The Lock and Key Library Part 43

It was not long before he got some light on the matter. "Come here, Atley," said his employer, the moment he entered the library.

"Look at this!"

The secretary took the Times, folded back at the important column, and read the letter. 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 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--" replied the secretary, thinking while he spoke, "was given to me at the last moment by Sir Horace. I threw it to Marcus in the hall."

"Ah!" said his chief, 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 sudden confusion. "I did," he said hurriedly. "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, Atley. You noticed, I can see, the handwriting. Was it Sir Horace's?"

"No," replied the secretary.

"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--so say for certain."

"Lady Betty's?"

Mr. Stafford repeated the exclamation three times, in pure 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 at once his wife's petulant exclamation of yesterday, the foolish desire expressed, as he had supposed in jest. Had she really been in earnest? And had she carried out her threat? Had she--his wife--done this thing so compromising to his honor, so mischievous to the country, so mad, reckless, wicked?

Impossible. It was impossible. And yet--and yet Atley was a man to be trusted, a gentleman, his own relation! And Atley's eye was not likely to be deceived in a matter of handwriting. That Atley 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 pa.s.sed 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, Atley--" he cried, jerkily, "what was my wife's motive? I am in the dark, blindfolded! Help me! Tell me what has been pa.s.sing round me that I have not seen. You would not have my wife--a spy?"

"No! no! no!" cried the other, as he dropped the paper, his vehemence and his working features showing that he felt the pathos of the appeal. "It is not that. Lady Betty is jealous, if I may venture to judge, of your devotion 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 she has been married no more than a year."

"But she has her society," objected the Minister, compelling himself to speak calmly, "and her cousin, and--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 a queer 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," said Mr. Stafford hastily. "I will come at once.

For this matter, Atley," he continued when the door was closed again, "let it rest for the present where it is. I am aware 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 Templeton. I shall see Lord Pilgrimstone tomorrow, but probably that will be the end of it."

Atley went away marveling at his coolness, trying to retrace the short steps of their conversation, and so 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 see the clue, however, and marveled still more as the day went on and others succeeded it, days of political crisis. Out of doors the world, or that little jot of it which has its center at Westminster, was in confusion.

The newspapers, morning or evening, found ready sale, and had no need of recourse to 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 Atley found nothing to wonder at. 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 going to and fro, much closeting and b.u.t.ton-holing; for rather longer the secretary read anxiety and apprehension in one countenance--Lady Betty's. But things settled down. The knocker presently found 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 failed to discern the 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 it had occurred to him that the country might for a time exist without him. He was standing aside with a shade on his face, and there were rumors that he would take a long holiday.

A week saw all these things happen. And then, one day as Atley sat writing in the library--Mr. Stafford being out--Lady Betty came into the room for something. Rising to find her what she wanted, he was holding the door open for her to pa.s.s out, when she paused.

"Shut the door, Mr. Atley," 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 little creature than she looked then had seldom tempted man. "Mr. Stafford's resignation--had it anything, Mr. Atley, to do with--" her face colored a very little--"something that was in the Times this day week?"

His own cheek colored 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.

"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 even 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. Atley?"

"Most certainly," he said. He was not inclined to spare her this time.

She nodded thoughtfully, and then with a quiet "Thank you," 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 second Job, new 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 tea-time 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 it?" 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 coolly turned to her husband and said, "Here is Horace wis.h.i.+ng to know if you mind being turned out much?"

Mr. Stafford's face flushed a little at the home-thrust which no one else would have dared to deal him. But he showed no displeasure. "Well, not so much as I should have thought," he answered frankly, 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," grunted Sir Horace.

"It was."