John Bloundelle-Burton - Fortune's My Foe

"You have been drinking," Bufton said, fingering his chin still. "Drinking again. Come, tell me once more before you forget. About the meeting? Where, and when is it?"

"Have I not said! At the lime-tree avenue, leading up to Fanshawe Manor. Eight of the evening is the hour, and Thursday is the day. Win her-fail not to win her; she is yours for the trouble, and then there is the fortune and a large per centum for me."

"I shall not fail."

"I'll make very sure you do not. Remember, if I am a broken man-I-I can break-bah! Threats are unnecessary. Now, I want money."

Saying which he flung the Universal Chronicle aside, and then started at the sight of the little heap of gold before him. "What!" he exclaimed. "What! And three pound twelve shilling pieces, too. Gad! No Shoe Lane ordinary for me to-night."

Whereupon he took two of those coins and dropped them into his waistcoat pocket.

The coach-it was the Self-Defence, which did the journey from the "Swan with Two Necks" in Lad Lane to the "Globe" at Portsmouth in ten hours and a quarter-had passed Purbrook, and was nearing Fanshawe, which hamlet lay, as all the world knew, or ought to have known, between the former place and Portsdown Hill, which is some five miles from Portsmouth. About which village the new road-book said, amongst other things, "On L., i,m., Fanshawe Manor, late General Thorne. Justice of the Peace, etc.; now Miss Ariadne Thorne." So that, as all who read may see, since Cary's Guide is understandable enough, the child born seventeen years ago off Cartagena, in the ship after which she was named, was now the owner of an estate. And what else she owned has already been made clear.

The June evening was delicious in its soft summer coolness as, now, the Self-Defence drew near that ancient inn, "The Hautboy," it retaining on its equally ancient sign-board its old-time spelling of Hautbois; and from the box-seat the Beau, who was the only occupant beside the coachman, made ready to descend. A very gallant beau he looked, too, as, throwing off his long light drugget cloak-assumed to fend the dust from his bravery underneath-he displayed his costly attire; attire consisting of his best laced scarlet summer coat, his blue waistcoat, which was a mass of galloon, and his best satin breeches, the whole surmounted by the golden peruke and the much-laced three-cornered hat.

"You will be a-staying at the manor then, my lord?" the coachman said now, deeming that one so fine and brave-seeming as this spark whom he had brought from London could be no other than a lord going courting the heiress of Fanshawe. "I'll go bail the lady is a-looking eagerly for you."

"Not positively at the manor," Beau Bufton replied. "Not positively, as yet. For to-night, at least, at the inn. There is, I should suppose, good accommodation for a gentleman?"

"Ay, there is, my lord; that is, if so be as how one requires not them damned French kickshaws, which they say are now the mode. But if good beef and mutton, a pullet, or- Bill," he broke off to speak to his mate, the guard, "sound the horn. The O'boy is in sight."

None descended at that old hostelry with the exception of the Beau himself, since, with the addition of one personage inside who was booked for Portsmouth, nobody but the Beau had that day travelled from London. Therefore his own descent took but very little time. A small valise was handed out from the boot, the customary fee of half-a-crown was distributed to guard and coachman, the landlady nodded to (she staring somewhat amazed at Bufton's finery all the time, and more particularly at his chin, which, she told her gossips later, gave her "a mort o' fear"), and the visitor entered the low-roofed passage. Then, as he did so, he felt his sleeve pulled gently by a woman standing in the doorway, who, on having attracted his attention, curtsied two or three times.

"Ha!" he said, glancing at her and noticing that, though plainly but comfortably dressed, she had a strangely worn and seamed face, such as those who have led an existence much exposed to the elements often possess. "Ha! It should be the good woman Mr. Granger told me of. Mrs. – Mrs. – ?"

"Pottle, your worship's honour. Miss Ariadne's nurse from the first."

"Ay, Mrs. Pottle. Well, you would speak with me? You have some news?"

"If it pleases your honour. Will your honour step this way?"

It was indeed Mrs. Pottle, one of those women who in past days had assisted at Ariadne's birth. Yet with now but little of the comeliness left for which she had once been distinguished, the rumbullion, or its substitutes in England, usquebaugh and gin, having done their work. Time also had made her grey, and in some places bald. Otherwise, she was not much changed. As for her whilom companion in the Ariadne , she was gone. She lay now within the common grave at Gibraltar.

"I shall see her to-night?" Beau Bufton asked, somewhat impatiently-eagerly-as he stepped into a side room after her. "She will be there?"

"In truth she will, the pretty thing," the woman answered, roving an eye, and that a somewhat watery one, on him, "in very truth. At eight, in the lime-tree avenue. Your worship can find it?"

"Doubtless. I may therefore rely on seeing her?"

"It is to tell you so that I'm here. Oh! sir, you will be good to her. She loves you fondly."

"Tush! What do I seek her for except to be kind?" Then he said, "Will she consent, think you, to what I desire-to-to-a speedy marriage?"

"She loves you," Mrs. Pottle replied, with a gleam in her eye, "while, as for the marriage-well! young, tender though she is, and full of a maiden's fears, she longs for it."

"She shall be gratified," Beau Bufton said, smirking and pulling at his chin so that Mrs. Pottle stared at him, wondering in her own mind if he were trying to pull it off. "I do avow she shall as soon as may be. I will go seek your parson here-"

"Not here," Mrs. Pottle said, laying on his arm a finger, which he noticed had lost the top joint-it had, in truth, been shot off by a spent bullet in an attack made by the Ariadne and Kingston on five Spanish galleys, the shot coming through the scuttle of a cabin in which she was calmly cooking-"not here. You must do that in London town. She is a maiden averse to talk and gossip. She would not suffer-"

"I will do it wher'er she pleases, so that she is mine. Now go, good woman, and tell her I shall be there. I must make a meal first and also remove the dust from off my clothes. Go now."

"There was a promise," Mrs. Pottle said, with an appearance of hesitation, of modesty, which sat strangely on her rough face. "The gentleman, your friend, he gave a promise of reward-"

"Curse me!" replied the Beau; "you waiting-women, you go-betweens, are all alike. Damme! I know there was a promise of five hundred guineas. But-when we leave the church-when all is over. Do you think I have such a sum on me now?"

"Not now, dear gentleman. Oh! no. Not now. But a little earnest. A little-"

"How much?" asked Bufton, looking at her and recognising that here was a cormorant who would do nothing for nothing. "How much?"

"A little. Just a little. A trifle. Ten guineas will not hurt a pretty man like you."

"Five," said Bufton. "Five, now. Five." Then, seeing a strange look in Mrs. Pottle's eyes, which his wonderful knowledge of human nature, whereon he so congratulated himself, did not assist him in fathoming, he said, "Well, ten, then. Here," and slowly drawing forth some loose guineas from his waistcoat, he put them in her open palm.

"A noble gentleman," said Mrs. Pottle, pocketing them in an instant, "a real gentleman. Now, sir, I go. To-night," she repeated, "in the lime avenue, at eight," and so withdrew.

Yet, doubtless because of the rough life she had led for years, her gratitude evaporated swiftly the moment she was outside the door of the room and had closed it on him; while her face assumed an expression strangely unlike that which it had worn when she thanked him for his gift.