The Master of Stair 42

The Master of Stair 42

His father looked up and laughed.

 

“You want to destroy them,” he said dryly. “I have been expecting

it—why were you keeping them so long? You are not as adamant as you

suppose, John—some one has moved you.”

 

“Give me the papers, my lord,” answered Sir John sullenly.

 

The Viscount shrugged his shoulders. “It is impossible.”

 

“Why, my lord?”

 

His father twisted his wry neck and gave a little smile.

 

“I sent them to His Majesty this morning.”

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XX

 

ON THE VERGE OF MADNESS

 

 

“You have sent it to the King—the packet?” ejaculated the Master of

Stair.

 

“I have. It was time,” answered the Viscount.

 

“My lord—why was I not consulted?” flashed his son.

 

Viscount Stair looked up sideways with a sudden complete drop of his

indifferent manner.

 

“You fool,” he said, “you are not in a position you can play with—you

have three countries full of enemies and not one friend that I know

of—except the King, and what could he do for you if all Scotland

started to pull you down? Ye have discovered this plot (more by good

fortune than by your own wits), and you would fling away the credit of

it for—what? Some rag of sentiment.”

 

“I have not said so,” retorted Sir John sullenly.

 

“Bah!” The Viscount made a grimace. “Why did you delay so long in

sending them to Kensington? Believe me, you cannot afford to lose these

chances of serving the country: if your enemies find one handle against

you—you fall far more quickly than you climbed, my dear son.”

 

“My lord, my lord!” cried the Master of Stair, “the tenure of my office

is not so slight.”

 

“You think not?” smiled his father. “I do not now know you could have

justified yourself if you had kept those papers back and it had been

discovered. It would have looked like complicity with the Jacobites.”

 

Sir John lifted his head impatiently.

 

“Am I not the only man about the Court whose hands are clean from that

charge?” he cried. “Complicity with the Jacobites! I know no man could

dare accuse me.”

 

“And I know a hundred,” returned his father. “Arrogance is strangely

blind—it stands on a hill and heeds not how the foundations are being

sapped till it falls on its face in the mire. And nothing is more

pitiable than fallen arrogance.”

 

“Sir—you speak as if I was a boy to be taught by your parables,” cried

Sir John wrathfully. “I say that by this act of yours you have made me

dishonor my word—” Then his angry thoughts flashed to what Delia knew

and he turned to his father. “It may ruin my plans with the Macdonalds.”

 

“Better lose the Macdonalds than the Jacobites,” answered the Viscount

calmly. “And who knows of your Highland schemes?”

 

Maddened and fuming, Sir John’s fury fixed itself on the unknown person

who had betrayed him; had Delia known nothing of his scheme he would

not have had to degrade himself by a bargain he was powerless to carry

out.

 

“Yea, who knows?” he demanded. “I only knew myself this morning that

the Macdonalds had taken the oath, and already I am betrayed—now, in

the name of God, who is it?”

 

The Viscount was cool and sneering again.

 

“You are absolutely incoherent,” he remarked. “But if any one has

betrayed your schemes it is, of course, your dutiful wife.”

 

The Master looked round sharply.

 

“I do not think,” he said bitterly, “that she has either the wit or the

spirit; and she does not know.”

 

“It is you who do not know,” smiled the Viscount. “She spies on you,

listens at doors.”

 

Sir John flared into violence.

 

“She would not dare—I cannot believe, and if I did—”

 

“Ask her,” interrupted his father. “She has a silly habit of speaking

the truth—the result I believe of her bad education. She is a

marvelously ignorant woman.”

 

“I can note her ill qualities plainly enough, my lord,” cried Sir John,

goaded now into open fury. “Where is she?”

 

The Viscount picked up a pen and began cutting it; he eyed the inflamed

countenance of his son with a cold amusement.

 

“I observed her in here a little while ago,” he answered quietly. “She

was engaged in sealing a letter—to Mr. Wharton.”

 

“Tom Wharton!” cried Sir John.

 

“Maybe she did not mention to you she had received a message from

him—why should she? She knows you have not the friendship for Tom

Wharton that she has—”

 

“My lord,” said the Master of Stair, “forebear.” He was trembling in an

agony of rage. He turned away.

 

“Where are you going?” inquired his father.

 

“To find her,” said Sir John.

 

“You will, I think—in the drawing-room,” remarked the Viscount smiling.

 

Without another word Sir John left the room. It was almost dark and the

house held the dreariness of winter twilight; as the Master of Stair

entered the drawing-room he was greeted with the faint soft light of

candles, burning high up in their silver sconces against the white

walls.

 

It was a vast room furnished in pale tints, cold, with a look of

desertion, opal-colored curtains shut out the evening, and the slender

furniture cast faint reflections on the polished floor.

 

On a little gold and cream-tinted couch by the fire sat Lady Dalrymple;

in the dim light, with her delicate hued dress and her pale coloring,

she looked like some dainty figure of wax, some doll set there to

complete the picture, so quiet she was in her desolate splendor.

 

On a small table beside her stood a bird-cage; she was bending toward

it and in the hollow of her hand lay a little bullfinch; her full blue

eyes gazed at it anxiously; it was sick and lay quite passively in her

hand, its feathers forlornly rough.

 

“Ah, don’t you die, too,” she whispered in a kind of horror. “Don’t you

die, too.”

 

Then she heard the door close and looking round across the pale room,

saw her husband.

 

Instantly she put the bird back in its cage, shut the door on it, and

rose.

 

“Ulrica,” said the Master of Stair, “I have something to ask of you.”

 

He came across the room, and at sight of his face the color left her

own; she slipped back onto the gold sofa and clasped her hands tightly.

 

“What do you know of my affairs?” demanded Sir John. “I tell you

nothing, but do you spy on me?”

 

He clenched his hand over the gilding behind her, and she shrank

together.

 

“What do you mean?” she asked. “Why do you speak so to me?”

 

“Because I desire an answer,” he said breathing hard.

 

“I will give you none,” she replied in a trembling indignation. “This

is my lord’s work—he has set you on me.”

 

“You had better tell me before I discover for myself,” said her

husband, his voice unsteady with suppressed passion. “Did you see that

girl who came asking for me this afternoon?”

 

She looked away, turning white, but there was that in her could disdain

the lie fear prompted.

 

“Yes,” she answered.

 

“By Heaven!” cried Sir John softly; he came a little nearer. “Did you

inform her of anything?”

 

Her eyes met his with a full look of aversion.

 

“What is the object of this?” she asked. “Why do you take this manner

to me?