Читать книгу The Imprudence of Prue - Sophie Fisher - Страница 4

CHAPTER IV

THE MONEY-LENDER INTERVENES

Either her hysterics or her gout kept my Lady Drumloch in her chamber long enough to try the brief patience of Prudence Brooke. Sir Geoffrey, secure of his bride, was less impatient, for after all, the grandmother's consent was a mere matter of form, although he had reasons—upon which he did not care to dilate—for wishing to propitiate the old lady, and secure her good graces.

He came to Mayfair as frequently as his parliamentary duties permitted, and never without sending up to the sick-room the most sympathetic messages, accompanied by bouquets of rare flowers, baskets of hothouse fruit and dainty porcelain or enameled boxes of French bonbons, and his gifts to Lowton were as lavish, though of a different character.

Finding no abatement in her grandmother's austerity, about a week after Sir Geoffrey's arrival, Lady Prudence ordered a chair, and concealing as many of her charms as could be hidden by a cloak and hood, made a pilgrimage to the city.

Almost under the shadow of Aldgate Church, at the entrance of a narrow court, of quiet appearance but sinister reputation, lived a certain Mr. Moses Aarons, reputed fabulously wealthy. Few were the gay inheritors of paternal acres to whom the little office in Aldgate was unfamiliar, and in the safes and deed-boxes that encumbered the upper floors of the dingy house many a bond and mortgage told a history of vast estates held by a hair, and noble fortunes of which little remained but the name.

Mr. Aarons was a man of unpretending appearance, with very little about him to suggest the Jew money-lender. Immaculately dressed, in a suit of fine plum-colored cloth, with silk stockings of the same hue, and wearing his own iron-gray hair slightly powdered, and gathered in a black ribbon, he might have passed for a respectable lawyer or merchant, had not some suggestion of power in his smooth voice and heavy-lidded eye, belied the modesty of his appearance.

The chair of a fine lady was no unaccustomed object at his door—nor, indeed, was the Viscountess Brooke a stranger. When his clerk bowed the lady into Mr. Aarons' sanctum, he rose to greet her, and returned her sweeping curtsey with a bow as ceremonious.

"My Lady Brooke! This is, indeed, a condescension," he said. "My poor place is not adapted for the entertainment of such fashion and beauty."

"Most excellent Aarons," cried Prue, a little haughtily, "a truce to your compliments, which are only meant in ridicule, I fear." She threw back her hood, however, not disdaining to try the full effect of her charms upon this Jew, from whom she had come to cajole a few hundred pounds, if possible, without security.

"Your ladyship's long absence from London hath surely been to some magic spring," said the usurer, with an exaggerated deference that bordered on insolence. "We heard you were breaking squires' hearts in Yorkshire, but sure 'twas some southern sun that has been ripening the peaches on your cheeks."

Prue burst out laughing. "Are you turning poet, Mr. Aarons?" she inquired flippantly. "Take my advice, and keep to your own trade; no one will ever read the verse of Shakespeare or Milton with half as much interest as the magic prose that can turn a scrap of dirty paper into golden guineas."

"Your ladyship is tired of poetry, and wishes for a little prose by way of change, no doubt," suggested the money-lender.

"Change, forsooth! That is just what I am perishing for," cried Prue. "Fate has been dealing me the scurviest tricks, and now the chance of my life has come, and I tremble lest I lose it for want of a few pounds. The queen has bidden me to court, and I hope the best from Her Majesty's condescension. But, alas! I can not make a fitting appearance at court, for I am—as usual—penniless. You must help me out of my troubles, good Mr. Aarons, and this time I shall pay you principal and interest, and recover the diamond necklace that has been so long in your care."

"If the security you offer is no better than last time, my lady Viscountess—" the money-lender began.

"Alack! this time I have nothing at all to offer as security," she interrupted. "You know where most of my jewels are, and on my way from Yorkshire, I was set upon by Robin Freemantle, the highwayman, and robbed of everything he could lay his hands on!"

"The outrageous villain! Did your ladyship lose much?" asked the Jew, with ill-concealed sarcasm.

"I scarce remember how much, but he left me with nothing but a few worthless trinkets I had concealed in my cousin's jewel-casket, which fortunately escaped. So I arrived in London destitute. My grandmother is too ill to think of aught but prayers and potions, and I am most anxious to return to the court, where, doubtless, her Grace of Marlborough will do something for me—she loves me like a daughter—but I can not wait on her grace without a gown and a carriage."

"The milliner will, no doubt, be enchanted to provide the one, and the liveryman the other," said Aarons suavely.

"True, but every one knows I was banished from court, and nothing will satisfy them that I am in favor again but to see my name in the Court News' account of the queen's levee. I can not get there without money, and for that I look to you, who have stood my friend before. Now listen," she went on quickly, laying her little dimpled hand on his arm, in her eagerness to interrupt the impending expostulation. "I am going to be married—oh, yes, I know what you would say—'tis not the first time by several, and I am still the Widow Brooke! This time, however, you may consider it final; within a month, I wed Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert."

The money-lender started. "Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert!" he exclaimed. "Your creditors, my lady Viscountess, will scarce be pleased at this hearing, and may find cause to remind you that there are lodgings for ladies in the Fleet and Queen's Bench. Sir Geoffrey is a member of Parliament, and can not be arrested for his own debts, let alone his wife's."

"Arrested! Do you mean to suggest that Sir Geoffrey can not, or will not, pay my debts?" she cried angrily.

"He may be willing; indeed, who could doubt that any man would esteem it an honor to pay the debts of Lady Prudence Brooke? But that he is able, is quite another matter, and you may take my word for it, that Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert couldn't pay his own debts, if every acre he owned was free, instead of mortgaged, lock, stock and barrel."

"You are maligning a gentleman, sir!" she exclaimed, losing all control of her temper. "I will tell him how you have lied to me, and he will have his servants beat you within an inch of your life! Sir Geoffrey a bankrupt!—his estates mortgaged!—was ever such a slander? He is a man of substance, I tell you. I have visited him in his ancestral domain, where he entertained me royally. He is lord of the manor, and has the retinue of a duke—no man in Yorkshire is more highly respected—he is M.F.H. and might be Sheriff of his Riding an' he chose!" She began to subside a little, though still angry, and looking, it must be owned, transcendently lovely in her excitement, with cheeks like damask roses, and flashing sapphire eyes. "Good Mr. Aarons, why did you give me such a scare?" she went on, with a ring of almost entreaty in her tone. "Tell me you were joking. What can you know about Sir Geoffrey's estate? He hath borrowed of you, mayhap; who has not? But since he has come into his patrimony—"

"His patrimony, Lady Prudence? His father was one of King James' most devoted followers, and one of the most lavish while a guinea could be raised to prove his loyalty. Sir Geoffrey can not cut a tree in his 'ancestral domain,' and you may be sure there was a bailiff or two wearing his livery among the ducal retinue that dazzled your ladyship."

"Mr. Aarons, you must be mistaken," she persisted stubbornly. "If his fortunes are so low, why does he seek to join them to those of a portionless widow? Sure, there are heiresses a-plenty who would gladly buy his title with their dowries!"

"Oh! your ladyship has but to look in your mirror to answer that question," cried the usurer, with a low bow and a look of open admiration. "There are also men of wealth and substance who would gladly pay the debts of Lady Prudence Brooke, and settle such a fortune upon her as would keep her busy in the spending."

"No doubt, no doubt," said Lady Prudence hastily, "but I am betrothed to Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert, and these benevolent persons do not greatly interest me. Let us quit the subject of the fortunes Sir Geoffrey and I are throwing away, and return to business."

"Yet believe me, Lady Prudence," he insisted, "you will never wed Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert."

She rose with great haughtiness. "I decline to dispute the subject with you, Mr. Aarons—" she began.

"You will not marry Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert," he repeated. "If you do not refuse the match, he will find some way to release himself; 'tis his misfortune more than his fault. Mark me, Lady Prudence, and do not let him place you in a false position. You want to be a rich woman as well as a great lady. You can marry a man who will give you the finest house in town, the most splendid establishment, the choice of a dozen country seats, and more money to spend than you have ever dreamed of, and who asks nothing in return but to see you queen it at his expense."

She smiled a little, and met his glance with a most deceptive air of innocent curiosity.

"And who is the gentleman, Mr. Aarons?" she inquired, in her sweetest tone, with but the hint of an emphasis.

"Can you not guess?" he replied more boldly.

"Faith, I came hither seeking a money-broker, and was not prepared to find a marriage-broker instead!" she said, shrugging her pretty shoulders. "Do not keep me in suspense, good Aarons; I am dying to know the name of the admirable creature who desires to rescue me from poverty—and Sir Geoffrey—and confer so many benefits upon my unworthiness."

He placed his hand upon his breast, and bowed deeply.

"You see him here, fair Lady Prudence," he said. "The humblest of slaves, the most ardent of admirers and, if you will, the most devoted and indulgent of husbands."

She burst into a peal of laughter, but the faint note of bitterness that permeated the charming music was not lost upon the money-lender's sharp ear.

"Truly, Mr. Aarons, your jest is subtle and well-conceived, and a fitting rebuke to my silly vanity," she began. But he interrupted her, "In truth, Madam, 'tis no jest, but a serious offer. I have always admired your ladyship, and a year ago, endeavored to give fitting expression—"

A knock on the door interrupted his flow of eloquence, and the clerk, from without, announced that Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert's chariot had just driven to the door, and that "his Ludship" was in the act of alighting.

"Great Heaven!" cried Prue, turning scarlet and then pale. "How shall I escape? I would not be found here by him for a thousand pounds! Do not admit him, good Mr. Aarons, I beseech you—"

"Take Sir Geoffrey up-stairs, Jacob, and tell him I am engaged, but will wait on him anon," said the Jew. Then turning to his fair client with an insinuating smile, he added, "Now, if your ladyship chooses, you may have an opportunity of judging between my statement of this gentleman's finances and his own—"

He indicated, by a gesture, a door in an obscure corner of the room.

"What! play the spy upon my betrothed husband? Never, never!" exclaimed Prue indignantly. Yet she did not go away, and her pliant form seemed to sway toward the little dark door, as though a stronger will than her own controlled her muscles.

"'Tis no harm," said the Jew, in his silkiest tones, as he opened the door leading into a room scarcely bigger than a closet, but light, and furnished with a single chair, and a table littered with papers and thick with dust.

Half-involuntarily, Prue yielded, and the door closed upon her. "I need not listen," she said, half-apologizing to herself for an action she disdained. But the room was small, and that, perhaps, was why she did not think it worth while to move away from the door.

The blood rushed to her head when she heard Sir Geoffrey's voice, and for some moments she was conscious of nothing but a confused murmur, out of which, at last, her own name rang sharp and clear.

"The Lady Prudence Brooke has honored me by accepting my hand," she heard Sir Geoffrey say, in a tone that was evidently intended to discourage adverse comment.

"I congratulate your Honor," said Aarons politely. "The lady's charms do credit to your choice. But such luxuries are costly, and I am not surprised that you need money. It is unfortunate that times are so hard and money so scarce. I have just suffered a terrible loss. The death of Lord Boscommon, whose father survives him, has turned ten thousand pounds' worth of post-obits into waste paper, and the failure of Johnson and—but this does not interest your Honor. Beset as I am, I shall be able to accommodate an old and valued client like yourself, no doubt, if the security is satisfactory. You have good security to offer, of course?"

"Oh! it is no use beating about the bush with you, Aarons. I have no fresh security, but you can surely let me have a couple of thousand more on the Yorkshire estate."

"Not a stiver," said the money-lender firmly. "Even the entailed property is encumbered beyond its utmost value. Had you come to announce your marriage with Miss Cheeseman, the Alderman's daughter, or Mrs. Goldthwaite, the banker's widow, I do not say I would have refused the necessary funds for the courtship and wedding on your note-of-hand. But the Viscountess Brooke is dowerless—over head and ears in debt, and without a penny of expectations."

"Miserable little Jew," muttered the fair dame he so pitilessly anatomized; "Geoffrey will kill him."

"Dowerless, yes; over head and ears in debt, possibly; but not without expectations," said Sir Geoffrey, displaying none of the anticipated fury. "You overlook the fact that she is the favorite granddaughter of Lady Drumloch, who, for all her miserly ways, I am credibly informed, is enormously wealthy."

"Oho!" cried the Jew, maliciously enjoying this display of a motive not altogether flattering to the unsuspected listener. "Your Honor is not quite so simple as I began to fear."

"Did you really think I was fool enough to leap before looking?" retorted Sir Geoffrey, with a fatuous laugh that set Prue's ears tingling. "To be sure, the wealth of Golconda could not add to the Lady Prue's charms, but in this wicked world one can not live on love, and as I have little else to offer, I rejoice, for her sake as well as my own, that she has a rich grandmother, who can not, it is to be hoped—I should say, lamented—live long to enjoy her hoards. They will, I am convinced, be put to excellent use by Lady Prudence Beaudesert."

"But how, if I could prove to you, Sir Geoffrey, that Lady Drumloch, instead of being a rich miser, is a very poor old woman, whose kinsman loans her a house to live in, and whose sole income is an annuity, from which she has—perhaps—saved enough to bury her? I know not who may have told you of this fabled wealth, but I am pretty sure it is not either of her granddaughters."

"Indeed, no," said Sir Geoffrey reflectively. "No such sordid subject has ever been broached between us. Yet I had it from a reliable source."

"Well, I advise you to make very sure of it, Sir Geoffrey; it will be no kindness, either to yourself or the Lady Prudence, to marry her without either of you having anything you can call your own—except your debts."

"'Tis true," muttered the baronet. "If I can not raise a thousand pounds—are Lady Prudence's debts so very great?"

"I do not betray the secrets of one client to another," said Aarons, with a sinister smile. "Even now I have acted against my own interests in my desire to befriend two headstrong young people. Nay, I would gladly go further, and find a rich wife for your Honor and a rich husband for the viscountess, if you would both listen to reason."

"Thanks, good Aarons," said Sir Geoffrey, moving toward the door; "I appreciate your good will at its full value. A rich wife—of your providing—to pay my debts, and a rich husband, on the same terms, for Lady Prudence, would make four fools for the benefit of one wise man."

"Your Honor flatters me!" said Aarons obsequiously. They passed out of the room together, and as he closed the door behind him, the money-lender remarked, in the most casual manner, "I had a visit from the lady but an hour agone, praying me for a loan of a few hundred pounds, at any interest, on the strength of her approaching marriage with your Honor."

Sir Geoffrey started, and a curious light came into his cold, handsome eyes.

"'Sdeath!" he ejaculated, "the lady doth me too much honor!"

"I was most reluctantly compelled to refuse the loan, for the same reason that she gave for requesting it," said the usurer, as he respectfully bowed his visitor out. "But in the meantime, if I can serve you in any other direction, pray command me."

When he returned alone, he found Lady Prudence arranging her hood with a weary air.

"Prithee, Mr. Aarons, is my chair at the door?" she demanded, cutting short his apologies for detaining her. "You and your client have well-nigh sent me to sleep with your long conference. Sure, you have kept me shut up in the cupboard, while you transacted the business of a dozen petitioners."

"Your ladyship was probably unable to overhear our conversation?" he retorted, with a shrewd smile. "'Tis a pity, for it would have interested you vastly."

"Did you, indeed, think I would condescend to listen at the keyhole?" cried Prue, with a superb air of disdain. "Believe me, I do not take quite so much interest in the clients of Mr. Aarons! Is my chair at the door? Then let me begone. My grandmother will marvel at my absence, and ask more questions than I shall be able to invent answers to."

The Jew accompanied her out to her chair, bare-headed, and as he handed her in, said, in his voice of curiously blended humility and power, "I shall hear from your ladyship again, when you and Sir Geoffrey have had time for reflection."

CHAPTER V

A WIDOW ON MONDAY

That day was destined to be one of accumulated trials to Prue's patience. Her ruffled temper had scarcely calmed down by the time she reached home, and found that, during her absence, communications had been received from the attorneys of various tradespeople, warning her that Mr. Aarons' view of her position was by no means exaggerated.

Although she had rigidly refrained from announcing her projected marriage, in deference to Lady Drumloch's opposition, the news had crept out in the mysterious way such things have of proclaiming themselves, and had led to a general investigation of Sir Geoffrey's solvency, by those whose only hope of payment depended upon her future husband's wealth. The immediate result of these researches displayed itself in the unanimous determination of her creditors to be paid before she could shelter herself under the coverture of a husband whose parliamentary privileges placed him out of their reach.

This blow was the more crushing because it came from those who had encouraged her extravagance and played upon her vanity while she was the favorite of the all-powerful Duchess of Marlborough, and lady-in-waiting to the queen. Then, every temptation was thrown in her way, and the day of reckoning was never mentioned, unless in sly allusion to the dazzling, ever-changing panorama of her matrimonial prospects.

But, now, circumstances were different. To tell the truth, the fair viscountess had left London a year ago under the cloud of royal displeasure. Her extravagance at the card-table and elsewhere, her mad-cap frolics and countless flirtations—culminating in a fatal duel and a brilliant engagement broken off almost at the church-door—had brought upon her a sharp rebuke from the queen, coupled with a command to seek time for reflection and penitence in some retreat far enough removed from the court to relieve her of its temptations.

Under this ban, she had thrown herself upon the hospitality of her brother-in-law, himself somewhat out of favor, in consequence of his Jacobite tendencies, and living in comparative seclusion upon his heavily mortgaged estate in Yorkshire. There, Prue had held a little court of fox-hunting squires and provincial notables, until, wearying for a more congenial atmosphere, she gladly seized upon the illness of her grandmother as an excuse for a hasty and unheralded visit to London, where her bosom friend, Lady Barbara Sweeting, having paved the way for her, met her with the delightful news that her escapades were forgotten and her absence bewailed, and being on the spot, her unauthorized return would meet with no severe reprimand, but rather with a joyous welcome.

Prue knew the advantage of striking while the iron is hot. She was well aware of the fickleness of the great, and the importance of catching the smile of royalty before it has had time to cool off into a frown. So, being assured that the hand of welcome was graciously beckoning her, it did seem the irony of fate that she must needs hang back because her wardrobe was in Yorkshire, and her chance of redeeming or replacing it even more distant.

At this exasperating crisis, it was only natural that her mind should revert persistently to the one spot of light in the gloom. Was it a beacon of hope or an illusory will-o'-the-wisp? Had Sir Geoffrey been misled, or was he trying to mislead Mr. Aarons?

"Can grannie really be a miser?" she had asked both herself and Peggie a dozen times in the course of the day. She longed to question Sir Geoffrey as to the source of his information, yet dared not reveal the little she knew, for fear he might wonder how she had come by that little.

Peggie laughed heartily at the suggestion of Lady Drumloch's wealth, and vowed it must be a myth. "Could she have kept such a secret from us for all these years?" she asked. "Never once giving us a hint of it, and never once relaxing the austerity of her life, even now she is old and sick? Besides, how would it help us now, if she had a cellar full of gold, since she will not give us a guinea or a gown? You have so many friends, Prue; will none of them help you out?"

"The women will not help me; they are only too glad to keep me out in the cold," said Prue pettishly, "and I am neither old enough nor ugly enough, to ask favors of a man, even a money-lender," she added, contemptuously reminiscent of Mr. Aarons' advances. "Pray, open the window, coz. These distracting cares make me so faint, I feel as though I should die for lack of air."

Peggie obeyed, and Prue, seating herself near the window, gradually ceased her lamentations and fell silent. The outside noises floated up confusedly—the roll of a passing carriage, the quarrelsome shouts of waiting chairmen, and clear above all, the voice of the newsman, calling the details of yesterday's cock-fight and the latest scandal.

"Rumor of a great battle in the Netherlands—Arrival of a queen's courier with sealed despatches from the seat of war—Exciting scene in the House of Commons—Threatened resignation of Lord Godolphin from the Cabinet—Trial and sentence of Robin Freemantle, the highwayman. Story of his Life and confessions—How he fell from virtue and respectability to end his days on Tyburn Tree next Monday."

"Dost thou hear that, Peggie?" cried Prue; "the bold highwayman who kissed me on Bleakmoor is condemned to die for other crimes, perchance less heinous!"

"'Tis a natural death for such as he," quoth Peggie philosophically.

"And yet, he was a gallant man; young, I'll be sworn, and handsome, belike. It seems strange to think that such hot blood will be cold in the veins of a corpse in less than a week—"

"Art going to wear weeds for him, coz, because he snatched a kiss from you?" teased Peggie.

"Not I! but mayhap some poor wretch is breaking her heart because she'll be a widow o' Monday," said Prue pensively.

"All her debts will be paid along with the debt of nature," said Peggie flippantly. "Don't you think you could easily console yourself in her case?"

"Forsooth, yes!" cried Prue, quickly recovering her vivacity. "I would I were like to be the widow of somebody—somebody I don't care for, of course—within a week. Then I could laugh at that old villain Aarons, and the rest of the pettifoggers, with their threats of the debtors' prison! Sure, there must be a special hell for Jews and lawyers!"

Peggie gave her hearty acquiescence and returned to her book, and for some time no sound was heard except an occasional smothered laugh, when Mr. Pope's highly-spiced rhymes tickled her fancy more than usual. Prue fell into a somber reverie, and with the tip of her taper finger between her teeth, became so buried in thought, that a sharp little line began to trace itself distinctly between her drawn brows. Outside, the newsman's voice, gradually fading in the distance, still repeated, "Buy the life and confessions of Robin Freemantle, the notorious highwayman—only sixpence."

Prue sprang to her feet, at last. "Margaret!" she exclaimed, and her voice had a curiously unfamiliar ring.

Her cousin started. Prue had not called her by her full name in many a day.

"Margaret, if this highwayman has no wife—people of that sort don't marry, usually—what is to prevent his marrying me, and leaving me a widow on Monday, with all my debts buried in his coffin?"

Peggie had been so often participator and prime minister of Prue's exploits, that she was not easily astonished by her. But this proposition was so entirely outside the bounds of reason, that she could only shake her head vigorously, without even a word of protest.

"'Tis not so reckless as it seems, Peggie," said Prue, sitting down beside her and passing a coaxing arm round her shoulders. "Listen, dear Peg. The man must die; God's pity on him! What can it matter to me to be his wife for a few hours; what can it matter to him to ease me of my debts? They will not trouble him in the next world; neither will I."

"You'll be none the richer for such a mad freak," Peggie remonstrated.

"I'll be out of danger of the Fleet, though!" cried Prue, renewing her caresses. "Fancy your poor little cousin in a debtors' prison, Peggie, with all sorts of wretches who can not pay their butchers and bakers—and miserable cheats and swindlers, so mean and low that they have not a soul to help them—and fancy me just as ill-off and forlorn as they!" Peggie began to melt. "You saw that letter from Madame Taffetine's lawyer, 'Unless we receive the payment, so frequently promised, within forty-eight hours, the law will be enforced without any further delay.' The other man is even more explicit; he threatens me with imprisonment in so many words! Oh! Peggie, I am the most miserable girl in the world!"

"Sir Geoffrey will marry you, and you will both be safe and happy," counseled Peggie.

"Sir Geoffrey! I'm not so sure I wouldn't rather marry the highwayman!" cried Prue. "At any rate, I can not offer myself to him, and I doubt if he be in the mood to hurry me. Besides, there's like to be a dissolution of Parliament, and then he'll be in a worse plight than I am now. 'Tis true," she laughed, but not quite merrily, "there is Mr. Aarons, who was kind enough to place his hand and his money-bags at my feet, but the doors that are open to the poor Viscountess Brooke, might be slammed in the face of the rich Lady Prudence Aarons!"

"Robin Freemantle would be better than Mr. Aarons," Peggie conceded.

"Robin Freemantle, at this moment, will do better than any one else," said Prue. "I tell you, Peggie, my mind is made up. You may as well help me, for if you don't, I'll do it all alone—but you won't desert me, will you, Peggie, dearest?" So, with tears and kisses and wiles most varied, but all through with a stubborn self-will that had often before subdued Peggie's feeble scruples, Prue won her at last, not merely as a confidante, but as an accomplice.

As soon as the whimsical creature found that there was nothing to fear from her cousin's opposition, her spirits rose at the prospect of an adventure even more reckless and madcap than usual. She ran on with a thousand absurd suggestions, until Peggie, infected by her mood, offered to visit the prison at Newgate, and lay Prue's proposal before the highwayman.

"You know, you told him I was your maid," she said, "and 'tis one of a maid's chief duties to carry messages for her mistress; messages of doubtful discretion especially. I can remind him of the meeting on Bleakmoor, and introduce myself as having witnessed the kiss which ignited a flame in your heart, that can only be quenched by a marriage in extremis."

"Make use of what arguments you please, Peg, and for credential, take with you the purse he bestowed in charity on the poor widow, who now implores a still greater favor from him. Alack! the purse is well-nigh empty, but there's enough left in it to bribe the jailers to admit a lady of high degree, who comes to find out if the condemned man can put her in the way to recover the jewelry she was robbed of on the Queen's Highway."

"To-day is Thursday, Prue," said Peggie, proceeding to prepare for her errand without delay. "Thou'lt not wed o' Friday? 'Tis unlucky!"

"Unlucky! Dost think there's any luck, good or ill, about such a marriage?" cried Prue, dropping suddenly into a shuddering despondency. "Friday is as good a day as any for one's undoing, and Saturday's too long; 'twould give me time to change my mind."

"There's time enough for that now," quoth Peggie philosophically. "The banns are not yet asked, nor even the wooing sped. 'Twere wiser, perhaps, to repent to-day than regret to-morrow."

"Do you think so, Peggie? So do not I. If I do have to repent, it shall not be for an opportunity missed for a coward scruple. Here, let me tie this long, black veil over your hood, Peg; it will make you look like a mourner, and with your handkerchief to your face, you might defy even the sharp eyes of Lowton herself."

CHAPTER VI

A MATTER OF TITLE

As Peggie, veiled and muffled up, with the curtains of her sedan-chair drawn—but not closely enough to interfere with her outlook—was borne toward the city, she passed a handsome chariot, driven rapidly in the opposite direction.

The glimpse she caught of the occupants caused her great amusement. Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert was seated beside a young man, richly dressed and handsome, but sallow and hollow-cheeked. This was Lord Beachcombe, whose marriage with Lady Prudence Brooke had been abruptly broken off about a year ago, in consequence of a scandal raised by a certain Captain O'Keefe, who considered himself ill-used by the lady, and whose insulting strictures upon her conduct led to a fatal duel with Sir Geoffrey, and resulted in the promise of her hand to the champion of her honor. The sight of Prue's former and present lovers together, struck Peggie as particularly funny, in connection with her own queer errand. If she could have overheard their conversation, it would have given additional zest to the situation.

"Faith," Lord Beachcombe was saying, "if you are really bent on marrying the lovely widow, I wish you better luck than I had."

"I am bent on it, with my whole heart and soul," Sir Geoffrey replied, doggedly rather than enthusiastically. "I am not a man to be turned from my purpose by an idle word."

The other laughed carelessly. "No man in your condition takes warning by other men's misfortunes," he remarked. "But there's still hope for you; you are not her husband yet."

"No, but I swear I will be, and soon, too!" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey. "I won her at the sword's point, and by the God above us, I'll wear her!"

"Will you bet?" demanded the other, with a sneer. Gambling was the most fashionable vice of that day, and few subjects were too great or too small to hang a wager upon.

"Aye, Lord Beachcombe, if you want to lose money, I'll not deny you the opportunity," laughed Sir Geoffrey, recovering his good humor. "What do you want to wager? Fifty guineas? a hundred?"

"Fifty or a hundred guineas is all too small a wager for so important a matter," said Lord Beachcombe slowly, as though considering the exact sum demanded by the occasion. "Let us say a thousand—or five thousand."

Sir Geoffrey was staggered by the amount, but he was as ardent a gambler as his companion, and reputed a much luckier one. "As your lordship pleases," he replied, with well-assumed indifference. "But I warn you that the higher the stake, the more certain I shall be to win it, even if I have to carry the lady off by force."

"Oh! if you have to resort to force—"

"If I have to resort to force, the stake should be doubled!" exclaimed Sir Geoffrey, "but I have no fear of that. Did your lordship say a thousand? or was it five?"

"Let it be five thousand," returned Beachcombe. "I'll wager five thousand guineas that you do not marry the Viscountess Brooke within—shall we say a month?"

Sir Geoffrey signified his satisfaction; each gentleman made a memorandum of the bet, and as the carriage had already been standing some minutes at Prue's door, her betrothed alighted, thanked his friend for his courtesy in giving him a lift, and hastened in to press his suit with renewed ardor.

As the carriage was driven off Lord Beachcombe pulled the check-string and ordered the coachman to drive with all speed to Newgate Prison.

Newgate Prison, in the reign of Queen Anne, was a festering sink of iniquity and horror. Almost every crime under the sun was punishable by death—from stealing a penny loaf to robbing a church, and from snaring a pheasant to slaughtering a family. In fact the laws in relation to property were far more strictly enforced than those for the protection of human life, unless the value of the life was enhanced by the rights of property. There, in noisome pens, criminals of every degree herded together—men, women and children—all brought to an equality under the shadow of the gallows. But money was just as powerful there as anywhere else, and the prisoner who could pay might have privacy, company, the best of food and wine—everything except cleanliness—that no power could bring into Newgate Prison, and it needed the cleansing fires of destruction to purge it off the face of the earth.

Robin Freemantle, the condemned highwayman, had money enough to secure him a cell to himself. One of the poorer prisoners, for a consideration, had swept it out, and he had hired a table and chair from the jailer at about twice the price for which they had been bought ten years ago.

At his table he sat writing, with a bottle of wine at his elbow, and the debris of a substantial meal on a tray. Through a barred window above his head enough light slunk reluctantly in to show the fine athletic form and bronzed, manly face, on which the pallor of imprisonment was already toning down the ruddy glow of health. On the page before him he had inscribed but four words, at which he sat gazing irresolutely while he nibbled the feather of his pen. The key turned in the lock and a hoarse voice outside announced, "A visitor for you, Robin Highwayman."

Lord Beachcombe walked in, and the door closed behind him.

Robin rose. "Welcome, my Lord," he said, with an unmistakable ring of relief in his tone. "Your promptitude will do us both a good turn."

"I received your letter, fellow," said the other haughtily, "and I confess I was curious to learn how a man of education had fallen to your condition." His eye glanced upon Robin's left arm, which he wore in a sling, as though he marveled why it had been thought worth while to mend a collar-bone upon which the neck was set so insecurely.

"Take this chair, my Lord. I have but one in my spacious apartment. I'll sit here." He moved to the cot and his visitor sat down, not without some show of reluctance.

"And now, be brief," said Lord Beachcombe, watching him narrowly, "and let me know the service you wish to render me"—with a sneer—"and the price you expect for it. I do not remember ever having been waylaid by you, so you can not have stolen jewels to restore."

"Yet your lordship has some idea of what I have to offer—not to restore, for you never possessed it—and if I die on Monday, will never know the full worth of it until too late. Your lordship has a lawsuit pending involving your title and estate—"

"Every one knows that," said Beachcombe irritably. "Some mysterious person has claimed to be my elder brother. The thing is manifestly impossible, but he appears to have interested a lawyer of sorts."

"The thing is not impossible, Lord Beachcombe. It is true. It is also true that this claimant can deprive you not only of your title and estates, but of your very name."

"You are mad! If such a thing were possible, what is it to you, and how can you know anything about it?"

"Because all the papers are in my possession. Oh! not here—in perfectly safe keeping; where they will remain until I die, or claim them back."

"How came they in your possession?" demanded Beachcombe. "In robbing a coach, I suppose you took them for something valuable."

"They came into my possession by the action of Providence, to afford your lordship the chance of giving me my life and keeping your own honorable name."

"Your life, my good fellow! You overrate my power and your own value. If your papers are worth anything, I'll give you all the money you ask for your own spending, and the provision of those you leave behind—"

"We'll come to that presently," said Robin. "First, I'll tell you what I have to offer. Some thirty years ago—while His Majesty King Charles was on the throne—a certain lieutenant of the Guards, younger son of a great earl's younger brother, fell in love with a poor schoolmaster's pretty daughter. Passing himself off as a stage-player, under the name of Gregory Vincent, he won the young woman's affection, though not, apparently, her complete confidence; for she went to the pains of investigating the gentleman's private life, and discovered his real name. Then she consented to a secret marriage, at which she substituted a real priest and legal papers for the sham ones with which her honorable lover had intended to cozen her."

"This story has already been communicated to my attorneys," interrupted Lord Beachcombe impatiently. "How are you acquainted with it, and why do you expect it to interest me in you?"

"I know it because a vast number of letters, written by this gentleman, first to his sweetheart and afterward to his wife, have fallen into my hands. They tell the whole history, with many entertaining details, and would prove racy reading in the News sheet for your lordship's friends and foes, especially the latter."

The visitor winced. "No man likes his family affairs held up to ridicule," he said. "I would willingly buy the letters, if genuine."

"Oh! they are genuine; also the marriage certificate, whereof one of the witnesses is still living, and the certificates of the birth and baptism of the son, now twenty-eight years old. I believe your lordship is twenty-six?"

"And why has this matter been allowed to sleep for thirty years?"

"Because Mrs. Vincent—as she temporarily allowed herself to be called—although clever enough to find out that her stage-player lover was really a lieutenant of the King's Guards, masquerading under a false name, was unable to trace him when he disappeared, a year after their marriage, and never knew that in consequence of several deaths, he had become Lord Beachcombe, of whom she probably never heard, and certainly never connected with Lieutenant Gregory de Cliffe. The last of this series of documents is the certificate of the death of the deserted wife, when her son was about five years old, to whom she bequeathed only her wedding-ring and a casket, which was to be opened when he came to man's estate."

Lord Beachcombe's sallow face crimsoned with such a rush of blood, that his eyes were suffused, and he seemed in danger of suffocating.

"Five years," he gasped. "Scoundrel, do you know what you are saying?"

Robin bent his head, without speaking.

"Where are these forgeries? These—these—" Beachcombe stopped, apparently unable to utter another word.

"As I told you before, they are quite safe," said Robin quietly. "But an hour after my death, they will be in the hands of the person whom they most concern."

"And do you—does this impostor imagine that he can oust a peer of the realm with a few old letters and musty documents, forsooth?" cried the earl, recovering himself a little. "We nobles hang together, Sir Highwayman, and are chary of disturbing one of our order for a trifle."

"I do not know whether he can oust you, Lord Beachcombe," said Robin, looking him steadily in the eye, "but he can prove you a bastard."

Beachcombe sprang to his feet, with hand on sword, as though he would have drawn it on the defenseless prisoner, and stood, breathing heavily, unable to utter a word.

"We are alone, my Lord, and not one word that passes between us need ever be repeated outside this cell," said Robin; "that is, if you agree to my terms. Otherwise, I may feel compelled to make terms with your cousin, who would be the inheritor if you were—illegitimate, and your elder brother were—could be induced to waive his claim."

Lord Beachcombe bent a furtive but piercing regard upon the prisoner. "And how can you answer for him?" he asked, slowly weighing his words. "If I buy you off, I may have to fight him in the law courts afterward. Oh! 'tis intolerable—it's a conspiracy—it must be a lie—my father a bigamist!—my mother—! Villain, you shall hang for calling me bastard, if for nothing else."

"I think not," said Robin. "Your unborn child may be a son, whose fate hangs upon your word. The rightful heir values my life so highly, that he himself has instigated this offer. He is willing to give all his documents in exchange for my life and liberty. Furthermore, for a sum of money sufficient to carry him abroad and start him in life, he will sign a deed, if you will have one drawn up, resigning all claims on the title or estates of Beachcombe. Is that explicit enough?"

During this speech, Lord Beachcombe had quieted down, and was now seated opposite the prisoner, whom he regarded with fixed attention.

"What does your claimant call himself? Under what name is he known?" he demanded abruptly.

"You can not know it without perusing the documents," said Robin, "and you can not do that until I am free to bring them to you myself."

"I tell you," exclaimed the earl pettishly, "that you overestimate my influence. How can I obtain the pardon of a highwayman who attacked the Lord Archbishop?"

"I took nothing from his grace but his wig!" cried Robin, with a boisterous laugh, "and so that he might not catch cold in his venerable head, I gave him in exchange a comfortable cotton nightcap, that had once been the property of the Mayor of York! 'Twas a fair exchange, and methinks the archbishop would scarcely wish me hanged for a joke, when I might have stripped him of a coachful of treasure."

Lord Beachcombe rose. "There are yet three days," he said grudgingly. "I'll see what can be done."

"Three days for me, my Lord, but not for you," said Robin significantly. "I must know by this time to-morrow what my chances are with you, for the letter I was inditing to your cousin Francis can not be delayed longer than that."

"Francis!" sneered Lord Beachcombe. "What do you imagine he can do for you? A man whose name is hardly known at court! An indolent recluse; a mere bumpkin!"

"For me? Probably nothing," Robin replied, in a stern, threatening tone. "But what can he do for you, with those papers in his possession? I may be dead before they reach him, but my revenge will be sure, in his hands."

"Do you suppose he will put himself out for you—your claimant? You evidently don't know Francis."

"I do not know him, but I know human nature," retorted Robin. "What heir does not live in hopes of some day inheriting? I shall make no conditions with him, but place the proof of your father's first marriage in his hands. Can you doubt that he will use that weapon to put himself in your place? Oh! don't flatter yourself that my death will clear the worst danger out of your path. Alive, you have a dozen ways of silencing me; dead, I have one way to ruin you—utterly."

The two men regarded each other for a few seconds intently. Robin's face expressed cold, implacable determination, the other, deadly hostility. Lord Beachcombe turned suddenly and rapped sharply on the door. It was instantly opened by the jailer, and he strode out without another word or glance.

Robin flung himself into the chair, and gave way to a deep and gloomy reverie. From time to time, broken sentences escaped him. "What is the use, after all?"—"It makes little difference whether I die now, or live to be hanged some other time"—and other remarks of a pessimistic and dismal nature. Then he fell to writing, but after a while, tore the paper into shreds, and sat moodily watching the sallow reflection of daylight fading slowly behind the bars.