Before Mr. Caryll left White's--which he did at a comparatively early
hour, that he might be at home to receive Lord Rotherby's friends--not
a man present but had offered him his services in the affair he had upon
his hands. Wharton, indeed, was not to be denied for one; and for the
other Mr. Caryll desired Gascoigne to do him the honor of representing
him.
It was a fine, dry night, and feeling the need for exercise, Mr. Caryll
set out to walk the short distance from St. James's Street to his
lodging, with a link-boy, preceding him, for only attendant. Arrived
home, he was met by Leduc with the information that Sir Richard Everard
was awaiting him. He went in, and the next moment he was in the arms of
his adoptive father.
Greetings and minor courtesies disposed of, Sir Richard came straight to
the affair which he had at heart. “Well? How speeds the matter?”
Mr. Caryll's face became overcast. He sat down, a thought wearily.
“So far as Lord Ostermore is concerned, it speeds--as you would wish it.
So far as I am concerned”--he paused and sighed--“I would that it sped
not at all, or that I was out of it.”
Sir Richard looked at him with searching eyes. “How?” he asked. “What
would you have me understand?”
“That in spite of all that has been said between us, in spite of all the
arguments you have employed, and with which once, for a little while,
you convinced me, this task is loathsome to me in the last degree.
Ostermore is my father, and I can't forget it.”
“And your mother?” Sir Richard's tone was sad, rather than indignant;
it spoke of a bitter disappointment, not at the events, but at this man
whom he loved with all a father's love.
“It were idle to go over it all again. I know everything that you
would--that you could--say. I have said it all to myself again and
again, in a vain endeavor to steel myself to the business to which you
plighted me. Had Ostermore been different, perhaps it had been easier.
I cannot say. As it is, I see in him a weakling, a man of inferior
intellect, who does not judge things as you and I judge them, whose
life cannot have been guided by the rules that serve for men of stronger
purpose.”
“You find excuses for him? For his deed?” cried Sir Richard, and his
voice was full of horror now; he stared askance at his adoptive son.
“No, no! Oh, I don't know. On my soul and conscience, I don't know!”
cried Mr. Caryll, like one in pain. He rose and moved restlessly about
the room. “No,” he pursued more calmly, “I don't excuse him. I blame
him--more bitterly than you can think; perhaps more bitterly even than
do you, for I have had a look into his mind and see the exact place held
there by my mother's memory. I can judge and condemn him; but I can't
execute him; I can't betray him. I don't think I could do it even if he
were not my father.”
He paused, and leaning his hands upon the table at which Sir Richard
sat, he faced him, and spoke in a voice of earnest pleading. “Sir
Richard, this was not the task to give me; or, if you had planned to
give it me, you should have reared me differently; you should not have
sought to make of me a gentleman. You have brought me up to principles
of honor, and you ask me now to outrage them, to cast them off, and to
become a very Judas. Is't wonderful I should rebel?”
They were hurtful words to Sir Richard--the poor fanatic whose mind was
all unsound on this one point, who had lived in contemplation of his
vengeance as a fasting monk lives through Lent in contemplation of the
Easter plenty. The lines of sorrow deepened in his face.
“Justin,” he said slowly, “you forget one thing. Honor is to be used
with men of honor; but he who allows his honor to stand a barrier
between himself and the man who has wronged him by dishonor, is no
better than a fool. You speak of yourself; you think of yourself. And
what of me, Justin? The things you say of yourself apply in a like
degree--nay, even more--to me.”
“Ah, but you are not his son. Oh, believe me, I speak not hastily or
lightly. I have been torn this way and that in these past days, until
at moments the burden has been heavier than I could bear. Once, for
a little while, I thought I could do all and more than you expect of
me--the moment, indeed, in which I took the first step, and delivered
him the letter. But it was a moment of wild heat. I cooled, and
reflection followed, and since then, because so much was done, I have
not known an instant's peace of mind; I have endeavored to forget the
position in which I am placed; but I have failed. I cannot. And if I go
through with this thing, I shall not know another hour in life that is
not poisoned by remorse.”
“Remorse?” echoed Sir Richard, between consternation and anger.
“Remorse?” He laughed bitterly. “What ails thee, boy? Do you pretend
that Lord Ostermore should go unpunished? Do you go so far as that?”
“Not so. He has made others suffer, and it is just--as we understand
justice--that he should suffer in his turn. Though, when all is said, he
is but a poor egotist, too dull-witted to understand the full vileness
of his sin. He is suffering, as it is--cursed in his son; for 'the
father of a fool hath no joy.' He hates this son of his, and his son
despises him. His wife is a shrew, a termagant, who embitters every hour
of his existence. Thus he drags out his life, unloving and unloved, a
thing to evoke pity.”
“Pity?” cried Sir Richard in a voice of thunder. “Pity? Ha! As I've a
soul, Justin, he shall be more pitiful yet ere I have done with him.”
“Be it so, then. But--if you love me--find some other hand to do the
work.”
“If I love you, Justin?” echoed the other, and his voice softened, his
eyes looked reproachfully upon his adoptive child. “Needs there an 'if'
to that? Are you not all I have--my son, indeed?”
He held out his hands, and Justin took them affectionately and pressed
them in his own.
“You'll put these weak notions from your mind, Justin, and prove worthy
the noble lady who was your mother?”
Mr. Caryll moved aside again, hanging his head, his face pale and
troubled. Where Everard's arguments must fail, his own affection for
Everard was like to conquer him. It was very weak in him, he told
himself; but then his love for Everard was strong, and he would fain
spare Everard the pain he knew he must be occasioning him. Still he did
battle, his repugnance up in arms.
“I would you could see the matter as I see it,” he sighed. “This man
grown old, and reaping in his old age the fruits of the egotism he has
sown. I do not believe that in all the world there is a single soul
would weep his lordship's death--if we except, perhaps, Mistress
Winthrop.”
“And do you pity him for that?” quoth Sir Richard coldly. “What right
has he to expect aught else? Who sows for himself, reaps for himself.
I marvel, indeed, that there should be even one to bewail him--to spare
him a kind thought.”
“And even there,” mused Mr. Caryll, “it is perhaps gratitude rather than
affection that inspires the kindness.”
“Who is Mistress Winthrop?”
“His ward. As sweet a lady, I think, as I have ever seen,” said
Mr. Caryll, incautious enthusiasm assailing him. Sir Richard's eyes
narrowed.
“You have some acquaintance with her?” he suggested.
Very briefly Mr. Caryll sketched for the second time that evening the
circumstances of his first meeting with Rotherby.
Sir Richard nodded sardonically. “Hum! He is his father's son, not a
doubt of that. 'Twill be a most worthy successor to my Lord Ostermore.
But the lady? Tell me of the lady. How comes she linked with them?”
“I scarce know, save from the scraps that I have heard. Her father, it
would seem, was Ostermore's friend, and, dying, he appointed Ostermore
her guardian. Her fortune, I take it, is very slender. Nevertheless,
Ostermore, whatever he may have done by other people, appears in this
case to have discharged his trust with zeal and with affection. But,
indeed, who could have done other where that sweet lady was concerned?
You should see her, Sir Richard!” He was pacing the room now as he
spoke, and as he spoke he warmed to his subject more and more. “She
is middling tall, of a most dainty slenderness, dark-haired, with a so
sweet and saintly beauty of face that it must be seen to be believed.
And eyes--Lord! the glory of her eyes! They are eyes that would lead a
man into hell and make him believe it heaven,
“'Love doth to her eyes repair
To help him of his blindness.'”
Sir Richard watched him, displeasure growing in his face. “So!” he said
at last. “Is that the reason?”
“The reason of what?” quoth Mr. Caryll, recalled from his sweet rapture.
“The reason of these fresh qualms of yours. The reason of all this
sympathy for Ostermore; this unwillingness to perform the sacred duty
that is yours.”
“Nay--on my soul, you do me wrong!” cried Mr. Caryll indignantly. “If
aught had been needed to spur me on, it had been my meeting with this
lady. It needed that to make me realize to the bitter full the wrong my
Lord Ostermore has done me in getting me; to make me realize that I am a
man without a name to offer any woman.”
But Sir Richard, watching him intently, shook his head and fetched a
sigh of sorrow and disdain. “Pshaw, Justin! How we befool ourselves! You
think it is not so; you try to think it is not so; but to me it is very
plain. A woman has arisen in your life, and this woman, seen but once or
twice, unknown a week or so ago, suffices to eclipse the memory of your
mother and turns your aim in life--the avenging of her bitter wrongs--to
water. Oh, Justin, Justin! I had thought you stronger.”
“Your conclusions are all wrong. I swear they are wrong!”
Sir Richard considered him sombrely. “Are you sure--quite, quite sure?”
Mr. Caryll's eyes fell, as the doubt now entered his mind for the first
time that it might be indeed as Sir Richard was suggesting. He was not
quite sure.
“Prove it to me, Justin,” Everard pleaded. “Prove it by abandoning this
weakness where my Lord Ostermore is concerned. Remember only the wrong
he has done. You are the incarnation of that wrong, and by your hand
must he be destroyed.” He rose, and caught the younger man's hands again
in his own, forced Mr. Caryll to confront him. “He shall know when the
time comes whose hand it was that pulled him down; he shall know the
Nemesis that has lain in wait for him these thirty years to smite him at
the end. And he shall taste hell in this world before he goes to it in
the next. It is God's own justice, boy! Will you be false to the duty
that lies before you? Will you forget your mother and her sufferings
because you have looked into the eyes of this girl, who--”
“No, no! Say no more!” cried Mr. Caryll, his voice trembling.
“You will do it,” said Sir Richard, between question and assertion.
“If Heaven lends me strength of purpose. But it asks much,” was the
gloomy answer. “I am to see Lord Ostermore to-morrow to obtain his
answer to King James' letter.”
Sir Richard's eyes gleamed. He released the other's hands, and turned
slowly to his chair again. “It is well,” he said slowly. “The thing asks
dispatch, or else some of his majesty's real friends may be involved.”
He proceeded to explain his words. “I have talked in vain with
Atterbury. He will not abandon the enterprise even at King James'
commands. He urges that his majesty can have no conception of how the
matter is advanced; that he has been laboring like Hercules, and that
the party is being swelled by men of weight and substance every day;
that it is too late to go back, and that he will go forward with
the king's consent or without it. Should he or his agents approach
Ostermore, in the meantime, it will be too late for us to take such
measures as we have concerted. For to deliver up Ostermore then would
entail the betrayal of others, which is not to be dreamt of. So you'll
use dispatch.”
“If I do the thing at all, it shall be done to-morrow,” answered Mr.
Caryll.
“If at all?” cried Sir Richard, frowning again. “If at all?”
Caryll turned to him. He crossed to the table, and leaning across it,
until his face was quite close to his adoptive father's. “Sir Richard,”
he begged, “let us say no more to-night. My will is all to do the thing.
It is my--my instincts that rebel. I think that the day will be carried
by my will. I shall strive to that end, believe me. But let us say no
more now.”
Sir Richard, looking deep into Mr. Caryll's eyes, was touched by
something that he saw. “My poor Justin!” he said gently. Then, checking
the sympathy as swiftly as it rose: “So be it, then,” he said briskly.
“You'll come to me to-morrow after you have seen his lordship?”
“Will you not remain here?”
“You have not the room. Besides, Sir Richard Everard--is too well known
for a Jacobite to be observed sharing your lodging. I have no right at
all in England, and there is always the chance of my being discovered.
I would not pull you down with me. I am lodged at the corner of Maiden
Lane, next door to the sign of Golden Flitch. Come to me there to-morrow
after you have seen Lord Ostermore.” He hesitated a moment. He was
impelled to recapitulate his injunctions; but he forbore. He put out his
hand abruptly. “Good-night, Justin.”
Justin took the hand and pressed it. The door opened, and Leduc entered.
“Captain Mainwaring and Mr. Falgate are here, sir, and would speak with
you,” he announced.
Mr. Caryll knit his brows a moment. His acquaintance with both men was
of the slightest, and it was only upon reflection that he bethought him
they would, no doubt, be come in the matter of his affair with Rotherby,
which in the stress of his interview with Sir Richard had been quite
forgotten. He nodded.
“Wait upon Sir Richard to the door, Leduc,” he bade his man. “Then
introduce these gentlemen.”
Sir Richard had drawn back a step. “I trust neither of these gentlemen
knows me,” he said. “I would not be seen here by any that did. It might
compromise you.”
But Mr. Caryll belittled Sir Richard's fears. “Pooh! 'Tis very unlike,”
said he; whereupon Sir Richard, seeing no help for it, went out quickly,
Leduc in attendance.
Lord Rotherby's friends in the ante-room paid little heed to him as
he passed briskly through. Surveillance came rather from an entirely
unsuspected quarter. As he left the house and crossed the square, a
figure detached itself from the shadow of the wall, and set out to
follow. It hung in his rear through the filthy, labyrinthine streets
which Sir Richard took to Charing Cross, followed him along the Strand
and up Bedford Street, and took note of the house he entered at the
corner of Maiden Lane.