Stanley Weyman - Sophia - A Romance

"And a good riddance!" muttered Mrs. Martha, looking over the balusters. "I never could abear her!"

The glasses of the chair, which had been standing some time at the door, were dimmed by moisture, and in the dusk of the evening its trembling occupant had no cause to fear recognition. But as the men lifted and bore her from the door, every blurred light that peeped in on her, and in an instant was gone, every smoking shop-lamp that glimmered a moment through the mist, and betrayed the moving forms that walked the sideway, was, to Sophia, an eye noting and condemning her. As the chairmen swung into Portugal Street, and, turning eastwards, skirted the long stand of coaches and the group of link-men that waited before Burlington House, she felt that all eyes were upon her, and she shrank farther and farther into the recesses of the chair.

A bare-footed orange girl, who ran beside the window waving ballads or bills of the play, a coach rattling up behind and bespattering the glass as it passed, a link-boy peering in and whining to be hired, caused her a succession of panics. On top of these, the fluttering alarms of the moment, pressed the consciousness of a step taken that could never be retraced; nor was it until the chairmen, leaving Piccadilly behind them, had entered the comparative quiet of Air Street, and a real difficulty rose before her, that she rallied her faculties.

The men were making for Soho, and if left to take their course, would, in a quarter of an hour set her down at the door of Lady Betty's home in King's Square. That would not do. But to stay them, and to vary the order from "Home" to Mr. Wollenhope's house in Davies Street, where her lover lodged, did not now seem the simple and easy step it had appeared a few minutes earlier, when the immediate difficulty was to escape from the house. Lady Betty had said that the men knew her. In that case, as soon as Sophia spoke to them they would scent something wrong, and, apprised of the change of fares, might wish to know more. They might even decline to take her whither she bade them!

The difficulty was real, but for that very reason Sophia's courage rose to meet it. At present she knew where she was; a minute or two later she might not know. The sooner she took the route into her own hands, therefore, the better it would be; and as the men turned from the narrow street of Air into Brewer Street and swung to the right towards Soho, she tapped the glass. The chair moved on. With impatience, natural in the circumstances, Sophia tapped again and more sharply. This time the front bearer heard, and gave the word. The chair was set down, and the man, wiping his brow, raised the lid.

"What is it, my lady?" he said, with a rich Irish accent. "Shure, and isn't it right ye are? If we went by Windmill Street, which some would be for going, there's a sight of coaches that way."

"I don't want to go to King's Square," Sophia answered firmly.

"Eh, my lady, no? But you said 'Home.'"

"I want to go to the West End again," Sophia said.

"I've remembered something; I want to go to Davies Street."

"Faith, but it's a fine trate your ladyship's had," the Irishman cried good-humouredly, "and finely I should be scolded if his noble lordship your father knew 'twas with us you went; but it's home now you must go; you've played truant long enough, my lady! And-holy Mother!" – with a sudden exclamation-"'Tis not your ladyship! Oh, the saints, Micky, she's changed!"

The second chairman came round the chair, stared, and rubbed his head; and the two gazed in perplexity at poor Sophia, whose face alone appeared above the side of the conveyance. "Take me to Davies Street by Berkeley Square," she commanded, tapping the front impatiently. "To Mr. Wollenhope's house. What does it matter to you where I go?"

"To Davies Street?"

"Yes; cannot you hear?"

"Faith, and I hear," the Irishman answered, staring. "But then, the saints help us, 'tis not yourself. 'Twas her ladyship hired me to go to Arlington Street, and to take her home, and it's not leaving her I'll be!"

"But her ladyship lent me the chair!" Sophia cried desperately. "She'll take another. Cannot you understand? She knows all about it. Now take me to Davies Street."

Her voice trembled with anxiety, for at any moment she might be seen and recognised. A lamp in an oilman's window, one of the few lights that at long intervals broke the dull gloom of Brewer Street, shone on the group. Already a couple of chairs had swung by, the carriers casting, as they passed, a curious look at the stationary chair; and now a coach, approaching from the Soho direction, was near at hand. Every second she delayed there was a second on the rack. What would Sir Hervey or Lord Lincoln, what would any of the hundred acquaintances she had made since she came to town say of a girl found unprotected, after nightfall, astray in the public streets?

Alas, the men still hesitated, and while they stood staring the coach came up. Before Sophia could add reproaches to her commands, it was checked opposite the group. The coachman leant down, and in a tone of disappointment-as if it were only then he saw that the chair was occupied-"You've a fare, have you?" he said. "You can't take a lady to Crown Court, King Street?"

Before the Irishman could answer, "Here my man," a woman's voice cried from the coach, "I want to go to Crown Court, St. James's, and the coach can't enter. Double fare if you are quick! Here, let me out!"

"But, faith, ma'am, I've a fare," Mick cried.

"They've a fare," the coachman explained, leaning down anew.

"The fare can take my coach," the voice answered imperiously; and in a twinkling, a smartly dressed woman, wearing red and white and plenty of both, yet handsome after a fashion, had pushed, first her hoop and then herself out of the coach. "See here, ma'am," she cried, seeing Sophia's scared face, "the coach is paid, and will take you anywhere in reason. 'Twill make no difference to you and all to me, and a mite of good nature is never thrown away! I've to go where a coach cannot go. Up a court, you understand."

Sophia hesitated. Why did not the lady, whose bold eyes did not much commend her, pursue her way to Portugal Street, and descend there, where chairs might be had in plenty? Or why, again, was she in such a clamorous hurry and so importunate? On the other hand, if all were right, nothing could have fallen out more happily for herself; it was no wonder that, after a momentary hesitation, she gave a grudging assent. One of the chairmen, who seemed willing enough to make the change, opened the door; she stepped out and mechanically climbed into the coach. "To Davies Street, Mayfair," she said, sinking back. "To Mr. Wollenhope's, if you please."

Quickly as she took her part, the strange lady was quicker; in a second she was in the chair and the chair was gone. It seemed to vanish. A moment and the coach also started, and lumbered westwards along Brewer Street. Now at last Sophia was at liberty to consider-with no obstacle short of Mr. Wollenhope's door-how she should present herself to her lover, and how it behoved him to receive her.

She found it more easy to answer the second question than the first. Well indeed she knew how it became him to receive her. If in men survived any delicacy, any reverence, any gratitude, these were her due who came to him thus; these must appear in his greeting, or the worst guided, the most hapless of maids, was happy beside her. He must show himself lover, brother, parent, friend, in his one person; for he was her all. The tenderest homage, the most delicate respect, a tact that foreran offence, a punctilio that saw it everywhere, the devotion of a Craven, the gratitude of a Peterborough, were her right who came to him thus, a maiden trusting in his honour. She was clear on this; and not once or twice, but many times, many times as she pressed one hand on the other and swallowed the tell-tale lump that rose and rose in her throat, she swore that if she did not meet with these, if he did not greet her with them, plain in eye and lip-aye, and with a thousand dainty flowers of love, a thousand tender thoughts and imaginings, not of her, but for her-she had better have been the mud through which the wheels of her coach rolled!