CHAPTER II
LADY CYNTHIA CAREW

Having come to this odd resolve, it behoved us to lose no time. But whither we should go, neither of us knew. North, south, east, or west, one latitude was as good as another. We should be equally served in each. As for the means at our disposal, we had the sum of twelve-pence halfpenny sterling. I am sure that much the same thoughts were uppermost in the minds of us both, for the moment I looked at little Cynthia sitting on the couch with a tight mouth and ratter quizzical eyes, I broke forth into a shout of laughter, which she returned so promptly that it became a question as to whom the honour of the first peal belonged.

In the midst of this pleasantry I walked to the door of the room and locked it again. I had no mind to be taken unawares by the enemy; and provided I was not, François' example had shown that a way of escape was always open.

"Now, my dear," says I, "we have no time to lose; let us be putting our few affairs in order. Look round this despoiled chamber, and tell me if you observe any article in it that could be turned into money at a pawnshop, or is likely otherwise to serve us on our journey. I am sorry to say that every object of vertu that I ever possessed upon which we might at a pinch have raised a seven-shilling piece has already been called upon to perform that office. There is one exception even to these, it is true, but that cannot help us now, and I rejoice to think so. For five minutes before your arrival I gave away to a connoisseur, a dilettante, a lover of the beautiful, Sir Godfrey Kneller's picture of my famous grandfather. I think I could never have held up my head again had I given up that eminent nobleman to the ignoble usages I have suggested. I foresaw this calamity; let me take the credit therefore of its aversion."

"You gave it away without receiving a farthing for it!" cries Cynthia aghast. "Oh, what a folly, Jack! Had we it now we could make thirty shillings of it at any dealer's."

"I know, I know!" says I triumphantly, "I grant that; therefore do you not more clearly see how finely I have acted by my grandfather?"

"Burn me if I do," says Cynthia. "Jack, what a fool thou art! For I see never a thing of value left in the place; or stay, we might put that pair of old iron pistols in a case and raise a loaf of bread on them. I suppose that on the floor is the one with which you tried to take your life, and as the one other's cocked, I suppose that's loaded too."

"Tried to take my life," says I. "Cynthia, what words are these?"

"A truce to dissimulation, if you please," says Cynthia tartly, "for feather-headed fellow that you are, yet do no better at it than any of the other arts and sciences at which you have tried and failed."

I turned to the table and began sorting a handful of cards to cover my confusion. A clever woman is the devil! Cynthia, to add a sting to her speech, picked up the discharged pistol from the carpet, ostentatiously searched for its case, and put it in. She then took up the other.

"Is this loaded, or is it not?" she asked.

"No, it's not loaded," says I. "Pull down the trigger and put it in too."

"Then, if it's not loaded, why was it cocked?" The question was decidedly disconcerting. I was by no means willing to go into the details of that matter, and therefore hesitated to find a reason.

"You don't know whether it's loaded or not," says Cynthia, sternly.

"Most certainly I do. Have I not said that it is not loaded?"

"And have I not said," says the impudent Cynthia, "that you don't know whether it's loaded or not?"

"But, my dear child," says I, "have I not positively said that the thing's not loaded?"

"Oh yes, I admit that," says the provoking creature. "But you must admit too, sir, that I have more faith in my own judgment than I have in yours. I say again that you don't know whether that pistol is loaded or whether it is not."

"I'll lay you two to one in hundreds that I do," says I hotly.

"Would not a case of iron pistols against the sum of twelvepence halfpenny be more appropriate in the circumstances?" says Cynthia.

"I believe you are right there," says I.

Cynthia then presented the pistol at the wall and a strange thing happened. The room was filled with a reverberating crash, and when the smoke that arose had lifted a little it was discovered that a large mirror had been shivered into a thousand pieces.

"There," says Cynthia triumphantly.

As for me, I stood aghast for a moment, perfectly at a loss to explain the pistol's strange behaviour. Then I suddenly broke out into a fit of uncontrollable laughter; the admirable François had loaded them both.

It was then the turn of Cynthia to stand aghast.

"I hope your misfortunes have not deprived you of your reason," says she, more tartly than ever; and added, "I knew all along that you didn't know whether it was loaded or not."

"Come, come!" says I, keenly anxious, you may be sure, to change the topic. "We have already tarried here over-long. I will tell you the whole story in a more convenient place and season. If we don't go at once, I am afraid we shall not go at all."

"True," says Cynthia, seating herself again on the couch with the most deliberate and provoking coolness.

"What new whimsey is this?" says I, utterly nonplussed.

"I think, my Lord Tiverton," says Cynthia, with remarkable gravity, "that you have overlooked an important particular."

"Which? What?" says I.

"Nay, my lord," says she, "I am the last person in the world to remind you."

That might be true enough so far as it went, but the pretty roguish chit composed her features and her person into such an affectation of solemnity, and there was such a saucy twinkle in her eyes too, that all the words in the English tongue could not have spoken more plainly than she did without uttering any. It is, I suppose, one of the highest gifts of her sex, though to be sure, would it were exercised more!

"Dammy," says I, "you mean – er – er; you mean that I must ask you to marry me."

Instead of replying at once, she bent down and picked up half-a-dozen cards from the floor, arranged them in the shape of a fan, and held them in front of her eyes.

"La," says she, "your lordship is too kind. Pray ascribe my blushes to my country breeding."

"Pah!" says I, "we have not the time for play-acting now. The moment is very ill-chosen."

"Oh, I grant you that," says she, "but as you will allow that it was none of my choosing, why should I forego the peculiar privileges that my sex have ever derived from this position? No, as I'm a woman, I will have this thing carried through in the most proper and approved manner. Ods lud, sir! what notions have you got! I will be coy if I choose, or haughty, or easy, or gracious, or mocking, or disdainful, just as my mood is and as I've a mind to be. Now then, my lord, down on to your noble knees, and pour forth your foolish speeches that are meant to be so grand, which you must forget in the middle, whereon you will descend out of a rather turgid poetry into a bald and somewhat blasphemous prose. For I will have your lordship to know that I will be wooed as a woman, else I will not be wooed at all. Down, down on to your knees, my lord, and up, up with your apostrophes."

"What a consummate folly is this," says I, "when at any moment we may be ta'en."

But the pretty little fool sat as demure as a mouse, not relaxing a lip or twitching an eyebrow, i' faith as adorable a picture of a person as any I've seen off a painted canvas. There was that tantalizing air about her which at once invited, yet forbade; that aroused that which it denied. I vow nothing could have been more taking than the sight of little Cynthia sitting there as straight as any arrow that ever Cupid shot, her knees and heels together, and her hands spread out with the palms turned down, and her dainty toes peeping from underneath her petticoat. Indeed, so was I worked on by her graces and airs that I was like to forget the grim pass in which we were involved. Nay, I gradually began to solicit her in a formal manner; a piece of behaviour that contributed as much to her whimsical pleasure as it did to my embarrassment. And when in accents of undying regard, I came to ask for her hand in exchange for my heart and fortune, she was so charmed with the natural fervour with which I did it, that she stopped me imperiously, in the middle of much passion, and says: "I would have your lordship go over again that splendid passage that you have just uttered, that hath the fine swearing and the great humility in it. I never heard anything choicer; Mr. Betterton never surpassed it."

And when I had humoured her as much as she wished and that was not until I was thirsty and hot, and she was somewhat weary of keeping the strict attitude that she thought best suited to receive my addresses in, says she: "I declare, sir, you have pleased me vastly. You are as good a suitor as any of them all. Mr. Waring never wooed me half so well. As for Mr. Stokes, and Colonel Regan, and Sir John Dufty, and my lord Viscount Brighouse, you compare very well with them too. You have not the fine brawny pease-and-bacon appearance of Sir John, it is true, nor is your voice so rich and noble as the Colonel's, begorra, nor is your nose so well curved as Mr. Stoke's, nor have you a pretty little lisp like my lord Viscount, but in the sum-total of your attributes you do very fairly well. And therefore as your lordship's fortune is so considerable, and you have already gained the approbation of my father, I think the only course open to me – Oh, Jack, listen! What in the name of heaven is that?"

"You may well ask," says I. "One, two, three, four, five probably or more, according to their boots on the stairs, gentlemen from Bow Street come to wait upon us."

"Oh, what shall we do!" says poor Cynthia, clapping her hands.

"Keep very calm, child, and carefully heed what I say. They will not molest you; I am their game. But I doubt gravely whether I shall fall to them at present. My way lies through that window and along the tiles, and whilst they follow, you will simply go downstairs and walk out at the front door. Go as swiftly as you can down to Piccadilly to the gates of Hyde Park. And if I am not already come there before you, wait till I arrive. It is to be considered, of course, that I may have more difficulty than I apprehend in slipping these fellows."

Here the door was roughly taken and the next instant so heavy a blow was delivered against it as partly drove in one of the panels. I had just time to run into the adjoining chamber for a hat and a riding-cloak, to plant a kiss between brave little Cynthia's brows, and abjure her not to be afraid, when the door was driven in, and three or four ugly wretches came tumbling one upon another pell-mell into the room.