Chapter 9 The Lion's Skin by Rafael Sabatini
THE CHAMPION
Mr. Caryll was well and handsomely housed, as became the man of fashion, in the lodging he had taken in Old Palace Yard. Knowing him from abroad, it was not impossible that the government—fearful of sedition since the disturbance caused by the South Sea distress, and aware of an undercurrent of Jacobitism—might for a time, at least, keep an eye upon him. It behooved him, therefore, to appear neither more nor less than a lounger, a gentleman of pleasure who had come to London in quest of diversion. To support this appearance, Mr. Caryll had sought out some friends of his in town. There were Stapleton and Collis, who had been at Oxford with him, and with whom he had ever since maintained a correspondence and a friendship. He sought them out on the very evening of his arrival—after his interview with Lord Ostermore. He had the satisfaction of being handsomely welcomed by them, and was plunged under their guidance into the gaieties that the town afforded liberally for people of quality.
Mr. Caryll was—as I hope you have gathered—an agreeable fellow, very free, moreover, with the contents of his well-equipped purse; and so you may conceive that the town showed him a very friendly, cordial countenance. He fell into the habits of the men whose company he frequented; his days were as idle as theirs, and spent at the parade, the Ring, the play, the coffeehouse and the ordinary.
But under the gay exterior he affected he carried a spirit of most vile unrest. The anger which had prompted his impulse to execute, after all, the business on which he was come, and to deliver his father the letter that was to work his ruin, was all spent. He had cooled, and cool it was idle for him to tell himself that Lord Ostermore, by his heartless allusion to the crime of his early years, had proved himself worthy of nothing but the pit Mr. Caryll had been sent to dig for him. There were moments when he sought to compel himself so to think, to steel himself against all other considerations. But it was idle. The reflection that the task before him was unnatural came ever to revolt him. To gain ease, the most that he could do—and he had the faculty of it developed in a preternatural degree—was to put the business from him for the time, endeavor to forget it. And he had another matter to consider and to plague him—the matter of Hortensia Winthrop. He thought of her a great deal more than was good for his peace of mind, for all that he pretended to a gladness that things were as they were. Each morning that he lounged at the parade in St. James's Park, each evening that he visited the Ring, it was in the hope of catching some glimpse of her among the fashionable women that went abroad to see and to be seen. And on the third morning after his arrival the thing he hoped for came to pass.
It had happened that my lady had ordered her carriage that morning, dressed herself with the habitual splendor, which but set off the shortcomings of her lean and angular person, egregiously coiffed, pulvilled and topknotted, and she had sent a message amounting to a command to Mistress Winthrop that she should drive in the park with her.
Poor Hortensia, whose one desire was to hide her face from the town's uncharitable sight just then, fearing, indeed, that Rumor's unscrupulous tongue would be as busy about her reputation as her ladyship had represented, attempted to assert herself by refusing to obey the command. It was in vain. Her ladyship dispensed with ambassadors, and went in person to convey her orders to her husband's ward, and to enforce them.
“What's this I am told?” quoth she, as she sailed into Hortensia's room. “Do my wishes count for nothing, that you send me pert answers by my woman?”
Hortensia rose. She had been sitting by the window, a book in her lap. “Not so, indeed, madam. Not pert, I trust. I am none so well, and I fear the sun.”
“'Tis little wonder,” laughed her ladyship; “and I'm glad on't, for it shows ye have a conscience somewhere. But 'tis no matter for that. I am tender for your reputation, mistress, and I'll not have you shunning daylight like the guilty thing ye know yourself to be.”
“'Tis false, madam,” said Hortensia, with indignation. “Your ladyship knows it to be false.”
“Harkee, ninny, if you'd have the town believe it false, you'll show yourself—show that ye have no cause for shame, no cause to hide you from the eyes of honest folk. Come, girl; bid your woman get your hood and tippet. The carriage stays for us.”
To Hortensia her ladyship's seemed, after all, a good argument. Did she hide, what must the town think but that it confirmed the talk that she made no doubt was going round already. Better to go forth and brave it, and surely it should disarm the backbiters if she showed herself in the park with Lord Rotherby's own mother.
It never occurred to her that this seeming tenderness for her reputation might be but wanton cruelty on her ladyship's part; a gratifying of her spleen against the girl by setting her in the pillory of public sight to the end that she should experience the insult of supercilious glances and lips that smile with an ostentation of furtiveness; a desire to put down her pride and break the spirit which my lady accounted insolent and stubborn.
Suspecting naught of this, she consented, and drove out with her ladyship as she was desired to do. But understanding of her ladyship's cruel motives, and repentance of her own acquiescence, were not long in following. Soon—very soon—she realized that anything would have been better than the ordeal she was forced to undergo.
It was a warm, sunny morning, and the park was crowded with fashionable loungers. Lady Ostermore left her carriage at the gates, and entered the enclosure on foot, accompanied by Hortensia and followed at a respectful distance by a footman. Her arrival proved something of a sensation. Hats were swept off to her ladyship, sly glances flashed at her companion, who went pale, but apparently serene, eyes looking straight before her; and there was an obvious concealing of smiles at first, which later grew to be all unconcealed, and, later still, became supplemented by remarks that all might hear, remarks which did not escape—as they were meant not to escape—her ladyship and Mistress Winthrop.
“Madam,” murmured the girl, in her agony of shame, “we were not well-advised to come. Will not your ladyship turn back?”
Her ladyship displayed a vinegary smile, and looked at her companion over the top of her slowly moving fan. “Why? Is't not pleasant here?” quoth she. “'Twill be more agreeable under the trees yonder. The sun will not reach you there, child.”
“'Tis not the sun I mind, madam,” said Hortensia, but received no answer. Perforce she must pace on beside her ladyship.
Lord Rotherby came by, arm in arm with his friend, the Duke of Wharton. It was a one-sided friendship. Lord Rotherby was but one of the many of his type who furnished a court, a valetaille, to the gay, dissolute, handsome, witty duke, who might have been great had he not preferred his vices to his worthier parts.
As they went by, Lord Rotherby bared his head and bowed, as did his companion. Her ladyship smiled upon him, but Hortensia's eyes looked rigidly ahead, her face a stone. She heard his grace's insolent laugh as they passed on; she heard his voice—nowise subdued, for he was a man who loved to let the world hear what he might have to say.
“Gad! Rotherby, the wind has changed! Your Dulcinea flies with you o' Wednesday, and has ne'er a glance for you o' Saturday! I' faith! ye deserve no better. Art a clumsy gallant to have been overtaken, and the maid's in the right on't to resent your clumsiness.”
Rotherby's reply was lost in a splutter of laughter from a group of sycophants who had overheard his grace's criticism and were but too ready to laugh at aught his grace might deign to utter. Her cheeks burned; it was by an effort that she suppressed the tears that anger was forcing to her eyes.
The duke, 'twas plain, had set the fashion. Emulators were not wanting. Stray words she caught; by instinct was she conscious of the oglings, the fluttering of fans from the women, the flashing of quizzing-glasses from the men. And everywhere was there a suppressed laugh, a stifled exclamation of surprise at her appearance in public—yet not so stifled but that it reached her, as it was intended that it should.
In the shadow of a great elm, around which there was a seat, a little group had gathered, of which the centre was the sometime toast of the town and queen of many Wells, the Lady Mary Deller, still beautiful and still unwed—as is so often the way of reigning toasts—but already past her pristine freshness, already leaning upon the support of art to maintain the endowments she had had from nature. She was accounted witty by the witless, and by some others.
Of the group that paid its court to her and her companions—two giggling cousins in their first season were Mr. Caryll and his friends, Sir Harry Collis and Mr. Edward Stapleton, the former of whom—he was the lady's brother-in-law—had just presented him. Mr. Caryll was dressed with even more than his ordinary magnificence. He was in dove-colored cloth, his coat very richly laced with gold, his waistcoat—of white brocade with jeweled buttons, the flower-pattern outlined in finest gold thread—descended midway to his knees, whilst the ruffles at his wrists and the Steinkirk at his throat were of the finest point. He cut a figure of supremest elegance, as he stood there, his chestnut head slightly bowed in deference as my Lady Mary spoke, his hat tucked under his arm, his right hand outstretched beside him to rest upon the gold head of his clouded-amber cane.
To the general he was a stranger still in town, and of the sort that draws the eye and provokes inquiry. Lady Mary, the only goal of whose shallow existence was the attention of the sterner sex, who loved to break hearts as a child breaks toys, for the fun of seeing how they look when broken—and who, because of that, had succeeded in breaking far fewer than she fondly imagined—looked up into his face with the “most perditiously alluring” eyes in England—so Mr. Craske, the poet, who stood at her elbow now, had described them in the dedicatory sonnet of his last book of poems. (Wherefore, in parenthesis be it observed, she had rewarded him with twenty guineas, as he had calculated that she would.)
There was a sudden stir in the group. Mr. Craske had caught sight of Lady Ostermore and Mistress Winthrop, and he fell to giggling, a flimsy handkerchief to his painted lips. “Oh, 'Sbud!” he bleated. “Let me die! The audaciousness of the creature! And behold me the port and glance of her! Cold as a vestal, let me perish!”
Lady Mary turned with the others to look in the direction he was pointing—pointing openly, with no thought of dissembling.
Mr. Caryll's eyes fell upon Mistress Winthrop, and his glance was oddly perceptive. He observed those matters of which Mr. Craske had seemed to make sardonic comment: the erect stiffness of her carriage, the eyes that looked neither to right nor left, and the pallor of her face. He observed, too, the complacent air with which her ladyship advanced beside her husband's ward, her fan moving languidly, her head nodding to her acquaintance, as in supreme unconcern of the stir her coming had effected.
Mr. Caryll had been dull indeed, knowing what he knew, had he not understood to the full the humiliation to which Mistress Hortensia was being of purpose set submitted.
And just then Rotherby, who had turned, with Wharton and another now, came by them again. This time he halted, and his companions with him, for just a moment, to address his mother. She turned; there was an exchange of greetings, in which Mistress Hortensia standing rigid as stone—took no part. A silence fell about; quizzing-glasses went up; all eyes were focussed upon the group. Then Rotherby and his friends resumed their way.
“The dog!” said Mr. Caryll, between his teeth, but went unheard by any, for in that moment Dorothy Deller—the younger of the Lady Mary's cousins—gave expression to the generous and as yet unsullied little heart that was her own.
“Oh, 'tis shameful!” she cried. “Will you not go speak with her, Molly?”
The Lady Mary stiffened. She looked at the company about her with an apologetic smile. “I beg that ye'll not heed the child,” said she. “'Tis not that she is without morals—but without knowledge. An innocent little fool; no worse.”
“'Tis bad enough, I vow,” laughed an old beau, who sought fame as a man of a cynical turn of humor.
“But fortunately rare,” said Mr. Caryll dryly. “Like charity, almost unknown in this Babylon.”
His tone was not quite nice, although perhaps the Lady Mary was the only one to perceive the note of challenge in it. But Mr. Craske, the poet, diverted attention to himself by a prolonged, malicious chuckle. Rotherby was just moving away from his mother at that moment.
“They've never a word for each other to-day!” he cried. “Oh, 'Sbud! not so much as the mercy of a glance will the lady afford him.” And he burst into the ballad of King Francis:
“Souvent femme varie,
Bien, fol est qui s'y fie!”
and laughed his prodigious delight at the aptness of his quotation.
Mr. Caryll put up his gold-rimmed quizzing-glass, and directed through that powerful weapon of offence an eye of supreme displeasure upon the singer. He could not contain his rage, yet from his languid tone none would have suspected it. “Sir,” said he, “ye've a singular unpleasant voice.”
Mr. Craske, thrown out of countenance by so much directness, could only stare; the same did the others, though some few tittered, for Mr. Craske, when all was said, was held in no great esteem by the discriminant.
Mr. Caryll lowered his glass. “I've heard it said by the uncharitable that ye were a lackey before ye became a plagiarist. 'Tis a rumor I shall contradict in future; 'tis plainly a lie, for your voice betrays you to have been a chairman.”
“Sir—sir—” spluttered the poetaster, crimson with anger and mortification. “Is this—is this—seemly—between gentlemen?”
“Between gentlemen it would not be seemly,” Mr. Caryll agreed.
Mr. Craske, quivering, yet controlling himself, bowed stiffly. “I have too much respect for myself—” he gasped.
“Ye'll be singular in that, no doubt,” said Mr. Caryll, and turned his shoulder upon him.
Again Mr. Craske appeared to make an effort at self-control; again he bowed. “I know—I hope—what is due to the Lady Mary Deller, to—to answer you as—as befits. But you shall hear from me, sir. You shall hear from me.”
He bowed a third time—a bow that took in the entire company—and withdrew in high dudgeon and with a great show of dignity. A pause ensued, and then the Lady Mary reproved Mr. Caryll.
“Oh, 'twas cruel in you, sir,” she cried. “Poor Mr. Craske! And to dub him plagiarist! 'Twas the unkindest cut of all!”
“Truth, madam, is never kind.”
“Oh, fie! You make bad worse!” she cried.
“He'll put you in the pillory of his verse for this,” laughed Collis. “Ye'll be most scurvily lampooned for't.”
“Poor Mr. Craske!” sighed the Lady Mary again.
“Poor, indeed; but not in the sense to deserve pity. An upstart impostor such as that to soil a lady with his criticism!”
Lady Mary's brows went up. “You use a singular severity, sir,” she opined, “and I think it unwise in you to grow so hot in the defence of a reputation whose owner has so little care for it herself.”
Mr. Caryll looked at her out of his level gray-green eyes; a hot answer quivered on his tongue, an answer that had crushed her venom for some time and had probably left him with a quarrel on his hands. Yet his smile, as he considered her, was very sweet, so sweet that her ladyship, guessing nothing of the bitterness it was used to cover, went as near a smirk as it was possible for one so elegant. He was, she judged, another victim ripe for immolation on the altar of her goddessship. And Mr. Caryll, who had taken her measure very thoroughly, seeing something of how her thoughts were running, bethought him of a sweeter vengeance.
“Lady Mary,” he cried, a soft reproach in his voice, “I have been sore mistook in you if you are one to be guided by the rabble.” And he waved a hand toward the modish throng.
She knit her fine brows, bewildered.
“Ah!” he cried, interpreting her glance to suit his ends, “perish the thought, indeed! I knew that I could not be wrong. I knew that one so peerless in all else must be peerless, too, in her opinions; judging for herself, and standing firm upon her judgment in disdain of meaner souls—mere sheep to follow their bell-wether.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing, being too intrigued by this sudden and most sweet flattery. Her mere beauty had oft been praised, and in terms that glowed like fire. But what was that compared with this fine appreciation of her less obvious mental parts—and that from one who had seen the world?
Mr. Caryll was bending over her. “What a chance is here,” he was murmuring, “to mark your lofty detachment—to show how utter is your indifference to what the common herd may think.”
“As—as how?” she asked, blinking up at him.
The others stood at gaze, scarce yet suspecting the drift of so much talk.
“There is a poor lady yonder, of whose fair name a bubble is being blown and pricked. I dare swear there's not a woman here durst speak to her. Yet what a chance for one that dared! How fine a triumph would be hers!” He sighed. “Heigho! I almost wish I were a woman, that I might make that triumph mine and mark my superiority to these painted dolls that have neither wit nor courage.”
The Lady Mary rose, a faint color in her cheeks, a sparkle in her fine eyes. A great joy flashed into Mr. Caryll's in quick response; a joy in her—she thought with ready vanity—and a heightening admiration.
“Will you make it yours, as it should be—as it must ever be—to lead and not to follow?” he cried, flattering incredibility trembling in his voice.
“And why not, sir?” she demanded, now thoroughly aroused.
“Why not, indeed—since you are you?” quoth he. “It is what I had hoped in you, and yet—and yet what I had almost feared to hope.”
She frowned upon him now, so excellently had he done his work. “Why should you have feared that?”
“Alas! I am a man of little faith—unworthy, indeed, your good opinion since I entertained a doubt. It was a blasphemy.”
She smiled again. “You acknowledge your faults with such a grace,” said she, “that we must needs forgive them. And now to show you how much you need forgiveness. Come, children,” she bade her cousins—for whose innocence she had made apology but a moment back. “Your arm, Harry,” she begged her brother-in-law.
Sir Harry obeyed her readily, but without eagerness. In his heart he cursed his friend Caryll for having set her on to this.
Mr. Caryll himself hung upon her other side, his eyes toward Lady Ostermore and Hortensia, who, whilst being observed by all, were being approached by few; and these few confined themselves to an exchange of greetings with her ladyship, which constituted a worse offence to Mistress Winthrop than had they stayed away.
Suddenly, as if drawn by his ardent gaze, Hortensia's eyes moved at last from their forward fixity. Her glance met Mr. Caryll's across the intervening space. Instantly he swept off his hat, and bowed profoundly. The action drew attention to himself. All eyes were focussed upon him, and between many a pair there was a frown for one who should dare thus to run counter to the general attitude.
But there was more to follow. The Lady Mary accepted Mr. Caryll's salutation of Hortensia as a signal. She led the way promptly, and the little band swept forward, straight for its goal, raked by the volleys from a thousand eyes, under which the Lady Mary already began to giggle excitedly.
Thus they reached the countess, the countess standing very rigid in her amazement, to receive them.
“I hope I see your ladyship well,” said Lady Mary.
“I hope your ladyship does,” answered the countess tartly.
Mistress Winthrop's eyes were lowered; her cheeks were scarlet. Her distress was plain, born of her doubt of the Lady Mary's purpose, and suspense as to what might follow.
“I have not the honor of your ward's acquaintance, Lady Ostermore,” said Lady Mary, whilst the men were bowing, and her cousins curtseying to the countess and her companion collectively.
The countess gasped, recovered, and eyed the speaker without any sign of affection. “My husband's ward, ma'am,” she corrected, in a voice that seemed to discourage further mention of Hortensia.
“'Tis but a distinction,” put in Mr. Caryll suggestively.
“Indeed, yes. Will not your ladyship present me?” The countess' malevolent eyes turned a moment upon Mr. Caryll, smiling demurely at Lady Mary's elbow. In his face—as well as in the four words he had uttered—she saw that here was work of his, and he gained nothing in her favor by it. Meanwhile there were no grounds—other than such as must have been wantonly offensive to the Lady Mary, and so not to be dreamed of—upon which to refuse her request. The countess braced herself, and with an ill grace performed the brief ceremony of presentation.
Mistress Winthrop looked up an instant, then down again; it was a piteous, almost a pleading glance.
Lady Mary, leaving the countess to Sir Harry Stapleton, Caryll and the others, moved to Hortensia's side for a moment she was at loss what to say, and took refuge in a commonplace.
“I have long desired the pleasure of your acquaintance,” said she.
“I am honored, madam,” replied Hortensia, with downcast eyes. Then lifting them with almost disconcerting suddenness. “Your ladyship has chosen an odd season in which to gratify this desire with which you honor me.”
Lady Mary laughed, as much at the remark as for the benefit of those whose eyes were upon her. She knew there would not be wanting many who would condemn her; but these should be far outnumbered by those who would be lost in admiration of her daring, that she could so fly in the face of public opinion; and she was grateful to Mr. Caryll for having suggested to her a course of such distinction.
“I could have chosen no better season,” she replied, “to mark my scorn of evil tongues and backbiters.”
Color stained Hortensia's cheek again; gratitude glowed in her eyes. “You are very noble, madam,” she answered with flattering earnestness.
“La!” said the Lady Mary. “Is nobility, then, so easily achieved?” And thereafter they talked of inconsequent trifles, until Mr. Caryll moved towards them, and Lady Mary turned aside to speak to the countess.
At Mr. Caryll's approach Hortensia's eyes had been lowered again, and she made no offer to address him as he stood before her now, hat under arm, leaning easily upon his amber cane.
“Oh, heart of stone!” said he at last. “Am I not yet forgiven?”
She misread his meaning—perhaps already the suspicion she now voiced had been in her mind. She looked up at him sharply. “Was it—was it you who fetched the Lady Mary to me?” she inquired.
“Lo!” said he. “You have a voice! Now Heaven be praised! I was fearing it was lost for me—that you had made some awful vow never again to rejoice my ears with the music of it.”
“You have not answered my question,” she reminded him.
“Nor you mine,” said he. “I asked you am I not yet forgiven.”
“Forgiven what?”
“For being born an impudent, fleering coxcomb—twas that you called me, I think.”
She flushed deeply. “If you would win forgiveness, you should not remind me of the offence,” she answered low.
“Nay,” he rejoined, “that is to confound forgiveness with forgetfulness. I want you to forgive and yet to remember.”
“That were to condone.”
“What else? 'Tis nothing less will satisfy me.”
“You expect too much,” she answered, with a touch that was almost of sternness.
He shrugged and smiled whimsically. “It is my way,” he said apologetically. “Nature has made me expectant, and life, whilst showing me the folly of it, has not yet cured me.”
She looked at him, and repeated her earlier question. “Was it at your bidding that Lady Mary came to speak with me?”
“Fie!” he cried. “What insinuations do you make against her?”
“Insinuations?”
“What else? That she should do things at my bidding!”
She smiled understanding. “You have a talent, sir, for crooked answers.”
“'Tis to conceal the rectitude of my behavior.”
“It fails of its object, then,” said she, “for it deludes no one.” She paused and laughed at his look of assumed blankness. “I am deeply beholden to you,” she whispered quickly, breathing at once gratitude and confusion.
“Though I don't descry the cause,” said he, “'twill be something to comfort me.”
More he might have added then, for the mad mood was upon him, awakened by those soft brown eyes of hers. But in that moment the others of that little party crowded upon them to take their leave of Mistress Winthrop.
Mr. Caryll felt satisfied that enough had been done to curb the slander concerning Hortensia. But he was not long in learning how profound was his mistake. On every side he continued to hear her discussed, and in such terms as made his ears tingle and his hands itch to be at work in her defence; for, with smirks and sneers and innuendoes, her escapade with Lord Rotherby continued to furnish a topic for the town as her ladyship had sworn it would. Yet by what right could he espouse her cause with any one of her defamers without bringing her fair name into still more odious notoriety?
And meanwhile he knew that he was under strict surveillance from Mr. Green; knew that he was watched wherever he went; and nothing but his confidence that no evidence could be produced against him allowed him to remain, as he did, all unconcerned of this.
Leduc had more than once seen Mr. Green about Old Palace Yard, besides a couple of his underlings, one or the other of whom was never absent from the place, no doubt with intent to observe who came and went at Mr. Caryll's. Once, indeed, during the absence of master and servant, Mr. Caryll's lodging was broken into, and on Leduc's return he found a confusion which told him how thoroughly the place had been ransacked.
If Mr. Caryll had had anything to hide, this would have given him the hint to take his precautions; but as he had nothing that was in the least degree in incriminating, he went his ways in supremest unconcern of the vigilance exerted over him. He used, however, a greater discretion in the resorts he frequented. And if upon occasion he visited such Tory meeting-places as the Bell Tavern in King Street or the Cocoa-Tree in Pall Mall, he was still more often to be found at White's, that ultra-Whig resort.
It was at this latter house, one evening three or four days after his meeting with Hortensia in the park, that the chance was afforded him at last of vindicating her honor in a manner that need not add to the scandal that was already abroad, nor serve to couple his name with hers unduly. And it was Lord Rotherby himself who afforded him the opportunity.
The thing fell out in this wise: Mr. Caryll was at cards with Harry Collis and Stapleton and Major Gascoigne, in a room above-stairs. There were at least a dozen others present, some also at play, others merely lounging. Of the latter was his Grace of Wharton. He was a slender, graceful gentleman, whose face, if slightly effeminate and markedly dissipated, was nevertheless of considerable beauty. He was very splendid in a suit of green camlett and silver lace, and he wore a flaxen periwig without powder.
He was awaiting Rotherby, with whom—as he told the company—he was for a frolic at Drury Lane, where a ridotto was following the play. He spoke, as usual, in a loud voice that all might hear, and his talk was loose and heavily salted as became the talk of a rake of his exalted rank. It was chiefly concerned with airing his bitter grievance against Mrs. Girdlebank, of the Theatre Royal, of whom he announced himself “devilishly enamoured.”
He inveighed against her that she should have the gross vulgarity to love her husband, and against her husband that he should have the audacity to play the watchdog over her, and bark and growl at the duke's approach.
“A plague on all husbands, say I,” ended the worthy president of the Bold Bucks.
“Nay, now, but I'm a husband myself, gad!” protested Mr. Sidney, who was quite the most delicate, mincing man of fashion about town, and one of that valetaille that hovered about his Grace of Wharton's heels.
“'Tis no matter in your case,” said the duke, with that contempt he used towards his followers. “Your wife's too ugly to be looked at.” And Mr. Sidney's fresh protest was drowned in the roar of laughter that went up to applaud that brutal frankness. Mr. Caryll turned to the fop, who happened to be standing at his elbow.
“Never repine, man,” said he. “In the company you keep, such a wife makes for peace of mind. To have that is to have much.”
Wharton resumed his railings at the Girdlebanks, and was still at them when Rotherby came in.
“At last, Charles!” the duke hailed him, rising. “Another minute, and I had gone without you.”
But Rotherby scarce looked at him, and answered with unwonted shortness. His eyes had discovered Mr. Caryll. It was the first time he had run against him since that day, over a week ago, at Stretton House, and at sight of him now all Rotherby's spleen was moved. He stood and stared, his dark eyes narrowing, his cheeks flushing slightly under their tan. Wharton, who had approached him, observing his sudden halt, his sudden look of concentration, asked him shortly what might ail him.
“I have seen someone I did not expect to find in a resort of gentlemen,” said Rotherby, his eyes ever on Mr. Caryll, who—engrossed in his game—was all unconscious of his lordship's advent.
Wharton followed the direction of his companion's gaze, and giving now attention himself to Mr. Caryll, he fell to appraising his genteel appearance, negligent of the insinuation in what Rotherby had said.
“'Sdeath!” swore the duke. “'Tis a man of taste—a travelled gentleman by his air. Behold me the grace of that shoulder-knot, Charles, and the set of that most admirable coat. Fifty guineas wouldn't buy his Steinkirk. Who is this beau?”
“I'll present him to your grace,” said Rotherby shortly. He had pretentions at being a beau himself; but his grace—supreme arbiter in such matters—had never yet remarked it.
They moved across the room, greetings passing as they went. At their approach, Mr. Caryll looked up. Rotherby made him a leg with an excessive show of deference, arguing irony. “'Tis an unlooked-for pleasure to meet you here, sir,” said he in a tone that drew the attention of all present.
“No pleasures are so sweet as the unexpected,” answered Mr. Caryll, with casual amiability, and since he perceived at once the errand upon which Lord Rotherby was come to him, he went half-way to meet him. “Has your lordship been contracting any marriages of late?” he inquired.
The viscount smiled icily. “You have quick wits, sir,” said he, “which is as it should be in one who lives by them.”
“Let your lordship be thankful that such is not your own case,” returned Mr. Caryll, with imperturbable good humor, and sent a titter round the room.
“A hit! A shrewd hit, 'pon honor!” cried Wharton, tapping his snuff-box. “I vow to Gad, Ye're undone, Charles. Ye'd better play at repartee with Gascoigne, there. Ye're more of a weight.”
“Your grace,” cried Rotherby, suppressing at great cost his passion, “'tis not to be borne that a fellow of this condition should sit among men of quality.” And with that he swung round and addressed the company in general. “Gentlemen, do you know who this fellow is? He has the effrontery to take my name, and call himself Caryll.”
Mr. Caryll looked a moment at his brother in the silence that followed. Then, as in a flash, he saw his chance of vindicating Mistress Winthrop, and he seized it.
“And do you know, gentlemen, who this fellow is?” he inquired, with an air of sly amusement. “He is—Nay, you shall judge for yourselves. You shall hear the story of how we met; it is the story of his abduction of a lady whose name need not be mentioned; the story of his dastardly attempt to cozen her into a mock-marriage.”
“Mock—mock-marriage?” cried the duke and a dozen others with him, some in surprise, but most in an unbelief that was already faintly tinged with horror—which argued ill for my Lord Rotherby when the story should be told.
“You damned rogue—” began his lordship, and would have flung himself upon Caryll, but that Collis and Stapleton, and Wharton himself, put forth hands to stay him by main force.
Others, too, had risen. But Mr. Caryll sat quietly in his chair, idly fingering the cards before him, and smiling gently, between amusement and irony. He was much mistaken if he did not make Lord Rotherby bitterly regret the initiative he had taken in their quarrel.
“Gently, my lord,” the duke admonished the viscount. “This—this gentleman has said that which touches your honor. He shall say more. He shall make good his words, or eat them. But the matter cannot rest thus.”
“It shall not, by God!” swore Rotherby, purple now. “It shall not. I'll kill him like a dog for what he has said.”
“But before I die, gentlemen,” said Mr. Caryll, “it were well that you should have the full story of that sorry adventure from an eye-witness.”
“An eye-witness? Were ye present?” cried two or three in a breath.
“I desire to lay before you all the story of how we met my lord there and I. It is so closely enmeshed with the story of that abduction and mock-marriage that the one is scarce to be distinguished from the other.”
Rotherby writhed to shake off those who held him.
“Will ye listen to this fellow?” he roared. “He's a spy, I tell you—a Jacobite spy!” He was beside himself with anger and apprehension, and he never paused to weigh the words he uttered. It was with him a question of stopping his accuser's mouth with whatever mud came under his hands. “He has no right here. It is not to be borne. I know not by what means he has thrust himself among you, but—”
“That is a knowledge I can afford your lordship,” came Stapleton's steady voice to interrupt the speaker. “Mr. Caryll is here by my invitation.”
“And by mine and Gascoigne's here,” added Sir Harry Collis, “and I will answer for his quality to any man who doubts it.”
Rotherby glared at Mr. Caryll's sponsors, struck dumb by this sudden and unexpected refutation of the charge he had leveled.
Wharton, who had stepped aside, knit his brows and flashed his quizzing-glass—through sheer force of habit—upon Lord Rotherby. Then:
“You'll pardon me, Harry,” said he, “but you'll see, I hope, that the question is not impertinent; that I put it to the end that we may clearly know with whom we have to deal and what consideration to extend him, what credit to attach to the communication he is to make us touching my lord here. Under what circumstances did you become acquainted with Mr. Caryll?”
“I have known him these twelve years,” answered Collis promptly; “so has Stapleton, so has Gascoigne, so have a dozen other gentlemen who could be produced, and who, like ourselves, were at Oxford with him. For myself and Stapleton, I can say that our acquaintance—indeed, I should say our friendship—with Mr. Caryll has been continuous since then, and that we have visited him on several occasions at his estate of Maligny in Normandy. That he habitually inhabits the country of his birth is the reason why Mr. Caryll has not hitherto had the advantage of your grace's acquaintance. Need I say more to efface the false statement made by my Lord Rotherby?”
“False? Do you dare give me the lie, sir?” roared Rotherby.
But the duke soothed him. Under his profligate exterior his Grace of Wharton concealed—indeed, wasted—a deal of shrewdness, ability and inherent strength. “One thing at a time, my lord,” said the president of the Bold Bucks. “Let us attend to the matter of Mr. Caryll.”
“Dons and the devil! Does your grace take sides with him?”
“I take no sides. But I owe it to myself—we all owe it to ourselves—that this matter should be cleared.”
Rotherby leered at him, his lip trembling with anger. “Does the president of the Bold Bucks pretend to administrate a court of honor?” he sneered heavily.
“Your lordship will gain little by this,” Wharton admonished him, so coldly that Rotherby belatedly came to some portion of his senses again. The duke turned to Caryll. “Mr. Caryll,” said he, “Sir Harry has given you very handsome credentials, which would seem to prove you worthy the hospitality of White's. You have, however, permitted yourself certain expressions concerning his lordship here, which we cannot allow to remain where you have left them. You must retract, sir, or make them good.” His gravity, and the preciseness of his diction now, sorted most oddly with his foppish airs.
Mr. Caryll closed his snuff-box with a snap. A hush fell instantly upon the company, which by now was all crowding about the little table at which sat Mr. Caryll and his three friends. A footman who entered at the moment to snuff the candles and see what the gentlemen might be requiring, was dismissed the room. When the door had closed, Mr. Caryll began to speak.
One more attempt was made by Rotherby to interfere, but this attempt was disposed of by Wharton, who had constituted himself entirely master of the proceedings.
“If you will not allow Mr. Caryll to speak, we shall infer that you fear what he may have to say; you will compel us to hear him in your absence, and I cannot think that you would prefer that, my lord.”
My lord fell silent. He was breathing heavily, and his face was pale, his eyes angry beyond words, what time Mr. Caryll, in amiable, musical voice, with its precise and at moments slightly foreign enunciation, unfolded the shameful story of the affair at the “Adam and Eve,” at Maidstone. He told a plain, straightforward tale, making little attempt to reproduce any of its color, giving his audience purely and simply the facts that had taken place. He told how he himself had been chosen as a witness when my lord had heard that there was a traveller from France in the house, and showed how that slight circumstance had first awakened his suspicions of foul play. He provoked some amusement when he dealt with his detection and exposure of the sham parson. But in the main he was heard with a stern and ominous attention—ominous for Lord Rotherby.
Rakes these men admittedly were with but few exceptions. No ordinary tale of gallantry could have shocked them, or provoked them to aught but a contemptuous mirth at the expense of the victim, male or female. They would have thought little the worse of a man for running off with the wife, say, of one of his acquaintance; they would have thought nothing of his running off with a sister or a daughter—so long as it was not of their own. All these were fair game, and if the husband, father or brother could not protect the wife, sister or daughter that was his, the more shame to him. But though they might be fair game, the game had its rules—anomalous as it may seem. These rules Lord Rotherby—if the tale Mr. Caryll told was true—had violated. He had practiced a cheat, the more dastardly because the poor lady who had so narrowly escaped being his victim had nether father nor brother to avenge her. And in every eye that was upon him Lord Rotherby might have read, had he had the wit to do so, the very sternest condemnation.
“A pretty story, as I've a soul!” was his grace's comment, when Mr. Caryll had done. “A pretty story, my Lord Rotherby. I have a stomach for strong meat myself. But—odds my life!—this is too nauseous!”
Rotherby glared at him. “'Slife! your grace is grown very nice on a sudden!” he sneered. “The president of the Bold Bucks, the master of the Hell Fire Club, is most oddly squeamish where the diversions of another are concerned.”
“Diversions?” said his grace, his eyebrows raised until they all but vanished under the golden curls of his peruke. “Diversions? Ha! I observe that you make no attempt to deny the story. You admit it, then?”
There was a stir in the group, a drawing back from his lordship. He observed it, trembling between chagrin and rage. “What's here?” he cried, and laughed contemptuously. “Oh, ah! You'll follow where his grace leads you! Ye've followed him so long in lewdness that now yell follow him in conversion! But as for you, sir,” and he swung fiercely upon Caryll, “you and your precious story—will you maintain it sword in hand?”
“I can do better,” answered Mr. Caryll, “if any doubts my word.”
“As how?”
“I can prove it categorically, by witnesses.”
“Well said, Caryll,” Stapleton approved him.
“And if I say that you lie—you and your witnesses?”
“'T is you will be liar,” said Mr. Caryll.
“Besides, it is a little late for that,” cut in the duke.
“Your grace,” cried Rotherby, “is this affair yours?”
“No, I thank Heaven!” said his grace, and sat down.
Rotherby scowled at the man who until ten minutes ago had been his friend and boon companion, and there was more of contempt than anger in his eyes. He turned again to Mr. Caryll, who was watching him with a gleam of amusement—that infernally irritating amusement of his—in his gray-green eyes.
“Well?” he demanded foolishly, “have you naught to say?”
“I had thought,” returned Mr. Caryll, “that I had said enough.” And the duke laughed aloud.
Rotherby's lip was curled. “Ha! You don't think, now, that you may have said too much?”
Mr. Caryll stifled a yawn. “Do you?” he inquired blandly.
“Ay, by God! Too much for a gentleman to leave unpunished.”
“Possibly. But what gentleman is concerned in this?”
“I am!” thundered Rotherby.
“I see. And how do you conceive that you answer the description?”
Rotherby swore at him with great choice and variety. “You shall learn,” he promised him. “My friends shall wait on you to-night.”
“I wonder who will carry his message?” ventured Collis to the ceiling. Rotherby turned on him, fierce as a rat. “It is a matter you may discover to your cost, Sir Harry,” he snarled.
“I think,” put in his grace very languidly, “that you are troubling the harmony that is wont to reign here.”
His lordship stood still a moment. Then, quite suddenly, he snatched up a candlestick to hurl at Mr. Caryll. But he had it wrenched from his hands ere he could launch it.
He stood a moment, discomfited, glowering upon his brother. “My friends shall wait on you to-night,” he repeated.
“You said so before,” Mr. Caryll replied wearily. “I shall endeavor to make them welcome.”
His lordship nodded stupidly, and strode to the door. His departure was observed in silence. On every face he read his sentence. These men—rakes though they were, professedly—would own him no more for their associate; and what these men thought to-night not a gentleman in town but would be thinking the same tomorrow. He had the stupidity to lay it all to the score of Mr. Caryll, not perceiving that he had brought it upon himself by his own aggressiveness. He paused, his hand upon the doorknob, and turned to loose a last shaft at them.
“As for you others, that follow your bell-wether there,” and he indicated his grace, whose shoulder was towards him, “this matter ends not here.”
And with that general threat he passed out, and that snug room at White's knew him no more.
Major Gascoigne was gathering up the cards that had been flung down when first the storm arose. Mr. Caryll bent to assist him. And the last voice Lord Rotherby heard as he departed was Mr. Caryll's, and the words it uttered were: “Come, Ned; the deal is with you.”
His lordship swore through his teeth, and went downstairs heavily.