Читать книгу The Carolinian - Рафаэль Сабатини - Страница 12

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MR. HARRY LATIMER, stepping briskly, his three-cornered hat and a heavy riding-crop tucked under his arm, and drawing off his gloves as he came, advanced with a composure which Sir Andrew afterwards described as impudent.

Remus closed the heavy mahogany door, and silence reigned thereafter for some moments in that room.

Sir Andrew, Captain Mandeville, and Miss Carey remained at gaze, three petrified figures, the two men seated, the girl, her breathing quickened, standing just behind her father's chair, her right hand resting upon the summit of its tall back.

You conceive, perhaps, the various emotions conflicting in the mind of each, and you certainly conceive that for the moment these emotions were dominated by sheer amazement. Deep as it was in all three, it was deepest in Captain Mandeville. He was not merely amazed. He was bewildered. For the tall, slim young gentleman who had entered, and who was standing now by the head of the table, was no stranger to him. He had seen and talked with him somewhere before, and the Captain raked his wits to discover when and where that might have been. But only for a moment. Gradually the eyes of his mind metamorphosed the figure which the eyes of his body were devouring. The well-fitting, modish, long riding-coat of bottle-green gave place to a shabby, brown coatee; the fine delicate hand that was being withdrawn from its glove, became soiled and grimy; the rippling bronze hair so neatly queued in its moiré ribbon, hung loose and unkempt about that lean, pale face with its keen blue eyes and humorous mouth.

The Captain's fist crashed down upon the mahogany, so that glass and silver rattled: he half-rose from his chair, momentarily moved out of his self-control in a manner foreign to him even at times of greatest provocation.

'Dick Williams!' he cried, and added: 'By God!'

Mr. Latimer bowed to him, his smile ironical.

'Captain Mandeville, your humble obedient. I can understand your feelings.'

Mandeville made him no answer. His thoughts were racing over the ground covered that morning by the interview between Dick Williams and the Governor. He sought to recall how much had been disclosed to this audacious spy, who, thanks to the assistance of Cheney—whose unaccountable treachery was now also made clear—had so completely bubbled them.

Meanwhile, Sir Andrew, too obsessed by his own feelings to give heed to the unintelligible exchange of words between Mandeville and this unwelcome visitor, was raging furiously.

'My God! Have you the impudence to show your face here, now that the mask is off it? Now that we know you for what you are?'

'You do not know me, sir, for anything of which I am ashamed.'

'Because you're shameless!' Sir Andrew choked, impatiently shaking off the trembling hand that Myrtle set on his shoulder to restrain him.

Mr. Latimer looked at him wistfully. 'Sir Andrew,' he said, very gently, 'must there be war between us because we do not see eye to eye on matters of policy and justice? There is no man in all this world whom I love more deeply than yourself...'

'You may spare me that,' the Baronet broke in. 'When I find a more ungrateful, treacherous scoundrel than you are, I may hate him more. But I don't believe that such a man lives.'

Latimer's pallor deepened. Shadows formed themselves under his brilliant eyes.

'In what am I ungrateful?' he quietly asked.

'Must you be told? Could any father have done more for you than I have done? For years, whilst you were a boy, whilst you were away in England on your education, I husbanded your estates, watched over them to the neglect of my own. Your father left you wealthy. But under my care your wealth has been trebled, until to-day you are the richest man in Carolina, perhaps the richest man in America. And you squander the wealth I raised for you in attempting to pull down everything that I hold good and sacred, the very altars at which I worship.'

'And if I could prove to you that those altars enshrine false gods?'

'False gods! You abominable...!'

'Sir Andrew!' Latimer held out a hand in a gesture of appeal. 'Give me leave, at least, to justify myself.'

'Justify yourself? What justification can there be for what you have done, for what you are doing?'

He would have added more. But Myrtle came to Latimer's assistance.

'Father, it is only just to hear him.' Her plea sprang from a desire, deep down in her heart, to hear him, herself. She hoped to find in his words something to mitigate the judgment she had passed upon him in a letter which had failed so miserably of its true aim—to recall him from his rebellious course.

Mandeville, inwardly alarmed at the memory of all that had been said that morning in the Governor's study, and quite undecided as to how to bear himself now, so that he might reconcile and serve conflicting interests, sat still and watchful, a player who waits until opportunity shall show him what line of play to follow.

'Sir Andrew,' Latimer was saying, 'you who live sheltered here in a province upon which the hand of the Royal Government rests lightly, can have no more conception than I had until I went there four months ago of what is happening in the North.'

But Sir Andrew did not mean to listen to a political harangue.

'Can I not?' Contemptuous laughter brought the words out in a croak. 'Can I not? There's treason happening in the North. That's what's happening. And that's what you've borne a hand in, plotting God knows what devilries against your King.'

'That,' said Mr. Latimer, 'is hardly true.'

'D'ye think your seditious actions have not been reported to us?'

'Reported?' Latimer almost smiled as his keen eyes wandered to Captain Mandeville. He bowed a little to the Captain. 'I become important, it seems. I am honoured, sir, to be the subject of your reports.'

'As equerry to his excellency the Governor, certain duties devolve upon me,' Mandeville answered smoothly. 'Perhaps, Mr. Latimer, you are overlooking that.'

'Oh, no.' There was a gleam of that sedate amusement so natural to Latimer, and as irritating now to Captain Mandeville, as it had been to many another who imagined himself to be the object of Mr. Latimer's covert mirth. 'I gratified this morning my curiosity on the score of your activities.' The Captain flushed despite himself. 'But your reports—or, at least, the inferences you have drawn from them—have not been quite accurate. Inference, I believe, is not the strength of the official mind.'

He turned again to Sir Andrew, who was containing himself with difficulty, and who only half-understood what was passing between Latimer and the equerry. 'I have been plotting, perhaps. But certainly nothing against the King. By which I mean that I am not of those extremists who already utter the word "Independence." On the contrary, I am of those who are labouring to preserve the peace in spite of every provocation, to support constitutionalism against all the endeavours to cast it aside for coercive violence.'

The Baronet restrained himself to sneer. 'It was out of your concern for peace, I suppose, that you planned the raid on the armoury last April?'

Latimer's eyes flashed upon Mandeville again.

'Your reports have been very full, Captain Mandeville.'

This time the Captain gave him back gibe for gibe.

'Inference, you see, Mr. Latimer, is not always the weakness of the official mind.'

But Latimer's counter whipped the weapon from his hand.

'That was not inference, Captain. It was information. It is one of the things I ascertained this morning; one of the things I went to ascertain. For the rest'—and, without giving the Captain time to answer him, he swung again to Sir Andrew—'we desired to avoid here what was done in Boston: British subjects shot down by British troops. Si vis pacem, para bellum. It's sound philosophy. Since England, or rather England's King, acting through a too pliant Ministry, chooses to treat this Britain overseas as enemy country, what choice is left us? We prepare for war that we may avert it; that we may prevail upon a Ministry at home to receive our petitions, consider our grievances, and redress our wrongs, instead of brutally compelling us by force to submit ourselves to injustice.'

'My God! You're mad! That's it! Mad!'

Captain Mandeville interpolated gently: 'Did not Boston bring down upon itself this trouble by its insubordination?'

'Aye! Answer that!' Sir Andrew challenged.

'Insubordination?' Mr. Latimer shrugged a little. 'To what should Boston have been subordinated? The subjection of a free people to the executive authority of government is no more than a compliance with the laws they have themselves enacted.'

'You are quoting Dr. Franklin, I suppose,' said the Captain with the least suspicion of a sneer.

'I am quoting from one of the letters of Junius, Captain Mandeville, one of the letters addressed to a King and a Ministry who are so reckless as to threaten the liberties of Englishmen in England as well as in the colonies.'

Sir Andrew's indignation blazed.

'Is that a thing to say of His Gracious Majesty?'

'That there should be occasion to say it is deplorable. But the occasion itself is not to be denied.'

'Not to be denied!' Sir Andrew almost barked. 'I deny it for one, as I deny every word of your trumped-up pretexts of rebellion! The damnable gospel of these Sons of Liberty. Sons of liberty!' He snorted. 'Sons of riff-raff!'

The tone stung Latimer to a momentary resentment.

'It was an Englishman, a member of the House of Commons, who gave us that name at which you sneer, speaking in admiring terms of our stand for liberty.'

'I nothing doubt it. There are rebels in England, just as there are loyal men in America.'

'Yes, and, as time goes on, there may be more of the former and fewer of the latter. For this, sir, I say again, is no quarrel between England and America. That independency by which the North American Colonies may be lost to Britain, desired at present by so few of us, may yet come to be the only issue. If it should come to pass, it will be the achievement of a besotted King, who, although he glories in the name of Britain...'

But he got no further.

Sir Andrew on his feet, livid with passion, furiously interrupted him: 'You infamous traitor! My God! You'd utter such words in my house, would you? You heard, Robert. You have a duty, surely!'

Captain Mandeville, too, had risen, and was obviously ill-at-ease.

'Robert!' It was a cry from Myrtle. In her distress—for she well understood her father's invitation to him—the ceremonious term of 'cousin' was omitted. Both Mandeville and Latimer remarked it, intent though they might be upon a graver issue, and both were thrilled, though each after a different fashion.

'Pray have no fear, dear Myrtle,' the Captain reassured her. And he swung to Latimer, who was watching him.

'Here, under Sir Andrew's roof, I cannot take heed of the words you have used.'

The tilt of Mr. Latimer's nose seemed to become more marked.

'If you imply regret, sir, of that circumstance, I shall be happy to repeat my words in any place and time your convenience would prefer.'

Again Myrtle distractedly intervened, yet never beginning to suspect that she herself, rather than any political consideration, was disposing these two in such ready hostility.

'Harry, are you mad? Robert, please, please! Don't heed what he says.'

'I do not,' said Mandeville. He bowed a little to Latimer, his manner entirely disarming. 'I do not wish you to misapprehend me, sir. All I offer is an explanation of conduct in one who wears His Majesty's uniform.'

'It did not occur to me, sir, that you would offer more.'

Sir Andrew turned upon him, his face now as purple as a mulberry.

'Leave my house, sir! At once! I had never thought to see you here again, but that you should come to offend my ears with your abominable doctrines of rebellion...'

Latimer interrupted him. 'That, sir, was not my intent. I came solely that I might do you a service.'

'I desire no service of you! Go! Or I will have you thrown out.'

Myrtle stood behind Sir Andrew, white and distressed, passionately impelled to intervene, to seek yet to make the peace between her father and her lover—for that he was her lover still, her heart was telling her—and yet not daring to attempt to curb a passion so sweeping as that which now controlled the Baronet.

'The matter that brought me,' said Latimer, coolly fronting that wrath, 'concerns the life of Gabriel Featherstone.'

His ear caught the sharp intake of breath from Sir Andrew, and he saw the sudden movement of Captain Mandeville. But not even so much was necessary to announce how deeply he had startled them. Their countenances abundantly betrayed it. He paused a moment, looking squarely into the Baronet's glowering eyes. 'You would do well to bid your factor get his son out of Charles Town and out of the province before evening.'

For the second time there was something akin to an explosion from that normally very self-possessed Captain Mandeville.

Mr. Latimer smiled a little. 'Captain Mandeville, you see, realizes the occasion.'

'What do you mean?' Sir Andrew controlled himself to demand. But Latimer observed that he was trembling.

'I mean that if Gabriel Featherstone is not beyond the reach of the Sons of Liberty by evening, he will very certainly be hanged, and probably tarred and feathered first.'

'Gabriel Featherstone?' The Baronet's cheeks had grown actually pale.

'I see,' said Latimer, 'that you are acquainted with his activities, Sir Andrew, with the particular form of service to the Royal Government in which he has been employed by Captain Mandeville.'

'By me, sir?' Mandeville demanded.

Latimer's ironic smile was momentarily turned upon him.

'Lord William Campbell,' he said, 'is hardly the most discreet of men. He is rather too easily drawn. And that without the lure of personal gain that dulled your own wits, Captain. There are times when self-interest becomes a bandage to the eyes of caution. That, I think, was your own case this morning.'

'You infernal spy!' said Mandeville, with cold rage.

Latimer shrugged airily. 'A thief to catch a thief.'

'Will you tell me what it means?' demanded Sir Andrew. 'What has this to do with Featherstone?'

'I'll tell you, sir!' cried Mandeville.

But Latimer stayed him. He dominated now, by the fear for Featherstone which he had inspired.

'I think it will come better from me, perhaps. Gabriel Featherstone is a member of the General Committee of the Provincial Congress, and a member also of more than one of its sub-committees. He has abused his position to keep the King's Council informed of our secret measures, and he has already woven a rope for the necks of several of us. The moment isn't opportune for hanging us. But should it come, as the King's Government confidently believes it will, Featherstone will be brought forward as a witness to swear away our lives. I gather that the Royal Council will be content with hanging me, the ringleader, as a warning and an example. It's a bugbear that does not greatly alarm me. Anyhow, I am prepared to take the risk, sooner than give you occasion, Sir Andrew, to mourn a valued servant, the son of one still more valued. But you can't expect the others concerned to be equally complacent. To remove the risk, they will remove Featherstone. And the manner of it will be as I have said.'

Sir Andrew stared at him, his jaw fallen, the anger, which seethed abundantly within him, momentarily held in leash by dismay. And then at last Mandeville spoke.

'It's false!' he said. 'False! A silly trap to catch the name of the real denouncer. Featherstone is not the man. It was not Featherstone who supplied Lord William with his list.'

'In that case it is odd that the list should be in Featherstone's handwriting,' Mr. Latimer mocked him. 'You'll remember that I saw it, Captain.'

Mandeville remembered not only that he had seen it, but that he had very closely inspected it.

'When did you see it? How did you see it?' Sir Andrew demanded.

And it was Mandeville who answered him, and who, by his answer which related the whole of that morning's interview at the Governor's, explained to him several obscurities in what Latimer had just said.

'So that you're no better than a dirty spy!' cried Sir Andrew in disgust and fury. 'A dirty spy! You and your friend Cheney.'

'A spy, if you will. But the rest I disavow. Cheney's no friend of mine.'

'And you've denounced Gabriel to your fellow-rebels?' Sir Andrew asked him.

Mr. Latimer shook his head. 'If I had already done that, should I be here to warn you to get him removed? The moment after I denounce him, he will certainly be apprehended, and then...' Mr. Latimer shrugged eloquently. 'I trust, Sir Andrew, that you will place this at least to my credit: that out of my anxiety to spare you unnecessary pain—the pain of one who may feel himself in part responsible for the dreadful fate that overtakes another—I have been less than faithful to my duty.'

Sir Andrew made him no answer. He looked heavily at Mandeville, as if for guidance. Mandeville's face, now a mask of complete composure, dissembled the activity of his mind. The dismay and anger at the prospect of losing so very valuable a spy—for whether Featherstone escaped or were hanged, he would be lost to Mandeville as a channel of information—was being dissipated by the knowledge that Latimer had not yet denounced him. In that case all might yet be well.

'And, of course,' he said acidly, 'your regard for Sir Andrew will hardly go so far as to cause you to refrain from denouncing Featherstone.'

Latimer did not conceal his rather scornful amusement.

'Such guilelessness, Captain! Oh, the official mind! But I make you a present of the knowledge you seek. I shall go before the Committee at six o'clock to-day with the information you were good enough to give me this morning.'

'You really think you will?' said Mandeville, unpleasantly.

'I know I will. Which is why I must be taking my leave. Meanwhile, Sir Andrew, you are warned, and in good time to pass the warning on to Featherstone.'

Sir Andrew, standing stiff and scowling, made him no answer.

Mr. Latimer bowed gracefully, and turned to depart.

But he found that Mandeville had got between him and the door. The Captain spoke, his voice cold and level, but full of menace.

'Sir Andrew, this man must not be allowed to leave.'