Read Ebook: The Lady of Lynn by Besant Walter

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Ebook has 1479 lines and 70243 words, and 30 pages

ts; on her wrists hung a fan whose handle was set with sapphires; and in her hair, such was the simplicity of the maiden, was placed a white rose. Her head was not built after the former manner, but was covered now with natural curls, only kept in place by the art of the friseur. In a word, it was Molly herself, not an artificial Molly; Molly herself, just adorned with the feminine taste which raised the Lady Anastasia above the blind laws of mere fashion who now entered the room. She proclaimed herself once more as the heiress with a more certain note and with less ostentation.

"With her ladyship! With the Lady Anastasia!" they whispered behind their fans. "What next? Are there no ladies in the room but she must pick up this girl out of the gutter?" But they did not say these things aloud; on the contrary they pressed around her ladyship, gazing rudely and curiously upon the intruder.

"Ladies," said Lady Anastasia, "let me present my young friend, Miss Molly, the heiress of Lynn. I entreat your favour towards Miss Molly, who deserves all the favours you can afford, being at once modest, as yet little acquainted with the world of fashion, and endowed by fortune with gifts which are indeed precious."

They began with awkwardness and some constraint to express cold words of welcome; but they could not conceal their chagrin, and two or three of them withdrew from the throng and abstained altogether after that evening from the society of her ladyship, and, as they were but plain wives of country gentlemen, this abstention cost them many pangs. For my own part, now that I know more about the opinions of gentlefolk, I confess that I think they were right. If there is an impassable gulf, as they pretend, between the gentleman and the mere citizen or the clown, then they stood up for their principles and their order. Why there should be this impassable gulf I know not; nor do I know who dug it out and set one class on one side and one on the other; whereas it is most true that there are many noble families whose ancestors were either merchants or were enriched by marriages with the daughters of merchants. Of such there are many witnesses. If, on the other hand, a girl can be received and welcomed among the Quality simply because she has a great fortune, there can be no such gulf, and the passage from one class to the other is matter of worldly goods only. There are also cases in which the sons of noble and gentle houses have entered into the service of merchants, and have themselves either succeeded and made themselves rich, or have sunk down to the levels of retail trade and of the crafts.

Another humiliation was in store for these ladies. When Lord Fylingdale entered the assembly he walked across the room, saluted Lady Anastasia, and bowed low to Molly, who blushed and was greatly confused at this public honour.

"Miss Molly," he said, "permit me to salute the town of Lynn itself in your fair person. The town of Lynn is our hostess; you are the queen of Lynn; let me invite your Majesty to open the ball with me."

So saying, he took her hand and led her out to the middle of the room, while the music struck up and the company formed a ring.

As for me, you have seen that I made a promise. I kept it in the spirit but not in the letter. That is to say, I went in my ordinary Sunday clothes, and stood at the door with the crowd and looked in at the gay scene. Molly danced with his lordship. My heart sank when I saw the ease and dignity of his steps, and the corresponding grace of hers. There was neither sliding nor sprawling. Then after the dance I saw her standing beside the Lady Anastasia, her eyes sparkling, her cheek flushed, smiling and laughing, while a whole troop of gentlemen surrounded her with compliments. She seemed quite happy with them. As for me, I felt that I was no longer of any use to her; she was flying far above me; my place was at the door with those who had no right to enter. So I stole away out of the gardens and into the silent streets, while the music followed me, seeming to laugh and to mock me as I crept along with unwilling feet and sinking heart. "Go home! Go home!" it said. "Go home to your cabin and your bunk! This place is not for you. Go home to your tarpaulin and your salt junk and your rum!"

I did not obey immediately. I went to the captain's. Molly's mother was sitting there alone. Nigra was at the assembly to look after her mistress; the captain was there also, looking on from a corner; Molly's mother was alone in the parlour, her work in her hands, stitching by the light of a single tallow candle; and while she stitched her lips moved.

She looked up. "Jack," she cried, "where is Molly?"

"She is enjoying herself with her new friends. I am no longer wanted. So I came away."

"My poor Jack!" She laid down her needlework and looked at me. "You can't make up your mind to lose her. What do you think I feel about it, then? Sure, a mother feels more than a lover. If she goes, Jack, she will never come back again. We shall lose her altogether. She will never come back." With this the tears rolled down her cheek.

"We ought not to grumble and to grutch," she went on. "Why, it is for her own good. The captain has told us all along that she was too great a catch for any of the folk about here. There is never a day but he tells me this, again and again. Not a man, he says, is worthy of such a fortune! Jack, when I think of the days when my man and me were married; he never wanted me to know how rich he was. What did I want with the money? I wanted the man, not his fortune. The jewels and the chains lay in the cupboard--the foolish glittering things! He followed simple ways, and lived like his neighbours. And as for Molly, I've brought her up as her poor father would have had it; there is no better housewife anywhere than Molly; no lighter hand with the crust; no surer hand with the home-brewed; no safer hand with the poultry. And all to be thrown away because she's got such a fortune as would be wasted on an honest lad like you, Jack, or some good gentleman from the country side."

"We can do nothing, mother--except to wish her happiness."

"Nothing; not even to find out the kind of man she is to marry. The captain is all for taking this Lord Fylingdale's advice. Why his lordship should take to the captain I cannot understand. Sammy Semple was here to-day--a worm, a wriggling worm--saying how soft and virtuous his lordship is. Well, Jack, I thought--if he has no masterfulness in him he isn't any kind of man to advise about a woman. Now, Molly's father had a fine quick temper of his own, and Molly needs a master. Then this lady Anastasia, who seems kindly, offers to take her to town, where she will learn cards and wickedness. But I doubt, Jack--I doubt. My mind is full of trouble. It is a dreadful thing to have a rich daughter."

"Would to God," I said, "she had nothing."

"For the men they will come around her; and the women they will hate her--and she will be too good for her own folk, and too low for the folks above, and they will all want her money, and they will all scorn her."

"Nay," I said, "she is too beautiful."

"Beauty! Much women care about beauty! I have dreams at night, and I wake up terrified and the dreams remain with me still in the waste of the night like ghosts. Oh, Jack, Jack, I am a miserable woman!"

I left her. I rowed off to the ship and sought my cabin.

After dancing with his lordship, who then offered his hand to a lady of the county, Molly stood up with the young man called Tom Rising, who was by this time as sober as could be expected after such a night. He, in the hearing of everybody, loaded her with compliments of the common kind, such as would suit a milkmaid, but were not proper for a modest woman to hear. To these, however, Molly returned no reply, and danced as if she heard them not. She then rejoined Lady Anastasia, and, with her, retired to the card room, whither many of the young men followed her. She stood beside her ladyship, and obliged the young men by choosing cards for them, which they lost or won. Tom Rising followed her, and stood beside her with flushed face and trembling hands. It was remarked afterwards that he seemed to assume the care of her. He kept gazing upon Molly with fierce and ravenous looks, like a wolf who hungers after his prey and lives to wait for it. He played the while, however, and lost during the evening, I believe, some hundreds of pounds; but, for reasons which you will presently hear, he never paid that money.

When the country dances began Lord Fylingdale led out Molly once more, and placed her at the head.

It was too much. Some of the ladies refused to dance at all. Those who did were constrained and cold. But Molly was triumphant. She was not an angel. One could not blame her for resenting the flouts and scorn with which she had been treated. Now, however, she was the first lady of the company next to Lady Anastasia, because she had been taken out both for the minuet and the country dance by the first gentleman present.

I do not think that his lordship paid her any compliments. He danced as he moved, and spoke with a cold dignity which stiffened his joints. Now, in a country dance, Molly, for her part, danced all over, her feet and her body moving together, her hands and arms dancing, her eyes dancing, her hair dancing. They danced quite down the lines until every couple had had their turn.

"Miss Molly," said her partner, "you dance with the animation of a wood nymph, or, perhaps, a nymph of the ocean. I would that the ladies of London possessed half the vivacity of the Lady of Lynn."

He offered her the refreshment of wine or chocolate, but she declined, saying that the captain now would be wishing her to go home, and that her chair would be waiting.

So his lordship led her to the door, where, indeed, her chair was waiting but no captain, and, bowing low, he handed her in and shut the door, and he returned to the assembly, and Molly's chair was immediately lifted up and borne rapidly away, she sitting alone, thinking of the evening and of her great triumph, suspecting no evil and thinking of no danger.

A minute later the captain came to the door. There he saw Molly's chairmen, waiting with her chair. He looked about him. Where was Molly? He returned to the assembly. The girl was not there. He looked into the card room. His lordship was standing at the table looking on. "My lord," said the captain, in confusion, "where is my ward?"

"Miss Molly? Why, captain, I put her into her chair five minutes ago. She is gone."

"Her chair?" The captain turned pale. "Her chair is now at the door with her chairmen."

"What devilry is forward?" cried Lord Fylingdale. "Come with me, captain. Come with me!"

THE ABDUCTION

The daring attempt to carry off this heiress and to marry her by force proved in the end the most effective instrument in the success of Lord Fylingdale's schemes that could possibly be desired or designed. So great is my mistrust of the man that I have sometimes doubted whether the whole affair was not contrived by him. I dismiss the suspicion, however, not because it is in the least degree unworthy of his character, but because it is unworthy of the character of Tom Rising. To carry off a girl is not thought dishonourable, especially as it can always be made to appear that it was with the consent of the girl herself. But to enter into a conspiracy for the furtherance of another man's secret designs would be impossible for such a man. Besides, his subsequent conduct proves that he was not in any way mixed up with the grand conspiracy of which most of the conspirators knew nothing.

The chair into which Molly stepped without suspicion, and without even looking for the captain, who should have walked beside her, stood, as I have said, before the entrance of the long room. Outside, the trees were hung with coloured lamps; the place was as bright as in the sunshine of noon--one would think that nothing could be done in such a place which would not be observed. There is, however, one thing which is never observed; it is the personal appearance of servants. No one regards the boatman of the ferry; or the driver of the hackney coach; or the postboy; or the chairmen. The chair, then, stood with its door open opposite to the entrance of the long room. The chairmen stood retired, a little in the shade, but not so far off as to need calling, when Lord Fylingdale handed in the lady. This done, he stood hat in hand, bowing. The chairmen stepped up briskly, seized the poles, and marched off with the quick step of those who have a light burden to carry. No one observed the faces of the chairmen, or, indeed, thought of looking at them; no one remarked the fact that Tom Rising walked out of the long room directly afterwards and followed the chair. Within, Molly sat unsuspecting, excited by the triumphs of the evening. The chair passed through the gardens and the gates recently erected; instead of turning to the right, which would lead into Hogman's Lane, the chairmen turned to the left, through the town gate, and so, turning northwards, into the open fields. Yet Molly observed nothing. I think she fell asleep; when she came to herself she looked out of the window. On the right and on the left of her were open fields.

It was a clear evening. Towards the middle of May there is no black darkness, but only a dimmer outline and deeper shadows. Molly, who knew the country round Lynn perfectly well, understood at once that she had been carried outside the town; that she was no longer on the high road but on one of the cross tracks--one cannot call them roads which connect the villages--so that there was very little chance of meeting any passengers or vehicles. And by the stars she saw that they were carrying her in a northerly direction.

She perceived, therefore, that some devilry was going on. Now, she was not a girl who would try to help herself in such a deserted and lonely spot by shrieking; nor did she see that any good purpose would be served by calling to the chairmen to let her out. She sat up, therefore, her heart beating a little faster than usual, and considered what she should do.

No one is ignorant that an heiress goes in continual peril of abduction. To run away with an heiress; to persuade her; threaten her; cajole her; or terrify her into marriage is a thing which has been attempted hundreds of times, and has succeeded many times. Nay, there are, I am told, women of cracked reputation and in danger of arrest and the King's Bench for debt who will visit places of resort in order to pass themselves off as heiresses to great fortunes, hoping thereby to tempt some gallant adventurer to carry them off, and so to take over their debts instead of the fortunes they expected. And there are stories in plenty of adventurers looking about them for an heiress whom they may carry off at the risk of a duello, which generally follows, at the hands of the lady's friends.

Molly, therefore, though not a woman of fashion, understood by this time her value, especially in the eyes of the adventurer. And she also understood quite clearly at this moment that she had been carried away without the knowledge of her guardian, and that the intention of the abductor was nothing more or less than a forced marriage and the acquisition of her fortune. "Jack," she told me afterwards, "I confess that I did wish, just for a little, that you might be coming along the road with a trusty club. But then I remembered that I was no puny thread paper of a woman, but as strong as most men, and I took courage. Weapon I had none, except a steel bodkin gilt stuck in my hair--a small thing, but it might serve if any man ventured too near. And I thought, besides, that there would be a hue and cry, and that the country round would be scoured in all directions. They would most certainly grow tired of carrying me about in a chair; they must stop somewhere and put me into some place or other. I thought, also, that I could easily manage to keep off one man, or perhaps two, and that it would be very unlikely that more than one would attempt to force me into marriage. Perhaps I might escape. Perhaps I might barricade myself. Perhaps my bodkin might help me to save myself. I would willingly stab a man to the heart with it. Perhaps I might pick up something--a griddle would be a weapon handy for braining a man, or even a frying pan would do. Whatever happened, Jack, I was resolved that nothing, not even fear of murder, should make me marry the man who had carried me off."

There are found scattered about the byroads of the country many small inns for the accommodation of persons of the baser sort. Hither resort, on the way from one village to another, the sturdy tramp, whose back is scored by many a whipping at the hands of constable and head-borough. What does he care? He hitches his shoulders and goes his way, lifting from the hedge and helping himself from the poultry yard. Here you may find the travelling tinker, who has a language of his own. Here you will find the pedlar with his pack. He is part trader, part receiver of stolen goods, part thief, part carrier of messages and information between thieves. Here also you will meet the footpad and the highwayman; the smuggler and the poacher, and the fugitive. If an honest man should put up at one of these places he will meet with strange companions in the kitchen, and with strange bedfellows in the chamber. If they suspect that he has money they will rob him; if they think that he will give evidence against them they will murder him. In a word, such a wayside inn is the receptacle of all those who live by robbery, by begging, by pretence, and lies and roguery.

It was before such a wayside inn that the chairmen stopped. Molly knew it very well. It was at a place called Riffley's Spring; the inn is "The Traveller's Rest"; it stood just two and a half miles from Lynn, and one mile from the village of Wootton. It was a small house, gloomy, and ill-lighted at the best; there was a door in the middle. The diamond panes of the windows were mostly broken in their leaden frames; the woodwork was decaying; the upper floor projecting darkened the lower rooms; in the dim twilight, when the chair stopped, the house looked a dark and noisome place, fit only for cutthroats and murderers.

The poles were withdrawn and the door thrown open. Molly, looking out, saw before her, hat in hand, her late partner, the young fellow they called Tom Rising.

"Oh!" she cried. "Is it possible? I thought I was in the hands of some highwayman. Is this your doing, sir? I was told that you were a gentleman."

He bowed low, and began a little speech which he had prepared in readiness:

"Madam, you will confess that you are yourself alone to blame. Fired with the sight of so much loveliness, what wonder if I aspired to possess myself of these charms. Sure a Laplander himself would be warmed, even in his frozen region."

"Sir, what nonsense is this? What do you mean?"

"Sir, will you order your fellows to take me back?"

"No, madam, I will not."

"Then, sir, will you tell me what you propose to do?"

"I intend to marry you."

"Against my consent?"

"I have you in my power. I shall ask your consent. If you grant it we shall enter upon married life as a pair of lovers should. If you refuse--I shall be the master, but you will be the wife."

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