The Lion's Skin

  CHAPTER XIII. THE FORLORN HOPE

  Her ladyship stood a moment, leaning upon her cane, her head thrownback, her thin lip curling, and her eyes playing over Mr. Caryll with alook of dislike that she made no attempt to dissemble.

  Mr. Caryll found the situation redolent with comedy. He had a quickeye for such matters; so quick an eye that he deplored on the presentoccasion her ladyship's entire lack of a sense of humor. But forthat lamentable shortcoming, she might have enjoyed with himthe grotesqueness of her having--she, who disliked him soexceedingly--toiled and anguished, robbed herself of sleep, and hopedand prayed with more fervor, perhaps, than she had ever yet hoped andprayed for anything, that his life might be spared.

  Her glance shifted presently from him to Hortensia, who had risen andwho stood in deep confusion at having been so found by her ladyship,and in deep agitation still arising from the things he had said andfrom those which he had been hindered from adding by the coming of thecountess.

  The explanations that had been interrupted might never be renewed; shefelt they never would be; he would account that he had said enough;since he was determined to ask for nothing. And unless the matter werebroached again, what chance had she of combatting his foolish scruples;for foolish she accounted them; they were of no weight with her, unless,indeed, to heighten the warm feeling that already she had conceived forhim.

  Her ladyship moved forward a step or two, her fan going gently to andfro, stirring the barbs of the white plume that formed part of her tallhead-dress.

  "What were you doing here, child?" she inquired, very coldly.

  Mistress Winthrop looked up--a sudden, almost scared glance it was.

  "I, madam? Why--I was walking in the garden, and seeing Mr. Caryll here,I came to ask him how he did; to offer to read to him if he would haveme."

  "And the Maidstone matter not yet cold in its grave!" commented herladyship sourly. "As I'm a woman, it is monstrous I should be inflictedwith the care of you that have no care for yourself."

  Hortensia bit her lip, controlling herself bravely, a spot of red ineither cheek. Mr. Caryll came promptly to her rescue.

  "Your ladyship must confess that Mistress Winthrop has assisted nobly inthe care of me, and so, has placed your ladyship in her debt."

  "In my debt?" shrilled the countess, eyebrows aloft, head-dress nodding."And what of yours?"

  "In my clumsy way, ma'am, I have already attempted to convey my thanksto her. It might be graceful in your ladyship to follow my example."

  Mentally Mr. Caryll observed that it is unwise to rouge so heavily asdid Lady Ostermore when prone to anger and to paling under it. The falsecolor looks so very false on such occasions.

  Her ladyship struck the ground with her cane. "For what have I to thankher, sir? Will you tell me that, you who seem so very well informed."

  "Why, for her part in saving your son's life, ma'am, if you must haveit. Heaven knows," he continued in his characteristic, half-banteringmanner, under which it was so difficult to catch a glimpse of his realfeelings, "I am not one to throw services done in the face of folk, buthere have Mistress Winthrop and I been doing our best for your son inthis matter; she by so diligently nursing me; I by responding to hernursing--and your ladyship's--and so, recovering from my wound. I donot think that your ladyship shows us a becoming gratitude. It is butnatural that we fellow-workers in your ladyship's and Lord Rotherby'sinterests, should have a word to say to each other on the score of thoselabors which have made us colleagues."

  Her ladyship measured him with a malignant eye. "Are you quite mad,sir?" she asked him.

  He shrugged and smiled. "It has been alleged against me on occasion. ButI think it was pure spite." Then he waved his hand towards the long seatthat stood at the back of the arbor. "Will your ladyship not sit? Youwill forgive that I urge it in my own interest. They tell me that it isnot good for me to stand too long just yet."

  It was his hope that she would depart. Not so. "I cry you mercy!" saidshe acidly, and rustled to the bench. "Be seated, pray." She continuedto watch them with her baleful glance. "We have heard fine things fromyou, sir, of what you have both done for my Lord Rotherby," she gibed,mocking him with the spirit of his half-jest. "Shall I tell you moreprecisely what 'tis he owes you?"

  "Can there be more?" quoth Mr. Caryll, smiling so amiably that he musthave disarmed a Gorgon.

  Her ladyship ignored him. "He owes it to you both that you haveestranged him from his father, set up a breach between them that isnever like to be healed. 'Tis what he owes you."

  "Does he not owe it, rather, to his abandoned ways?" asked Hortensia, ina calm, clear voice, bravely giving back her ladyship look for look.

  "Abandoned ways?" screamed the countess. "Is't you that speak ofabandoned ways, ye shameless baggage? Faith, ye may be some judge ofthem. Ye fooled him into running off with you. 'Twas that began allthis. Just as with your airs and simpers, and prettily-played innocencesyou fooled this other, here, into being your champion."

  "Madam, you insult me!" Hortensia was on her feet, eyes flashing, cheeksaflame.

  "I am witness to that," said Lord Ostermore, coming in through theside-entrance.

  Mr. Caryll was the only one who had seen him approach. The earl's facethat had wont to be so florid, was now pale and careworn, and he seemedto have lost flesh during the past month. He turned to her ladyship.

  "Out on you!" he said testily, "to chide the poor child so!"

  "Poor child!" sneered her ladyship, eyes raised to heaven to invoke itstestimony to this absurdity. "Poor child."

  "Let there be an end to it, madam," he said with attempted sternness."It is unjust and unreasonable in you."

  "If it were that--which it is not--it would be but following the examplethat you set me. What are you but unreasonable and unjust--to treat yourson as you are treating him?"

  His lordship crimsoned. On the subject of his son he could be angry inearnest, even with her ladyship, as already we have seen.

  "I have no son," he declared, "there is a lewd, drunken, bullyingprofligate who bears my name, and who will be Lord Ostermore some day. Ican't strip him of that. But I'll strip him of all else that's mine, Godhelping me. I beg, my lady, that you'll let me hear no more of this,I beg it. Lord Rotherby leaves my house to-day--now that Mr. Caryll isrestored to health. Indeed, he has stayed longer than was necessary. Heleaves to-day. He has my orders, and my servants have orders to see thathe obeys them. I do not wish to see him again--never. Let him go, andlet him be thankful--and be your ladyship thankful, too, since it seemsyou must have a kindness for him in spite of all he has done to disgraceand discredit us--that he goes not by way of Holborn Hill and Tyburn."

  She looked at him, very white from suppressed fury. "I do believe youhad been glad had it been so."

  "Nay," he answered, "I had been sorry for Mr. Caryll's sake."

  "And for his own?"

  "Pshaw!"

  "Are you a father?" she wondered contemptuously.

  "To my eternal shame, ma'am!" he flung back at her. He seemed, indeed,a changed man in more than body since Mr. Caryll's duel with LordRotherby. "No more, ma'am--no more!" he cried, seeming suddenly toremember the presence of Mr. Caryll, who sat languidly drawing figureson the ground with the ferrule of his cane. He turned to ask theconvalescent how he did. Her ladyship rose to withdraw, and at thatmoment Leduc made his appearance with a salver, on which was a bowl ofsoup, a flask of Hock, and a letter. Setting this down in such a mannerthat the letter was immediately under his master's eyes, he furtherproceeded to draw Mr. Caryll's attention to it. It was addressed inSir Richard Everard's hand. Mr. Caryll took it, and slipped it into hispocket. Her ladyship's eyebrows went up.

  "Will you not read your letter, Mr. Caryll?" she invited him, with anamazingly sudden change to amiability.

  "It will keep, ma'am, to while away an hour that is less pleasantlyengaged." And he took the napkin Leduc was proffering.

  "You pay your correspondent a poor compliment," said she.
>
  "My correspondent is not one to look for them or need them," he answeredlightly, and dipped his spoon in the broth.

  "Is she not?" quoth her ladyship.

  Mr. Caryll laughed. "So feminine!" said he. "Ha, ha! So veryfeminine--to assume the sex so readily."

  "'Tis an easy assumption when the superscription is writ in a woman'shand."

  Mr. Caryll, the picture of amiability, smiled between spoonfuls. "Yourladyship's eyes preserve not only their beauty but a keenness beyondbelief."

  "How could you have seen it from that distance, Sylvia?" inquired hispractical lordship.

  "Then again," said her ladyship, ignoring both remarks, "there is theassiduity of this fair writer since Mr. Caryll has been in case toreceive letters. Five billets in six days! Deny it if you can, Mr.Caryll."

  Her playfulness, so ill-assumed, sat more awkwardly upon her than herusual and more overt malice towards him.

  "To what end should I deny it?" he replied, and added in his mostingratiating manner another of his two-edged compliments. "Your ladyshipis the model chatelaine. No happening in your household can escape yourknowledge. His lordship is greatly to be envied."

  "Yet, you see," she cried, appealing to her husband, and even toHortensia, who sat apart, scarce heeding this trivial matter of which somuch was being made, "you see that he evades the point, avoids a directanswer to the question that is raised."

  "Since your ladyship perceives it, it were more merciful to spare myinvention the labor of fashioning further subterfuges. I am a sick manstill, and my wits are far from brisk." He took up the glass of wineLeduc had poured for him.

  The countess looked at him again through narrowing eyelids, theplayfulness all vanished. "You do yourself injustice, sir, as I am awoman. Your wits want nothing more in briskness." She rose, and lookeddown upon him engrossed in his broth. "For a dissembler, sir," shepronounced upon him acidly, "I think it would be difficult to meet yourmatch."

  He dropped his spoon into the bowl with a clatter. He looked up, thevery picture of amazement and consternation.

  "A dissembler, I?" quoth he in earnest protest; then laughed and quoted,adapting,

  "'Tis not my talent to conceal my thoughts Or carry smiles and sunshine in my face Should discontent sit heavy at my heart."

  She looked him over, pursing her lips. "I've often thought you mighthave been a player," said she contemptuously.

  "I'faith," he laughed, "I'd sooner play than toil."

  "Ay; but you make a toil of play, sir."

  "Compassionate me, ma'am," he implored in the best of humors. "I am buta sick man. Your ladyship's too keen for me."

  She moved across to the exit without answering him. "Come, child," shesaid to Hortensia. "We are tiring Mr. Caryll, I fear. Let us leave himto his letter, ere it sets his pocket afire."

  Hortensia rose. Loath though she might be to depart, there was no reasonshe could urge for lingering.

  "Is not your lordship coming?" said she.

  "Of course he is," her ladyship commanded. "I need to speak with you yetconcerning Rotherby," she informed him.

  "Hem!" His lordship coughed. Plainly he was not at his ease. "I willfollow soon. Do not stay for me. I have a word to say to Mr. Caryll."

  "Will it not keep? What can you have to say to him that is so pressing?"

  "But a word--no more."

  "Why, then, we'll stay for you," said her ladyship, and threw him intoconfusion, hopeless dissembler that he was.

  "Nay, nay! I beg that you will not."

  Her ladyship's brows went up; her eyes narrowed again, and a frown camebetween them. "You are mighty mysterious," said she, looking from one tothe other of the men, and bethinking her that it was not the first timeshe had found them so; bethinking her, too--jumping, woman-like, to rashconclusions--that in this mystery that linked them might lie the truesecret of her husband's aversion to his son and of his oath a month agoto see that same son hang if Mr. Caryll succumbed to the wound he hadtaken. With some women, to suspect a thing is to believe that thing. Herladyship was of these. She set too high value upon her acumen, upon thekeenness of her instincts.

  And if aught were needed to cement her present suspicions, Mr. Caryllhimself afforded that cement, by seeming to betray the same eagerness tobe alone with his lordship that his lordship was betraying to be alonewith him; though, in truth, he no more than desired to lend assistanceto the earl out of curiosity to learn what it was his lordship mighthave to say.

  "Indeed," said he, "if you could give his lordship leave, ma'am, for afew moments, I should myself be glad on't."

  "Come, Hortensia," said her ladyship shortly, and swept out, MistressWinthrop following.

  In silence they crossed the lawn together. Once only ere they reachedthe house, her ladyship looked back. "I would I knew what they areplotting," she said through her teeth.

  "Plotting?" echoed Hortensia.

  "Ay--plotting, simpleton. I said plotting. I mind me 'tis not the firsttime I have seen them so mysterious together. It began on the day thatfirst Mr. Caryll set foot at Stretton House. There's a deal of mysteryabout that man--too much for honesty. And then these letters touchingwhich he is so close--one a day--and his French lackey always at hand topounce upon them the moment they arrive. I wonder what's at bottom on't!I wonder! And I'd give these ears to know," she snapped in conclusion asthey went indoors.

  In the arbor, meanwhile, his lordship had taken the rustic seat herladyship had vacated. He sat down heavily, like a man who is weary inbody and in mind, like a man who is bearing a load too heavy for hisshoulders. Mr. Caryll, watching him, observed all this.

  "A glass of Hock?" he suggested, waving his hand towards the flask. "Letme play host to you out of the contents of your own cellar."

  His lordship's eye brightened at the suggestion, which confirmed theimpression Mr. Caryll had formed that all was far from well with hislordship. Leduc brimmed a glass, and handed it to my lord, who emptiedit at a draught. Mr. Caryll waved an impatient hand. "Away with you,Leduc. Go watch the goldfish in the pond. I'll call you if I need you."

  After Leduc had departed a silence fell between them, and endured somemoments. His lordship was leaning forward, elbows on knees, his face inshadow. At length he sat back, and looked at his companion across thelittle intervening space.

  "I have hesitated to speak to you before, Mr. Caryll, upon the matterthat you know of, lest your recovery should not be so far advanced thatyou might bear the strain and fatigue of conversing upon serious topics.I trust that that cause is now so far removed that I may put aside myscruples."

  "Assuredly--I am glad to say--thanks to the great care you have had ofme here at Stretton House."

  "There is no debt between us on that score," answered his lordshipshortly, brusquely almost. "Well, then--" He checked, and looked abouthim. "We might be approached without hearing any one," he said.

  Mr. Caryll smiled, and shook his head. "I am not wont to neglect suchdetails," he observed. "The eyes of Argus were not so vigilant as myLeduc's; and he understands that we are private. He will give uswarning should any attempt to approach. Be assured of that, and believe,therefore, that we are more snug here than we should be even in yourlordship's closet."

  "That being so, sir--hem! You are receiving letters daily. Do theyconcern the business of King James?"

  "In a measure; or, rather, they are from one concerned in it."

  Ostermore's eyes were on the ground again. There fell a pause, Mr.Caryll frowning slightly and full of curiosity as to what might becoming.

  "How soon, think you," asked his lordship presently, "you will be incase to travel?"

  "In a week, I hope," was the reply.

  "Good." The earl nodded thoughtfully. "That may be in time. I pray itmay be. 'Tis now the best that we can do. You'll bear a letter for me tothe king?"

  Mr. Caryll passed a hand across his chin, his face very grave. "Youranswer to the letter that I brought you?"

  "My answer. My
acceptance of his majesty's proposals."

  "Ha!" Mr. Caryll seemed to be breathing hard.

  "Your letters, sir--the letters that you have been receiving will havetold you, perhaps, something of how his majesty's affairs are speedinghere?"

  "Very little; and from that little I fear that they speed none too well.I would counsel your lordship," he continued slowly--he was thinkingas he went--"to wait a while before you burn your boats. From what Igather, matters are in the air just now."

  The earl made a gesture, brusque and impatient. "Your information isvery scant, then," said he.

  Mr. Caryll looked askance at him.

  "Pho, sir! While you have been abed, I have been up and doing; up anddoing. Matters are being pushed forward rapidly. I have seen Atterbury.He knows my mind. There lately came an agent from the king, it seems, toenjoin the bishop to abandon this conspiracy, telling him that the timewas not yet ripe. Atterbury scorns to act upon that order. He will workin the king's interests against the king's own commands even."

  "Then, 'tis possible he may work to his own undoing," said Mr. Caryll,to whom this was, after all, no news.

  "Nay, nay; you have been sick; you do not know how things have spedin this past month. Atterbury holds, and he is right, I dare swear--heholds that never will there be such another opportunity. The financesof the country are still in chaos, in spite of all Walpole's effortsand fine promises. The South Sea bubble has sapped the confidence in thegovernment of all men of weight. The very Whigs themselves are shaken.'Tis to King James, England begins to look for salvation from thistopsy-turveydom. The tide runs strongly in our favor. Strongly, sir!If we stay for the ebb, we may stay for good; for there may never beanother flow within our lifetime."

  "Your lordship is grown strangely hot upon this question," said Caryll,very full of wonder.

  As he understood Ostermore, the earl was scarcely the sentimentalistto give way to such a passion of loyalty for a weaker side. Yet hislordship had spoken, not with the cold calm of the practical man whoseeks advantage, but with all the fervor of the enthusiast.

  "Such is my interest," answered his lordship. "Even as the fortunes ofthe country are beggared by the South Sea Company, so are my own; evenas the country must look to King James for its salvation, so must I. Atbest 'tis but a forlorn hope, I confess; yet 'tis the only hope I see."

  Mr. Caryll looked at him, smiled to himself, and nodded. So! All thisfire and enthusiasm was about the mending of his personal fortunes--thegrubbing of riches for himself. Well, well! It was good matter wasted ona paltry cause. But it sorted excellently with what Mr. Caryll knewof the nature of this father of his. It never could transcend thepractical; there was no imagination to carry it beyond those narrowsordid confines, and Mr. Caryll had been a fool to have supposed thatany other springs were pushing here. Egotism, egotism, egotism! Itsname, he thought, was surely Ostermore. And again, as once before, underthe like circumstances, he found more pity than scorn awaking in hisheart. The whole wasted, sterile life that lay behind this man; theunhappy, loveless home that stood about him now in his declining yearswere the fruits he had garnered from that consuming love of self withwhich the gods had cursed him.

  The only ray to illumine the black desert of Ostermore's existencewas the affection of his ward, Hortensia Winthrop, because in that oneinstance he had sunk his egotism a little, sparing a crumb of pity--foronce in his life--for the child's orphanhood. Had Ostermore been otherthan the man he was, his existence must have proved a burden beyond hisstrength. It was so barren of good deeds, so sterile of affection.Yet encrusted as he was in that egotism of his--like the limpet inits shell--my lord perceived nothing of this, suffered nothing of it,understanding nothing. He was all-sufficient to himself. Giving nothing,he looked for nothing, and sought his happiness--without knowing thequest vain--in what he had. The fear of losing this had now in hisdeclining years cast, at length, a shadow upon his existence.

  Mr. Caryll looked at him almost sorrowfully. Then he put by histhoughts, and broke the silence. "All this I had understood when first Isought you out," said he. "Yet your lordship did not seem to realize itquite so keenly. Is it that Atterbury and his friends--?"

  "No, no," Ostermore broke in. "Look'ee! I will be frank--quite frank andopen with you, Mr. Caryll. Things were bad when first you came tome. Yet not so bad that I was driven to a choice of evils. I had lostheavily. But enough remained to bear me through my time, though Rotherbymight have found little enough left after I had gone. While that was so,I hesitated to take a risk. I am an old man. It had been different had Ibeen young with ambitions that craved satisfying. I am an old man; andI desired peace and my comforts. Deeming these assured, I paused ere Irisked their loss against the stake which in King James's name you setupon the board. But it happens to-day that these are assured no longer,"he ended, his voice breaking almost, his eyes haggard. "They are assuredno longer."

  "You mean?" inquired Caryll.

  "I mean that I am confronted by the danger of beggary, ruin, shame, andthe sponging-house, at best."

  Mr. Caryll was stirred out of his calm. "My lord!" he cried. "How isthis possible? What can have come to pass?"

  The earl was silent for a long while. It was as if he pondered how heshould answer, or whether he should answer at all. At last, in a lowvoice, a faint tinge reddening his face, his eyes averted, he explained.It shamed him so to do, yet must he satisfy that craving of weak mindsto unburden, to seek relief in confession. "Mine is the case of Craggs,the secretary of state," he said. "And Craggs, you'll remember, shothimself."

  "My God," said Mr. Caryll, and opened wide his eyes. "Did you-?" Hepaused, not knowing what euphemism to supply for the thing his lordshipmust have done.

  His lordship looked up, sneering almost in self-derision. "I did," heanswered. "To tell you all--I accepted twenty thousand pounds' worth ofSouth Sea stock when the company was first formed, for which I did notpay other than by lending the scheme the support of my name at a timewhen such support was needed. I was of the ministry, then, you willremember."

  Mr. Caryll considered him again, and wondered a moment at theconfession, till he understood by intuition that the matter and itsconsequences were so deeply preying upon the man's mind that he couldnot refrain from giving vent to his fears.

  "And now you know," his lordship added, "why my hopes are all in KingJames. Ruin stares me in the face. Ruin and shame. This forlorn Stuarthope is the only hope remaining me. Therefore, am I eager to embrace it.I have made all plain to you. You should understand now."

  "Yet not quite all. You did this thing. But the inspection of thecompany's books is past. The danger of discovery, at least, is averted.Or is it that your conscience compels you to make restitution?"

  His lordship stared and gaped. "Do you suppose me mad?" he inquired,quite seriously. "Pho! Others were overlooked at the time. We didnot all go the way of Craggs and Aislabie and their fellow-sufferers.Stanhope was assailed afterward, though he was innocent. That filthyfellow, the Duke of Wharton, from being an empty fop turned himself on asudden into a Crown attorney to prosecute the peculators. It was an easyroad to fame for him, and the fool had a gift of eloquence. Stanhope'sdeath is on his conscience--or would be if he had one. That was sixmonths ago. When he discovered his error in the case of Stanhope and sawthe fatal consequences it had, he ceased his dirty lawyer's work. Buthe had good grounds upon which to suspect others as highly placed asStanhope, and had he followed his suspicions he might have turned theminto certainties and discovered evidence. As it was, he let the matterlie, content with the execution he had done, and the esteem into whichhe had so suddenly hoisted himself--the damned profligate!"

  Mr. Caryll let pass, as typical, the ludicrous want of logic inOstermore's strictures of his Grace of Wharton, and the application byhim to the duke of opprobrious terms that were no whit less applicableto himself.

  "Then, that being so, what cause for these alarms some six monthslater?"

  "Because," answered his lordship in a
sudden burst of passion thatbrought him to his feet, empurpled his face and swelled the veins of hisforehead, "because I am cursed with the filthiest fellow in England formy son."

  He said it with the air of one who throws a flood of light wheredarkness has been hitherto, who supplies the key that must resolve at aturn a whole situation. But Mr. Caryll blinked foolishly.

  "My wits are very dull, I fear," said he. "I still cannot understand."

  "Then I'll make it all clear to you," said his lordship.

  Leduc appeared at the arbor entrance.

  "What now?" asked Mr. Caryll.

  "Her ladyship is approaching, sir," answered Leduc the vigilant.