For a spell there was utter silence in that spacious, pillared chamber. Mr. Caryll and her ladyship had both resumed their chairs: the former spuriously calm; the latter making no attempt to conceal her agitation. Hortensia leant forward, an eager spectator, watching the three actors in this tragicomedy.
As for Rotherby, he stood with bent head and furrowed brow. It was for him to speak, and yet he was utterly at a loss for words. He was not moved at the news he had received, so much as dismayed. It dictated a course that would interfere with all his plans, and therefore a course unthinkable. So he remained puzzled how to act, how to deal with this unexpected situation.
It was her ladyship who was the first to break the silence. She had been considering Mr. Caryll through narrowing eyes, the corners of her mouth drawn down. She had caught the name of Maligny when it was uttered, and out of the knowledge which happened to be hers—though Mr. Caryll was ignorant of this—it set her thinking.
“I do not believe that you are the son of Mademoiselle de Maligny,” she said at last. “I never heard that my lord had a son; I cannot believe there was so much between them.”
Mr. Caryll stared, startled out of his habitual calm. Rotherby turned to her with an exclamation of surprise. “How?” he cried. “You knew, then? My father was—”
She laughed mirthlessly. “Your father would have married her had he dared,” she informed them. “'Twas to beg his father's consent that he braved his banishment and came to England. But his father was as headstrong as himself; held just such views as he, himself, held later where you were concerned. He would not hear of the match. I was to be had for the asking. My father was a man who traded in his children, and he had offered me, with a jointure that was a fortune, to the Earl of Ostermore as a wife for his son.”
Mr. Caryll was listening, all ears. Some light was being shed upon much that had lain in darkness.
“And so,” she proceeded, “your grandfather constrained your father to forget the woman he had left in France, and to marry me. I know not what sins I had committed that I should have been visited with such a punishment. But so it befell. Your father resisted, dallying with the matter for a whole year. Then there was a duel fought. A cousin of Mademoiselle de Maligny's crossed to England, and forced a quarrel upon your father. They met, and M. de Maligny was killed. Then a change set in in my lord's bearing, and one day, a month or so later, he gave way to his father's insistence, and we were wed. But I do not believe that my lord had left a son in France—I do not believe that had he done so, I should not have known it; I do not believe that under such circumstances, unfeeling as he was, he would have abandoned Mademoiselle de Maligny.”
“You think, then,” said Rotherby, “that this man has raked up this story to—”
“Consider what you are saying,” cut in Mr. Caryll, with a flash of scorn. “Should I have come prepared with documents against such a happening as this?”
“Nay, but the documents might have been intended for some other purpose had my lord lived—some purpose of extortion,” suggested her ladyship.
“But consider again, madam, that I am wealthy—far wealthier than was ever my Lord Ostermore, as my friends Collis, Stapleton and many another can be called to prove. What need, then, had I to extort?”
“How came you by your means, being what you say you are?” she asked him.
Briefly he told her how Sir Richard Everard had cared for him, for his mother's sake; endowed him richly upon adopting him, and since made him heir to all his wealth, which was considerable. “And for the rest, madam, and you, Rotherby, set doubts on one side. Your ladyship says that had my lord had a son you must have heard of it. But my lord, madam, never knew he had a son. Tell me—can you recall the date, the month at least, in which my lord returned to England?”
“I can, sir. It was at the end of April of '89. What then?”
Mr. Caryll produced the certificate again. He beckoned Rotherby, and held the paper under his eyes. “What date is there—the date of birth?”
Rotherby read: “The third of January of 1690.”
Mr. Caryll folded the paper again. “That will help your ladyship to understand how it might happen that my lord remained in ignorance of my birth.” He sighed as he replaced the case in his pocket. “I would he had known before he died,” said he, almost as if speaking to himself.
And now her ladyship lost her temper. She saw Rotherby wavering, and it angered her; and angered, she committed a grave error. Wisdom lay in maintaining the attitude of repudiation; it would at least have afforded some excuse for her and Rotherby. Instead, she now recklessly flung off that armor, and went naked down into the fray.
“A fig for't all!” she cried, and snapped her fingers. She had risen, and she towered there, a lean and malevolent figure, her head-dress nodding foolishly. “What does it matter that you be what you claim to be? Is it to weigh with you, Rotherby?”
Rotherby turned grave eyes upon her. He was, it seemed, not quite rotten through and through; there was still in him—in the depths of him—a core that was in a measure sound; and that core was reached. Most of all had the story weighed with him because it afforded the only explanation of why Mr. Caryll had spared his life that morning of the duel. It was a matter that had puzzled him, as it had puzzled all who had witnessed the affront that led to the encounter.
Between that and the rest—to say nothing of the certificate he had seen, which he could not suppose a forgery—he was convinced that Mr. Caryll was the brother that he claimed to be. He gathered from his mother's sudden anger that she, too, was convinced, in spite of herself, by the answers Mr. Caryll had returned to all her arguments against the identity he claimed.
He hated Mr. Caryll no whit less for what he had learnt; if anything, he hated him more. And yet a sense of decency forbade him from persecuting him now, as he had intended, and delivering to the hangman. From ordinary murder, once in the heat of passion—as we have seen—he had not shrunk. But fratricide appeared—such is the effect of education—a far, far graver thing, even though it should be indirect fratricide of the sort that he had contemplated before learning that this man was his brother.
There seemed to be one of two only courses left him: to provide Mr. Caryll with the means of escape, or else to withhold such evidence as he intended to supply against him, and to persuade—to compel, if necessary—his mother to do the same. When all was said, his interests need not suffer very greatly. His position would not be quite so strong, perhaps, if he but betrayed a plot without delivering up any of the plotters; still, he thought, it should be strong enough. His father dead, out of consideration of the signal loyalty his act must manifest, he thought the government would prove grateful and forbear from prosecuting a claim for restitution against the Ostermore estates.
He had, then, all but resolved upon the cleaner course, when, suddenly, something that in the stress of the moment he had gone near to overlooking, was urged upon his attention.
Hortensia had risen and had started forward at her ladyship's last words. She stood before his lordship now with pleading eyes, and hands held out. “My lord,” she cried, “you cannot do this thing! You cannot do it!”
But instead of moving him to generosity, by those very words she steeled his heart against it, and proved to him that, after all, his potentialities for evil were strong enough to enable him to do the very thing she said he could not. His brow grew black as midnight; his dark eyes raked her face, and saw the agony of apprehension for her lover written there. He drew breath, hissing and audible, glanced once at Caryll; then: “A moment!” said he.
He strode to the door and called the footmen, then turned again.
“Mr. Caryll,” he said in a formal voice, “will you give yourself the trouble of waiting in the ante-room? I need to consider upon this matter.”
Mr. Caryll, conceiving that it was with his mother that Rotherby intended to consider, rose instantly. “I would remind you, Rotherby, that time is pressing,” said he.
“I shall not keep you long,” was Rotherby's cold reply, and Mr. Caryll went out.
“What now, Charles?” asked his mother. “Is this child to remain?”
“It is the child that is to remain,” said his lordship. “Will your ladyship do me the honor, too, of waiting in the ante-room?” and he held the door for her.
“What folly are you considering?” she asked.
“Your ladyship is wasting time, and time, as Mr. Caryll has said, is pressing.”
She crossed to the door, controlled almost despite herself by the calm air of purpose that was investing him. “You are not thinking of—”
“You shall learn very soon of what I am thinking, ma'am. I beg that you will give us leave.”
She paused almost upon the threshold. “If you do a rashness, here, remember that I can still act without you,” she reminded him. “You may choose to believe that that man is your brother, and so, out of that, and”—she added with a cruel sneer at Hortensia—“other considerations, you may elect to let him go. But remember that you still have me to reckon with. Whether he prove of your blood or not, he cannot prove himself of mine—thank God!”
His lordship bowed in silence, preserving an unmoved countenance, whereupon she cursed him for a fool, and passed out. He closed the door, and turned the key, Hortensia watching him in a sort of horror. “Let me go!” she found voice to cry at last, and advanced towards the door herself. But Rotherby came to meet her, his face white, his eyes glowing. She fell away before his opening arms, and he stood still, mastering himself.
“That man,” he said, jerking a backward thumb at the closed door, “lives or dies, goes free or hangs, as you shall decide, Hortensia.”
She looked at him, her face haggard, her heart beating high in her throat as if to suffocate her. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“You love him!” he growled. “Pah! I see it in your eyes—in your tremors—that you do. It is for him that you are afraid, is't not?”
“Why do you mock me with it?” she inquired with dignity.
“I do not mock you, Hortensia. Answer me! Is it true that you love him?”
“It is true,” she answered steadily. “What is't to you?”
“Everything!” he answered hotly. “Everything! It is Heaven and Hell to me. Ten days ago, Hortensia, I asked you to marry me—”
“No more,” she begged him, an arm thrown out to stay him.
“But there is more,” he answered, advancing again. “This time I can make the offer more attractive. Marry me, and Caryll is not only free to depart, but no evidence shall be laid against him. I swear it! Refuse me, and he hangs as surely—as surely as you and I talk together here this moment.”
Cold eyes scathed him with contempt. “God!” she cried. “What manner of monster are you, my lord? To speak so—to speak of marriage to me, and to speak of hanging a man who is son to that same father of yours who lies above stairs, not yet turned cold. Are you human at all?”
“Ay—and in nothing so human as in my love for you, Hortensia.”
She put her hands to her face. “Give me patience!” she prayed. “The insult of it after what has passed! Let me go, sir; open that door, and let me go.”
He stood regarding her a moment, with lowering brows. Then he turned, and went slowly to the door. “He dies, remember!” said he, and the words, the sinister tone and the sinister look that was stamped upon his face, shattered her spirit as at a blow.
“No, no!” she faltered, and advanced a step or two. “Oh, have pity!”
“When you show me pity,” he answered.
She was beaten. “You—you swear to let him go—to see him safely out of England—if—if I consent?”
His eyes blazed. He came back swiftly, and she stood, a frozen thing, passively awaiting him; a frozen thing, she let him take her in his arms, yielding herself in horrific surrender.
He held her close a moment, the blood surging to his face, and glowing darkly through the swarthy skin. “Have I conquered, then?” he cried. “You'll marry me, Hortensia?”
“At that price,” she answered piteously, “at that price.”
“Shalt find me a gentle, loving husband, ever. I swear it before Heaven!” he vowed, the ardor of his passion softening his nature, as steel is softened in the fire.
“Then be it so,” she said, and her tone was less cold, for she began to glow, as it were, with the ardor of the sacrifice that she was making—began to experience the exalted ecstasy of martyrdom. “Save him, and you shall find me ever a dutiful wife to you, my lord—a dutiful wife.”
“And loving?” he demanded greedily.
“Even that. I promise it,” she answered.
With a hoarse cry, he stooped to kiss her; then, with an oath, he checked, and flung her from him so violently that she hurtled to a chair and sank to it, overbalanced. “No,” he roared, like a mad thing now. “Hell and damnation—no!”
A wild frenzy of jealousy had swept aside his tenderness. He was sick and faint with the passion of it of this proof of how deeply she must love that other man. He strove to control his violence. He snarled at her, in his endeavors to subdue the animal, the primitive creature that he was at heart. “If you can love him so much as that, he had better hang, I think.” He laughed on a high, fierce note. “You have spoke his sentence, girl! D'ye think I'd take you so—at second hand? Oh, s'death! What d'ye deem me?”
He laughed again—in his throat now, a quivering; half-sobbing laugh of anger—and crossed to the door, her eyes following him, terrified; her mind understanding nothing of this savage. He turned the key, and flung wide the door with a violent gesture. “Bring him in!” he shouted.
They entered—Mr. Caryll with the footmen at his heels, a frown between his brows, his eyes glancing quickly and searchingly from Rotherby to Hortensia. After him came her ladyship, no less inquisitive of look. Rotherby dismissed the lackeys, and closed the door again. He flung out an arm to indicate Hortensia.
“This little fool,” he said to Caryll, “would have married me to save your life.”
Mr. Caryll raised his brows. The words relieved his fears. “I am glad, sir, that you perceive she would have been a fool to do so. You, I take it, have been fool enough to refuse the offer.”
“Yes, you damned play-actor! Yes!” he thundered. “D'ye think I want another man's cast-offs?”
“That is an overstatement,” said Mr. Caryll. “Mistress Winthrop is no cast-off of mine.”
“Enough said!” snapped Rotherby. He had intended to say much, to do some mighty ranting. But before Mr. Caryll's cold half-bantering reduction of facts to their true values, he felt himself robbed of words. “You hang!” he ended shortly.
“Ye're sure of that?” questioned Mr. Caryll.
“I would I were as sure of Heaven.”
“I think you may be—just about as sure,” Mr. Caryll rejoined, entirely unperturbed, and he sauntered forward towards Hortensia. Rotherby and his mother watched him, exchanging glances.
Then Rotherby shrugged and sneered. “'Tis his bluster,” said he. “He'll be a farceur to the end. I doubt he's half-witted.”
Mr. Caryll never heeded him. He was bending beside Hortensia. He took her hand, and bore it to his lips. “Sweet,” he murmured, “'twas a treason that you intended. Have you, then, no faith in me? Courage, sweetheart, they cannot hurt me.”
She clutched his hands, and looked up into his eyes. “You but say that to comfort me!” she cried.
“Not so,” he answered gravely. “I tell you no more than what is true. They think they hold me. They will cheat, and lie and swear falsely to the end that they may destroy me. But they shall have their pains for nothing.”
“Ay—depend upon that,” Rotherby mocked him. “Depend upon it—to the gallows.”
Mr Caryll's curious eyes smiled upon his brother, but his lips were contemptuous. “I am of your own blood, Rotherby—your brother,” he said again, “and once already out of that consideration I have spared your life—because I would not have a brother's blood upon my hands.” He sighed, and continued: “I had hoped that you had enough humanity to do the same. I deplore that you should lack it; but I deplore it for your own sake, because, after all, you are my brother. Apart from that, it matters nothing to me.”
“Will it matter nothing when you are proved a Jacobite spy?” cried her ladyship, enraged beyond endurance by this calm scorn of them. “Will it matter nothing when it is proved that you carried that letter, and would have carried that other—that you were empowered to treat in your exiled master's name? Will that matter nothing?”
He looked at her an instant, then, as if utterly disdaining to answer her, he turned again to Rotherby. “I were a fool and blind, did I not see to the bottom of this turbid little puddle upon which you think to float your argosies. You are selling me. You are to make a bargain with the government to forbear the confiscations your father has incurred out of consideration of the service you can render by disclosing this plot, and you would throw me in as something tangible—in earnest of the others that may follow. Have I sounded the depths of your intent?”
“And if you have—what then?” demanded sullen Rotherby.
“This, my lord,” answered Mr. Caryll, and he quoted: “'The man that once did sell the lion's skin while the beast lived, was killed with hunting him. Remember that!”'
They looked at him, impressed by the ringing voice in which he had spoken-a voice in which the ring was of mingled mockery and exultation. Then her ladyship shook off the impression, and laughed.
“With what d'ye threaten us?” she asked contemptuously.
“I—threaten, ma'am? Nay, I am incapable of threatening. I do not threaten. I have reasoned with you, exhorted you, shown you cause why, had you one spark of decency left, you would allow me to depart and shield me from the law you have invoked to ruin me. I have hoped for your own sakes that you would be moved so to do. But since you will not—” He paused and shrugged. “On your own heads be it.”
“On our own heads be what?” demanded Rotherby.
But Mr. Caryll smiled, and shook his head. “Did you know all, it might indeed influence your decision; and I would not have that happen. You have chosen, have you not, Rotherby? You will sell me; you will hang me—me, your father's son. Poor Rotherby! From my soul I pity you!”
“Pity me? Death! You impudent rogue! Keep your pity for those that need it.”
“That is why I offer it you, Rotherby,” said Mr. Caryll, almost sadly. “In all my life, I have not met a man who stood more sorely in need of it, nor am I ever like to meet another.”
There was a movement without, a tap at the door; and Humphries entered to announce Mr. Green's return, accompanied by Mr. Second Secretary Templeton, and without waiting for more, he ushered them into the room.
To the amazement of them all, there entered a tall gentleman in a full-bottomed wig, with a long, pale face, a resolute mouth, and a pair of eyes that were keen, yet kindly. Close upon the heels of the second secretary came Mr. Green. Humphries withdrew, and closed the door.
Mr. Templeton made her ladyship a low bow.
“Madam,” said he very gravely, “I offer your ladyship—and you, my lord—my profoundest condolence in the bereavement you have suffered, and my scarcely less profound excuses for this intrusion upon your grief.”
Mr. Templeton may or may not have reflected that the grief upon which he deplored his intrusion was none so apparent.
“I had not ventured to do so,” he continued, “but that your lordship seemed to invite my presence.”
“Invited it, sir?” questioned Rotherby with deference. “I should scarcely have presumed so far as to invite it.”
“Not directly, perhaps,” returned the second secretary. His was a deep, rich voice, and he spoke with great deliberateness, as if considering well each word before allowing it utterance. “Not directly, perhaps; but in view of your message to Lord Carteret, his lordship has desired me to come in person to inquire into this matter for him, before proceeding farther. This fellow,” indicating Green, “brought information from you that a Jacobite—an agent of James Stuart—is being detained here, and that your lordship has a communication to make to the secretary of state.”
Rotherby bowed his assent. “All I desired that Mr. Green should do meanwhile,” said he, “was to procure a warrant for this man's arrest. My revelations would have followed that. Has he the warrant?”
“Your lordship may not be aware,” said Mr. Templeton, with an increased precision of diction, “that of late so many plots have been disclosed and have proved in the end to be no plots at all, that his lordship has resolved to proceed now with the extremest caution. For it is not held desirable by his majesty that publicity should be given to such matters until there can be no doubt that they are susceptible to proof. Talk of them is disturbing to the public quiet, and there is already disturbance enough, as it unfortunately happens. Therefore, it is deemed expedient that we should make quite sure of our ground before proceeding to arrests.”
“But this plot is no sham plot,” cried Rotherby, with the faintest show of heat, out of patience with the other's deliberateness. “It is a very real danger, as I can prove to his lordship.”
“It is for the purpose of ascertaining that fact,” resumed the second secretary, entirely unruffled, “for the purpose of ascertaining it before taking any steps that would seem to acknowledge it, that my Lord Carteret has desired me to wait upon you—that you may place me in possession of the circumstances that have come to your knowledge.”
Rotherby's countenance betrayed his growing impatience. “Why, for that matter, it has come to my knowledge that a plot is being hatched by the friends of the Stuart, and that a rising is being prepared, the present moment being considered auspicious, while the people's confidence in the government is shaken by the late South Sea Company disaster.”
Mr. Templeton wagged his head gently. “That, sir—if you will permit the observation—is the preface of all the disclosures that have lately been made to us. The consolation, sir, for his majesty's friends, has been that in no case did the subsequent matter make that preface good.”
“It is in that particular, then, that my disclosures shall differ from those others,” said Rotherby, in a tone that caused Mr. Templeton afterwards to describe him as “a damned hot fellow.”
“You have evidence?”
“Documentary evidence. A letter from the Pretender himself amongst it.”
A becoming gravity overspread Mr. Templeton's clear-cut face. “That would be indeed regrettable,” said he. It was plain that whatever the second secretary might display when the plot was disclosed to him, he would display none of that satisfaction upon which Rotherby had counted. “To whom, sir, let me ask, is this letter indited?”
“To my late father,” answered his lordship.
Mr. Templeton made an exclamation, whose significance was not quite clear.
“I have discovered it since his death,” continued Rotherby. “I was but in time to wrest it from the hands of that spy of the Pretender's, who was in the act of destroying it when I caught him. My devotion to his majesty made my course clear, sir—and I desired Mr. Green to procure a warrant for this traitor's arrest.”
“Sir,” said Mr. Templeton, regarding him with an eye in which astonishment was blent with admiration, “this is very loyal in you—very loyal under the—ah—peculiar circumstances of the affair. I do not think that his majesty's government, considering to whom this letter was addressed, could have censured you even had you suppressed it. You have conducted yourself, my lord—if I may venture upon a criticism of your lordship's conduct—with a patriotism worthy of the best models of ancient Rome. And I am assured that his majesty's government will not be remiss in signifying appreciation of this very lofty loyalty of yours.”
Lord Rotherby bowed low, in acknowledgment of the compliment. Her ladyship concealed a cynical smile under cover of her fan. Mr. Caryll—standing in the background beside Hortensia's chair—smiled, too, and poor Hortensia, detecting his smile, sought to take comfort in it.
“My son,” interposed the countess, “is, I am sure, gratified to hear you so commend his conduct.”
Mr. Templeton bowed to her with a great politeness. “I should be a stone, ma'am, did I not signify my—ah—appreciation of it.”
“There is a little more to follow, sir,” put in Mr. Caryll, in that quiet manner of his. “I think you will find it blunt the edge of his lordship's lofty loyalty—cause it to savor less like the patriotism of Rome, and more like that of Israel.”
Mr. Templeton turned upon him a face of cold displeasure. He would have spoken, but that whilst he was seeking words of a becoming gravity, Rotherby forestalled him.
“Sir,” he exclaimed, “what I did, I did though my ruin must have followed. I know what this traitor has in mind. He imagines I have a bargain to make. But you must see, sir, that in no sense is it so, for, having already surrendered the facts, it is too late now to attempt to sell them. I am ready to yield up the letters that I have found. No consideration could induce me to do other; and yet, sir, I venture to hope that in return, the government will be pleased to see that I have some claim upon my country's recognition for the signal service I am rendering her—and in rendering which I make a holocaust of my father's honor.”
“Surely, surely, sir,” murmured Mr. Templeton, but his countenance told of a lessening enthusiasm in his lordship's Roman patriotism. “Lord Carteret, I am sure, would never permit so much—ah—devotion to his majesty to go unrewarded.”
“I only ask, sir—and I ask it for the sake of my father's name, which stands in unavoidable danger of being smirched—that no further shame be heaped upon it than that which must result from the horror with which the discovery of this plot will inspire all right-thinking subjects.”
Mr. Caryll smiled and nodded. He judged in a detached spirit—a mere spectator at a play—and he was forced to admit to himself that it was subtly done of his brother, and showed an astuteness in this thing, at least, of which he had never supposed him capable.
“There is, sir,” Rotherby proceeded, “the matter of my father's dealings with the South Sea Company. He is no longer alive to defend himself from the accusations—from the impeachment which has been levelled against him by our enemy, the Duke of Wharton. Therefore, it might be possible to make it appear as if his dealings were—ah—not—ah—quite such as should befit an upright gentleman. There is that, and there is this greater matter against him. Between the two, I should never again be able to look my fellow-countrymen in the face. Yet this is the more important since the safety of the kingdom is involved; whilst the other is but a personal affair, and trivial by comparison.
“I will beg, sir, that out of consideration for my disclosing this dastardly conspiracy—which I cannot do without disclosing my father's misguided share in it—I will implore, sir, that out of that consideration, Lord Carteret will see fit to dispose that the South Sea Company affair is allowed to be forgotten. It has already been paid for by my father with his life.”
Mr. Templeton looked at the young man before him with eyes of real commiseration. He was entirely duped, and in his heart he regretted that for a moment he could have doubted Rotherby's integrity of purpose.
“Sir,” he said, “I offer you my sympathy—my profoundest sympathy; and you, my lady.
“As for this South Sea Company affair, well—I am empowered by Lord Carteret to treat only of the other matter, and to issue or not a warrant for the apprehension of the person you are detaining, after I have investigated the grounds upon which his arrest is urged. Nevertheless, sir, I think I can say—indeed, I think I can promise—that in consideration of your readiness to deliver up these letters, and provided their nature is as serious as you represent, and also in consideration of this, your most signal proof of loyalty, Lord Carteret will not wish to increase the load which already you have to bear.”
“Oh, sir!” cried Rotherby in the deepest emotion, “I have no words in which to express my thanks.”
“Nor I,” put in Mr. Caryll, “words in which to express my admiration. A most excellent performance, Rotherby. I had not credited you with so much ability.”
Mr. Templeton frowned upon him again. “Ye betray a singular callousness, sir,” said he.
“Nay, sir; not callousness. Merely the ease that springs from a tranquil conscience.”
Her ladyship glanced across at him, and sneered audibly. “You hear the poisonous traitor, sir. He glories in a tranquil conscience, in spite of this murderous matter to which he stood committed.”
Rotherby turned aside to take the letters from the desk. He thrust them into Mr. Templeton's hands. “Here, sir, is a letter from King James to my father, and here is a letter from my father to King James. From their contents, you will gather how far advanced are matters, what devilries are being hatched here in his majesty's dominions.”
Mr. Templeton received them, and crossed to the window that he might examine them. His countenance lengthened. Rotherby took his stand beside his mother's chair, both observing Mr. Caryll, who, in his turn, was observing Mr. Templeton, a faint smile playing round the corners of his mouth. Once they saw him stoop and whisper something in Hortensia's ear, and they caught the upward glance of her eyes, half fear, half question.
Mr. Green, by the door, stood turning his hat in his hands, furtively watching everybody, whilst drawing no attention to himself—a matter in which much practice had made him perfect.
At last Templeton turned, folding the letters. “This is very grave, my lord,” said he, “and my Lord Carteret will no doubt desire to express in person his gratitude and his deep sense of the service you have done him. I think you may confidently expect to find him as generous as you hope.”
He pocketed the letters, and raised a hand to point at Mr. Caryll. “This man?” he inquired laconically.
“Is a spy of King James's. He is the messenger who bore my father that letter from the Pretender, and he would no doubt have carried back the answer had my father lived.”
Mr. Templeton drew a paper from his pocket, and crossed to the desk. He sat down, and took up a quill. “You can prove this, of course?” he said, testing the point of his quill upon his thumb-nail.
“Abundantly,” was the ready answer. “My mother can bear witness to the fact that 'twas he brought the Pretender's letter, and there is no lack of corroboration. Enough, I think, would be afforded by the assault made by this rogue upon Mr. Green, of which, no doubt, you are already informed, sir. His object—this proved object—was to possess himself of those papers that he might destroy them. I but caught him in time, as my servants can bear witness, as they can also bear witness to the circumstance that we were compelled to force an entrance here, and to use force to him to obtain the letters from him.”
Mr. Templeton nodded. “'Tis a clear case, then,” said he, and dipped his pen.
“And yet,” put in Mr. Caryll, in an indolent, musing voice, “it might be made to look as clear another way.”
Mr. Templeton scowled at him. “The opportunity shall be afforded you,” said he. “Meanwhile—what is your name?”
Mr. Caryll looked whimsically at the secretary a moment; then flung his bomb. “I am Justin Caryll, Sixth Earl of Ostermore, and your very humble servant, Mr. Secretary.”
The effect was ludicrous—from Mr. Caryll's point of view—and yet it was disappointing. Five pairs of dilating eyes confronted him, five gaping mouths. Then her ladyship broke into a laugh.
“The creature's mad—I've long suspected it.” And she meant to be taken literally; his many whimsicalities were explained to her at last. He was, indeed, half-witted, as he now proved.
Mr. Templeton, recovering, smote the table angrily. He thought he had good reason to lose his self-control on this occasion, though it was a matter of pride with him that he could always preserve an unruffled calm under the most trying circumstances. “What is your name, sir?” he demanded again.
“You are hard of hearing, sir, I think. I am Lord Ostermore. Set down that name in the warrant if you are determined to be bubbled by that fellow there and made to look foolish afterwards with my Lord Carteret.”
Mr. Templeton sat back in his chair, frowning; but more from utter bewilderment now than anger.
“Perhaps,” said Mr. Caryll, “if I were to explain, it would help you to see the imposture that is being practiced upon you. As for the allegations that have been made against me—that I am a Jacobite spy and an agent of the Pretender's—” He shrugged, and waved an airy hand. “I scarce think there will remain the need for me to deny them when you have heard the rest.”
Rotherby took a step forward, his face purple, his hands clenched. Her ladyship thrust out a bony claw, clutched at his sleeve, and drew him back and into the chair beside her. “Pho! Charles,” she said; “give the fool rope, and he'll hang himself, never doubt it—the poor, witless creature.”
Mr. Caryll sauntered over to the secretaire, and leaned an elbow on the top of it, facing all in the room.
“I admit, Mr. Secretary,” said he, “that I had occasion to assault Mr. Green, to the end that I might possess myself of the papers he was seeking in this desk.”
“Why, then—” began Mr. Templeton.
“Patience, sir! I admit so much, but I admit no more. I do not, for instance, admit that the object—the object itself—of my search was such as has been represented.”
“What then? What else?” growled Rotherby.
“Ay, sir—what else?” quoth Mr. Templeton.
“Sir,” said Mr. Caryll, with a sorrowful shake of, the head, “I have already startled you, it seems, by one statement. I beg that you will prepare yourself to be startled by another.” Then he abruptly dropped his languor. “I should think twice, sir,” he advised, “before signing that warrant, were I in your place, to do so would be to render yourself the tool of those who are plotting my ruin, and ready to bear false witness that they may accomplish it. I refer,” and he waved a hand towards the countess and his brother, “to the late Lord Ostermore's mistress and his natural son, there.”
In their utter stupefaction at the unexpectedness and seeming wildness of the statement, neither mother nor son could find a word to say. No more could Mr. Templeton for a moment. Then, suddenly, wrathfully: “What are you saying, sir?” he roared.
“The truth, sir.”
“The truth?” echoed the secretary.
“Ay, sir—the truth. Have ye never heard of it?”
Mr. Templeton sat back again. “I begin to think,” said he, surveying through narrowing eyes the slender graceful figure before him, “that her ladyship is right that you are mad; unless—unless you are mad of the same madness that beset Ulysses. You remember?”
“Let us have done,” cried Rotherby in a burst of anger, leaping to his feet. “Let us have done, I say! Are we to waste the day upon this Tom o' Bedlam? Write him down as Caryll—Justin Caryll—'tis the name he's known by; and let Green see to the rest.”
Mr. Templeton made an impatient sound, and poised his pen.
“Ye are not to suppose, sir,” Mr. Caryll stayed him, “that I cannot support my statements. I have by me proofs—irrefragable proofs of what I say.”
“Proofs?” The word seemed to come from, every member of that little assembly—if we except Mr. Green, whose face was beginning to betray his uneasiness. He was not so ready as the others to believe, that Mr. Caryll was mad. For him, the situation asked some other explanation.
“Ay—proofs,” said Mr. Caryll. He had drawn the case from his pocket again. From this he took the birth-certificate, and placed it before Mr. Templeton, “Will you glance at that, sir—to begin, with?—”
Mr. Templeton complied. His face became more and more grave. He looked at Mr. Caryll; then at Rotherby, who was scowling, and at her ladyship, who was breathing hard. His glance returned to Mr. Caryll.
“You are the person designated here?” he inquired.
“As I can abundantly prove,” said Mr. Caryll. “I have no lack of friends in London who will bear witness to that much.”
“Yet,” said Mr. Templeton, frowning, perplexed, “this does not make you what you claim to be. Rather does it show you to be his late lordship's—”
“There's more to come,” said Mr. Caryll, and placed another document before the secretary. It was an extract from the register of St. Etienne of Maligny, relating to his mother's death.
“Do you know, sir, in what year this lady went through a ceremony of marriage with my father—the late Lord Ostermore? It was in 1690, I think, as the lady will no doubt confirm.”
“To what purpose, this?” quoth Mr. Templeton.
“The purpose will be presently apparent. Observe that date,” said Mr. Caryll, and he pointed to the document in Mr. Templeton's hand.
Mr. Templeton read the date aloud—“1692”—and then the name of the deceased—“Antoinette de Beaulieu de Maligny. What of it?” he demanded.
“You will understand that when I show you the paper I took from this desk, the paper that I obtained as a consequence of my violence to Mr. Green. I think you will consider, sir, that if ever the end justified the means, it did so in this case. Here was something very different from the paltry matter of treason that is alleged against me.”
And he passed the secretary a third paper.
Over Mr. Templeton's shoulder, Rotherby and his mother, who—drawn by the overpowering excitement that was mastering them—had approached in silence, were examining the document with wide-open, startled eyes, fearing by very instinct, without yet apprehending the true nature of the revelation that was to come.
“God!” shrieked her ladyship, who took in the meaning of this thing before Rotherby had begun to suspect it. “'Tis a forgery!”
“That were idle, when the original entry in the register is to be seen in, the Church of St. Antoine, madam,” answered Mr. Caryll. “I rescued that document, together with some letters which my mother wrote my father when first he returned to England—and which are superfluous now—from a secret drawer in that desk, an hour ago.”
“But what is it?” inquired Rotherby huskily. “What is it?”
“It is the certificate of the marriage of my father, the late Lord Ostermore, and my mother, Antoinette de Maligny, at the Church of St. Antoine in Paris, in the year 1689.” He turned to Mr. Templeton. “You apprehend the matter, sir?” he demanded, and recapitulated. “In 1689 they were married; in 1692 she died; yet in 1690 his lordship went through a form of marriage with Mistress Sylvia Etheridge, there.”
Mr. Templeton nodded very gravely, his eyes upon the document before him, that they might avoid meeting at that moment the eyes of the woman whom the world had always known as the Countess of Ostermore.
“Fortunate is it for me,” said Mr. Caryll, “that I should have possessed myself of these proofs in time. Does it need more to show how urgent might be the need for my suppression—how little faith can be attached to an accusation levelled against me from such a quarter?”
“By God—” began Rotherby, but his mother clutched his wrist.
“Be still, fool!” she hissed in his ear. She had need to keep her wits about her, to think, to weigh each word that she might utter. An abyss had opened in her path; a false step, and she and her son were irrevocably lost—sent headlong to destruction. Rotherby, already reduced to the last stage of fear, was obedient as he had never been, and fell silent instantly.
Mr. Templeton folded the papers, rose, and proffered them to their owner. “Have you any means of proving that this was the document you sought?” he inquired.
“I can prove that it was the document he found.” It was Hortensia who spoke; she had advanced to her lover's side, and she controlled her amazement to bear witness for him. “I was present in this room when he went through that desk, as all in the house know; and I can swear to his having found that paper in it.”
Mr. Templeton bowed. “My lord,” he said to Caryll, “your contentions appear clear. It is a matter in which I fear I can go no further; nor do I now think that the secretary of state would approve of my issuing a warrant upon such testimony as we have received. The matter is one for Lord Carteret himself.”
“I shall do myself the honor of waiting upon his lordship within the hour,” said the new Lord Ostermore. “As for the letter which it is alleged I brought from France—from the Pretender,”—he was smiling now, a regretful, deprecatory smile, “it is a fortunate circumstance that, being suspected by that very man Green, who stands yonder, I was subjected, upon my arrival in England, to a thorough search at Maidstone—a search, it goes without saying, that yielded nothing. I was angry at the time, at the indignity I was forced to endure. We little know what the future may hold. And to-day I am thankful to have that evidence to rebut this charge.”
“Your lordship is indeed to be congratulated,” Mr. Templeton agreed. “You are thus in a position to clear yourself of even a shadow of suspicion.”
“You fool!” cried she who until that hour had been Countess of Ostermore, turning fiercely upon Mr. Templeton. “You fool!”
“Madam, this is not seemly,” cried the second secretary, with awkward dignity.
“Seemly, idiot?” she stormed at him. “I swear, as I've a soul to be saved, that in spite of all this, I know that man to be a traitor and a Jacobite—that it was the letter from the king he sought, whatever he may pretend to have found.”
Mr. Templeton looked at her in sorrow, for all that in her overwrought condition she insulted him. “Madam, you might swear and swear, and yet no one would believe you in the face of the facts that have come to light.”
“Do you believe me?” she demanded angrily.
“My beliefs can matter nothing,” he compromised, and made her a valedictory bow. “Your servant, ma'am,” said he, from force of habit. He nodded to Rotherby, took up his hat and cane, and strode to the door, which Mr. Green had made haste to open for him. From the threshold he bowed to Mr. Caryll. “My lord,” said he, “I shall go straight to Lord Carteret. He will stay for you till you come.”
“I shall not keep his lordship waiting,” answered Caryll, and bowed in his turn.
The second secretary went out. Mr. Green hesitated a moment, then abruptly followed him. The game was ended here; it was played and lost, he saw, and what should such as Mr. Green be doing on the losing side?
The game was played and lost. All realized it, and none so keenly as Hortensia, who found it in her gentle heart to pity the woman who had never shown her a kindness.
She set a hand upon her lover's arm. “What will you do, Justin?” she inquired in tones that seemed to plead for mercy for those others; for she had not paused to think—as another might have thought—that there was no mercy he could show them.
Rotherby and his mother stood hand in hand; it was the woman who had clutched at her son for comfort and support in this bitter hour of retribution, this hour of the recoil upon themselves of all the evil they had plotted.
Mr. Caryll considered them a moment, his face a mask, his mind entirely detached. They interested him profoundly. This subjugation of two natures that in themselves were arrogant and cruel was a process very engrossing to observe. He tried to conjecture what they felt, what thoughts they might be harboring. And it seemed to him that a sort of paralysis had fallen on their wits. They were stunned under the shock of the blow he had dealt them. Anon there would be railings and to spare—against him, against themselves, against the dead man above stairs, against Fate, and more besides. For the present there was this horrid, almost vacuous calm.
Presently the woman stirred. Instinct—the instinct of the stricken beast to creep to hiding—moved her, while reason was still bound in lethargy. She moved to step, drawing at her son's hand. “Come, Charles,” she said, in a low, hoarse voice. “Come!”
The touch and the speech awakened him to life. “No!” he cried harshly, and shook his hand free of hers. “It ends not thus.”
He looked almost as he would fling himself upon his brother, his figure erect now, defiant and menacing; his face ashen, his eyes wild. “It ends not thus!” he repeated, and his voice rang sinister.
“No,” Mr. Caryll agreed quietly. “It ends not thus.”
He looked sadly from son to mother. “It had not even begun thus, but that you would have it so. You would have it. I sought to move you to mercy. I reminded you, my brother, of the tie that bound us, and I would have turned you from fratricide, I would have saved you from the crime you meditated—for it was a crime.”
“Fratricide!” exclaimed Rotherby, and laughed angrily. “Fratricide!” It was as if he threatened it.
But Mr. Caryll continued to regard him sorrowfully. From his soul he pitied him; pitied them both—not because of their condition, but because of the soullessness behind it all. To him it was truly tragic, tragic beyond anything that he had ever known.
“You said some fine things, sir, to Mr. Templeton of your regard for your father's memory,” said Mr. Caryll. “You expressed some lofty sentiments of filial piety, which almost sounded true—which sounded true, indeed, to Mr. Templeton. It was out of interest for your father that you pleaded for the suppression of his dealings with the South Sea Company; not for a moment did you consider yourself or the profit you should make from such suppression.”
“Why this?” demanded the mother fiercely. “Do you rally us? Do you turn the sword in the wound now that you have us at your mercy—now that we are fallen?”
“From what are you fallen?” Mr. Caryll inquired. “Ah, but let that pass. I do not rally, madam. Mockery is far indeed from my intention.” He turned again to Rotherby. “Lord Ostermore was a father to you, which he never was to me—knew not that he was. The sentiments you so beautifully expressed to Mr. Templeton are the sentiments that actuate me now, though I shall make no attempt to express them. It is not that my heart stirs much where my Lord Ostermore is concerned. And yet, for the sake of the name that is mine now, I shall leave England as I came—Mr. Justin Caryll, neither more nor less.
“In the eyes of the world there is no slur upon my mother's name, because her history—her supposed history—was unknown. See that none ever falls on it, else shall you find me pitiless indeed. See that none ever falls on it, or I shall return and drive home the lesson that, like Antinous, you've learnt—that 'twixt the cup and lip much ill may grow'—and turn you, naked upon a contemptuous world. Needs more be said? You understand, I think.”
Rotherby understood nothing. But his mother's keener wits began to perceive a glimmer of the truth. “Do you mean that—that we are to—to remain in the station that we believed our own?”
“What else?”
She stared at him. Here was a generosity so weak, it seemed to her, as almost to provoke her scorn. “You will leave your brother in possession of the title and what else there may be?”
“You think me generous, madam,” said he. “Do not misapprehend me. I am not. I covet neither the title nor estates of Ostermore. Their possession would be a thorn in my flesh, a thorn of bitter memory. That is one reason why you should not think me generous, though it is not the reason why I cede them. I would have you understand me on this, perhaps the last time, that we may meet.
“Lord Ostermore, my father, married you, madam, in good faith.”
She interrupted harshly. “What is't you say?” she almost screamed, quivering with rage at the very thought of what her dead lord had done.
“He married you in good faith,” Mr. Caryll repeated quietly, impressively. “I will make it plain to you. He married you believing that the girl-wife he had left in France was dead. For fear it should come to his father's knowledge, he kept that marriage secret from all. He durst not own his marriage to his father.”
“He was not—as you may have appreciated in the years you lived with him—a man of any profound feeling for others. For himself he had a prodigiously profound feeling, as you may also have gathered. That marriage in France was troublesome. He had come to look upon it as one of his youth's follies—as he, himself, described it to me in this house, little knowing to whom he spoke. When he received the false news of her death—for he did receive such news from the very cousin who crossed from France to avenge her, believing her dead himself—he rejoiced at his near escape from the consequences of his folly. Nor was he ever disabused of his error. For she had ceased to write to him by then. And so he married you, madam, in good faith. That is the argument I shall use with my Lord Carteret to make him understand that respect for my father's memory urges me to depart in silence—save for what I must have said to escape the impeachment with which you threatened me.”
“Lord Carteret is a man of the world. He will understand the far-reaching disturbance that must result from the disclosure of the truth of this affair. He will pledge Mr. Templeton to silence, and the truth, madam, will never be disclosed. That, I think, is all, madam.”
“By God, sir,” cried Rotherby, “that's damned handsome of you!”
“You epitomize it beautifully,” said Mr. Caryll, with a reversion to his habitual manner.
His mother, however, had no words at all. She advanced a step towards Mr. Caryll, put out her hands, and then—portent of portents!—two tears were seen to trickle down her cheeks, playing havoc, ploughing furrows in the paint that overlaid them.
Mr. Caryll stepped forward quickly. The sight of those tears, springing from that dried-up heart—withered by God alone knew what blight—washing their way down those poor bedaubed cheeks, moved him to a keener pity than anything he had ever looked upon. He took her hands, and pressed them a moment, giving way for once to an impulse he could not master.
She would have kissed his own in the abasement and gratitude of the moment. But he restrained her.
“No more, your ladyship,” said he, and by thus giving her once more the title she had worn, he seemed to reinstate her in the station from which in self-defence he had pulled her down. “Promise that you'll bear no witness against me should so much be needed, and I'll cry quits with you. Without your testimony, they cannot hurt me, even though they were disposed to do so, which is scarcely likely.”
“Sir—sir—” she faltered brokenly. “Could you—could you suppose—”
“Indeed, no. So no more, ma'am. You do but harass yourself. Fare you well, my lady. If I may trespass for a few moments longer upon the hospitality of Stretton House, I'll be your debtor.”
“The house—and all—is yours, sir,” she reminded him.
“There's but one thing in it that I'll carry off with me,” said he. He held the door for her.
She looked into his face a moment. “God keep you!” said she, with a surprising fervor in one not over-fluent at her prayers. “God reward you for showing this mercy to an old woman—who does not deserve so much.”
“Fare you well, madam,” he said again, bowing gravely. “And fare you well, Lord Ostermore,” he added to her son.
His brother looked at him a moment; seemed on the point of speaking, and then—taking his cue, no doubt, from his mother's attitude—he held out his hand.
Mr. Caryll took it, shook it, and let it go. After all, he bethought him, the man was his brother. And if his bearing was not altogether cordial, it was, at least, a clement imitation of cordiality.
He closed the door upon them, and sighed supreme relief. He turned to face Hortensia, and a smile broke like sunshine upon his face, and dispelled the serious gloom of his expression. She sprang towards him.
“Come now, thou chattel, that I am resolved to carry with me from my father's house,” said he.
She checked in her approach. “'Tis not in such words that I'll be wooed,” said she.
“A fig for words!” he cried. “Art wooed and won. Confess it.”
“You want nothing for self-esteem,” she informed him gravely.
“One thing, Hortensia,” he amended. “One thing I want—I lack—to esteem myself greater than any king that rules.”
“I like that better,” she laughed, and suddenly she was in tears. “Oh, why do you mock, and make-believe that your heart is on your lips and nowhere else?” she asked him. “Is it your aim to be accounted trifling and shallow—you who can do such things as you have done but now? Oh, it was noble! You made me very proud.”
“Proud?” he echoed. “Ah! Then it must be that you are resolved to take this impudent, fleering coxcomb for a husband,” he said, rallying her with the words she had flung at him that night in the moonlit Croydon garden.
“How I was mistook in you!” quoth she.
He made philosophy. “'Tis ever those in whom we are mistook that are best worth knowing,” he informed her. “The man or woman whom you can read at sight, is read and done with.”
“Yet you were not mistook in me,” said she.
“I was,” he answered, “for I deemed you woman.”
“What other have you found me?” she inquired.
He flung wide his arms, and bade her into them. “Here to my heart,” he cried, “and in your ear I'll whisper it.”