Mr. Caryll stayed to dine at Stretton House. Although they had journeyed
but from Croydon that morning, he would have preferred to have gone
first to his lodging to have made--fastidious as he was--a suitable
change in his apparel. But the urgency that his task dictated caused him
to waive the point.
He had a half-hour or so to himself after the stormy scene with her
ladyship, in which he had played again--though in a lesser degree--the
part of savior to Mistress Winthrop, a matter for which the lady had
rewarded him, ere withdrawing, with a friendly smile, which caused him
to think her disposed to forgive him his yesternight's folly.
In that half-hour he gave himself again very seriously to the
contemplation of his position. He had no illusions on the score of Lord
Ostermore, and he rated his father no higher than he deserved. But he
was just and shrewd in his judgment, and he was forced to confess that
he had found this father of his vastly different from the man he had
been led to expect. He had looked to find a debauched old rake, a vile
creature steeped in vice and wickedness. Instead, he found a weak,
easy-natured, commonplace fellow, whose worst sin seemed to be
the selfishness that is usually inseparable from those other
characteristics. If Ostermore was not a man of the type that inspires
strong affection, neither was he of the type that provokes strong
dislike. His colorless nature left one indifferent to him.
Mr. Caryll, somewhat to his dismay, found himself inclined to extend
the man some sympathy; caught himself upon the verge of pitying him for
being burdened with so very unfilial a son and so very cursed a wife. It
was one of his cherished beliefs that the evil that men do has a trick
of finding them out in this life, and here, he believed, as shrew-ridden
husband and despised father, the Earl of Ostermore was being made to
expiate that sin of his early years.
Another of Mr. Caryll's philosophies was that, when all is said, man is
little of a free agent. His viciousness or sanctity is temperamental;
and not the man, but his nature--which is not self-imbued--must bear the
responsibility of a man's deeds, be they good or bad.
In the abstract such beliefs are well enough; they are excellent
standards by which to judge where other sufferers than ourselves are
concerned. But when we ourselves are touched, they are discounted by the
measure in which a man's deeds or misdeeds may affect us. And although
to an extent this might be the case now with Mr. Caryll, yet, in spite
of it, he found himself excusing his father on the score of the man's
weakness and stupidity, until he caught himself up with the reflection
that this was a disloyalty to Everard, to his training, and to his
mother. And yet--he reverted--in such a man as Ostermore, sheer
stupidity, a lack of imagination, of insight into things as they really
are, a lack of feeling that would disable him from appreciating the
extent of any wrong he did, seemed to Mr. Caryll to be extenuating
circumstances.
He conceived that he was amazingly dispassionate in his judgment, and
he wondered was he right or wrong so to be. Then the thought of his
task arose in his mind, and it bathed him in a sweat of horror. Over in
France he had allowed himself to be persuaded, and had pledged himself
to do this thing. Everard, the relentless, unforgiving fanatic of
vengeance, had--as we have seen--trained him to believe that the
avenging of his mother's wrongs was the only thing that could justify
his own existence. Besides, it had all seemed remote then, and easy as
remote things are apt to seem. But now--now that he had met in the flesh
this man who was his father--his hesitation was turned to very horror.
It was not that he did not conceive, in spite of his odd ideas upon
temperament and its responsibilities, that his mother's' wrongs cried
out for vengeance, and that the avenging of them would be a righteous,
fitting deed; but it was that he conceived that his own was not the hand
to do the work of the executioner upon one who--after all--was still his
own father. It was hideously unnatural.
He sat in the library, awaiting his lordship and the announcement of
dinner. There was a book before him; but his eyes were upon the window,
the smooth lawns beyond, all drenched in summer sunshine, and his
thoughts were introspective. He looked into his shuddering soul, and saw
that he could not--that he would not--do the thing which he was come to
do. He would await the coming of Everard, to tell him so. There would
be a storm to face, he knew. But sooner that than carry this vile thing
through. It was vile--most damnably vile--he now opined.
The decision taken, he rose and crossed to the window. His mind had been
in travail; his soul had known the pangs of labor. But now that this
strong resolve had been brought forth, an ease and peace were his that
seemed to prove to him how right he was, how wrong must aught else have
been.
Lord Ostermore came in. He announced that they would be dining alone
together. “Her ladyship,” he explained, “has gone forth in person to
seek Lord Rotherby. She believes that she knows where to find him--in
some disreputable haunt, no doubt, whither her ladyship would have
been better advised to have sent a servant. But women are wayward
cattle--wayward, headstrong cattle! Have you not found them so, Mr.
Caryll?”
“I have found that the opinion is common to most husbands,” said Mr.
Caryll, then added a question touching Mistress Winthrop, and wondered
would she not be joining them at table.
“The poor child keeps her chamber,” said the earl. “She is
overwrought--overwrought! I am afraid her ladyship--” He broke off
abruptly, and coughed. “She is overwrought,” he repeated in conclusion.
“So that we dine alone.”
And alone they dined. Ostermore, despite the havoc suffered by his
fortunes, kept an excellent table and a clever cook, and Mr. Caryll was
glad to discover in his sire this one commendable trait.
The conversation was desultory throughout the repast; but when the cloth
was raised and the table cleared of all but the dishes of fruit and
the decanters of Oporto, Canary and Madeira, there came a moment of
expansion.
Mr. Caryll was leaning back in his chair, fingering the stem of his
wine-glass, watching the play of sunlight through the ruddy amber of the
wine, and considering the extraordinarily odd position of a man sitting
at table, by the merest chance, almost, with a father who was not aware
that he had begotten him. A question from his lordship came to stir him
partially from the reverie into which he was beginning to lapse.
“Do you look to make a long sojourn in England, Mr. Caryll?”
“It will depend,” was the vague and half-unconscious answer, “upon the
success of the matter I am come to transact.”
There ensued a brief pause, during which Mr. Caryll fell again into his
abstraction.
“Where do you dwell when in France, sir?” inquired my lord, as if to
make polite conversation.
Mr. Caryll lulled by his musings into carelessness, answered truthfully,
“At Maligny, in Normandy.”
The next moment there was a tinkle of breaking glass, and Mr. Caryll
realized his indiscretion and turned cold.
Lord Ostermore, who had been in the act of raising his glass, fetched
it down again so suddenly that the stem broke in his fingers, and the
mahogany was flooded with the liquor. A servant hastened forward, and
set a fresh glass for his lordship. That done, Ostermore signed to the
man to withdraw. The fellow went, closing the door, and leaving those
two alone.
The pause had been sufficient to enable Mr. Caryll to recover, and for
all that his pulses throbbed more quickly than their habit, outwardly he
maintained his lazily indifferent pose, as if entirely unconscious that
what he had said had occasioned his father the least disturbance.
“You--you dwelt at Maligny?” said his lordship, the usual high color all
vanished from his face. And again: “You dwelt at Maligny, and--and--your
name is Caryll.”
Mr. Caryll looked up quickly, as if suddenly aware that his lordship was
expressing surprise. “Why, yes,” said he. “What is there odd in that?”
“How does it happen that you come to live there? Are you at all
connected with the family of Maligny? On your mother's side, perhaps?”
Mr. Caryll took up his wine-glass. “I take it,” said he easily, “that
there was some such family at some time. But it is clear it must have
fallen upon evil days.” He sipped at his wine. “There are none left
now,” he explained, as he set down his glass. “The last of them died,
I believe, in England.” His eyes turned full upon the earl, but their
glance seemed entirely idle. “It was in consequence of that that my
father was enabled to purchase the estate.”
Mr. Caryll accounted it no lie that he suppressed the fact that the
father to whom he referred was but his father by adoption.
Relief spread instantly upon Lord Ostermore's countenance. Clearly,
he saw, here was pure coincidence, and nothing more. Indeed, what else
should there have been? What was it that he had feared? He did not know.
Still he accounted it an odd matter, and said so.
“What is odd?” inquired Mr. Caryll. “Does it happen that your lordship
was acquainted at any time with that vanished family?”
“I was, sir--slightly acquainted--at one time with one or two of its
members. 'Tis that that is odd. You see, sir, my name, too, happens to
be Caryll.”
“True--yet I see nothing so oddly coincident in the matter, particularly
if your acquaintance with these Malignys was but slight.”
“Indeed, you are right. You are right. There is no such great
coincidence, when all is said. The name reminded me of a--a folly of my
youth. 'Twas that that made impression.”
“A folly?” quoth Mr. Caryll, his eyebrows raised.
“Ay, a folly--a folly that went near undoing me, for had it come to
my father's ears, he had broke me without mercy. He was a hard man, my
father; a puritan in his ideas.”
“A greater than your lordship?” inquired Mr. Caryll blandly, masking the
rage that seethed in him.
His lordship laughed. “Ye're a wag, Mr. Caryll--a damned wag!” Then
reverting to the matter that was uppermost in his mind. “'Tis a fact,
though--'pon honor. My father would ha' broke me. Luckily she died.”
“Who died?” asked Mr. Caryll, with a show of interest.
“The girl. Did I not tell you there was a girl? 'Twas she was the
folly--Antoinette de Maligny. But she died--most opportunely, egad!
'Twas a very damned mercy that she did. It--cut the--the--what d'ye call
it--knot?”
“The Gordian knot?” suggested Mr. Caryll.
“Ay--the Gordian knot. Had she lived and had my father smoked the
affair--Gad! he would ha' broke me; he would so!” he repeated, and
emptied his glass.
Mr. Caryll, white to the lips, sat very still a moment. Then he did a
curious thing; did it with a curious suddenness. He took a knife from
the table, and hacked off the lowest button from his coat. This he
pushed across the board to his father.
“To turn to other matters,” said he; “there is the letter you were
expecting from abroad.”
“Eh? What?” Lord Ostermore took up the button. It was of silk,
interwoven with gold thread. He turned it over in his fingers, looking
at it with a heavy eye, and then at his guest. “Eh? Letter?” he
muttered, puzzled.
“If your lordship will cut that open, you will see what his majesty has
to propose.” He mentioned the king in a voice charged with suggestion,
so that no doubt could linger on the score of the king he meant.
“Gad!” cried his lordship. “Gad! 'Twas thus ye bubbled Mr. Green?
Shrewd, on my soul. And you are the messenger, then?”
“I am the messenger,” answered Mr. Caryll coldly.
“And why did you not say so before?”
For the fraction of a second Mr. Caryll hesitated. Then: “Because I did
not judge that the time was come,” said he.