In the ante-room communicating with Lord Ostermore's bedroom the
countess was in consultation with Rotherby, who had been summoned by his
mother when my lord was stricken.
Her ladyship occupied the window-seat; Rotherby stood beside
her, leaning slightly against the frame of the open window. Their
conversation was earnest and conducted in a low key, and one would
naturally have conjectured that it had for subject the dangerous
condition of the earl. And so it had--the dangerous condition of the
earl's political, if not physical, affairs. To her ladyship and her son,
the matter of their own future was of greater gravity than the matter
of whether his lordship lived or died--which, whatever it may be, is
not unreasonable. Since the impeachment of my lord and the coming of
the messengers to arrest him, the danger of ruin and beggary were become
more imminent--indeed, they impended, and measures must be concerted
to avert these evils. By comparison with that, the earl's succumbing or
surviving was a trivial matter; and the concern they had manifested in
Sir James' news--when the important, well-nourished physician who had
bled his lordship came to inform them that there was hope--was outward
only, and assumed for pure decorum's sake.
“Whether he lives or dies,” said the viscount pertinently, after the
doctor had departed to return to his patient, “the measures to be
taken are the same.” And he repeated the substance of their earlier
discussions upon this same topic. “If we can but secure the evidence of
his treason with Caryll,” he wound up, “I shall be able to make terms
with Lord Carteret to arrest the proceedings the government may intend,
and thus avert the restitution it would otherwise enforce.”
“But if he were to die,” said her ladyship, as coldly, horribly
calculating as though he were none of hers, “there would be an end to
this danger. They could not demand restitution of the dead, nor impose
fines upon him.”
Rotherby shook his head. “Believe not that, madam,” said he. “They can
demand restitution of his heirs and impose their fines upon the estate.
'Twas done in the case of Chancellor Craggs, though he shot himself.”
She raised a haggard face to his. “And do you dream that Lord Carteret
would make terms with you?”
“If I can show him--by actual proof--that a conspiracy does exist, that
the Stuart supporters are plotting a rising. Proof of that should be of
value to Lord Carteret, of sufficient value to the government to warrant
the payment of the paltry price I ask--that the impeachment against my
father for his dealings with the South Sea Company shall not be allowed.
“But it might involve the worse betrayal of your father, Charles, and if
he were to live--”
“'Sdeath, mother, why must you harp on that? I a'n't the fool you think
me,” he cried. “I shall make it a further condition that my father have
immunity. There will be no lack of victims once the plot is disclosed;
and they may begin upon that coxcomb Caryll--the damned meddler who is
at the bottom of all this garboil.”
She sat bemused, her eyes upon the sunlit gardens below, where a faint
breeze was stirring the shrub tops.
“There is,” she said presently, “a secret drawer somewhere in his desk.
If he has papers they will, no doubt, be there. Had you not best be
making search for them?”
He smiled darkly. “I have seen to that already,” he replied.
“How?” excitedly. “You have got the papers?”
“No; but I have set an experienced hand to find them, and one, moreover,
who has the right by virtue of his warrant--the messenger of the
secretary of state.”
She sat up, rigid. “'Sdeath! What is't ye mean?”
“No need for alarm,” he reassured her. “This fellow Green is in my pay,
as well as in the secretary's, and it will profit him most to keep faith
with me. He's a self-seeking dog, content to run with the hare and hunt
with the hounds, so that there be profit in it, and he'd sacrifice his
ears to bring Mr. Caryll to the gallows. I have promised him that and a
thousand pounds if we save the estates from confiscation.”
She looked at him, between wonder and fear. “Can ye trust him?” she
asked breathlessly.
He laughed softly and confidently. “I can trust him to earn a thousand
pounds,” he answered. “When he heard of the impeachment, he used such
influence as he has to be entrusted with the arrest of his lordship;
and having obtained his warrant, he came first to me to tell me of it. A
thousand pounds is the price of him, body and soul. I bade him seek not
only evidence of my lord's having received that plaguey stock, but also
papers relating to this Jacobite plot into which his lordship has been
drawn by our friend Caryll. He is at his work at present. And I shall
hear from him when it is accomplished.”
She nodded slowly, thoughtfully. “You have very well disposed, Charles,”
she approved him. “If your father lives, it should not be a difficult
matter--”
She checked suddenly and turned, while Rotherby, too, looked up and
stepped quickly from the window-embrasure where he had stood.
The door of the bedroom had been suddenly pulled open, and Sir James
came out, very pale and discomposed.
“Madam--your ladyship--my lord!” he gasped, his mouth working, his hands
waving foolishly.
The countess rose to confront him, tall, severe and harsh. The viscount
scowled a question. Sir James quailed before them, evidently in
affliction.
“Madam--his lordship,” he said, and by his eloquent gesture of dejection
announced what he had some difficulty in putting into words.
She stepped forward, and took him by the wrist. “Is he dying?” she
inquired.
“Have courage, madam,” the doctor besought her.
The apparent irrelevancy of the request at such a moment, angered
her. Her mood was dangerously testy. And had the doctor but known it,
sympathy was a thing she had not borne well these many years.
“I asked you was he dying,” she reminded him, with a cold sternness that
beat aside all his attempts at subterfuge.
“Your ladyship--he is dead,” he faltered, with lowered eyes.
“Dead?” she echoed dully, and her hand went to the region of her heart,
her face turned livid under its rouge. “Dead?” she said again, and
behind her, Rotherby echoed the dread word in a stupor almost equal to
her own. Her lips moved to speak, but no words came. She staggered where
she stood, and put her hand to her brow. Her son's arms were quickly
about her. He supported her to a chair, where she sank as if all her
joints were loosened.
Sir James flew for restoratives; bathed her brow with a dampened
handkerchief; held strong salts to her nostrils, and murmured words
of foolish, banal consolation, whilst Rotherby, in a half-dreaming
condition, stunned by the suddenness of the blow, stood beside her,
mechanically lending his assistance and supporting her.
Gradually she mastered her agitation. It was odd that she should feel so
much at losing what she valued so little. Leastways, it would have been
odd, had it been that. It was not--it was something more. In the awful,
august presence of death, stepped so suddenly into their midst, she felt
herself appalled.
For nigh upon thirty years she had been bound by legal and churchly
ties in a loveless union with Lord Ostermore--married for the handsome
portion that had been hers, a portion which he had gamed away and
squandered until, for their station, their circumstances were now
absolutely straitened. They had led a harsh, discordant life, and the
coming of a son, which should have bridged the loveless gulf between
them, seemed but to have served to dig it wider. And the son had been
just the harsh, unfeeling offspring that might be looked for from such
a union. Thirty years of slavery had been her ladyship's, and in those
thirty years her nature had been soured and warped, and what inherent
sweetness it may once have known had long since been smothered and
destroyed. She had no cause to love that man who had never loved her,
never loved aught of hers beyond her jointure. And yet, there was the
habit of thirty years. For thirty years they had been yoke-fellows,
however detestable the yoke. But yesterday he had been alive and strong,
a stupid, querulous thing maybe, but a living. And now he was so much
carrion that should be given to the earth. In some such channel ran
her ladyship's reflections during those few seconds in which she was
recovering. For an instant she was softened. The long-since dried-up
springs of tenderness seemed like to push anew under the shock of this
event. She put out a hand to take her son's.
“Charles!” she said, and surprised him by the tender note.
A moment thus; then she was herself again. “How did he die?” she asked
the doctor; and the abruptness of the resumption of her usual manner
startled Sir James more than aught in his experience of such scenes.
“It was most sudden, madam,” answered he. “I had the best grounds
for hope. I was being persuaded we should save him. And then, quite
suddenly, without an instant's warning, he succumbed. He just heaved a
sigh, and was gone. I could scarcely believe my senses, madam.”
He would have added more particulars of his feelings and emotions--for
he was of those who believe that their own impressions of a phenomenon
are that phenomenon's most interesting manifestations--but her ladyship
waved him peremptorily into silence.
He drew back, washing his hands in the air, an expression of polite
concern upon his face. “Is there aught else I can do to be of service to
your ladyship?” he inquired, solicitous.
“What else?” she asked, with a fuller return to her old self. “Ye've
killed him. What more is there you can do?”
“Oh, madam--nay, madam! I am most deeply grieved that my--my--”
“His lordship will wait upon you to the door,” said she, designating her
son.
The eminent physician effaced himself from her ladyship's attention. It
was his boast that he could take a hint when one was given him; and so
he could, provided it were broad enough, as in the present instance.
He gathered up his hat and gold-headed cane--the unfailing insignia of
his order--and was gone, swiftly and silently.
Rotherby closed the door after him, and returned slowly, head bowed, to
the window where his mother was still seated. They looked at each other
gravely for a long moment.
“This makes matters easier for you,” she said at length.
“Much easier. It does not matter now how far his complicity may be
betrayed by his papers. I am glad, madam, to see you so far recovered
from your weakness.”
She shivered, as much perhaps at his tone as at the recollections he
evoked. “You are very indifferent, Charles,” said she.
He looked at her steadily, then slightly shrugged. “What need to wear
a mask? Bah! Did he ever give me cause to feel for him?” he asked.
“Mother, if one day I have a son of my own, I shall see to it that he
loves me.”
“You will be hard put to it, with your nature, Charles,” she told him
critically. Then she rose. “Will you go to him with me?” she asked.
He made as if to acquiesce, then halted. “No,” he said, and there was
repugnance in his tone and face. “Not--not now.”
There came a knocking at the door, rapid, insistent. Grateful for the
interruption, Rotherby went to open.
Mr. Green staggered forward with swollen eyes, his face inflamed with
rage, and with something else that was not quite apparent to Rotherby.
“My lord!” he cried in a loud, angry voice.
Rotherby caught his wrist and checked him. “Sh! sir,” he said gravely.
“Not here.” And he pushed him out again, her ladyship following them.
It was in the gallery--above the hall, in which the servants still stood
idly about--that Mr. Green spattered out his wrathful tale of what had
befallen in the library.
Rotherby shook him as if he had been a rat. “You cursed fool!” he cried.
“You left him there--at the desk?”
“What help had I?” demanded Green with spirit. “My eyes were on fire. I
couldn't see, and the pain of them made me helpless.”
“Then why did ye not send word to me at once, you fool?”
“Because I was concerned only to stop my eyes from burning,” answered
Mr. Green, in a towering rage at finding reproof where he had come in
quest of sympathy. “I have come to you at the first moment, damn you!”
he burst out, in full rebellion. “And you'll use me civilly now that I
am come, or--ecod!--it'll be the worse for your lordship.”
Rotherby considered him through a faint mist that rage had set before
his eyes. To be so spoken to--damned indeed!--by a dirty spy! Had he
been alone with the man, there can be little doubt but that he would
have jeopardized his very precarious future by kicking Mr. Green
downstairs. But his mother saved him from that rashness. It may be that
she saw something of his anger in his kindling eye, and thought it well
to intervene.
She set a hand on his sleeve. “Charles!” she said to him in a voice that
was dead cold with warning.
He responded to it, and chose discretion. He looked Green over,
nevertheless. “I vow I'm very patient with you,” said he, and Green
had the discretion on his side to hold his tongue. “Come, man, while we
stand talking here that knave may be destroying precious evidence.”
And his lordship went quickly down the stairs, Mr. Green following hard
upon his heels, and her ladyship bringing up the rear.
At the door of the library Rotherby came to a halt, and turned the
handle. The door was locked. He beckoned a couple of footmen across the
hall, and bade them break it open.