CHAPTER XI.
HOW SIR MILES RENEWED HIS OFFER.
Thus did I get rid of one suitor, knowing that there were still twomore in the field, and anxious about my lord's absence, which, Idoubted not, was concerned in some way with me. Heavens! if he shouldfind out the secret! If the Doctor should communicate to him the thingwhich I desired to tell at my own time and place.
The Evil One, at this juncture, suggested a temptation of his own.
Suppose a message, which my lord could trust, were to reach him,stating that there would be no attempt to follow up the so-calledmarriage in the Rules, that he could go his own way, unmolested; thatthe very certificate and the leaf of the register containing the proofof the marriage would be restored to him--how would that be?
Yet, what sort of happiness could a wife expect who every day had tofear the chance of detection and exposure? Some time or other he wouldlearn that I was the niece of the man who had dealt him this blow; someday he would learn the whole story. Why, there was not only the Doctor,but his man Roger, the villain with the pale face, the scarred cheeks,and the red nose. If the Doctor were dead, what would prevent such aman from telling the story abroad and proclaiming it to all comers?
For poor Kitty there was only one course open; she must work her wayto happiness through shame and confession. Yet with all the shame andconfession there was no certainty that the happiness would follow.A man vehemently loves and desires a woman, but a woman vehementlydesires the love and desire of a man. I desired, with all my strengthand with all my might, the affections of my lord. His image, his idea,were with me always. For me there was no other man in the world.
But first I had to deal with my present suitors.
Solomon dismissed, and made happy with praises and guineas (a poet is acreature whose vanity seems always to outweigh all other qualities), Ihad next to reckon with Sir Miles, who was more reasonable and yet morepersistent.
I knew that he had come to Epsom on purpose to seek me out. That wasborne in upon me with a force not to be resisted. He always did methe honour of showing me a preference when we lived under the sameroof, and when he would lie in wait for me at the foot of the sandedstairs. And, of course, I liked him. He was good-natured, he had the_air noble_; he would not, certainly, beat his wife or treat herunkindly, although he would probably spend all the money in drink andplay. And whether he was rich or poor, in the Rules or in the Prison,or wandering free, he would still be the same easy, careless creature,happy in the sunshine, happier by candlelight over a bowl of punch.
On the Terrace, where we met him in the afternoon, he was the same,save that his clothes were newer, as when, just as he lounged nowbeneath the trees, he had then lounged among the bulkheads and stallsof the market, till evening came with the joys of the day. Always withthe carriage of a gentleman. Most of the beaux of Epsom were suchgentlemen as claim the title of Esquire by right of their profession asattorneys, barristers, officers, nabobs, rich merchants, and the like.As for their manners, they were easy so long as they were natural, andthen they were somewhat barbarous; when they endeavoured to assume themanners of such as Lord Chudleigh, they were awkward. As for the youngfellows from the country estates, they were always clowns; they cameclowns to the Wells; they put on fine clothes; laughed and grimaced;lost their money at horse-racing and lansquenet, and went home clowns.But Sir Miles was always, even when drunk, a gentleman.
I suppose he had the impudence, at first, to suppose that I was goingto seek him out and distinguish him before all the company with myparticular regard. When he discovered that it was difficult to getspeech with the Queen of the Wells unless you joined her court, he camealong with the rest, and was speedily as ready with his compliment,his innuendo, his jest, and his anecdote. He was more ready than most,because he had seen the great world in his youth, and had caught theirmanner. The general run of gallants were, it seemed to me, afraid ofhim. To be sure, he was a big, strong man, could have crunched twoor three of the slender beaux between his arms; yet he was the mostkind-hearted fellow in the world.
Three days after his arrival, Lord Chudleigh having then been away fora week, and I beginning to wonder what business kept him so long fromthe apron strings of Kitty, he invited me to go with him to the Downsto see a match. I would go with him, though well I knew what he meant;and, of course, when we got to the Downs, the match was over and thepeople going home.
"Egad, Miss Kitty," he said, "there is always such a plaguy crowdafter your ladyship's heels, that a man gets never a chance of a wordwith you, save edgeways with the pretty little beaux. Well, I havetold Solomon to go to the house and take care of Mrs. Esther. Therethey are, cheek by jowl, and her handkerchief up to her eyes over hissentimental poetry. You and I can have a talk to ourselves. It is onlya quarter of a mile from here to your lodging, but, if you like to comewith me by way of the old well and Banstead, we can make it half amile."
"Thank you, Sir Miles," I said; "I am not anxious to double thatquarter of a mile. Consider, if you please, that I have to get home,dine, and dress for the day."
"Very good. Have it your own way. That, to be sure, you always willhave. I think, for my part, that you never looked so nice as whenyou wore your hair in curls, and a holland frock. Miss Kitty, do youremember a certain day when a baronet, out at elbows, offered you hishand--with nothing in it?"
"I remember it perfectly." I laughed at the recollection. "And oh, SirMiles, to think of how you looked when you made that condescendingproposal. It was after a most disgraceful evening--you best know where.You had been brought home singing. Your neck-ribbon was untied, yourwig awry, your hand shaky, your cheeks red, and in your left hand abrown mug full of old October. What a suitor!"
"Yes," he replied, laughing, without the least appearance of beingoffended by my picture. "When in the Rules, I behaved according to thecustom of the place. I am no longer in the Rules, but at the Wells. Iremember that tankard. Considering that the day is sultry, I wish I hadone in my hand this very moment."
"I am sure, Sir Miles, that your conduct under these happiercircumstances will reflect greater credit upon you."
"Happier circumstances?" he said. "Well, I suppose so. In the Fleet Icould borrow of my cousins a guinea a week or thereabout; yet borrowingis uncertain and undignified: the manner of living was cheap, butit was rude. Drink there was--more than one had a right to expect;drink was plentiful, but only the Doctor got good punch; no moralswere expected of a Fleet Rules Christian. I know not that things arehappier now than then. However, you might think so. Girls never haveany philosophy. I have come into a small estate of six hundred pounds ayear. It is not so much, by five times six hundred, as what I startedwith; still, with six hundred a year, one can live. Do you not thinkso?"
"It seems to me a very handsome provision," I replied, thinking thatMrs. Esther had about the same.
"Yes, it will do."
He fanned his face with his hat, and begged me to sit down on the grassand listen to him for a moment. Men, even the most careless, like SirMiles, have a way of becoming suddenly solemn when they ask a womanto become their wife. I know not whether their gravity springs froma sense of their own great worth, or from a feeling of unworthiness;whether it is a compliment to the woman they woo, or to themselves. Orit may be a confession of the holiness of the state of matrimony, whichone would fain hope to be the case.
Sir Miles then, blushing and confused, offered me, for the second time,his hand.
"You see," he said, "the right hand doth no longer shake, nor doth theleft hand hold a pot of October. I no longer am carried home at night."He sighed, as if the reminiscence of past times was pleasing butsaddening. "I am not any more the man that once I was. Will you, sweetKitty--will you be Lady Lackington?"
"I cannot," I said.
"There is an income of six hundred pounds a year," he went on."I believe there is a small house somewhere; we could live in itrent-free. You were always fond of hens and pigs, and milk, flowers,apples, and all these things. I will k
eep two hundred pounds formyself, and give you four. With two hundred I shall have to manage,once a week or so, a little hazard, or a trifling lansquenet."
"What?" I asked. "Marry a gamester?"
"What matter as to that, when he will settle his money on his wife?Think of it, Kitty. I am a baronet, though a poor one, and of as good afamily as any in Norfolk. Why the Lackingtons, as everybody knows, wereon their lands before the Conqueror."
"And if it is not enough to be a gamester, you are also--O Sir Miles!the shame of it----"
"We gentlemen of Norfolk," he replied, without any appearance ofshame, "are honest topers all. I deny it not. Yet what matters such atrifle in the habits of a man? Did any gentlemen in the county drinkharder than my father? Yet he was hale and tough at sixty, and wouldhave lived to eighty but for a fall he got riding home one night afterdinner, having a cask, or thereabouts, of port inside him, by reason ofwhich he mistook an open quarry for the lane which should have led himhome, and therefore broke his neck."
"So that, if his wife loved him, as no doubt she did, it was the drinkthat robbed her of a husband. Your tale hath a useful moral, Sir Miles."
"Come, pretty Puritan, look at me. I am twenty-nine--in my thirtiethyear; strong and hearty, if I do get drunk of an evening. What then? Doyou want to talk to your husband all night? Better know that he is safeasleep, and likely to remain asleep till the drink is gone out of hishead."
"Oh, the delights of wedlock! To have your husband brought home everynight by four stout fellows!"
"Evening drink hurts no man. Have I a bottle nose? Do my hands shake?Are my cheeks fat and pale? Look at me, Kitty." He held out his armsand laughed.
"Yes, Sir Miles," I replied; "I think you are a very lusty fellow, and,in a wrestling-bout, I should think few could stand against you. But asa husband, for the reasons I have stated, I say--No!"
"Take the four hundred, Kitty, and make me happy. I love thee, my girl,with all my heart."
"Sir Miles, I cannot do it honestly. Perhaps I wish I could."
"You won't?" He looked me full in the face. "I see you won't. You havesuch a telltale, straightforward face, Kitty, that it proclaims thetruth always. I believe you are truth itself. They pulled you out ofa well, down in your country place, in a bucket, and then went aboutsaying you had been born."
"Thank you, Sir Miles."
"Am I, therefore, to go hang myself in my garters, or yours, if youwill give them to me?"
"If you do, I shall be the first to run and cut you down."
"Sweet it were," he murmured, "to be even cut down by your fair hand.If one was sure that you would come in time----"
"You will be reasonable, dear sir, and you will neither say nor doanything silly."
"I do not suppose I shall pine away in despair; nor shall I hang myhead; nor shall I go about saying that there are as good fish in thesea as ever came out of it, because, when we fished you, we fishedthe best. And I swear. Kitty"--here he did swear after men's profaneway, but he needed not to have sworn so loudly or so long--"that truly,sweet Kitty, thou art the fairest, the loveliest, and the best fishthat ever came out of any sea--a bewitching mermaid! I wish thee a goodhusband.
"On Stella's lap he laid his head, And, looking in her eyes, He cried, 'Remember, when I'm dead, That I deserved the prize.'"
"Thank you, Sir Miles. A shorter and a less profane oath would surelyhave better graced the subject."
"It cannot be graced too much," he said, as if to swear lustily was toconfer honour upon the woman he thought to love. "For your sake, Kitty,I would ever forswear punch, tobacco, and strong waters; drink nothingbut October; and never get drunk save on Saturday nights: for your sakewould I go live in the country among the cocks and the hens, the ducksand the pigs; for you would I go religiously to church every Sundayat forenoon, and expect the parson for the beef and pudding after thesermon; for your sake would I gamble no more, save once in a way whenquarter-day brought in the rents."
"That would be a mighty reformation indeed, Sir Miles."
"Now, however, since you will not have me, I shall play with fourhundred a year out of the six. But I will be careful, all the same: Ishall punt low, and never lose more than a guinea a night."
Thus I was rid of my second suitor. Sir Miles ceased to attend thecount of followers who attended on the Terrace, but sat all day in thecard-room, playing. From time to time he met and saluted me.
"Be not afraid," he would say, "on my behalf. The card-tables aremore pleasant than the air under the trees, and I think the playersare better company than your priggish popinjays. As for my habits,fair Kitty, pattern of virtue, they have become virtuous. I am neverdrunk--well, not often--and you have brought me luck. I have won fivehundred guineas from a nabob. Think of the joy, when he pays me, oflosing it all again!"
The Chaplain of the Fleet Page 27
