CHAPTER III

"OH, MISTRESS MINE, WHERE ART THOU ROAMING?"

"Lavina! Have done!"

It was a whispered entreaty. The victim of the feather of a quill pen

tickling her neck dared not raise her voice. Miss Pinwell, the

proprietress of the extremely genteel seminary for young ladies, Queen

Square--quite an aristocratic retreat some two hundred years ago--was

pacing the school-room. Her cold, sharp eyes roamed over the shapely

heads--black, golden, brown, auburn, flaxen--of some thirty girls--eager

to detect any sign of levity and prompt to inflict summary punishment.

"Miss Fenton, why are you not working?" came the inquiry sharply from

Miss Pinwell's thin lips.

Lavinia Fenton withdrew the instrument of torture and Priscilla

Coupland's neck was left in peace. It was done so swiftly that Miss

Pinwell's glance, keen as it was, never detected the movement. But the

lady had her suspicions nevertheless, and she marched with the erectness

of a grenadier to where Lavinia Fenton sat with her eyes fixed upon her

copy book, apparently absorbed in inscribing over and over again the

moral maxim at the top of the page, and, it may be hoped, engrafting it

on her mind.

The young lady's industry did not deceive Miss Pinwell. Lavinia Fenton

was the black sheep--lamb perhaps is a more fitting word, she was but

seventeen--of the school. But somehow her peccadilloes were always

forgiven. She had a smile against which severity--even Miss

Pinwell's--was powerless.

"What were you doing just now when you were not writing?"

The head was slowly raised. The wealth of wavy brown hair fell back from

the broad smooth brow. The large limpid imploring eyes looked straight,

without a trace of guilt in them, at the thin-faced schoolmistress. The

beautiful mouth, the upper lip of which with its corners slightly

upturned was delightfully suggestive of a smile, quivered slightly but

not with fear, rather with suppressed amusement.

"Nothing madam," was the demure reply.

"Nothing? I don't believe you. Your hand was not on your book. Where was

it?"

"Oh, _that_. Yes, a wasp was flying near us. I thought it was going to

settle on Priscilla Coupland's neck and I brushed it away with my pen."

Miss Pinwell could say nothing to this, especially as she distinctly

heard at that moment the hum of some winged insect. It _was_ a wasp, a

real one, not the insect of Lavinia's fervid imagination. The windows

were open and it had found its way in from Lamb's Conduit Fields, at a

happy moment allying itself with Lavinia.

Others heard it as well and sprang to their feet shrieking. The chance

of escaping from tiresome moral maxims was too good to be lost.

"Young ladies----" commanded Miss Pinwell, but she could get no further.

Her voice was lost in the din. The lady no more loved wasps than did her

pupils. She retreated as the wasp advanced. The intruder ranged itself

on the side of the girls and circled towards their instructress with

malevolence in every turn and vicious intent in its buzz.

The only one not afraid was Lavinia Fenton who, waving a pocket

handkerchief met the foe bravely but without success. The enemy refused

to turn tail. Other girls plucking up courage joined the champion and

soon the school-room was in a hubbub. Probably the army of hoydenish

maidens were not anxious the conflict should cease--it was far more

entertaining than maxims, arithmetic and working texts on samples--and

Miss Pinwell seeing this, summoned Bridget, the brawny housemaid, who

with a canvas apron finally caught and squashed the rash intruder.

It was sometime before the excitement died down, and meanwhile Lavinia

Fenton's remissness of conduct was forgotten--indeed her intrepidity

singled her out for praise, which she received with becoming

graciousness.

But before the day was out she relapsed into her bad ways. She could or

would do nothing right. Miss Pinwell chided her for carelessness, she

retorted saucily. As discipline had to be maintained she was at last

condemned to an hour with the backboard and there she sat in a corner of

the room on a high legged chair with a small and extremely uncomfortable

oval seat made still more uncomfortable by it sloping slightly forward.

As for the back, it was high and narrow. It afforded no rest for the

spine. The delinquent was compelled to sit perfectly upright. Thus it

was at the same time an instrument of correction and of deportment.

Whatever bodily defects the early Georgian damsels possessed they

certainly had straight backs and level shoulders. The backboard was

admirable training for the carriage of the stately sacque, the graceful

flirting of the fan and for the dancing of the grave and dignified

minuet.

The day was nearing its end. The hour for retiring was early, and at

dusk the head of each bedroom took her candle from the hall table and

after a low curtsy to the mistress of the establishment preceded those

who slept in the same room up the broad staircase. The maidens'

behaviour was highly decorous until they were safe in their respective

bed-chambers, when their tongues were unloosed.

Oddly enough Lavinia, who was usually full of chatter, had to-night

little to say. Her schoolmates rallied her on her silent tongue.

"Oh, don't bother me, Priscilla," she exclaimed pettishly. "I suppose I

can do as I like when Miss Pinwell isn't looking."

"My dear, you generally do that when she _is_. I never saw such

favouritism. I declare it's not fair. You were terribly tormenting all

day. Anybody but you would have been sent to bed and kept on bread and

water. What's the matter with you, miss?"

"Nothing. I'm tired, that's all."

"First time in your life then. You were lively enough this afternoon

when you nearly got me into a scrape trying to make me laugh with your

tickling. It was as much as I could do to keep from screaming,"

exclaimed Priscilla angrily.

"Well, you can do your screaming now if it pleases you, so long as it

doesn't bring Miss Pinwell upstairs. Let me alone. I'm thinking about

something."

"Some _one_, my dear, you mean," put in a tall fair girl, Grace Armitage

by name. "Confess now, isn't it the new curate at St. George's? He

seemed to have no eyes for any one but you last Sunday evening. How

cruel to disturb the poor man's thoughts."

"Console yourself, Grace dear--_you're_ never likely to do that."

The girls tittered at Lavinia's repartee. All knew that Grace Armitage

was the vainest of the vain and believed every man who cast his eyes in

her direction was in love with her. She went white with anger. But she

was slow witted. She had no sarcastic rejoinder ready and if she had it

was doubtful if she would have uttered it. Lavinia Fenton, the soul of

sweetness and amiability, could show resolute fight when roused. Miss

Armitage turned away with a disdainful toss of her head.

The others knew this too, for they ceased to irritate Lavinia and

continued their talk among themselves. All the same, the principal

topic was Lavinia Fenton. She was so strangely unlike herself to-night.

Half an hour later the room was in silence save for the whispering

between the occupants of those beds sufficiently close to each other to

permit this luxury. When the neighbouring clock of St. George's,

Bloomsbury, chimed half-past nine even these subdued sounds had ceased.

At half-past ten the moon was at the full. The pale light streamed

through the small window panes and threw the shadows of the broad

framework lattice-wise on Lavinia's bed which was next the window. In

daylight she had but to lie on her right side and she could see across

the fields and the rising ground each side of the Fleet river to the

villages of Islington and Hornsey.

Gradually the latticed shadow crept upwards. It at last reached

Lavinia's face. She was not asleep. Her eyes very wide open were staring

at the ceiling with a vague, wistful expression. She gave a long sigh,

her body twisted, and leaning on her right elbow, her left hand

insinuated itself beneath the pillow and drew forth a letter which she

held in the moonlight and read. Her forehead puckered as though she were

in doubt. Her steadfast eyes seemed to contradict the smile curving her

upper lip. The paper slipped from her limp fingers and she pondered, her

colour deepening the while. Nothing short of a love letter could have

caused that delightful blush. What she read was this:--

"MY DEAREST LITTLE CHARMER,--

"My soul is full of expectancy. I can think of nothing but you--the

divinest being that ever tortured the heart of man. But the torture

is exquisite because I know when I fold you in my arms it will

change to bliss. You will keep your promise and meet me at the

'Conduit Head' to-morrow midnight, will you not? I can scarce

contain myself with thinking of it. If you come not what remains

for me but death? Without you life is worthless. Come. My coach

will be in readiness and the parson waiting for us at the Fleet.

"When we are married, as I've told you, my family cannot refuse to

receive my wife, but until we are made one they will do all they

can to keep us apart. My father insists upon my marrying a rich

city madam, but I'll none of her. I will only have you, my

beauteous Lavinia. I swear to you by all the gods that you shall be

back at school before dawn, as on the night of the dance when I

first saw my adorable divinity. No one will know but us two. It

will be a delicious secret. After I have seen you safely to Queen

Square and have parted from my dearest--it will be misery to bid

thee adieu--I shall ride post haste to my father and tell him

everything. He will at first be angry, but he will relent when he

sees your loveliness. We shall be forgiven and Heaven will be ours.

"Panting with impatience, ever your most devoted humble servant,

ARCHIBALD DORRIMORE."

Present taste would pronounce this effusion to be extravagant,

rhapsodical, high-flown, super-sentimental, but it did not read so to

Lavinia. It was in the fashion of the times--indeed it approached nearer

modern ideas than the majority of love letters of that day which

generally began with "Madam" without any endearing prefix. Lavinia liked

it none the less because it was not so formal as the letters which some

girls had shown her in all pride and secrecy.

But it troubled her all the same.

"I wonder if I really--really love him," she mused. "I suppose I do or I

shouldn't be continually thinking about him. But to be married--oh,

that's a different thing. Perhaps he'd want to live in the country.

That would be horribly dull, especially if he had to come to London

often. He hopes to be a great lawyer some day he says. I don't think I'd

like him in a wig and gown and white bands. He would look so horribly

old. Oh, but I wouldn't let him have his rooms in the Temple after we're

married. He'll have to burn his musty old books. He won't need them. His

father's very rich. He's told me so hundreds of times."

A half dozen times would have been nearer the mark and this would

probably represent the number of their meetings, once at a ball at

Sadler's Wells Gardens and afterwards at stolen opportunities which the

ingenious Lavinia contrived to bring about.

To tell the honest truth, Lavinia's gallant Archibald Dorrimore, the

young Templar, served only to amuse the young lady. She was not blind to

the fact that he was a fop and not blessed with too much brain. She had

seen many of his sort before and did not trust them. But Dorrimore

struck her as more sincere than the rest. Besides, he was very good

looking.

Lavinia couldn't help having admirers. Nature should not have endowed

her with such alluring, innocent looking eyes, with so sweet a mouth.

She had always had some infatuated young man hovering about her even

when she was her mother's drudge at the coffee house in Bedfordbury.

Perhaps she inherited flirting from that buxom, good-looking mother who

had the reputation of knowing her way quite well where a man was

concerned.

"Archibald Dorrimore will be _Sir_ Archibald some day," she mused. "It

would be rare to be called her ladyship. I can hear the footman saying:

'Your coach is waiting, my lady.' Lady Dorrimore--how well it sounds!

Archibald loves me...."

May be this conviction settled the matter. The girl slid out of bed and

dressed herself hurriedly, though eleven o'clock had only just struck

and she had plenty of time. Perhaps she thought that if she hesitated

any longer she might alter her mind and not be married after all.

Despite her haste she was not neglectful of herself. Now and again she

glanced at the little mirror over which the girls squabbled daily,

smoothed her rebellious hair and settled the Nithsdale hood of her cloak

coquettishly. Then she noiselessly crept from the room, flitted down the

staircase and was at the hall door shooting back its heavy

bolts--fortunately always kept well greased--and lifting the massive

chain which stretched across the centre. Street doors were well guarded

and ground floor windows barred in those days, and not without reason.

The moon was still shining brightly and Lavinia drew her hood closer

over her face, though there was little need, for the fields were

deserted. She turned to the east, keeping in the shadow, slight as it

was, of the school garden wall. When the "Conduit Head" at the top of

Red Lion Street (the northern end now known as Lamb's Conduit Street)

was reached she paused and her heart went pit-a-pat. If Dorrimore should

not be there!

She stopped, overcome by sudden scruples. In a flash her life at the

school, its monotony and discipline, the irksomeness of regular work,

rose before her! She had been some months at Miss Pinwell's

establishment and her restless soul pined for a change. Though she

looked back to her vagabond life in the streets with a shudder, she

yearned for its freedom, but without its degradations.

The step she was about to take, so she persuaded herself, meant freedom,

but it also meant ingratitude towards Gay and the duchess. For the

latter's opinion she did not care much. The imperious manner of her

grace was not to her taste. But Mr. Gay--that was a different thing. She

looked upon Gay as a father--of her own father she had but a shadowy

recollection--though sometimes she thought she detected in him signs of

a warmer affection than that which a father usually bestows on a

daughter. She did not want this. She liked his visits. She was glad to

have his praise. She laughed when he persisted in calling her Polly--why

she knew not--but she was sure she could never endure his making love to

her.

In her heart of hearts she was afraid of this. The dread had much to do

with her encouragement of Dorrimore. Of course if she married it would

mean an estrangement between her and Gay and his powerful friends, and

most likely the end of her ambition to be a great actress. Her mind had

long been torn, and at the eleventh hour when she was on her way to meet

her fate in Dorrimore she still hesitated. If she really loved Dorrimore

there would have been no hesitation. But she had never met any man who

did more than flatter her and gratify the pleasure she felt at being

admired.

Her decision was in the balance. The weight of a feather would turn the

scale one way or another. The feather came in the shape of Dorrimore

himself. There he was in three cornered hat and cloak, his powdered wig

white in the moonlight, pacing up and down, his hand resting on his

sword hilt. He caught sight of the shrinking figure in the shadow and

the hat was doffed in a profound bow. Undoubtedly a good looking young

man, but as undoubtedly a fop of the first water with his ruffles and

bosom of Mechlin lace, red heels to his shoes, gold clocks on his silk

stockings and the whiff of scent which heralded his coming.

When near enough his arm went round her and he drew back her hood. He

kissed her closely, so closely indeed that his ardour almost frightened

her, though she knew not why. He withdrew his lips and gazed into her

face, his own paling under the violence of his passion.

"Dearest Lavinia," he murmured. "You are the loveliest creature in the

world and I protest I am the luckiest of men. Have you no words of love

for me? Why so silent?"

She had not uttered a word. The rise and fall of her bosom showed her

agitation.

"I'm here. I'm here. Isn't that enough?" she faltered.

"Faith you're right, sweetheart. Then let us waste no time. My coach is

yonder."

He slid her arm within his and drew her forward. He was not unconscious

of a certain reluctance in her movements and a shyness in her manner,

but he put both down to maiden modesty. Her restraint made her all the

more enchanting and he quickened his pace. She was compelled to

accommodate her steps to his, but she did so unwillingly. A sudden

distrust whether of him or of herself she could not quite determine--had

seized her. She was repenting her rashness. She would have run from him

back to the school but that he held her too tightly. Within another

minute they had reached the heavy lumbering coach.

The coachman had seen them coming and descended from his box to open the

door. He was a big fellow who held himself erect like a soldier. His

swarthy complexion had a patch of purplish bloom spreading itself over

the cheek bones which told of constant tavern lounging. A pair of hawk's

eyes gleamed from under bushy beetling brows; wide loose lips and a

truculent, pugnacious lower jaw completed the picture of a ruffian.

Lavinia glanced at him and that glance was enough, it deepened her

distrust into repugnance. But she had no time to protest. She was

hurried into the coach, Dorrimore in fact lifting her inside bodily with

unnecessary violence for she was almost thrown into a corner of the back

seat. Dorrimore followed, turned, shut the door and almost immediately

the carriage moved. The coachman must have sprung to his box with the

quickness of a harlequin. The whip cracked and the horses broke into a

gallop.