.s.sion. 'If I were a lady,' she cried, her voice low but intense, 'you would not dare to insult me.'

'If you were a lady,' he retorted with easy insolence, 'I would kiss you and make you my wife, my dear. In the meantime, and as you are not--give up nursing young sparks and go home to your mother. Don't roam the roads at night, and avoid travelling-chariots as you would the devil. Or the next knight-errant you light upon may prove something ruder than--Captain Berkeley!'

'You are not Captain Berkeley?'

'No.'

She stared at him, breathing hard. Then, 'I was a fool, and I pay for it in insult,' she said.

'Be a fool no longer then,' he retorted, his good-humour restored by the success of his badinage; 'and no man will have the right to insult you, _ma belle_.'

'I will never give _you_ the right!' she cried with intention.

'It is rather a question of Mr. Dunborough,' he answered, smiling superior, and flirting his spy-gla.s.s to and fro with his fingers. 'Say the same to him, and--but are you going, my queen? What, without ceremony?'

'I am not a lady, and _n.o.blesse oblige_ does not apply to me,' she cried. And she closed the door in his face--sharply, yet without noise.

He went down the stairs a step at a time--thinking. 'Now, I wonder where she got that!' he muttered. '_n.o.blesse oblige_! And well applied too!'

Again, 'Lord, what beasts we men are!' he thought. 'Insult? I suppose I did insult her; but I had to do that or kiss her. And she earned it, the little firebrand!' Then standing and looking along the High--he had reached the College gates--'D--n Dunborough! She is too good for him!

For a very little--it would be mean, it would be low, it would be cursed low--but for two pence I would speak to her mother and cheat him. She is too good to be ruined by that coa.r.s.e-tongued boaster! Though I suppose she fancies him. I suppose he is an Adonis to her! Faugh! Tommy, my lord, and Dunborough! What a crew!'

The good and evil, spleen and patience, which he had displayed in his interview with the girl rode him still; for at the door of the Mitre he paused, went in, came out, and paused again. He seemed to be unable to decide what he would do; but in the end he pursued his way along the street with a clouded brow, and in five minutes found himself at the door of the mean house in the court, whence the porter of Pembroke had gone out night and morning. Here he knocked, and stood. In a moment the door was opened, but to his astonishment by Mr. Fishwick.

Either the attorney shared his surprise, or had another and more serious cause for emotion; for his perky face turned red, and his manner as he stood holding the door half-open, and gaping at the visitor, was that of a man taken in the act, and thoroughly ashamed of himself. Sir George might have wondered what was afoot, if he had not espied over the lawyer's shoulder a round wooden table littered with papers, and guessed that Mr. Fishwick was doing the widow's business--a theory which Mr. Fishwick's first words, on recovering himself, bore out.

'I am here--on business,' he said, cringing and rubbing his hands. 'I don't--I don't think that you can object, Sir George.'