Authors: Rafael Sabatini
Mr. Caryll observed—and with what interest you should well imagine—that Lord Ostermore was still in a general way a handsome man. Of a good height, but slightly excessive bulk, he
had a face that still retained a fair shape. Short-necked, florid and plethoric, he had the air of the man who seldom makes a long illness at the end. His eyes were very blue, and the lids were
puffed and heavy, whilst the mouth, Mr. Caryll remarked in a critical, detached spirit, was stupid rather than sensuous. He made his survey swiftly, and the result left him wondering.
Meanwhile the earl was addressing his son, whose hand was being bandaged by Gaskell. There was little variety in his invective. "You villain!" he bawled at him. "You damned villain!" Then he
patted the girl's head. "You found the scoundrel out before you married him," said he. "I am glad on't; glad on't!"
"'Tis such a reversing of the usual order of things that it calls for wonder," said Mr. Caryll.
"Eh?" quoth his lordship. "Who the devil are you? One of his friends?"
"Your lordship overwhelms me," said Mr. Caryll gravely, making a bow. He observed the bewilderment in Ostermore's eyes, and began to realize at that early stage of their acquaintance that to
speak ironically to the Earl of Ostermore was not to speak at all.
It was Hortensia—a very tearful Hortensia now— who explained. "This gentleman saved me, my lord," she said.
"Saved you?" quoth he dully. "How did he come to save you?"
"He discovered the parson," she explained.
The earl looked more and more bewildered. "Just so," said Mr. Caryll. "It was my privilege to discover that the parson is no parson."
"The parson is no parson?" echoed his lordship, scowling more and more. "Then what the devil is the parson?"
Hortensia freed herself from his protecting arms. "He is a villain," she said, "who was hired by my Lord Rotherby to come here and pretend to be a parson." Her eyes flamed, her cheeks were
scarlet. "God help me for a fool, my lord, to have put my faith in that man! Oh!" she choked. "The shame—the burning shame of it! I would I had a brother to punish him!"
Lord Ostermore was crimson, too, with indignation. Mr. Caryll was relieved to see that he was capable of so much emotion. "Did I not warn you against him, Hortensia?" said he. "Could you not
have trusted that I knew him—I, his father, to my everlasting shame?" Then he swung upon Rotherby. "You dog!" he began, and there—being a man of little invention—words failed him,
and wrath alone remained, very intense, but entirely inarticulate.
Rotherby moved forward till he reached the table, then stood leaning upon it, scowling at the company from under his black brows. "'Tis your lordship alone is to blame for this," he informed his
father, with a vain pretence at composure.
"I am to blame!" gurgled his lordship, veins swelling at his brow. "I am to blame that you should have carried her off thus? And—by God!—had you meant to marry her honestly and
fittingly, I might find it in my heart to forgive you. But to practice such villainy! To attempt to put this foul trick upon the child!"
Mr. Caryll thought for an instant of another child whose child he was, and a passion of angry mockery at the forgetfulness of age welled up from the bitter soul of him. Outwardly he remained a
very mirror for placidity.
"Your lordship had threatened to disinherit me if I married her," said Rotherby.
"'Twas to save her from you," Ostermore explained, entirely unnecessarily. "And you thought to—to——By God! sir, I marvel you have the courage to confront me. I marvel!"
"Take me away, my lord," Hortensia begged him, touching his arm.
"Aye, we were best away," said the earl, drawing her to him. Then he flung a hand out at Rotherby in a gesture of repudiation, of anathema. "But 'tis not the end on't for you, you knave! What I
threatened, I will perform. I'll disinherit you. Not a penny of mine shall come to you. Ye shall starve for aught I care; starve, and—and—the world be well rid of a villain.
I—I—disown you. Ye're no son of mine. I'll take oath ye're no son of mine!"
Mr. Caryll thought that, on the contrary, Rotherby was very much his father's son, and he added to his observations upon human nature the reflection that sinners are oddly blessed with short
memories. He was entirely dispassionate again by now.
As for Rotherby, he received his father's anger with a scornful smile and a curling lip. "You'll disinherit me?" quoth he in mockery. "And of what, pray? If report speaks true, you'll be needing
to inherit something yourself to bear you through your present straitness." He shrugged and produced his snuff-box with an offensive simulation of nonchalance. "Ye cannot cut the entail," he
reminded his almost apoplectic sire, and took snuff delicately, sauntering windowwards.
"Cut the entail? The entail?" cried the earl, and laughed in a manner that seemed to bode no good. "Have you ever troubled to ascertain what it amounts to? You fool, it wouldn't keep you
in—in—in snuff!"
Lord Rotherby halted in his stride, half-turned and looked at his father over his shoulder. The sneering mask was wiped from his face, which became blank. "My lord——" he began.
The earl waved a silencing hand, and turned with dignity to Hortensia.
"Come, child," said he. Then he remembered something. "Gad!" he exclaimed. "I had forgot the parson. I'll have him gaoled! I'll have him hanged if the law will help me. Come forth, man!"
Ignoring the invitation, Mr. Jenkins scuttled, ratlike, across the room, mounted the window-seat, and was gone in a flash through the open window. He dropped plump upon Mr. Green, who was
crouching underneath. The pair rolled over together in the mould of a flower-bed; then Mr. Green clutched Mr. Jenkins, and Mr. Jenkins squealed like a trapped rabbit. Mr. Green thrust his fist
carefully into the mock-parson's mouth.
"Sh! You blubbering fool!" he snapped in his ear. "My business is not with you. Lie still!"
Within the room all stood at gaze, following the sudden flight of Mr. Jenkins. Then Lord Ostermore made as if to approach the window, but Hortensia restrained him.
"Let the wretch go," she said. "The blame is not his. What is he but my lord's tool?" And her eyes scorched Rotherby with such a glance of scorn as must have killed any but a shameless man. Then
turning to the demurely observant gentleman who had done her such good service, "Mr. Caryll," she said, "I want to thank you. I want my lord, here, to thank you."
Mr. Caryll bowed to her. "I beg that you will not think of it," said he. "It is I who will remain in your debt."
"Is your name Caryll, sir?" quoth the earl. He had a trick of fastening upon the inconsequent, though that was scarcely the case now.
"That, my lord, is my name. I believe I have the honor of sharing it with your lordship."
"Ye'll belong to some younger branch of the family," the earl supposed.
"Like enough—some outlying branch," answered the imperturbable Caryll—a jest which only himself could appreciate, and that bitterly.
"And how came you into this?"
Rotherby sneered audibly—in self-mockery, no doubt, as he came to reflect that it was he, himself, had had him fetched.
"They needed another witness," said Mr. Caryll, "and hearing there was at the inn a gentleman newly crossed from France, his lordship no doubt opined that a traveller, here today and gone for
good tomorrow, would be just the witness that he needed for the business he proposed. That circumstance aroused my suspicions, and——"
But the earl, as usual, seemed to have fastened upon the minor point, although again it was not so. "You are newly crossed from France?" said he. "Ay, and your name is the same as mine. 'Twas
what I was advised."
Mr. Caryll flashed a sidelong glance at Rotherby, who had turned to stare at his father, and in his heart he cursed the stupidity of my Lord Ostermore. If this proposed to be a member of a
conspiracy, Heaven help that same conspiracy!
"Were you, by any chance, going to seek me in town, Mr. Caryll?"
Mr. Caryll suppressed a desire to laugh. Here was a way to deal with State secrets. "I, my lord?" he inquired, with an assumed air of surprise.
The earl looked at him, and from him to Rotherby, bethought himself, and started so overtly that Rotherby's eyes grew narrow, the lines of his mouth tightened. "Nay, of course not; of course
not," he blustered clumsily.
But Rotherby laughed aloud. "Now what a plague is all this mystery?" he inquired.
"Mystery?" quoth my lord. "What mystery should there be?"
"'Tis what I would fain be informed," he answered in a voice that showed he meant to gain the information. He sauntered forward towards Caryll, his eye playing mockingly over this gentleman from
France. "Now, sir," said he, "whose messenger may you be, eh? What's all this——"
"Rotherby!" the earl interrupted in a voice intended to be compelling. "Come away, Mr. Caryll," he added quickly. "I'll not have any gentleman who has shown himself a friend to my ward, here,
affronted by that rascal. Come away, sir!"
"Not so fast! Not so fast, ecod!"
It was another voice that broke in upon them. Rotherby started round. Gaskell, in the shadows of the cowled fireplace jumped in sheer alarm. All stared at the window whence the voice
proceeded.
They beheld a plump, chubby-faced little man, astride the sill, a pistol displayed with ostentation in his hand.
Mr. Caryll was the only one with the presence of mind to welcome him. "Ha!" said he, smiling engagingly. "My little friend, the brewer of ale."
"Let no one leave this room," said Mr. Green with a great dignity. Then, with rather less dignity, he whistled shrilly through his fingers, and got down lightly into the room.
"Sir," blustered the earl, "this is an intrusion; a—an impertinence. What do you want?"
"The papers this gentleman carries," said Mr. Green, indicating Caryll with the hand that held the pistol. The earl looked alarmed, which was foolish in him, thought Mr. Caryll. Rotherby covered
his mouth with his hand, after the fashion of one who masks a smile.
"Ye're rightly served for meddling," said he with relish.
"Out with them," the chubby man demanded. "Ye'll gain nothing by resistance. So don't be obstinate, now."
"I could be nothing so discourteous," said Mr. Caryll. "Would it be prying on my part to inquire what may be your interest in my papers?"
His serenity lessened the earl's anxieties, but bewildered him; and it took the edge off the malicious pleasure which Rotherby was beginning to experience.
"I am obeying the orders of my Lord Carteret, the Secretary of State," said Mr. Green. "I was to watch for a gentleman from France with letters for my Lord Ostermore. He had a messenger a week
ago to tell him to look for such a visitor. He took the messenger, if you must know, and—well, we induced him to tell us what was the message he had carried. There is so much mystery in all
this that my Lord Carteret desires more knowledge on the subject. I think you are the gentleman I am looking for."
Mr. Caryll looked him over with an amused eye, and laughed. "It distresses me," said he, "to see so much good thought wasted."
Mr. Green was abashed a moment. But he recovered quickly; no doubt he had met the cool type before. "Come, come!" said he. "No blustering. Out with your papers, my fine fellow."
The door opened, and a couple of men came in; over their shoulders, ere the door closed again, Mr. Caryll had a glimpse of the landlady's rosy face, alarm in her glance. The newcomers were dirty
rogues; tipstaves, recognizable at a glance. One of them wore a ragged bob-wig—the cast-off, no doubt, of some gentleman's gentleman, fished out of the sixpenny tub in Rosemary Lane; it was
ill-fitting, and wisps of the fellow's own unkempt hair hung out in places. The other wore no wig at all; his yellow thatch fell in streaks from under his shabby hat, which he had the ill-manners
to retain until Lord Ostermore knocked it from his head with a blow of his cane. Both were fierily bottle-nosed, and neither appeared to have shaved for a week or so.
"Now," quoth Mr. Green, "will you hand them over of your own accord, or must I have you searched?" And a wave of the hand towards the advancing myrmidons indicated the searchers.
"You go too far, sir," blustered the earl.
"Ay, surely," put in Mr. Caryll. "You are mad to think a gentleman is to submit to being searched by any knave that comes to him with a cock-and-bull tale about the Secretary of State."
Mr. Green leered again, and produced a paper. "There," said he, "is my Lord Carteret's warrant, signed and sealed."
Mr. Caryll glanced over it with a disdainful eye. "It is in blank," said he.
"Just so," agreed Mr. Green.
"Carte blanche,
as you say over the water. If you insist," he offered obligingly, "I'll fill in your name before we proceed."
Mr. Caryll shrugged his shoulders. "It might be well," said he, "if you are to search me at all."
Mr. Green advanced to the table. The writing implements provided for the wedding were still there. He took up a pen, scrawled a name across the blank, dusted it with sand, and presented it again
to Mr. Caryll. The latter nodded.
"I'll not trouble you to search me," said he. "I would as soon not have these noblemen of yours for my valets." He thrust his hands into the pockets of his fine coat, and brought forth several
papers. These he proffered to Mr. Green, who took them between satisfaction and amazement. Ostermore stared, too stricken for words at this meek surrender; and well was it for Mr. Caryll that he
was so stricken, for had he spoken he had assuredly betrayed himself.
Hortensia, Mr. Caryll observed, watched his cowardly yielding with an eye of stern contempt. Rotherby looked on with a dark face that betrayed nothing.
Meanwhile Mr. Green was running through the papers, and as fast as he ran through them he permitted himself certain comments that passed for humor with his followers. There could be no doubt
that in his own social stratum Mr. Green must have been accounted something of a wag.
"Ha! What's this? A bill! A bill for snuff! My Lord Carteret'll snuff you, sir. He'll tobacco you, ecod! He'll smoke you first, and snuff you afterwards." He flung the bill aside. "Phew!" he
whistled. "Verses!
'To Theocritus upon sailing for Albion.'
That's mighty choice! D'ye write verses, sir?"