And now, as if that were not enough to plague him, there was this quarrel with Rotherby which he had upon his hands. That, too, he had been considering during the wakeful hours of that summer night. Had he reflected he must have seen that no other result could have followed his narrative at White’s last night; and yet it was a case in which reflection would not have stayed him. Hortensia Winthrop’s fair name was to be cleansed of the smirch that had been cast upon it, and Justin was the only man in whose power it had lain to do it. More than that — if more were needed — it was Rotherby himself, by his aggressiveness, who had thrust Mr. Caryll into a position which almost made it necessary for him to explain himself; and that he could scarcely have done by any other than the means which he had adopted. Under ordinary circumstances the matter would have troubled him not at all; this meeting with such a man as Rotherby would not have robbed him of a moment’s sleep. But there came the reflection — belatedly — that Rotherby was his brother, his father’s son; and he experienced just the same degree of repugnance at the prospect of crossing swords with him as he did at the prospect of betraying Lord Ostermore. Sir Richard would force upon him a parricide’s task; Fate a fratricide’s. Truly, he thought, it was an enviable position, his.
Pacing the turf, on which the dew still gleamed and sparkled diamond-like, he pondered his course, and wondered now, at the last moment, was there no way to avert this meeting. Could not the matter be arranged? He was stirred out of his musings by Gascoigne’s voice, raised to curse the tardiness of Lord Rotherby.
“‘Slife! Where does the fellow tarry? Was he so drunk last night that he’s not yet slept himself sober?”
“The streets are astir,” put in Wharton, helping himself to snuff. And, indeed, the cries of the morning hawkers reached them now from the four sides of the square. “If his lordship does not come soon, I doubt if we may stay for him. We shall have half the town for spectators.”
“Who are these?” quoth Gascoigne, stepping aside and craning his neck to get a better view. “Ah! Here they come.” And he indicated a group of three that had that moment passed the palings.
Gascoigne and Wharton went to meet the newcomers. Lord Rotherby was attended by Mainwaring, a militia captain — a great, burly, scarred bully of a man — and a Mr. Falgate, an extravagant young buck of his acquaintance. An odder pair of sponsors he could not have found had he been at pains to choose them so.
“Adso!” swore Mr. Falgate, in his shrill, affected voice. “I vow ’tis a most ungenteel hour, this, for men of quality to be abroad. I had my beauty sleep broke into to be here in time. Lard! I shall be dozing all day for’t!” He took off his hat and delicately mopped his brow with a square of lace he called a handkerchief.
“Shall we come to business, gentlemen?” quoth Mainwaring gruffly.
“With all my heart,” answered Wharton. “It is growing late.”
“Late! La, my dears!” clucked Mr. Falgate in horror. “Has your grace not been to bed yet?”
“To save time,” said Gascoigne, “we have made an inspection of the ground, and we think that under the trees yonder is a spot not to be bettered.”
Mainwaring flashed a critical and experienced eye over the place. “The sun is — So?” he said, looking up. “Yes; it should serve well enough, I—”
“It will not serve at all,” cried Rotherby, who stood a pace or two apart. “A little to the right, there, the turf is better.”
“But there is no protection,” put in the duke. “You will be under observation from that side of the square, including Stretton House.”
“What odds?” quoth Rotherby. “Do I care who overlooks us?” And he laughed unpleasantly. “Or is your grace ashamed of being seen in your friend’s company?”
Wharton looked him steadily in the face a moment, then turned to his lordship’s seconds. “If Mr. Caryll is of the same mind as his lordship, we had best get to work at once,” he said; and bowing to them, withdrew with Gascoigne.
“See to the swords, Mainwaring,” said Rotherby shortly. “Here, Fanny!” This to Falgate, whose name was Francis, and who delighted in the feminine diminutive which his intimates used toward him. “Come help me with my clothes.”
“I vow to Gad,” protested Mr. Falgate, advancing to the task. “I make but an indifferent valet, my dear.”
Mr. Caryll stood thoughtful a moment when Rotherby’s wishes had been made known to him. The odd irony of the situation — the key to which he was the only one to hold — was borne in upon him. He fetched a sigh of utter weariness.
“I have,” said he, “the greatest repugnance to meeting his lordship.”
“’Tis little wonder,” returned his grace contemptuously. “But since ’tis forced upon you, I hope you’ll give him the lesson in manners that he needs.”
“Is it — is it unavoidable?” quoth Mr. Caryll.
“Unavoidable?” Wharton looked at him in stern wonder.
Gascoigne, too, swung round to stare. “Unavoidable? What can you mean, Caryll?”
“I mean is the matter not to be arranged in any way? Must the duel take place?”
His Grace of Wharton stroked his chin contemplatively, his eye ironical, his lip curling never so slightly. “Why,” said he, at length, “you may beg my Lord Rotherby’s pardon for having given him the lie. You may retract, and brand yourself a liar and your version of the Maidstone affair a silly invention which ye have not the courage to maintain. You may do that, Mr. Caryll. For my own sake, let me add, I hope you will not do it.”
“I am not thinking of your grace at all,” said Mr. Caryll, slightly piqued by the tone the other took with him. “But to relieve your mind of such doubts as I see you entertain, I can assure you that it is out of no motives of weakness that I boggle at this combat. Though I confess that I am no ferrailleur, and that I abhor the duel as a means of settling a difference just as I abhor all things that are stupid and insensate, yet I am not the man to shirk an encounter where an encounter is forced upon me. But in this affair—” he paused, then ended— “there is more than meets your grace’s eye, or, indeed, anyone’s.”
He was so calm, so master of himself, that Wharton perceived how groundless must have been his first notion. Whatever might be Mr. Caryll’s motives, it was plain from his most perfect composure that they were not motives of fear. His grace’s half-contemptuous smile was dissipated.
“This is mere trifling, Mr. Caryll,” he reminded his principal, “and time is speeding. Your withdrawal now would not only be damaging to yourself; it would be damaging to the lady of whose fair name you have made yourself the champion. You must see that it is too late for doubts on the score of this meeting.”
“Ay — by God!” swore Gascoigne hotly. “What a pox ails you, Caryll?”
Mr. Caryll took off his hat and flung it on the ground behind him. “We must go on, then,” said he. “Gascoigne, see to the swords with his lordship’s friend there.”
With a relieved look, the major went forward to make the final preparations, whilst Mr. Caryll, attended by Wharton, rapidly divested himself of coat and waistcoat, then kicked off his light shoes, and stood ready, a slight, lithe, graceful figure in white Holland shirt and pearl-colored small clothes.
A moment later the adversaries were face to face — Rotherby, divested of his wig and with a kerchief bound about his close-cropped head, all a trembling eagerness; Mr. Caryll with a reluctance lightly masked by a dangerous composure.
There was a perfunctory salute — a mere presenting of arms — and the blades swept round in a half-circle to their first meeting. But Rotherby, without so much as allowing his steel to touch his opponent’s, as the laws of courtesy demanded, swirled it away again into the higher lines and lunged. It was almost like a foul attempt to take his adversary unawares and unprepared, and for a second it looked as if it must succeed. It must have succeeded but for the miraculous quickness of Mr. Caryll. Swinging round on the ball of his right foot, lightly and gracefully as a dancing master, an
d with no sign of haste or fear in his amazing speed, he let the other’s hard-driven blade glance past him, to meet nothing but the empty air.
As a result, by the very force of the stroke, Rotherby found himself over-reached and carried beyond his point of aim; while Mr. Caryll’s sideward movement brought him not only nearer his opponent, but entirely within his guard.
It was seen by them all, and by none with such panic as Rotherby himself, that, as a consequence of his quasi-foul stroke, the viscount was thrown entirely at the mercy of his opponent thus at the very outset of the encounter, before their blades had so much as touched each other. A straightening of the arm on the part of Mr. Caryll, and the engagement would have been at an end.
Mr. Caryll, however, did not straighten his arm. He was observed to smile as he broke ground and waited for his lordship to recover.
Falgate turned pale. Mainwaring swore softly under his breath, in fear for his principal; Gascoigne did the same in vexation at the opportunity Mr. Caryll had so wantonly wasted. Wharton looked on with tight-pressed lips, and wondered.
Rotherby recovered, and for a moment the two men stood apart, seeming to feel each other with their eyes before resuming. Then his lordship renewed the attack with vigor.
Mr. Caryll parried lightly and closely, plying a beautiful weapon in the best manner of the French school, and opposing to the ponderous force of his antagonist a delicate frustrating science. Rotherby, a fine swordsman in his way, soon saw that here was need for all his skill, and he exerted it. But the prodigious rapidity of his blade broke as upon a cuirass against the other’s light, impenetrable guard.
His lordship broke ground, breathed heavily, and sweated under the glare of the morning sun, cursing this swordsman who, so cool and deliberate, husbanded his strength and scarcely seemed to move, yet by sheer skill and address more than neutralized his lordship’s advantages of greater strength and length of reach.
“You cursed French dog!” swore the viscount presently, between his teeth, and as he spoke he made a ringing parade, feinted, beat the ground with his foot to draw off the other’s attention, and went in again with a full-length lunge. “Parry that, you damned maitre-d’armes” he roared.
Mr. Caryll answered nothing; he parried; parried again; delivered a riposte whenever the opportunity offered, or whenever his lordship grew too pressing, and it became expedient to drive him back; but never once did he stretch out to lunge in his turn. The seconds were so lost in wonder at the beauty of this close play of his that they paid no heed to what was taking place in the square about them. They never observed the opening windows and the spectators gathering at them — as Wharton had feared. Amongst these, had either of the combatants looked up, he would have seen his own father on the balcony of Stretton House. A moment the earl stood there, Lady Ostermore at his side; then he vanished into the house again, to reappear almost at once in the street, with a couple of footmen hurrying after him.
Meanwhile the combat went on. Once Lord Rotherby had attempted to fall back for a respite, realizing that he was winded. But Mr. Caryll denied him this, attacking now for the first time, and the rapidity of his play was such that Rotherby opined — the end to be at hand, appreciated to the full his peril. In a last desperate effort, gathering up what shreds of strength remained him, he repulsed Mr. Caryll by a vigorous counter attack. He saw an opening, feinted to enlarge it, and drove in quickly, throwing his last ounce of strength into the effort. This time it could not be said to have been parried. Something else happened. His blade, coming foible on forte against Mr. Caryll’s, was suddenly enveloped. It was as if a tentacle had been thrust out to seize it. For the barest fraction of a second was it held so by Mr. Caryll’s sword; then, easily but irresistibly, it was lifted out of Rotherby’s hand, and dropped on the turf a half-yard or so from his lordship’s stockinged feet.
A cold sweat of terror broke upon him. He caught his breath with a half-shuddering sob of fear, his eyes dilating wildly — for Mr. Caryll’s point was coming straight as an arrow at his throat. On it came and on, until it was within perhaps three inches of the flesh.
There it was suddenly arrested, and for a long moment it was held there poised, death itself, menacing and imminent. And Lord Rotherby, not daring to move, rooted where he stood, looked with fascinated eyes along that shimmering blade into two gleaming eyes behind it that seemed to watch him with a solemnity that was grim to the point of mockery.
Time and the world stood still, or were annihilated in that moment for the man who waited.
High in the blue overhead a lark was pouring out its song; but his lordship heard it not. He heard nothing, he was conscious of nothing but that gleaming sword and those gleaming eyes behind it.
Then a voice — the voice of his antagonist — broke the silence. “Is more needed?” it asked, and without waiting for a reply, Mr. Caryll lowered his blade and drew himself upright. “Let this suffice,” he said. “To take your life would be to deprive you of the means of profiting by this lesson.”
It seemed to Rotherby as if he were awaking from a trance. The world resumed its way. He breathed again, and straightened himself, too, from the arrested attitude of his last lunge. Rage welled up from his black soul; a crimson flood swept into his pallid cheeks; his eyes rolled and blazed with the fury of the mad.
Mr. Caryll moved away. In that quiet voice of his: “Take up your sword,” he said to the vanquished, over his shoulder.
Wharton and Gascoigne moved towards him, without words to express the amazement that still held Rotherby glared an instant longer without moving. Then, doing as Mr. Caryll had bidden him, he stooped to recover his blade. A moment he held it, looking after his departing adversary; then with swift, silent stealth he sprang to follow. His fell intent was written on his face.
Falgate gasped — a helpless fool — while Mainwaring hurled himself forward to prevent the thing he saw impended. Too late. Even as he flung out his hands to grapple with his lordship, Rotherby’s arm drove straight before him and sent his sword through the undefended back of Mr. Caryll.
All that Mr. Caryll realized at first was that he had been struck a blow between the shoulder blades; and then, ere he could turn to inquire into the cause, he was amazed to see some three inches of steel come through his shirt in front. The next instant an exquisite, burning, searing pain went through and through him as the blade was being withdrawn. He coughed and swayed, then hurtled sideways into the arms of Major Gascoigne. His senses swam. The turf heaved and rolled as if an earthquake moved it; the houses fronting the square and the trees immediately before him leaped and danced as if suddenly launched into grotesque animation, while about him swirled a wild, incoherent noise of voices, rising and falling, now loud, now silent, and reaching him through a murmuring hum that surged about his ears until it shut out all else and consciousness deserted him.
Around him, meanwhile, a wild scene was toward.
His Grace of Wharton had wrenched away the sword from Rotherby, and mastered by an effort his own impulse to use it upon the murderer. Captain Mainwaring — Rotherby’s own second, a man of quick, fierce passions — utterly unable to control himself, fell upon his lordship and beat him to the ground with his hands, cursing him and heaping abuse upon him with every blow; whilst delicate Mr. Falgate, in the background, sick to the point of faintness, stood dabbing his lips with his handkerchief and swearing that he would rot before he allowed himself again to be dragged into an affair of honor.
“Ye damned cutthroat!” swore the militia captain, standing over the man he had felled. “D’ye know what’ll be the fruits of this? Ye’ll swing at Tyburn like the dirty thief y’ are. God help me! I’d give a hundred guineas sooner than be mixed in this filthy business.”
“’Tis no matter for that now,” said the duke, touching him on the shoulder and drawing him away from his lordship. “Get up, Rotherby.”
Heavily, mechanically, Rotherby got to his feet. Now that the fit of rage was over, he was himself all st
ricken at the thing he had done. He looked at the limp figure on the turf, huddled against the knee of Major Gascoigne; looked at the white face, the closed eyes and the stain of blood oozing farther and farther across the Holland shirt, and, as white himself as the stricken man, he shuddered and his mouth was drawn wide with horror.
But pitiful though he looked, he inspired no pity in the Duke of Wharton, who considered him with an eye of unspeakable severity. “If Mr. Caryll dies,” said he coldly, “I shall see to it that you hang, my lord. I’ll not rest until I bring you to the gallows.”
And then, before more could be said, there came a sound of running steps and labored breathing, and his grace swore softly to himself as he beheld no other than Lord Ostermore advancing rapidly, all out of breath and apoplectic of face, a couple of footmen pressing close upon his heels, and, behind these, a score of sightseers who had followed them.
“What’s here?” cried the earl, without glancing at his son. “Is he dead? Is he dead?”
Gascoigne, who was busily endeavoring to stanch the bleeding, answered without looking up: “It is in God’s hands. I think he is very like to die.”
Ostermore swung round upon Rotherby. He had paled suddenly, and his mouth trembled. He raised his clenched hand, and it seemed that he was about to strike his son; then he let it fall again. “You villain!” he panted, breathless from running and from rage. “I saw it! I saw it all. It was murder, and, as God’s my life, if Mr. Caryll dies, I shall see to it that you hang — I, your own father.”
Thus assailed on every side, some of the cowering, shrinking manner left the viscount. His antagonism to his father spurred him to a prouder carriage. He shrugged indifferently. “So be it,” he said. “I have been told that already. I don’t greatly care.”
Mainwaring, who had been stooping over Mr. Caryll, and who had perhaps more knowledge of wounds than any present, shook his head ominously.
Collected Works of Rafael Sabatini Page 200
