Read Ebook: The Flight of Georgiana: A Story of Love and Peril in England in 1746 by Stephens Robert Neilson Edwards H C Harry C Illustrator

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"'WHAT 'UD THE COUNTY SAY IF I 4 EXHIBITED THIS HERE BIT O' WRITING?'"

"'SAVE YOURSELF,' SHE 101 WHISPERED, RAPIDLY. 'YOU ARE IN DANGER HERE'"

"THE TWO GENTLEMEN MADE THEIR 195 SWORDS RING"

"'UNCLE, I BEG YOU, ON MY 259 KNEES--HIS LIFE!'"

"HE SNATCHED THE HANDKERCHIEF 313 FROM HER FACE"

"THE HORSES DASHED FORWARD" 333

THE FLIGHT OF GEORGIANA

ENEMIES

A LITTLE before noon one gray day in September, 1746, a well-made young fellow, in appearance and fact a gentleman's servant, rode up the High Street of a town in the North of England, and through the passageway of an inn to the yard. Having entrusted his sorrel nag to an ostler, he hastened to the kitchen, and proceeded to give orders to the landlady with an absence of deference which plainly showed that he spoke not for himself but for his master.

There are still a few English inns not unlike those of that time. This particular house was of dull red brick, its main part extending along the street and pierced in the middle by the passageway which led back to the yard. In the front, the ground floor had four wide windows, and these were matched by four above, while a fifth was over the passage entrance. The small panes and stone facings of the windows gave the inn that look of comfort so characteristic of eighteenth-century houses, and this was increased by the small dormer casements in the sloping roof. The passage itself, paved with stones worn comparatively smooth, was capacious enough to admit a stage-coach or a carrier's covered wagon. As you entered it, you saw the yard beyond, which was bounded by a wing of the main building and by stables, sheds, and sundry out-houses. Half-way through this passage, you found at your left hand a door, which opened to a public parlour, wherein meals were served at a common table to stage-coach passengers and other outside guests. At the right-hand side of the passage was a wider doorway, giving access to a small entry, from which you might step forward into the kitchen, or rightward into the bar, or leftward to a narrow stairway that wound steeply to the floor above.

The kitchen was not the least attractive of these destinations,--with the ample fire in its spacious chimney-place, the shine of the pots and pans on its wall, the blackened beams across its low ceiling, its table devoted to culinary business, its greater table devoted to gastronomic business--for all guests of low station, including the servants of those of higher station, ate in the kitchen,--and the oaken settles and joint-stools so tempting to the tired, hungry, and thirsty traveller who might appear in the doorway.

"And lookye, ma'am, you'll oblige by making haste," said the gentleman's servant, having communicated his orders, "for master is following so close he may be here in a quarter of an hour. I'll eat my bite while he's on the way; for he'll be having me wait on him at table, and as soon as he's finished his dinner we shall be off again,--there's eight bad miles between here and home."

"When your master stopped here t'other day, on his way to the South," said she, "he had nobody with him but you. But now that he's coming home, he orders dinner for two in a private room, and for one in the kitchen besides yourself. How comes that?"

"Because he's bringing home the young mistress and her waiting-woman."

"Young mistress, d'ye say? What, then, has Mr. Foxwell been married? Is that what he went South for?"

"Oh, God forbid! No, ma'am, 'tis his niece, Miss Foxwell, he's fetching home. She's been reared by an aunt on her mother's side, but now her education is finished, and, according to her grandfather's will, she comes home to Foxwell Court."

"Then Foxwell Court was left to her? It seems to me I did hear summat of that estate going to a gran'daughter."

"'Twas left to master and her together in some way or other--my master being the younger son, d'ye see, and she being the orphan of the elder. They do say master would 'a' got the most of the property but for the wicked life he led in London,--I've heard he was a terrible gay man afore he came to the country to live,--but I wasn't with him in them days, so can't speak from my own knowledge." The youth uttered an unconscious sigh, doubtless of regret at possibilities he had missed.

"Well, from what I've heard now and again of goings on at Foxwell Court since your master came to live there," said the landlady, "he didn't leave all his gay ways behind him in London; but maybe report is a liar, as the saying is, Master Caleb."

"Oh, no doubt there's summat of drinking, when the master can get anybody to his mind to drink with--for, between us, Mrs. Betteridge, he doesn't run well with the county gentlemen--as how should he, with his town breeding? And I don't say there isn't considerable gaming, and frolics with the fair sex; but the place has been bachelor's hall, d'ye see,--till now the young mistress comes."

"And now I dare say all those fine doings will have to stop," said Mrs. Betteridge; "--the frolics with the fair seck, at least."

"That'll be a pity," said a voice behind her, whereupon the landlady, turning indignantly, beheld the stout form and complacent ruddy visage of her husband.

"A pity!" she echoed, in wrath and contempt. "'Tis like you to say it, Betteridge! I hope the young lady will keep Foxwell Court clean of the trollops. You'd be up to the same tricks in your own house if all the maids didn't scorn you."

The landlord's only reply being a placid puff of smoke from his long-stemmed pipe, his helpmate discharged an ejaculation of disgust and waddled away. He took her place as catechist of the serving-man, seating himself on the opposite bench.

"What news on the road, Caleb?"

"Nothing to make a song of, as the saying is. Except at York,--we stayed the night there. They've indicted a great parcel of rebels--seventy-five all told, I hear."

"They did better than that in Carlisle last month,--found true bills against a hundred and nineteen. Their trials will be coming on soon."

"Ay, before the trials at York, no doubt. Well, all I can say is, 'tis bad weather for Scotchmen."

"So many of 'em have come over the border to make their fortunes, 'tis only fair some of 'em should come over to be hanged. Well, he laughs best that laughs last. To think what a fright their army gave us last year,--some of us, that is,--not me. Have you heard if the Pretender has been caught yet?"

"You can't say that of us. My master has always been Hanoverian."

"Ay, ay, being town bred, and a gentleman of fashion. 'Tis some of our country gentry I'm thinking of. Well, they are singing small at present. Lucky for them they didn't rise and join the Pretender when he invaded us last year."

"There were mighty few English in his army, that's certain."

"Mighty few. A parcel enlisted at Manchester. And, to be sure, there was the garrison at Carlisle that declared for him. And some had gone to Scotland before that to meet him,--madmen, I call them. But he had no English of any family, barring a few that came with him from France, I hear:--chips of the old block, they were, dyed-in-the-wool Jacobites, from the old breed, that lived abroad for their health, eh? Well, 'tis all over now--all over now."

Mr. Betteridge looked gratified as he said it, but there was a suppressed sigh beneath his content. Had he, too, in his day, sometimes held his glass over a bowl of water in drinking the king's health?

"Except the hangings and beheadings," he added, as an afterthought.

Caleb made no reply, being busy with his food lest his master might arrive before he had satisfied his hunger. The post-chaise which bore that gentleman was now approaching the town from the South, under the guidance of a despondent-looking postilion. Within the chaise, beside the gentleman, sat a young lady, and on the seat improvised on the bar in front was a lady's maid. Between the young lady and the gentleman, who was middle-aged, silence prevailed. They did not look at each other; and something in the air of both seemed to denote a lack of mutual sympathy.

The young lady beside him was very young, indeed; and very pretty, indeed, having wide-open blue eyes, a delicately coloured face, a charming little nose, an equally charming mouth, and a full, shapely chin. Her look was at once sweet-tempered and high-spirited; for the time being, it contained something of disapproval and rebellion. As for this young lady's clothes, the present historian's admiration for handsome dress on women is equalled by his dislike of describing it--or hearing it described--in detail. Enough to say that her gown of dark crimson, with its high waist, seemed to belong by nature to the small, slender, and graceful figure it encased; and was free from the excess--deplored by good judges then as now--so dear to overdressed dowdiness. She had, too, the secret still lacked by some of her fair countryfolk, of poising a hat gracefully, thus not to look top-heavy; hers was a hat of darker shade than her gown, with a good sweep of brim.

As for the maid, on the seat in front, she, too, was rather a young thing,--slim and tall, with a wholesome complexion, longish features, and the artful-artless, variable-vacuous, consequential-conciliating expression of her tribe. An honest, unlettered, shallow, not ill-meaning creature; cast by circumstance for a super's part in the drama of life, never to be anything more than an accessory.

Probably Miss Georgiana Foxwell had no such thought; but 'tis a fact that at the very time when her post-chaise was coming into sight of the church-tower of this town, other conveyances were bringing other travellers to the same town, to the great though unintended influencing of her destiny. To begin at the top, for that was an age of arbitrary social distinctions, a private coach, drawn by six horses and followed by a mounted servant, was lumbering along slowly from the North. Then from the East cantered two well-fed horses, bearing, as anybody could see, their owner and his man servant. From the North again, but far behind and out of ken of the coach-and-six, came three post-horses under saddle, one of the riders being the custodian and guide. And lastly, somewhere between the private carriage and the hired horses, but not within sight of either, a stage-coach ground its way over the rugged eighteenth-century highway. Of all the vehicles and horses that raised the dust on English roads that day, only these--with the post-chaise--concern us.

The first to arrive at the inn, where Caleb had by this time stayed his stomach and stepped out to look things over in the yard, were the two well-fed horses. Their owner, a robust, red-faced, round-headed, important-looking country gentleman of about five and thirty, slid off his steed with agility, and, leaving the animals to the care of his man, was met at the entry door by the landlady.

"Welcome, Squire Thornby!--a welcome to your Worship! I hope I see your Worship very well, sir."

He took her obsequiousness as his due, and, with no more reciprocation than a complacent grunt, he bade her lay a cloth in the Rose and let his man Bartholomew bring to that room a round of cold beef and a quart of her best ale. With his snub-nosed crimson visage, he looked the part he had been born to fill in life; and was suitably dressed for it, too, in his brown wig, green cloth coat, brown waistcoat and breeches, large riding-boots, and plain, three-cornered hat.

"For I'm in haste to get home," he added, "where I'll pay myself for a cold dinner by a hot supper. So bestir, Mrs. Betteridge, and don't keep me waiting."

"Certainly, your Worship, sir; by all means, Squire Thornby." And she called to a chambermaid, "Moll, lay a cloth for the Squire in the Thistle, and be quick--"

"I said the Rose, Mrs. Betteridge. Didn't you hear? Thistle be damned!--I never said Thistle."

"Lea' me be the judge o' that, woman. I'll dine in the Rose, and there's an end." Whereupon he turned toward the stairs.

"Your pardon, Squire,--I wouldn't offend your Worship for anything,--but the Rose is bespoke already for dinner-time, and truly indeed most o' the quality that stops here prefers the Thistle."

"But I prefer the Rose, and the quality that stop here may be hanged, rat 'em."

"I'm terrible sorry, your Worship. But all's ready in the Rose for t'other party, sir; and the gentleman as sent orders was most particular about having the Rose--though for my part I can't see why he should want that room when he might 'a' had the Thistle, and so I thought to myself at the time, sir; and when I seed your Worship arrive just now, thinks I to myself, how lucky it is t'other gentleman bespoke the Rose, because now there's the Thistle for his Worship. And sure indeed the cloth's laid for t'other party, and their dinner a'most cooked, and we expect them every minute--"

Beaten down by this torrent of speech, the Squire waved his hand for silence, and said, with surly resignation: "Oh, well, then, the Thistle. Who is it has bespoke the Rose, drat 'em?"

"Mr. Foxwell, your Worship, a neighbour of yours, sir, if I may say so."

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