The Master of Stair 44

The Master of Stair 44

The Countess Peggy looked again at the portrait over the bureau, and

slowly rose and crossed over to it. She studied it for some time in

silence, holding the candle that stood underneath up above her head

that she might see the better. She heard the door open and turned to

see the original of the portrait within a few feet of her.

 

He paused, arrested by seeing her.

 

“I did not know that you were here,” he said quickly.

 

The Countess Peggy set the candle down, a little discomposed by his

sudden appearance.

 

“I came to see your lady, Sir John.”

 

It seemed that his pallor deepened.

 

“She was here—you saw her?”

 

“Yes, Sir John.”

 

His blue eyes swept over her; she winced under it, a rare thing for

her; she could not look at his proud, gloomy face; her own flushed a

little; she shifted onto common ground.

 

“Ye hae heard, Sir John, that the Jacobite, Jerome Caryl, is to be

examined privately at Kensington to-morrow?”

 

He put his hand to his black velvet cravat as if to loosen it.

 

“Yes, I have heard.”

 

She rose, still not looking at him, and crossed to the door.

 

“Good-even, Sir John.”

 

Under the influence of his splendid presence her voice was almost timid.

 

“Good-even, madam.”

 

He opened the door for her in an indifferent manner, and when she had

gone he crossed to the bureau and snatched up the candle she had held,

and gazed at his portrait as she had gazed, with a strange curiosity.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XXI

 

WILLIAM OF ORANGE

 

 

Jerome Caryl was informed that he was to be examined. It was the day

after his arrest, he had been followed to his lodging, taken quietly

and conveyed to the guard-house at Kensington. No chance was his to

pass on warning to any save Berwick, and it was doubtful whether he now

would be able to leave the country. The government was on the alert.

 

Jerome Caryl had no thought for company save of failure; he had played

for a high stake and the price for losing it was heavy. Personally he

looked ahead with calm eyes; the prospect for him was utterly hopeless:

Tyburn as soon as they could hurry his trial through; his guilt was

obvious, beyond dispute. And when those papers were opened at

Kensington the thousands who had been prompted by his persuasions and

their own rashness to sign them would be sent in his footsteps to glut

the government revenge.

 

At this reflection Jerome Caryl did flinch, at the bloodshed there

would be; the sneer of the French at his clumsiness, and King James’s

bewail that he was so badly served. He knew that his wholesale failure

could not be judged lightly at St. Germains, even though he hanged for

it.

 

He had been fooled; that unforgivable thing that carried the scorn of

his enemies and the curses of his friends: he had fallen headlong to

his own destruction and dragged after him those who had trusted him; a

bitter reflection for his solitude.

 

Of his dead friend’s sister, Caryl could not trust himself to think. He

could not know if she had heard of his arrest, but he did know that

whether warned in time or not, she would stay and share the common fate.

 

Some might try and fly to France, but not Delia Featherstonehaugh.

 

But these thoughts he thrust from him as he was conducted from his

solitude along the quiet rooms of the palace. His face grew disdainful

as he reflected the examination he must be put to was a mere flourish.

They knew everything. Did they want him to betray secrets in their

possession already? The government held in its hand the plot and all

concerned in it. Jerome Caryl felt contemptuous of this slow dealing.

Why did they not strike and have done? The power was theirs.

 

Added to this, the soldier conducting him, a Dutchman, who seemed to

have no English, roused Jerome’s ire curiously; the prisoner noticed

how the fellow’s uniform sat in creases on his fat figure, how he

wheezed and moaned to himself as he mounted the stairs, and how he eyed

his charge from time to time with a glance of heavy aversion. At every

doorway a sentinel was posted, and with him the fat Dutchman exchanged

slow speech in his own language, while Jerome waited his pleasure,

swordless, helpless, in a cold wrath at these lumpish foreign intruders.

 

“Have you, sir, no English here?” he demanded at last. “Or is

Kensington entirely filled with your countrymen?”

 

The Dutchman looked at him insolently and made no answer; it was

doubtful if he understood.

 

They had reached now a small ante-chamber at the end of a long gallery;

it was very ill-lit; the soldier’s blue uniform showed dimly through

the gloom; a high-nosed, pale-faced young man was engaged in tying up

papers at a side table. He came forward and spoke in a suppressed

manner to the soldier, who, Jerome gathered from the address, was Count

Solmes of the famous “Blues.”

 

The Englishman looked on in disinterested curiosity; the whole

surroundings were as unpretentious as might be the back parlor of a

small merchant’s shop: the officials all seemed affected with the same

taciturn manner and somber clothing. Dutch appeared the only language

spoken.

 

His gossip over, Count Solmes disappeared through an inner door, and

the pale usher turned gloomy eyes on Jerome, who, thinking of the court

of the Second Charles, inwardly smiled and sighed alike.

 

The Count, returning, was accompanied by another Dutch gentleman who,

remaining on the threshold, beckoned Jerome into the inner room.

 

This was more cheerful of aspect, being lit by two long windows that

looked on the garden, and so small that the firelight filled it from

end to end.

 

The two Dutchmen talked together with no heed of the fourth occupant of

the room, a lean man in the prim gown and wig of a Scottish clergyman,

who sat by the window, evidently waiting.

 

Jerome Caryl knew him at once for Carstairs, chaplain to their

Majesties for Scotland, and confidential adviser to the King. “A

drab-hued court,” he smiled to himself, and while Count Solmes talked

to his friend and the Rev. William Carstairs gazed out of the window at

the bare trees, the Jacobite prisoner idly noted what manner of room he

was in.

 

Floor, walls and ceiling were paneled in highly polished wood; a bureau

stood between the two windows, and before it a chair; a second chair

and a stool similar to that on which Carstairs sat, completed the

furniture, all of the same stiff pattern and absolutely plain.

 

On the wooden chimneypiece stood two heavy brass candlesticks, polished

till they shone like gold; above hung a dark portrait in a gilt frame

of a fashionably dressed lady, who smiled aimlessly; she was flanked by

two smaller pictures of vases of fruit, stiff but rich in coloring.

 

Close behind Jerome, on a shelf that appeared to have been affixed on

purpose, stood a curious tall vase of blue and white Delft; from each

of the ten spouts breaking the side, showed the tips of a tulip bulb

with the first points of green; in the opening of the vase itself lay

another larger and ready to burst into flower.

 

The Dutchmen broke off their converse at last and left the room. Jerome

turned to the silent figure by the window.

 

“Sir,” he said evenly, “can you tell me what is intended toward me: on

what I wait?”

 

Carstairs showed a solemn face.

 

“Young man,” he replied, “albeit I am not here to answer thy

questioning, yet out of charity will I inform thee, that thou art

shortly to be examined for thy manifold offenses.”

 

Jerome smiled. It was familiar phraseology.

 

“By whom, sir?”

 

“By those whom thou hast offended,” was the answer. As he spoke

Carstairs rose and his spare figure looked unnaturally tall.

 

“God turn thee, young man, from the heathenish worship of idols that

has led thee into these errors,” he said gravely. “Thou art one of the

Magliants who distract this land yet, although the Lord has seen fit to

remove them from their high places and set up his lowly servants.”

 

He put out his hand in a gesture of proud humility, and Jerome saw that

his thumb was a mere shriveled stump of bone.

 

“Maybe there is but a little time left to thee, therefore repent

swiftly lest thou lose the world everlasting as thou hast the world of

the flesh.”

 

With this he turned slowly and left the room.

 

Jerome leaned against the wall and waited, his feeling a curious one of

disinterest and indifference; a man hopelessly in the hands of his

enemies, a man who has failed and is at the mercy of those whom he

hates and has striven to overthrow, has no chance save to stand silent,

contemptuous of himself.

 

After a few moments a gentleman entered, and Jerome looked up.

 

The new-comer wore his hat and passed at once to the chair by the

bureau, where he sat down, and with no heed of Jerome began opening

some letters that lay there.