"Horry! I am sick to death of it!"
There was a servant in the room collecting the tea-cups; but Lady Betty Stafford, having been reared in the purple, was not to be deterred from speaking her mind by a servant. Her cousin was either more prudent or less vivacious. He did not answer on the instant, but stood gazing through one of the windows at the leafless trees and slow-dropping rain in the Mall. He only turned when Lady Betty pettishly repeated her statement.
"Had a bad time?" he vouchsafed, dropping into a chair near her, and looking first at her, in a good-natured way, and then at his boots, which he seemed to approve.
"Horrid!" she replied.
"Many people here?"
"Hordes of them! Whole tribes!" she exclaimed. She was a little woman, plump and pretty, with a pale, clear complexion, and bright eyes. "I am bored beyond belief. And--and I have not seen Stafford since morning," she added.
"Cabinet council?"
"Yes!" she answered viciously. "A cabinet council, and a privy council, and a board of trade, and a board of green cloth, and all the other boards! Horry, I am sick to death of it! What is the use of it all?"
"Don't do it," he said oracularly, still admiring his boots. "Country go to the dogs!"
"Let it!" she retorted, not relenting a whit. "I wish it would. I wish the dogs joy of it!"
He made an extraordinary effort at diffuseness. "I thought," he said, "that you were becoming political, Betty. Going to write something, and all that."
"Rubbish! But here is Mr. Atlay. Mr. Atlay, will you have a cup of tea?" she continued, addressing the new-comer. "There will be some here presently. Where is Mr. Stafford?"
"Mr. Stafford will take a cup of tea in the library, Lady Betty," the secretary replied. "He asked, me to bring it to him. He is copying an important paper."
Sir Horace forsook his boots, and in a fit of momentary interest asked, "They have come to terms?"
The secretary nodded. Lady Betty said "Pshaw!" A man brought in the fresh teapot. The next moment Mr. Stafford himself came into the room, an open telegram in his hand.
He nodded pleasantly to his wife and her cousin. But his thin, dark face wore--it generally did--a preoccupied look. Country people to whom he was pointed out in the street called him, according to their political leanings, either insignificant, or a prig, or a "dry sort"; or sometimes said, "How young he is!" But those whose fate it was to face the Minister in the House knew that there was something in him more to be feared even than his imperturbability, his honesty, or his precision--and that was a sudden fiery heat, which was apt to carry away the House at unexpected times. On one of these occasions, it was rumored, Lady Betty Champion had seen him, and fallen in love with him. Why he had thrown the handkerchief to her--that was another matter; and whether the apparently incongruous match would answer--that, too, remained to be seen.
"More telegrams?" she cried. "It rains telegrams! how I hate them!"
"Why?" he said. "Why should you?" He really wondered.
She made a face at him. "Here is your tea," she said abruptly.
"Thank you; you are very good," he replied. He took the cup and set it down absently. "Atlay," he said, speaking to the secretary, "you have not corrected the report of my speech at the Club, have you? No, I know you have had no time. Will you run your eye over it, and see if it is all right, and send it to the Times--I do not think I need to see it--by eleven o'clock at latest? The editor," he continued, tapping the pink paper in his hand, "seems to doubt us. I have to go to Fitzgerald's now; so you must also copy Lord Pilgrimstone's terms, if you please. I proposed to do it myself, but I shall be with you before you have finished."
"What are the terms?" Lady Betty asked. "Lord Pilgrimstone has not agreed to----"
"To permit me to communicate them?" he replied, with a grave smile. "No. So you must pardon me, my dear. I have passed my word for absolute secrecy. Indeed, it is as important to me as to Pilgrimstone that they should not be divulged."
"They are sure to leak out," she retorted. "They always do."
"Well, it will not be through me, I hope."
She stamped her foot on the carpet. "I should like to get them, and send them to the Times!" she cried, her eyes flashing--he was so provoking! "And let all the world know them! I vow I should!"
He looked his astonishment, while the other two laughed, partly to avoid embarrassment, perhaps. She often said these things, and no one took them seriously.
"You had better play the secretary for once, Lady Betty," said Atlay, who was related to his chief. "You will then be able to satisfy your curiosity. Shall I resign pro tem.?"
She looked eagerly at her husband for the third part of a second--for assent, perhaps. But she read no playfulness in his face, and her own fell. He was thinking about other things. "No," she said, almost sullenly, dropping her eyes to the carpet. "I should not spell well enough."
Soon after that they dispersed; this being Wednesday, Mr. Stafford's day for dining out. At that time Ministers dined only twice a week in session--on Wednesday and Sunday; and Sunday was often sacred to the children where there were any, lest they should grow up and not know their father by sight. At a quarter to eight Lady Betty came into the library, and found her husband still at his desk, a pile of papers before him awaiting his signature. As a fact, he had only just sat down, displacing his secretary, who had gone upstairs to dress.
"Stafford!" she said.
She did not seem quite at her ease; but his mind was troubled, and he failed to notice this. "Yes, my dear," he answered politely, shuffling the papers before him into a heap. He knew that he was late, and he could see that she was dressed. "Yes, I am going upstairs this minute. I have not forgotten."
"It is not that," she said, leaning with one hand on the table, "I want to ask you----"
"My dear, you really must tell it me in the carriage." He was on his feet now, making some hasty preparations. "Where are we to dine? At the Duke's? Then we shall have a mile to drive. Will not that do for you?" He was working hard while he spoke. There was an oak post-box within reach, and another box for letters which were to be delivered by hand, and he was thrusting a handful of notes into each of these. Other packets he swept into different drawers of the table. Still standing, he stooped and signed his name to half a dozen letters, which he left open on the blotting-pad. "Atlay will see to these when he is dressed," he murmured. "Would you oblige me by locking the drawers, my dear--it will save me a minute--and giving me the keys when I come down?"
He went off then, two or three papers in his hand, and almost ran upstairs. Lady Betty stood a while on the spot on which he had left her, looking in an odd way--just as if it were new to her--round the grave, spacious room, with its sombre Spanish-leather-covered furniture, its ponderous writing-tables and shelves of books, its three lofty curtained windows. When her eyes at last came back to the lamp, and dwelt on it, they were very bright, and her face was flushed. Her foot could be heard tapping on the carpet. Presently she remembered herself and fell to work, vehemently slamming such drawers as were open, and locking them.
The private secretary found her doing this when he came in. She muttered something--stooping with her face over the drawers--and almost immediately went out. He looked after her, partly because there was something odd in her manner--she kept her face averted; and partly because she was wearing a new and striking gown, and he admired her. He noticed, as she passed through the doorway, that she had some papers held down by her side. But, of course, he thought nothing of this.
He was hopelessly late for his own dinner-party, and only stayed a moment to slip the letters last signed into envelopes prepared for them. Then he made for the door, opened it, and came into collision with Sir Horace, who was strolling in.
"Beg pardon!" said that gentleman, with irritating placidity. "Late for dinner?"
"Rather!" the secretary cried, trying to get round him.
"Well," drawled the other, "which is the hand-box, old fellow?"
"It has been cleared. Here, give it me. The messenger is in the hall now."
Atlay snatched the letter from his companion, the two going into the hall together. Marcus, the butler, a couple of tall footmen, and the messenger were sorting letters at the table. "Here, Marcus," said the secretary, pitching his letter on the slab, "let that go with the others. And is my hansom here?"
In another minute he was speeding one way, and the Staffords in their brougham another; while Sir Horace walked at his leisure down to his club. The Minister and his wife drove in silence; he forgot to ask her what she wanted. And, strange to say, Lady Betty forgot to tell him. At the party she made quite a sensation; never had she seemed more gay, more piquant, more audaciously witty, than she showed herself this evening. There were illustrious personages present, but they paled beside her. The Duke, with whom she was a favorite, laughed at her sallies until he could laugh no more; and even her husband, her very husband, forgot for a time the country and the crisis, and listened, half-proud and half-afraid. But she was not aware of this; she could not see his face where she sat. To all seeming she never looked that way. She was quite a model society wife.
Mr. Stafford himself was an early riser. It was his habit to be up by six; to make his own coffee over a spirit lamp, and then not only to get through much work in his dressing-room, but to take his daily ride before breakfast. On the morning after the Duke's party, however, he lay later than usual; and as there was much business to be done--owing to the crisis--the canter in the park had to be omitted. He was still among his papers--though expecting the breakfast-gong with every minute, when a hansom cab driven at full speed stopped at the door. He glanced up wearily as he heard the doors of the cab flung open with a crash. There had been a time when the stir and bustle of such arrivals had been sweet to him--not so sweet as to some, for he had never been deeply in love with the parade of office; but sweeter than to-day, when they were no more to him than the creaking of the mill to the camel that turns it blindfold and in darkness.
Naturally he was thinking of Lord Pilgrimstone this morning, and guessed, before he opened the note which the servant brought him, who was its writer. But its contents had, nonetheless, an electrical effect upon him. His brow reddened. With a most unusual display of emotion he sprang to his feet, crushing the fragment of paper in his fingers. "Who brought that?" he cried sharply. "Who brought it?" he repeated in a louder tone, before the servant could explain.
The man had never seen him so moved. "Mr. Scratchley, sir," he answered.
"Ha! Then, show him into the library," was the quick reply. And while the servant went to do his bidding, the Minister hastily changed his dressing-gown for a coat, and ran down a private staircase, reaching the room he had mentioned by one door as Mr. Scratchley, Lord Pilgrimstone's secretary, entered it through another.
By that time he had regained his composure, and looked much as usual. Still, when he held up the crumpled note, there was a brusqueness in the gesture which would have surprised his ordinary acquaintances, and did remind Mr. Scratchley of certain "warm nights" in the House.
"You know the contents of this?" he said without prelude, and in a tone which matched his gesture.
The visitor bowed. He was a grave middle-aged man, who seemed oppressed and burdened by the load of cares and responsibilities which his smiling chief carried jauntily. People said that he was the proper complement of Lord Pilgrimstone, as the more volatile Atlay was of his leader.
"And you are aware," continued Mr. Stafford, almost harshly, "that Lord Pilgrimstone gives yesterday's agreement to the winds?"
"I have never seen his lordship so deeply moved," replied the discreet one.
"He says: 'Our former negotiation was ruined by premature talk. But this disclosure can only be referred to treachery or the grossest carelessness.' What does it mean? I know of no disclosure, Mr. Scratchley. I must have an explanation. And you, I presume, are here to give me one."
For a moment the other seemed taken aback. "You have not seen the Times, sir?" he murmured.
"This morning's? No. But it is here."
He took it, as he spoke, from a table at his elbow, and unfolded it. The secretary approached and pointed to the head of a column--the most conspicuous, the column most readily to be found in the paper. "They are crying it at the street corners I passed," he added with deference. "There is nothing to be heard in St. James's Street and Pall Mall but 'Detailed Programme of the Coalition.' The other dailies are striking off second editions to include it!"
Mr. Stafford's eyes were riveted to the paper. There was a long pause, a pause on his part of dismay and consternation. He could scarcely--to repeat a common phrase--believe his eyes. "It seems," he muttered at length,--"it seems accurate--a tolerably precise account, at least."
"It is a verbatim copy," the secretary said dryly. "The question is, who furnished it. Lord Pilgrimstone, I am authorised to say, has not permitted his note of the agreement to pass out of his possession--even to the present moment."
"And so he concludes"--the Minister said thoughtfully--"it is a fair inference enough, perhaps--that the Times must have procured its information from my note?"
With deference the secretary objected. "It is not a matter of inference, Mr. Stafford. I am directed to say that. I have inquired, early as it is, at the Times office, and learned that the copy came directly from the hands of your messenger."
"Of my messenger!" Mr. Stafford cried, thunderstruck. "You are sure of that?"
"I am sure that the sub-editor says so."
Again there was silence. "This must be looked into," said Mr. Stafford at length, controlling himself by an effort. "For the present I agree with Lord Pilgrimstone, that it alters the position--and perhaps finally."
"Lord Pilgrimstone will be damaged in the eyes of a large section of his supporters--seriously damaged," Mr. Scratchley said, shaking his head and frowning.
"Possibly. From every point of view the thing is to be deplored. But I will call on Lord Pilgrimstone," the Minister continued slowly, "after lunch. Will you tell him so?"
A curious embarrassment showed itself in the secretary's manner. He twisted his hat in his hands, and looked suddenly sad--as if he were about to join in the groan at a prayer-meeting.
"Lord Pilgrimstone," he said in a voice he vainly strove to render commonplace, "is going to the Sandown Spring Meeting to-day."
The tone was really so lugubrious--to say nothing of a shake of the head with which he could not help accompanying the statement--that a faint smile played on Mr. Stafford's lips.
"Then I must take the next possible opportunity," he said. "I will see him to-morrow."
Mr. Scratchley assented to this, and bowed himself out, after another word or two, looking more gloomy and careworn than usual. The interview had not been altogether to his mind. He wished that he had spoken more roundly to Mr. Stafford; even asked for a categorical denial of the charge. But the Minister's manner had overawed him. He had found it impossible to put the question. And then the pitiful confession which he had had to make for Lord Pilgrimstone! That had put the copingstone to his dissatisfaction.
"Oh!" the secretary sighed, as he stepped into his cab. "Oh, that men so great should stoop to things so little!"
It did not occur to him that there is a condition of things even more sad: when little men meddle with great things.
Meanwhile, Mr. Stafford stood at the window deep in unpleasant thoughts, from which the entrance of the butler, who came to summon him to breakfast, first aroused him. "Stay a moment, Marcus!" he said, turning, as the man prepared to leave the room after doing his errand. "I want to ask you a question. Did you make up the messenger's bag last evening?"
"Yes, sir."
"Did you notice a letter addressed to the Times office?"
The servant prepared himself to cogitate. But he found it unnecessary. "Yes, sir," he replied. "Two."
"Two?" Mr. Stafford repeated, dismay in his tone; though this was just what he had reason to expect.
"Yes, sir. There was one I took from the hand-box, and one Mr. Atlay gave me in the hall at the last moment," the butler explained.
"That will do. Thank you. Ask Mr. Atlay if he will come to me. No doubt he will be able to tell me what I want to know."
The words were commonplace, but the speaker's anxiety was so plain that Marcus when he delivered the message--which he did with haste--added a word or two of warning.
"It is about a letter to the Times, sir, I think. Mr. Stafford seems a good deal put out," he said, confidentially.
"Indeed?" Atlay replied. "I will go down." And he started. But before he reached the library he met some one. Lady Betty looked out of the breakfast-room, and saw him descending the stairs with the butler behind him.
"Where is Mr. Stafford, Marcus?" she asked impatiently, as she stood with her hand on the door. "Good morning, Mr. Atlay," she added, her eyes descending to him. "Where is my husband? The coffee is getting cold."
"He has requested me to go to him," Atlay answered. "Marcus tells me there is something in the Times which has annoyed him, Lady Betty. I will send him up as quickly as I can."
But Lady Betty had not stayed to receive his assurance. She had drawn back and shut the door quickly; yet not so quickly but that the private secretary had seen her change colour. "Hallo!" he ejaculated to himself--the lady was not much given to blushing--"I wonder what is wrong with her this morning. She is not generally rude--to me."
It was not long before he got light on the matter. "Come here, Atlay," his employer said, the moment he entered the library. "Look at this!"
The secretary took the Times, and read the important matter. Meanwhile the Minister read the secretary. He saw surprise and consternation on his face, but no trace of guilt. Then he told him what Marcus had said about the two letters which had gone the previous evening from the house addressed to the Times office. "One," he said, "contained the notes of my speech. The other----"
"The other----" the secretary replied, thinking while he spoke, "was given to me at the last moment by Sir Horace. I threw it to Marcus in the hall."
"Ah!" his chief said, trying very hard to express nothing by the exclamation, but not quite succeeding. "Did you see that that letter was addressed to the editor of the Times?"
The secretary reddened, and betrayed unexpected confusion. "I did," he said. "I saw so much of the address as I threw the letter on the slab--though I thought nothing of it at the time."
Mr. Stafford looked at him fixedly. "Come," he said, "this is a grave matter, Atlay. You noticed, I can see, the handwriting. Was it Sir Horace's?"
"No," the secretary replied.
"Whose was it?"
"I think--I think, Mr. Stafford--that it was Lady Betty's. But I should be sorry, having seen it only for a moment--to say that it was hers."
"Lady Betty's?"
Mr. Stafford repeated the exclamation three times, in surprise, in anger, a third time in trembling. In this last stage he walked away to the window, and turning his back on his companion looked out. He recalled his wife's petulant exclamation of yesterday, the foolish desire expressed, as he had supposed in jest. Had she been in earnest? And had she carried out her threat? Had she--his wife--done this thing so compromising to his honour, so mischievous to the country, so mad, reckless, wicked? Impossible. It was impossible. And yet--and yet Atlay was a man to be trusted, a gentleman, his own kinsman! And Atlay's eye was not likely to be deceived in a matter of handwriting. That Atlay had made up his mind he could see.
The statesman turned from the window, and walked to and fro, his agitation betrayed by his step. The third time he passed in front of his secretary--who had riveted his eyes to the Times and appeared to be reading the money article--he stopped. "If this be true--mind I say if, Atlay--" he cried jerkily, "what was Lady Betty's motive? I am in the dark! blindfold! Help me! Tell me what has been passing round me that I have not seen. You would not have my wife--a spy?"
"No! no! no!" the other cried, as he dropped the paper, his vehemence showing that he felt the pathos of the appeal. "It is not that. Lady Betty is jealous, if I dare venture to judge, of your devotion to the country--and to politics. She sees little of you. You are wrapped up in public affairs and matters of state. She feels herself neglected and--set aside. And--may I say it?--she has been married no more than a year."
"But she has her society," the Minister objected, compelling himself to speak calmly, "and her cousin, and--many other things."
"For which she does not care." returned the secretary.
It was a simple answer, but something in it touched a tender place. Mr. Stafford winced and cast an odd startled look at the speaker. Before he could reply, however--if he intended to reply--a knock came at the door, and Marcus put in his head. "My lady is waiting breakfast, sir," he suggested timidly. What could a poor butler do between an impatient mistress and an obdurate master?
"I will come," Mr. Stafford said hastily. "I will come at once. For this matter, Atlay," he continued when the door was closed again, "let it rest for the present where it is. I know I can depend upon your"--he paused, seeking a word--"your discretion. One thing is certain, however. There is an end of the arrangement made yesterday. Probably the Queen will send for Templetown. I shall see Lord Pilgrimstone to-morrow, and--that will be the end of it."
Atlay retired, marvelling at his coolness; trying to retrace the short steps of their conversation, and to discern how far the Minister had gone with him, and where he had turned off upon a resolution of his own. He failed to find the clue, however, and marvelled still more as the day went on and others succeeded it; days of political crisis. Out of doors the world, or that small piece of it which has its centre at Westminster, was in confusion. The newspapers, morning or evening, found ready sale, and had no need to rely on murder-panics or prurient discussions. The Coalition scandal, the resignation of Ministers, the sending for Lord This and Mr. That, the certainty of a dissolution, provided matter enough. In all this Atlay found nothing at which to wonder. He had seen it all before. That which did cause him surprise was the calm--the unnatural calm, as it seemed to him--which prevailed in the house in Carlton Terrace. For a day or two, indeed, there was much running to and fro, much closeting and button-holing; for rather longer the secretary read anxiety and apprehension in one countenance--Lady Betty's. Then things settled down. The knocker began to find peace, such comparative peace as falls to knockers in Carlton Terrace. Lady Betty's brow grew clear as her eye found no reflection of its anxiety in Mr. Stafford's face. In a word the secretary looked long but could discern no faintest sign of domestic trouble.
The late Minister indeed was taking things with wonderful coolness. Lord Pilgrimstone had failed to taunt him, and the triumph of old foes had failed to goad him into a last effort. Apparently he was of opinion that the country might for a time exist without him. He was standing aside with a shade on his face, and there were rumours that he would take a long holiday.
A week saw all these things happen. And then, one day as Atlay sat writing in the library--Mr. Stafford being out--Lady Betty came into the room for something. Rising to supply her with the article she wanted, he held the door open for her to pass out. She paused.
"Shut the door, Mr. Atlay," she said, pointing to it. "I want to ask you a question."
"Pray do, Lady Betty," he answered. "It is this," she said, meeting his eyes boldly--and a brighter, a more dainty creature than she looked had seldom tempted man. "Mr. Stafford's resignation--had it anything, Mr. Atlay, to do with"--her face coloured a very little--"something that was in the Times this day week?"
His own cheek coloured violently enough. "If ever," he was saying to himself, "I meddle or mar between husband and wife again, may I----" But aloud he answered quietly, "Something perhaps." The question was sudden. Her eyes were on his face. He found it impossible to prevaricate. "Something perhaps," he said.
"My husband has never spoken to me about it," she replied, breathing quickly.
He bowed, having no words adapted to the situation. But he repeated his resolution (as above) more furiously.
"He has never appeared aware of it," she persisted. "Are you sure that he saw it?"
He wondered at her innocence, or her audacity. That such a baby should do so much mischief. The thought irritated him. "It was impossible that he should not see it, Lady Betty," he said, with a touch of asperity. "Quite impossible!"
"Ah," she replied, with a faint sigh. "Well, he has never spoken to me about it. And you think it had really something to do with his resignation, Mr. Atlay?"
"Most certainly," he said. He was no longer inclined to spare her.
She nodded thoughtfully, and then with a quiet "Thank you" she went out.
"Well," muttered the secretary to himself when the door was fairly shut behind her, "she is--upon my word, she is a fool! And he"--appealing to the inkstand--"he has never said a word to her about it. He is a new Don Quixote! a modern Job! a second Sir Isaac Newton! I do not know what to call him!"
It was Sir Horace, however, who precipitated the catastrophe. He happened to come in about teatime that afternoon, before, in fact, my lady had had an opportunity of seeing her husband. He found her alone and in a brown study, a thing most unusual with her and portending something. He watched her for a time in silence: seemed to draw courage from a still longer inspection of his boots, and then said, "So the cart is clean over, Betty?"
She nodded.
"Driver much hurt?"
"Do you mean, does Stafford mind?" she replied impatiently.
He nodded.
"Well, I do not know. It is hard to say."
"Think so?" he persisted.
"Good gracious, Horry!" my lady retorted, losing patience, "I say I do not know, and you say, 'Think so!' If you want to learn so particularly, ask him yourself. Here he is!"
Mr. Stafford had just entered the room. Perhaps she really wished to satisfy herself as to the state of his feelings. Perhaps she only desired in her irritation to put her cousin in a corner. At any rate she turned to her husband and said, "Here is Horace wishing to know if you mind being turned out?"
Mr. Stafford's face flushed a little at the home-thrust which no one else would have dared to deal. But he showed no displeasure. "Well, not so much as I should have thought," he answered, pausing to weigh a lump of sugar, and, as it seemed, his feelings. "There are compensations, you know."
"Pity all the same--those terms came out," Sir Horace grunted.
"It was."
"Stafford!" Lady Betty asked on a sudden, speaking fast and eagerly, "is it true, I want to ask you, is it true that that led you to resign?"
Naturally he was startled, and he showed that he was. She was the last person who should have put that question to him, but his long training in self-control stood him in good stead.
"Well, yes," he said quietly.
It was better, he thought, indeed it was only right, that she should know what she had done. But he did not look at her.
"Was it only that?" she asked again.
This time he weighed his answer. He thought her persistency odd. But again he assented.
"Yes," he said gravely. "Only that, I think. But for that I should have remained in--with Lord Pilgrimstone of course. Perhaps things are better as they are, my dear."
Lady Betty sprang from her seat with all her old vivacity. "Well!" she cried, "well, I am sure! Then why, I should like to know, did Mr. Atlay tell me that my letter to the Times had something to do with it!"
"Did not say so," quoth Sir Horace. "Absurd!"
"Yes, he did," cried Lady Betty, so fiercely that the rash speaker, who had returned to his boots, fairly shook in them. "You were not there! How do you know?"
"Don't know," Sir Horace admitted, meekly.
"But stay, stay a moment!" Mr. Stafford said, getting in a word with difficulty. It was strange if his wife could talk so calmly of her misdeeds, and before a third party too. "What letter to the Times did Atlay mean?"
"My letter about the Women's League," she explained earnestly. "You did not see it? No, I thought not. But Mr. Atlay would have it that you did, and that it had something to do with your going out. Horace told me at the time that I ought not to send it without consulting you. But I did, because you said you could not be bothered with it--I mean you said you were busy, Stafford. And so I thought I would ask if it had done any harm, and Mr. Atlay---- What is the matter?" she cried, breaking off sharply at sight of the change in her husband's face. "Did it do harm?"
"No, no," he answered. "Only I never heard of this letter before. What made you write it?"
Lady Betty coloured violently, and became on a sudden very shy--like most young authors. "Well," she said, "I wanted to be in the--in the swim with you, don't you know."
Mr. Stafford murmured, "Oh!"
Thanks to his talk with Atlay he read the secret of that sudden shyness. And confusion poured over him more and more. It caused him to give way to impulse in a manner which a moment's reflection would have led him to avoid.
"Then it was not you," he exclaimed unwarily, "who sent Pilgrimstone's terms to the Times?"
"I?" she exclaimed in an indescribable tone, and with eyes like saucers. "I?" she repeated.
"Gad!" cried Sir Horace; and he looked about for a way of escape.
"I?" she continued, struggling between wrath and wonder. "I betray you to the Times! And you thought so, Stafford?"
There was silence in the room for a long moment during which the cool statesman, the hard man of the world, did not know where to turn his eyes. "There were circumstances--several circumstances," Mr. Stafford muttered at last, "which made--which forced me to think so."
"And Mr. Atlay thought so?" she asked. He nodded. "Oh, that tame cat!" she cried, her eyes flashing.
Then she seemed to meditate, while her husband gazed at her, a prey to conflicting emotions, and Sir Horace made himself as small as possible. "I see," she continued in a different tone. "Only--only if you thought that, why did you never say anything? Why did you not scold me, beat me, Stafford? I do not--I do not understand."
"I thought," he explained in despair--he had so mismanaged matters--"that perhaps I had left you--out of the swim, as you call it, Betty. That I had not treated you very well, and after all it might be my own fault."
"And you said nothing! You intended to say nothing?" He nodded.
"Gad!" cried Sir Horace very softly.
But Lady Betty said nothing. She turned after a long look at her husband, and went out of the room, her eyes wet with tears. The two men heard her pause a moment on the landing, and then go upstairs and shut her door. But her foot, even to their gross ears, seemed to touch the stairs as if it loved them, and there was a happy lingering in the slamming of the door.
They looked, when she had left them, anywhere but at one another. Sir Horace sought inspiration in his boots, and presently found it. "Wonder who did it, then?" he burst out at last.
"Ah! I wonder," replied the ex-minister, descending at a bound from the cloudland to which his thoughts had borne him. "I never pushed the inquiry; you know why now. But they should be able to enlighten us at the Times office. We could learn in whose handwriting the copy was, at any rate. It is not well to have spies about us."
"I can tell you in whose handwriting they say it was," Sir Horace said bluntly.
"In whose?"
"In Atlay's."
Mr. Stafford did not look surprised. Instead of answering he thought. As a result of which he presently left the room in silence. When he came back he had a copy of the Times in his hand, and his face wore a look of perplexity. "I have read the riddle," he said, "and yet it is a riddle to me still. I never found time to read the report of my speech at the Club. It occurred to me to look at it now. It is full of errors; so full that it is clear the printer had not the corrected proof Atlay prepared. Therefore I conclude that Atlay's copy of the terms went to the Times instead of the speech. But how was the mistake made?"
"That is the question."
It happened that the private secretary came into the room at this juncture. "Atlay," Mr. Stafford said at once, "I want you. Carry your mind back a week--to this day week. Are you sure that you sent the report of my speech at the Club to the Times?"
"Am I sure?" the other replied confidently, nothing daunted by being so abruptly challenged. "I am quite sure I did, sir. I remember the circumstances. I found the report--it was type-written you remember--lying on the blotting-pad when I came down before dinner. I slipped it into an envelope, and put it in the box. I can see myself doing it now."
"But how do you know that it was the report you put in the envelope?"
"You had indorsed it 'Corrected speech.--W. Stafford,'" Atlay replied triumphantly.
"Ah!" Mr. Stafford said, dropping his hands and eyes and sitting down suddenly, "I remember! My wife came in, and--yes, my wife came in."
"To be content," said the carrier, "that is half the battle. If I have said it to one, I have said it to a hundred. You be content," says I, "and you will be all right."
For the first time, though they had plodded on a mile together, the tall gentleman turned his eyes from the sombre moorland which stretched away on either side of the road, and looked at his companion. There had been something strange in the preoccupation of his thoughts hitherto; though the carrier, lapped in his own loquacity, had not felt it. And, to tell the truth, there had been something still more strange in the tall gentleman's behaviour before their meeting. Now he had raced along the road and now he had loitered; sometimes he had stood still, letting his eyes stray over the dark groups of heather, which lay islanded in a sea of brown grass; and again he had sauntered onwards, his hat in his hand and his face turned up to the sky, which hung low over the waste, and had yet the breadth of a fen cloudscape. Whatever the eccentricity of his lonely movements, his tall hat and fluttering frock-coat had exaggerated it.
At length on the summit of one of the ridges over which the road ran he had made a longer halt, and had begun to look about him to right and left, seeking, it seemed, for a track across the moss. Then he had caught sight of the carrier plodding up the next ridge at the tail of his cart, and he had started after him. But having almost overtaken him, he had reduced his pace and loitered as if his desire for human company had faded away. He had even paused as though to return. But a glance at the desolate waste had determined him. He had walked on again, and had overtaken and fallen to talking with the carrier. The latter on his part had been glad to have a companion, and had readily set down what was odd in the stranger's bearing to the cause which accounted for his costume. The tall gentleman was a Londoner.
"'You be content,' says I," quoth the old fellow again, his companion's tardy attention encouraging him to repeat his statement, "'and you will be all right.' I have told that to hundreds in my time."
"And you practise it yourself?" The tall gentleman's voice was husky. His eyes, now that they had found their way to the other's face, continued to dwell on it with a gleam in their depths which matched the pallor of his features. His forehead was high, his face long and thin, and lengthened by a dark brown beard which hid the working of his lips. A nervous man meeting his gaze might have had strange thoughts. But the carrier's were country nerves, and proof against anything short of electricity.
"Oh yes, I am pretty well content," Nickson answered sturdily. "I have twenty acres of land from the duke, and I turn a penny with the carrying, going into Sheffield twice a week, rain and shine. Then I have as good a wife as ever kissed her man, and neither chick nor child, and no more than three barren ewes this lambing."
"My God!" said the stranger.
The words seemed wrung from him by a twinge of mental pain, but whether the feeling was envy of the man's innocent joys, or disgust at his simplicity, did not appear. Whatever the impulse, the tall gentleman showed an immediate consciousness that he had excited his companion's astonishment. He began to talk rapidly, even gesticulating a little. "But is there no drawback?" he said--"no bitter in your life, man? This long journey--ten--eleven miles?--and the same journey home again? Do you never find it cold, hot, dreary, intolerable?"
"It is cold enough some days, and hot enough some days," the carrier replied heartily. "But dreary?--never! And cold and heat are but skin deep, you know."
The tall gentleman let his head fall on his breast, and for some distance walked on in silence. The carrier whistled to his horse, the cry of a peewit came shrilling across the moor, one wheel of the cart squeaked loudly for grease. The evening was grey and still, and rain impended.
"It is all downhill after this," Nickson said presently, pointing to the sky-line, now less than a hundred yards ahead. "You see that stone there, sir?" he continued, and pointing with his whip to a stone lying a little off the road. "There was a man died in the snow there. Three years back it would be. I went by him myself for a month and more, and took him for a dead sheep. At last a keeper passing that way turned him over with his foot, and--well, he was a sad sight, poor chap, by that time."
The carrier should have been pleased with the effect his story produced; for the stranger shuddered. His face even seemed a shade paler, but this might be the effect of the evening light. He did not make any comment, however, and the two stepped out until they gained the summit of the ridge. Here the moor fell away on every side--a dark sweep of waste bounded by uncouth round-backed hills, which rose shapeless and grey, with never a graceful outline or soaring peak to break the horizon.
"You will take a lift down the hill, sir?" the carrier asked, gathering up his reins and preparing to mount. "I am light to-day."
"No, I think not--I thank you," the stranger answered jerkily.
"You are welcome, if you will," persisted the carrier.
"No, I think not. I think I will walk," the tall gentleman answered. But he still stood, and watched the other's preparations with strange intentness. Even when Nickson, having wished him good day, drove briskly off, he continued to gaze after the cart until a dip in the descent--not far below--swallowed it up. Then he heaved a sigh, and looked round at the grey sky and darkening heath. He took off his hat.
"Hold up! what is the matter with the mare?" the carrier cried, coming to a stop as soon, as it chanced, as the dip in the road hid him from the other's eyes. "She has picked up a stone, drat it!"
He got down stiffly, and taking his knife from his pocket went to the mare's head. Having removed the stone he dropped the hoof, and stood a second while he closed the knife. In this momentary pause there came to his ear a sharp report like that of a gun, but brisker and less loud. It was difficult to suppose it the sound of a snapping stick; or of one stone struck against another. It puzzled Master Nickson, who climbed hastily to his seat again and drove on until he was clear of the dip. Then, swearing at himself for an old fool, he looked anxiously back at the top of the ridge, which had come into view again. He was looking for the tall gentleman. But the latter was not to be seen, either standing against the sky-line or moving on the intervening road. "Lord's sakes!" the carrier muttered uneasily, "what has become of him? He cannot have gone back!"
He continued to stare for some moments at the place where the stranger should have been. At last giving way to a sudden conviction, he got down from his cart, and, leaving it standing, hurried back through the dip, and so to the top of the ridge. The ascent was steep, and he was breathing heavily when he reached the summit and cast his eyes round him. No, the tall gentleman was not to be seen. The brown grass and heather stretched away on this side and that, broken by no human figure. Not even a rabbit was visible on the long white strip of road that in the far distance grew hazy with the fall of night.
"The devil!" the carrier said, shuddering, and feeling more lonely than he had ever felt in his life. "Then he has gone, and----"
He stopped. His eyes were on a dark bundle of clothes that lay a little aside from the road between two clumps of heather. Just a bundle of clothes it seemed, but Master Nickson drew in his breath at sight of it. The peewits and curlews had gone to rest. There was not a sound to be heard on the wide moor, save the beating of his heart.
He would have given pounds to drive on with a clear conscience, yet he forced himself to go up to the huddled form, and to turn it over until the face was exposed. There was a pistol near the right hand, and behind the ear there was a small, a very small hole, from which the blood welled sluggishly. Round this the skin was singed and blackened. The eyes were closed, and the pale face, thoughtful and placid, was scarcely disfigured.
Suddenly Master Nickson fell on his knees. "Dang me, if I don't think he is alive!" he whispered. "For sure, he breathes!"
Convinced of it, the carrier sprang to his feet a different man. He lost not a moment in bringing his cart to the spot and lifting the insensible form into it. Then he led the horse to the road, and started gingerly down the hill. "It is a mercy it happened right at the doctor's door," he muttered, as he turned off the road into a track which seemed to lead through the heather to nowhere in particular. "If he lives five minutes longer he will be in good hands."
A stranger would have wondered where the doctor lived; for there was no signs of a house to be seen. But when the wheels had rolled noiselessly over the sward a hundred yards a faint curl of smoke became visible, rising from the ground in front. A few more paces brought the tops of trees to view, and nestling among them the gables of an old stone house, standing below the level of the moor in a gully or ravine, that here began to run down from the watershed towards Bradfield and the Loxley. The track Nickson was following led to a white gate, which formed the entrance to this lonely demesne.
The carrier found assistance sooner than he had expected. Leaning against the inner side of the gate, with her back to him, was a tall girl. She was bending over a fiddle, drawing from it wailing sounds that went well with the waste behind her and the fading light. Her head swayed in time, her elbow moved slowly. She did not hear the wheels, and he had to call, "Whisht! Miss Pleasance, whisht!" before she heard and turned.
He could see little of her face, for in the hollow the light was almost gone, but her voice as she cried, "Is that you, Nickson? Have you something for us?" rang out so cheerily that it strung his nerves anew.
"Yes, miss," he answered. "But it is your father I want. I have got a man here who has been hurt----"
"What? In the cart?" she cried. She stepped forward and would have looked in. But he was before her.
"No, miss, you fetch your father!" he said sharply. "It is just a matter of minutes, maybe. You fetch him here, please."
She understood now, and turned and sped through the shrubbery, and across the little rivulet and the lawn. In five minutes the grey house, which had stood gaunt and lifeless in the glooming, was aroused. Lights flitted from window to window, and servants called to one another. The surgeon, a tall, florid, elderly man, with drooping white moustaches, came out, after snatching up one or two necessary things. The groom hastened behind him with a candle. Only Pleasance, the messenger of ill, whom her father had bidden stay in the house, had nothing to do in the confusion. She laid down her violin and bow, and stood in the darkness of the outer room--it was half hall, half parlour--listening and wondering.
The sound of heavy footsteps crunching the gravel presently warned her that the man was to be brought into the house. She heard her father direct the other bearers to make for his room, which was on the left of the hall, and her face grew a shade paler as the men stumbled with their burden through the doorway. There is something monstrous to the unaccustomed in limbs which fall lifeless, or stick out stiff and stark in ghastly prominence. She averted her face as the group passed her, and yet managed to touch the groom's sleeve. "What is it, Daniel?" she whispered.
"He has been shot, miss," the servant answered. He was enjoying himself hugely, if the truth be told.
She had no time to ask more. The door was shut upon her, and she was left alone with her curiosity. She wondered how it had happened, for this was not the shooting season, and Nickson had spoken of the man as a stranger. She pondered over the problem until the maids, who were too much upset to stay in their own quarters, came into the room with lights. Then she stepped outside, and stood on the gravel listening to the murmur of the brook, and looking at the old sundial which gleamed white on the lawn.
She had been there no more than a minute when the doctor--as every one in those parts called him--came out with Nickson. Carefully closing the door behind him--an extraordinary precaution with one who was usually the most easy-going of men--he laid his hand on his companion's shoulder. "Why did he do it, Nickson?" he asked in a low voice, which was not free from tremor. "Can you tell me? Have you any idea? He is dressed as a gentleman, and he has a gold watch and money in his pockets."