The Lion's Skin

  CHAPTER XIX. THE END OF LORD OSTERMORE

  In the ante-room communicating with Lord Ostermore's bedroom thecountess was in consultation with Rotherby, who had been summoned by hismother when my lord was stricken.

  Her ladyship occupied the window-seat; Rotherby stood besideher, leaning slightly against the frame of the open window. Theirconversation was earnest and conducted in a low key, and one wouldnaturally have conjectured that it had for subject the dangerouscondition of the earl. And so it had--the dangerous condition of theearl's political, if not physical, affairs. To her ladyship and her son,the matter of their own future was of greater gravity than the matterof whether his lordship lived or died--which, whatever it may be, isnot unreasonable. Since the impeachment of my lord and the coming ofthe messengers to arrest him, the danger of ruin and beggary were becomemore imminent--indeed, they impended, and measures must be concertedto avert these evils. By comparison with that, the earl's succumbing orsurviving was a trivial matter; and the concern they had manifested inSir James' news--when the important, well-nourished physician who hadbled his lordship came to inform them that there was hope--was outwardonly, and assumed for pure decorum's sake.

  "Whether he lives or dies," said the viscount pertinently, after thedoctor had departed to return to his patient, "the measures to betaken are the same." And he repeated the substance of their earlierdiscussions upon this same topic. "If we can but secure the evidence ofhis treason with Caryll," he wound up, "I shall be able to make termswith 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, horriblycalculating as though he were none of hers, "there would be an end tothis danger. They could not demand restitution of the dead, nor imposefines upon him."

  Rotherby shook his head. "Believe not that, madam," said he. "They candemand 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 Carteretwould make terms with you?"

  "If I can show him--by actual proof--that a conspiracy does exist, thatthe Stuart supporters are plotting a rising. Proof of that should be ofvalue to Lord Carteret, of sufficient value to the government to warrantthe payment of the paltry price I ask--that the impeachment against myfather for his dealings with the South Sea Company shall not be allowed.

  "But it might involve the worse betrayal of your father, Charles, and ifhe were to live--"

  "'Sdeath, mother, why must you harp on that? I a'n't the fool you thinkme," he cried. "I shall make it a further condition that my father haveimmunity. There will be no lack of victims once the plot is disclosed;and they may begin upon that coxcomb Caryll--the damned meddler who isat the bottom of all this garboil."

  She sat bemused, her eyes upon the sunlit gardens below, where a faintbreeze 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 bemaking 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 thesecretary 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 faithwith me. He's a self-seeking dog, content to run with the hare and huntwith the hounds, so that there be profit in it, and he'd sacrifice hisears to bring Mr. Caryll to the gallows. I have promised him that and athousand pounds if we save the estates from confiscation."

  She looked at him, between wonder and fear. "Can ye trust him?" sheasked breathlessly.

  He laughed softly and confidently. "I can trust him to earn a thousandpounds," he answered. "When he heard of the impeachment, he used suchinfluence 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. Athousand pounds is the price of him, body and soul. I bade him seek notonly evidence of my lord's having received that plaguey stock, but alsopapers relating to this Jacobite plot into which his lordship has beendrawn by our friend Caryll. He is at his work at present. And I shallhear 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 difficultmatter--"

  She checked suddenly and turned, while Rotherby, too, looked up andstepped quickly from the window-embrasure where he had stood.

  The door of the bedroom had been suddenly pulled open, and Sir Jamescame out, very pale and discomposed.

  "Madam--your ladyship--my lord!" he gasped, his mouth working, his handswaving foolishly.

  The countess rose to confront him, tall, severe and harsh. The viscountscowled a question. Sir James quailed before them, evidently inaffliction.

  "Madam--his lordship," he said, and by his eloquent gesture of dejectionannounced what he had some difficulty in putting into words.

  She stepped forward, and took him by the wrist. "Is he dying?" sheinquired.

  "Have courage, madam," the doctor besought her.

  The apparent irrelevancy of the request at such a moment, angeredher. 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 thatbeat 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, andbehind her, Rotherby echoed the dread word in a stupor almost equal toher own. Her lips moved to speak, but no words came. She staggered whereshe stood, and put her hand to her brow. Her son's arms were quicklyabout her. He supported her to a chair, where she sank as if all herjoints were loosened.

  Sir James flew for restoratives; bathed her brow with a dampenedhandkerchief; held strong salts to her nostrils, and murmured wordsof foolish, banal consolation, whilst Rotherby, in a half-dreamingcondition, 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 somuch at losing what she valued so little. Leastways, it would have beenodd, 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 feltherself appalled.

  For nigh upon thirty years she had been bound by legal and churchlyties in a loveless union with Lord Ostermore--married for the handsomeportion that had been hers, a portion which he had gamed away andsquandered until, for their station, their circumstances were nowabsolutely straitened. They had led a harsh, discordant life, and thecoming of a son, which should have bridged the loveless gulf betweenthem, seemed but to have served to dig it wider. And the son had beenjust the harsh, unfeeling offspring that might be looked for from sucha union. Thirty years of slavery had been her ladyship's, and in thosethirty years her nature had been soured and warped, and what inherentsweetness it may once have known had long since been smothered anddestroyed. 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 thehabit 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 muchcarrion that should be given to the earth. In some such channel ranher ladyship's reflections during those few seconds in which she wasrecovering. For an instant she was softened. The long-since dried-upsprings of tenderness seem
ed like to push anew under the shock of thisevent. 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 askedthe doctor; and the abruptness of the resumption of her usual mannerstartled Sir James more than aught in his experience of such scenes.

  "It was most sudden, madam," answered he. "I had the best groundsfor hope. I was being persuaded we should save him. And then, quitesuddenly, without an instant's warning, he succumbed. He just heaved asigh, and was gone. I could scarcely believe my senses, madam."

  He would have added more particulars of his feelings and emotions--forhe was of those who believe that their own impressions of a phenomenonare that phenomenon's most interesting manifestations--but her ladyshipwaved him peremptorily into silence.

  He drew back, washing his hands in the air, an expression of politeconcern upon his face. "Is there aught else I can do to be of service toyour ladyship?" he inquired, solicitous.

  "What else?" she asked, with a fuller return to her old self. "Ye'vekilled 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 herson.

  The eminent physician effaced himself from her ladyship's attention. Itwas his boast that he could take a hint when one was given him; and sohe could, provided it were broad enough, as in the present instance.

  He gathered up his hat and gold-headed cane--the unfailing insignia ofhis order--and was gone, swiftly and silently.

  Rotherby closed the door after him, and returned slowly, head bowed, tothe window where his mother was still seated. They looked at each othergravely 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 bebetrayed by his papers. I am glad, madam, to see you so far recoveredfrom your weakness."

  She shivered, as much perhaps at his tone as at the recollections heevoked. "You are very indifferent, Charles," said she.

  He looked at her steadily, then slightly shrugged. "What need to weara 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 heloves me."

  "You will be hard put to it, with your nature, Charles," she told himcritically. 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 wasrepugnance in his tone and face. "Not--not now."

  There came a knocking at the door, rapid, insistent. Grateful for theinterruption, Rotherby went to open.

  Mr. Green staggered forward with swollen eyes, his face inflamed withrage, 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 stoodidly about--that Mr. Green spattered out his wrathful tale of what hadbefallen 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. Icouldn'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," answeredMr. Green, in a towering rage at finding reproof where he had come inquest 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 Iam come, or--ecod!--it'll be the worse for your lordship."

  Rotherby considered him through a faint mist that rage had set beforehis eyes. To be so spoken to--damned indeed!--by a dirty spy! Had hebeen alone with the man, there can be little doubt but that he wouldhave jeopardized his very precarious future by kicking Mr. Greendownstairs. But his mother saved him from that rashness. It may be thatshe saw something of his anger in his kindling eye, and thought it wellto intervene.

  She set a hand on his sleeve. "Charles!" she said to him in a voice thatwas 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 Greenhad the discretion on his side to hold his tongue. "Come, man, while westand talking here that knave may be destroying precious evidence."

  And his lordship went quickly down the stairs, Mr. Green following hardupon his heels, and her ladyship bringing up the rear.

  At the door of the library Rotherby came to a halt, and turned thehandle. The door was locked. He beckoned a couple of footmen across thehall, and bade them break it open.