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.