Chapter 19 The Lion's Skin by Rafael Sabatini
THE END OF LORD OSTERMORE
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.