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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Ebook has 1327 lines and 74994 words, and 27 pages

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

The Squire gave a start, and the cloud on his brow deepened. "Foxwell!" he echoed. "A neighbour of mine!--H'm! Yes, there is a gentleman of that name living in my part of the county." With a parenthetic "More's the pity!" under his breath, he added, in a kind of dogged, grumbling way, "What the deuce is he dining here for?"

"Why, sir, he's been to the South to fetch his niece home to Foxwell Court, and they're coming in a po'shay, and stopping here for dinner. He sent his man Caleb ahead on horseback to order it cooked, so they shouldn't be delayed, for they have eight bad miles yet from here to Foxwell Court."

He strode into the kitchen to see for himself, followed by the landlady.

"That chicken is almost done," said he.

"'Tis what Mr. Foxwell ordered, your Worship."

"I might 'a' known it! The leg o' lamb, too, I suppose. Everything for Foxwell. Does the man think nobody else has a soul to save?"

"The leg o' lamb isn't his, sir. 'Tis roasting so as to be ready against the stage-coach arrives."

"Then I'll have the best cut o' that. First come, first served:--let the stage-coach passengers take what's left. A beggarly lot, or they'd have coaches o' their own to ride in. And send up a bottle o' the best wine you've got in the house. I'll dine as well as Mr. Foxwell, rat him!"

Leaving Mrs. Betteridge to put his orders into execution, he went out to the passage and called his man Bartholomew, to whom he communicated his intentions.

"Very good, your Worship," said Bartholomew, in the manner of a servant somewhat privileged. He was a lean, hardy fellow, of his master's own age, with a long, astute-looking countenance. "I see Mr. Foxwell's man Caleb in the yard, sir."

"Ay, and Mr. Foxwell himself will be here presently. A sight for sore eyes, eh? If I'd 'a' known he was coming here, I'd 'a' stopped at the Crown. No, damme if I would, neither! I won't be kept from going where I choose by any man, least of all a man I don't like. What's Foxwell to me?"

"It's small blame to you for not liking him, sir, if you'll pardon my saying it, after the way he acted about his gamekeeper trespassing."

"A damned set of poachers he keeps on that place of his. 'Tis a pity for the county he ever came into it. The neighbourhood did well enough without him, I'm sure, all the years he was playing the rake in London and foreign parts."

"It makes me sick, if I may say so," replied the faithful servant, "the way I hear some folks sing his praises for a fine gentleman:--it does, indeed."

"There are some folks who are asses, Bartholomew," said the Squire, warmly. "Sing his praises for a fine jackanapes! Fine gentleman, d'ye say? How can anybody be a fine gentleman on a beggarly three hundred a year? Why, don't you know, don't all the county know, 'twas his poverty drove him down here to his estate to be a plague among us? Ecod, who are the rest of us, I wonder, solid country gentlemen of position in the county, to be come over by this town-bred fop with his Frenchified ways? Give me a plain, home-bred Englishman, and hang all these conceited pups that come among us trying to put us down in talk with their London wit and foreign manners!"

The extraordinary heat manifested by the Squire during this oration was a warning to his man to desist from the subject, lest he might himself become the victim of the wrath it engendered. Moreover, the outdoor passage of an inn was a rather public place for such exhibitions, though fortunately there was at the time no audience.

"Will you wait for dinner in your room, sir?" suggested Bartholomew, after a moment's cooling pause.

"No, I won't. Tom Thornby won't beat a retreat, neither, for any man! I'll stay till he comes, now that I'm here, and if he tries any of his London airs on me, I'll give him as good as he sends."

Bartholomew was too well acquainted with the obstinacy of this vain, grown-up child, his master, to oppose; and almost at that moment a post-chaise turned in from the street, requiring both Thornby and the man servant to stand close to the wall for safety.

FRIENDS

THE landlady came bouncing out, followed by her husband at a more dignified gait, to receive the newcomers. Indifferent to their salutations, Mr. Foxwell stepped quickly from the chaise and offered his hand to his niece, who scarcely more than touched it in alighting. Caleb meanwhile ran up to assist the maid, but was forestalled by Mr. Betteridge, who performed the office with a stately gallantry quite flustering to the young woman, causing her to blush, and her legs, stiff with the constraint of the journey, to stumble. Miss Foxwell and the maid followed the landlady immediately to the entry and up the stairs; but Mr. Foxwell, as he saw Squire Thornby gazing at him in sullen defiance, stopped to greet that gentleman in the suavest possible manner.

"Ah, Mr. Thornby, you here?"

"Yes, sir," replied the Squire, in the shortest of tones, and as if determined to show himself proof against the other's urbanity; "attending to my own business."

"An unusual circumstance, I suppose," said Foxwell, pleasantly, "as you think it worth mentioning. A dull sort of day."

"I dare say," was Thornby's savage reply.

Not the least altering his amiable tone or half-smiling countenance, Foxwell continued: "Smooth roads--that is to say, for these remote parts."

"Sir," said Thornby, fiercely, conceiving himself and his county alike disparaged, "I find these parts quite good enough for me."

"Indeed, I envy you," said Foxwell, with a slight plaintiveness. "I wish from my heart I could say I find them good enough for me--since I am doomed to live in them."

That anything good enough for Thomas Thornby could not be good enough for another man was not a proposition soothing to Thomas Thornby's soul. Having no fit retort within present grasp of his tongue, however, and knowing that even if he had one, his adversary would find a better one to cap it with, the Squire contented himself with a fiery glare and an inward curse. Then saying abruptly to his servant, "See that my dinner is served the moment it's ready, Bartholomew," he entered the inn and tramped up the stairs with great weight of heel.

Foxwell laughed scarce audibly, and followed with a step as light as the other's was heavy. Emerging from the stair-head to a passage that divided the rear from the front rooms, he went into one of the latter, where he found the table set, and his niece and her maid at the window, looking down at the street. Across the way were a baker's shop, a draper's, a rival inn with gables and a front of timber and plaster; and so forth. A butcher's boy with a tray of meat, a townswoman with a child by the hand, and two dogs tumbling over each other, were the moving figures in the scene--until a clatter of horses and a rumble of wheels were heard, and then the maid exclaimed:

"Lor, mistress, what a handsome coach, to be sure! And see the man servant on the horse behind. People of great fashion, I'll warrant. And they're coming to this very inn!"

Miss Foxwell watched listlessly till the vehicle--the private coach already mentioned as approaching the town from the North--had disappeared beneath the window from which she looked.

Foxwell had been standing at the empty fireplace, heedless of what might be seen in the street. He now spoke, carelessly:

"You saw the amiable gentleman who stood below, Georgiana, and who passed this door with so fairy-like a tread as I came up?"

"I didn't observe him," replied Georgiana. "Somebody passed very noisily."

"The same. I thought you might remember him from the days before you left home. But, to be sure, you were a child then, and he, too, was younger. He is one of our neighbours, Squire Thornby."

"I remember the name, but I don't think I ever knew the gentleman."

"If you never did, you lost little; and you'll count it no great privilege when you do know him,--unless you have a tenderness for rustical boobies."

Foxwell, wondering why the dinner had not arrived, went impatiently to the door. Steps were heard ascending the stairs, accompanied by the voices of women.

"The party from the private coach, being shown to a room," whispered the maid to her mistress.

At that moment Foxwell, in the doorway, called out in pleased surprise, "Why, as I live--certainly it is! Lady Strange, upon my soul!--and Mrs. Winter! and Rashleigh!--George Rashleigh, or I'm a saint!"

He seized the hand of her whom he called Lady Strange, and kissed it with a gallant fervour; treated the other lady in like manner, and then threw his arms around the gentleman who was third and last of the newcomers in an embrace such as was the fashion at the time.

"Why, upon my honour, 'tis Bob Foxwell," said Lady Strange.

She was a fair woman in the thirties, of the opulent style of beauty, being of good height, and having a fine head, and a soft expression wherein good nature mingled with worldly nonchalance. She was dressed as a fashionable person of the town would dress for travelling, and her presence brought to the north country inn something of the atmosphere of St. James's. As far as attire and manner went, this was true of her companions also. The gentleman, whom Foxwell had saluted as Rashleigh, was a good-looking man of medium age and size, retaining in face and carriage the air of youth; he was the elegant town gentleman, free from Foxwell's discontent, easy-going and affable without apparently caring much for anything in the world. The second lady, Mrs. Winter, formed a contrast to Lady Strange: she was slight, though not angular; her eyes were gray, and her complexion clear, yet the impression she left was that of a dark beauty; and she had a cold incisiveness of glance.

"And your devoted slave as ever, Lady Strange," said Foxwell, kissing that lady's hand again. "But in heaven's name, what are you doing in this part of the world? Come in, that I may see you better. Come, I am dining in this room."

They entered the chamber, regardless of the landlady's eagerness to show them to a room for their own use. Mrs. Betteridge would thereupon have ushered their man servant and lady's maid to the room she had chosen, but these menials refused to proceed without orders, and so remained outside Foxwell's door, laden with small impedimenta of various sizes and uses, from pistols to scent-bottles.

"One never knows who may turn up," said Rashleigh. "I was thinking of you only yesterday, Bob, and wondering if I should ever see you again."

"I have the honour to be escorting these ladies back to London from Lady Strange's country-seat by the Tweed, where they have been for the recovery of their health."

"And our good looks,--tell the truth, Cousin Rashleigh," said Lady Strange. "My dear Foxwell, we have rusticated till we are near dead of dulness,--is it not so, Isabella?"

"Dead and buried, Diana," said Mrs. Winter, in a matter-of-fact tone. "And to think you are still alive, Foxwell? 'Tis so long since you disappeared from the town, I swear I had forgot you."

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