Philander looked at the glimmering clock on the wall: it was a quarter past three, later than he thought, to go back to bed would be useless. Suddenly he felt quite exhausted. He tried to soothe himself, as he had tried to do countless times since that morning, with the thought that today’s duel would be conducted with the greatest possible degree of secrecy and propriety. No harm would come of it.
Fabian Blandy, amazed though he had been when fetched to Auriol’s rooms to have the story explained to him in front of the Marquis himself, had agreed to act as a second and not to say a word. He had realised that it would be quite unjust if Westmarch of all men were to be denied the right to defend his courage after being struck in the face. He had also volunteered to seek out a Castle-town doctor who would not recognise the Marquis.
Meriel could not afford to have it generally known either that any man had dared to hit her, or that she had broken the law against duelling. The first fact would horrify and amuse the Polite World, the second would outrage the Citizens who helped to fund her. So Auriol Wychwood would ride off alone as soon as the affair was over, and then somehow he and Meriel must prevent Fabian Blandy from asking too many questions — Blandy, of course, expected Auriol to be escorted back to prison.
He rehearsed everything that should happen that day in his mind, but knew that it was none of these distressing little things which so fretted his brain. It was something about Meriel.
When Wychwood slapped his face, Meriel had behaved exactly as Philander would have expected. And yet there had been something wrong about the whole scene, something wrong with his appearance. He pictured Westmarch’s long body, knocked down as it had been on to the sofa, with legs sprawling and one arm stretched out. Then he remembered the still, stiff back-view of later on, and saw Meriel standing with proudly held shoulders but a gently lowered head. That tilted neck had been graceful.
But it’s nothing, Philander thought, realising suddenly what he had seen.
It is only that his being weakened, in a state of shock, allowed me to observe fully what I had not before: that despite his height, he is an extraordinarily slightly built man. He carries himself in general in such a way that I never quite realised what abnormally small shoulders and delicate wrists he has — he’s tolerably strong, strong enough to hold those greys, and then because he is so excessively thin he appears, paradoxically, to be almost raw-boned: the sides of his wrists are two sharp knobs. And his coats are padded to broaden his shoulders, as whose are not — even Meriel does not care to be quite so much out of the mode.
Satisfied, Philander quietly got dressed. Already there was a faint sheen on the eastward horizon, less bright by far than the nimbus of the moon.
*
The duel was to be fought at six o’clock. At a quarter to four, Auriol woke and dressed himself immediately, humming softly as he did so. All night, he had floated in and out of the plainest, pleasantest dreams he could possibly have had, of kissing Meriel, and being hungrily kissed by her on his lips and throat and shoulders.
At his washstand, he brushed his teeth vigorously as he looked out across the squalid little kitchen-yard beneath his bedroom window, over the castle wall at the first slow rising of pink in the sky’s shade. Odd that a colour so insipid could be beautiful.
His watch, ticking on the chest of drawers, told him that in less than half an hour Meriel, Grindal and Blandy would come to carry out their plan. He had his own plan and feared nothing, but all the same his intestines contracted as though with powerful indigestion. It was excitement that upset him. The intense shame he felt at having struck Meriel he had suppressed for the present.
Auriol breakfasted on stale bread and cold coffee, and constantly looked at his watch as he ate.
The others were not punctual, but five minutes late, and when at last they arrived, he spent two minutes listening to the low hum of Meriel’s voice through the two heavy doors that separated his room from the staircase. She was, of course, instructing Juxon’s footmen to take themselves off for the present, all according to plan. Auriol almost expected the men to perceive the whole plot, the whole truth, and he listened to what he could in sickening pain. But they went, uncomplaining, to drink beer in the porters’ lodge.
Then Meriel, followed by Grindal and Blandy, came into the room. Both Grindal and Blandy were little men, half a head shorter than she was: over-neat, dull, physically inadequate creatures, thought Auriol.
*
Over the cold sea a light wind was blowing from clouds undispersed by the dawn to the east. Dull waves rumbled over the beaches, and crashed into spray on the boulders at their head. The gulls were just beginning to caw. Otherwise, there was little noise. Meriel and Philander were cantering along the cliff-top, but their horses’ hoofbeats were muffled by the sandy grass and many colourless flowers: trefoil, scabious, clover, and bindweed.
Their group of four had broken up in Castle-town, because Blandy and Philander thought it unsuitable for the two principals to ride together to the duellists’ meeting-place six miles north of Castle West. Meriel had then insisted that Philander ride with him along the coast path, and Philander could not think why he wanted to take that road.
Auriol, on horseback, and Blandy, driving a perch-phaeton, were taking the main road, but there was a rough track through the fields that would have allowed Meriel to reach her destination well ahead of the other two.
Meriel wanted merely to ride by the sea, even though while riding she could not look at it. She wanted it just in case she might never again have the chance to see it, for over the past twelve hours she had persuaded herself in expectant horror that perhaps she deserved death, and that Auriol might kill her. She deserved death, because she was such a fool that she did not know what she truly wanted, and so weak that she had not pushed him out of prison by sheer force of will. She was unreasonable, besides. In her present state, Meriel fancied that no one would blame her lover for shooting a woman who had masqueraded as the Marquis of Westmarch. She thought that in fact, the world would think him a hero, as she thought him a hero now for not betraying her true sex to Grindal and for accepting her challenge. No, she thought, turning Black Belinda to the right, not a hero, but a just man. A just man: she liked that phrase, a new one to describe him. And it might be just to kill me, as it was to accept my challenge. But to strike me was unjust — Meriel’s hands twitched with anger as she remembered that. Her mare neighed.
She and Philander trotted their horses down the mile-long slope that led to the post-road, crossed it, and entered the first of the wide cornfields with the sun in their eyes. Pointing up now from the elms on the horizon into a milk-and-water sky, its rays picked out flaxen undulations from the grey of the wheat. Meriel and Philander rode along a narrow but well-made track, bounded on either side by wooden fences and trailing hawthorn. Though Meriel seemed unaware of her surroundings, Philander noticed the chill in the air which was, he thought, a first hint of autumn coming. This would be a beautiful day. The world was gathering colour with increasing quickness as the sun mounted: by the time he and Meriel arrived at the chosen field, the corn had turned from dim beige to dull honey and the misted trees from indigo to green.
“Well!” said Meriel, taking off her broad-brimmed hat and squinting first at the sun and then at her watch. “Blandy has the pistols?”
“Yes, as I told you. How should I be able to bring them when I am riding, not driving?”
“And the doctor will be with him, of course.” Meriel blew on her gloved fingers as though she were cold, which she was not. Philander saw that she was sweating a little, there were beads on her upper lip.
“Meriel — for God’s sake — I must say this. You won’t hit him, will you?” She turned quickly, frowning, and opened her mouth, but Philander hurried on, “I know how it is, but only think of the consequences to yourself! You prove your courage by standing up for him to put a bullet through you, remember — that is the object of a duel, not revenge. If you wish to punish him, why
will you not insist on his coming back with us?”
She tried to smile. “What, you don’t imagine he would tamely submit to such a decree as that when we are miles from the nearest village and there are three horses and a phaeton waiting, do you? No, indeed, I’ve a better opinion of his good sense.”
“I see that despite everything, he stands high in your regard.”
“So he does. Why, it took a deal of courage to hit me in the face, you’ll own that.” Instantly her mood and behaviour changed. “You may spare me your damned moralisings, Philander! I shall conduct this affair as I see fit, d’you think I don’t know how?”
Raising her eyes, she saw Auriol on his bay stallion coming towards them along the field track. She stood silent to watch. Wobbling behind him, there came a black and yellow phaeton containing Blandy, the doctor, and the duelling pistols, but she took no notice of that.
Momentarily forgetting her belief that Auriol would take this opportunity to kill her, Meriel smiled at the sight of his face. Even at a distance it was obvious that the escape from his attic and the ride in the cool of a late-summer morning had done him all the good in the world. He looked like a boy of twenty.
He did not grin at Meriel, though he wanted to do so, as he jumped down from his horse and took off his hat to feel the wind in his hair. He contented himself with giving her a wonderfully mischievous look. The tiny eye-smile thrilled her for a second or two, then she supposed it must be meant as a hint that he would revenge himself for the hurts she had inflicted on him. Just now, she could not think that she had ever done him any harm.
When she turned her face away, Auriol looked wounded, even, thought Philander, a little angry. Then Auriol understood: Meriel, who suffered so from the self-hatred which Juxon had fostered, had been indulging her foolish self with visions of his shooting her. Of course. In other circumstances, he might well have wanted to shoot her.
At that moment, he almost gave up all idea of carrying on with this parody of a duel. He glanced briefly at the phaeton from which Blandy and the doctor were now descending, and in which he intended to carry her away. But as he meant always to indulge her, and to respect her pride, he decided to go through with the business. Meriel would most certainly resent being deprived of her last male moment more than she would being subjected to an extra ten minutes of fear.
“Well, let’s have done with this business,” said Meriel to Philander, when Blandy had greeted her and the doctor had bowed and murmured a commonplace. She was the first to climb over the nearest stile into the field. The others followed her, leaving the horses tied up to the fence.
The corn came almost to their waists, and they found that it was soaked with dew and full of tangles, by no means as soft as it looked. Each man was shut off from the others by his difficulty in walking. Meriel, still leading the way and feeling unusually self-conscious, stumbled badly once and just saved herself from landing on her face; she turned fever-hot for a moment, in spite of the wet and the flapping breeze.
Auriol cut through the field like a clumsy plough, and never took his eyes off Meriel.
Some sixty yards from the fence, they stopped. Philander, his tired face red with effort, waded a last few feet up to Meriel and Blandy. Auriol took it upon himself to instruct the doctor as to where to stand, though as a principal in the affair it was not his place to do so. Then he joined the others.
“A pity you ain’t accustomed to ruralising, Grindal,” said Blandy, observing Philander’s disgust at the state of his coat-skirts and boots. “You should spend more time in the country.”
“I think not,” Philander crossly replied, scratching at a gnat-bite on his hand.
The other tucked the pistol-case under his arm. “Well I do think myself it was a devilish bad notion to choose this devilish field. I know it’s quite the thing, this field, but at this season it ain’t seasonable, if you understand me. All these beaches round about, but nothing will do for you but all this devilish corn. Shockingly rustic.”
“Oh, hold your tongue, Blandy,” said Meriel; then with an effort, “I beg your pardon.” She had recalled that Auriol had been fond of this man’s sister, his wife.
“I take no offence, Westmarch.”
“Westmarch had no fancy to fight on a beach,” said Auriol quietly, and reminded her, with his eyes, of how she had first said she loved him on one of the beaches. She took the reminder, and remembered how often they had made love on the cliffs above.
“Perhaps you will remember that at this present it is high tide,” said Meriel. “Which would make it quite ineligible, d’you quite understand?”
Philander and Blandy were disapproving of this direct exchange of words between the principals; and surprised by it, as well. They had thought that at the meeting-place itself, Meriel and Auriol would abide by the conventions.
“Pistols, Fabian?” said Philander.
With dignity, Blandy opened the new leather case and held it out to Grindal, who went through the ritual of examining each gun and then returning it, all under the principals’ eyes.
“Very well,” he said.
The two silver-mounted pistols lay face to face on crushed blue velvet, cold and heavy, glinting a little in their deep box’s shade. Meriel put one hand forward, and roughly lifted the nearest out of the case. Auriol noticed how damp her long fingers were, pink with cold and scratched by wheat-stalks; but they were perfectly steady as they grasped the butt. He raised his eyes to her face, and saw her warm breath in the air. He thought that she was looking more sternly handsome than ever before, with her red hair lit up by the sun behind her, bright as the poppies all round them in the corn. Her eyes were looking straight into his. She could be so very passionate; at that moment, he almost believed that she was already capable of ordinary tenderness, as she would be one day.
He hesitated for a moment, long enough to distress Philander Grindal, then quickly he took the case from Blandy, and picked up the remaining gun, and cocked it.
*
In the lamplit porters’ lodge at Castle West, a mentally deficient boy was trying to sweep the floor: he was pushing a little pile of dirt round and round in front of him, leaving the filthy sides of the room untouched, as though he could not see them. The younger of the two men who had been guarding Auriol’s door found it an infuriating sight, but he said nothing, for it was no business of his, and he was trying to think. His companion was asleep on the table with his livery coat unbuttoned and a glass in his hand, and besides him there was no one else in the room but a Castle-town prostitute, also asleep. The new day was too far advanced for revellers, and too little so for men beginning their morning’s duties with coffee in the lodge.
When a fat brisk woman came in and boxed the idiot boy’s ears, the young footman put down his tankard and left, for it occurred to him that he might well be questioned by anyone else who came in. He was known to have been posted on early duty outside Knight Auriol Wychwood’s door. Quitting the lodge, he went to stand against the back wall of one of the nearby stables, and looked up at the dawn, in peace.
He still did not know whether the Marquis’s conduct was any more his business than the idiot’s way of using a broom, and indeed, he blushed at his own monstrous presumption in thinking it might be. Yet there had been something very odd about the Marquis’s sending him and his fellow away three-quarters of an hour ago. Certainly Westmarch owed no one any explanations, but he could not imagine why such an action had been necessary.
Meriel was only indirectly his employer: because he did not work in her own apartments, but on whichever lodging-staircase the Steward thought fit, he was answerable to Juxon. Why, he thought, had the Steward sent no message, telling the pair of them to absent themselves when the Marquis arrived with two gentlemen friends? He knew that Knight Auriol was in theory detained by Juxon, not Westmarch, and Juxon was punctilious to a fault. The Steward had a great deal of influence over the Marquis, though people said less than formerly, but it was inconceivable that he woul
d make Westmarch carry his messages. The young footman giggled at this.
Finally, he decided to go back to Medlar Court and see what he could. He guessed that he would see only a stout locked door, of which the Marquis now had the key; and knew from experience that it was impossible to hear more than a buzz of voices through those two doors, even when the voices were raised. Words were never distinguishable.
The young footman pulled himself upright, then saw that he was being steadily regarded by one of the grooms, whom he did not know.
“I see his lordship’s big friend’s been let out,” said the man. “Happen you’ll know all about that?”
“No.”
“Rode out of the gate not half an hour ago with his lordship and two others, so I see — young Mr Grindal I think it was and a rabbity-faced one, regular twiddle-poop. Driving a nice pair of tits though, proper good ’uns.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Ay. Well, wasn’t you told — you’re in Steward’s livery?”
“Not in so many words, as you might say.”
The groom grinned, shrugged, and went into the nearest loose-box.
The young footman felt a kind of panic at what he had just learned, and found himself wishing that he might only have remained in ignorance, and seen and stood before that closed door in Medlar Court. But frightened instinct told him that it was his absolute duty to see the Steward, that if he failed in it he would lose his job. He did not pause to consider quite what an unthinkable impertinence it was for him to throw himself upon the Steward and question him about the Marquis’s movements, implying that there was something he, Juxon, did not know.
It was now half-past five. Auriol and Blandy had just joined Meriel and Philander by the fence in the fields.
The Marquis of Westmarch Page 27
