The three men walked quietly through to the dining-room, collected a decanter of wine and glasses, and took them to the library. For a good half-hour they sat there talking mainly about Sheridan’s theatrical activities; then he left them to go upstairs.
He was away for about twenty minutes and, when he rejoined them, said at once, ‘Malderini is already quite recovered, and he says that if you insist upon it he will fight.’
‘I do,’ Roger replied, standing up. ‘And I’ll withdraw now so that you can discuss details. The Colonel never seeks his bed before midnight, so I’ll go up to his room. You’ll find me there, Ned, when you’re in a position to tell me what has been settled.’
Colonel Thursby’s private sitting-room held many indications of the way in which he had made his considerable fortune. There were models of machines that he had either invented or improved, and maps of the great canal system that he had aided the Duke of Bridgewater to plan, and most of the books on his shelves were works on engineering. There was also, beside the mantel, a rack holding a row of long-stemmed clay pipes, and the Colonel was puffing quietly at one.
Roger was not an addict of the weed, but he enjoyed an occasional pipe with Georgina’s father; so, while he told him how things were moving, he took down the churchwarden that had his initials on it and began to fill it from the Colonel’s tobacco jar.
The Colonel nodded. ‘So Dick Sheridan and Lord Edward are arranging a meeting. Well, we can only hope that no harm comes to you from it.’
‘As I am the challenger, the choice of weapons lies with him,’ Roger replied. ‘But either way, I don’t think you need be greatly concerned about me. If it be swords I have little to fear. He must be at least fifteen years older than myself, and he is anything but an agile man; so I doubt not I’d make rings round him. With pistols, too, the odds should be in my favour. Unless he’s an expert marksman, I’d wing him before he gets a bead on me.’
‘I hope that he choose swords. A duel with pistols is always a chancy matter. Even a man who has never fired one in his life may score a lucky hit; and if you were seriously injured, I should be distressed beyond measure. The more so as it was my act in exposing his trickery, and then you protecting me from his assault, which have led to this.’
‘I pray you don’t give that another thought, Sir. You had every right to unmask the rogue, and no one could have foreseen that he would knock me down.’ Roger drew the flame from a taper onto the tobacco in his pipe, then added, ‘Frankly, though, I’d give a lot for this imbroglio to have taken some other turn, so that I’d not been forced to challenge him.’
‘Since he struck you in the face, you had no option.’
‘That’s just the rub; and why, though I doubt his doing so, I hope he will choose swords. As I told you at breakfast, Georgina asked him here at my request, that I might have a prospect of winning him over to Mr. Pitt’s interest. Were I still saddled with that I’d be in an unholy mess. But by a stroke of good fortune, later in the morning I received a despatch from Downing Street relieving me of further responsibility in the matter. Even so, should I chance to lay him low for some weeks with a pistol bullet, that would sadly prejudice the negotiations he is about to open with the Foreign Office. If, on the other hand, we fight with swords, I’ll almost certainly be able to disarm him, or, at worst, give him a slight jab in the sword arm. Then there’d be no fear of regrettable repercussions afterwards.’
For some half-hour they talked on, but in a lighter vein, then Droopy Ned joined them. Peering with his short-sighted eyes at Roger, he said:
‘’Tis to be at six o’clock tomorrow morning by the little temple on the far side of the lake. I fear, though, you may be somewhat disconcerted by his choice of weapons. He has chosen pikes.’
‘Strap me!’ exclaimed Roger. ‘You can’t be serious, Ned.’
Droopy nodded. ‘I am. Sheridan did his utmost to persuade him to accept more orthodox weapons, but he said that, being a studious and peaceable man by nature, he had never used a sword, and that an astigmatism of the eyes prevents him from shooting straight. He can hardly be blamed for selecting a weapon which will make the chances between you more even, and I did not feel that I had sound grounds for standing out against it.’
‘No ... no; I suppose not. But pikes, Ned! Where will we get them?’
There are a score or more to choose from among the arms that decorate the walls of the billiards room.’
‘So be it, then. What about a doctor?’
‘Knowing Dr. Chudleigh to be the household leech here, I’ve sent a note down to the village requesting him to attend upon us. Beckford refused to act with Sheridan as the Venetian’s other second; so the groom who is carrying my note to Dr. Chudleigh also bears one from Sheridan to Major Rawton at the Red House. I gather the Major is a fire-eater of the first water, so the odds on him refusing Sheridan’s request are negligible. It remains only for you to provide yourself with another second.’
Roger turned to the Colonel. ‘If you would honour me, Sir?’
‘Certainly, my dear boy,’ came the prompt response. ‘Did I have to wait here to learn the outcome of this meeting, I’d be consumed with anxiety; now at least I’ll learn it the moment it becomes apparent.’
They talked on till the clock chimed twelve, then the Colonel’s two visitors wished him ‘good-night’. Droopy told Roger that he had arranged for his man to call them both at five o’clock and, after agreeing to meet down in the hall at a quarter-to-six, they separated to go to their rooms.
While undressing, Roger’s thoughts were no longer on the duel, but on Georgina. As he was to be called at five o’clock there was no way in which he could conceal from her that it was to take place, and he knew that she would be greatly distressed about it. Resigning himself to a prospect of expostulations and argument, he put on his flowered silk chamber-robe, and went through to her.
She was sitting up in bed and had a book open on her lap, but she was not reading. He had hardly closed the door of the boudoir, before she asked impatiently, ‘Well! Have you made an end of this wretched affair?’
‘Not quite,’ he gave a disarming smile. ‘But I hope to have before you wake in the morning.’
She stiffened. ‘You mean that ...’
‘I mean, my love, that, through this pestiferous fellow, I am forced to suffer another and greater injury. On his account I’ll be able to spend no more than an hour with you tonight; for I must get a few hours’ sleep and am to be called at five o’clock.’
‘You insisted on fighting, then?’
‘’Twas not my wish; but I had no alternative.’
‘Oh God! What fools you men are!’ Georgina burst out. ‘You call such meetings seeking satisfaction, yet only too often it’s the offended party who gets skewered for his pains. There’s neither justice nor fairness in it; for, right or wrong, the victor is he who’s had most experience with weapons, and many an honest father of a family has met his death at the hands of an impudent young blackguard, because he felt in honour bound to call him out.’
‘In this case the blackguard is the older party, and I’d be much surprised, if, by this time tomorrow, Susan finds herself an orphan.’
‘Lud man! I’m not scared for you. At least, no more than any woman would be for her lover when he’s about to expose himself to some chance injury. Pitted against a man so formidable with arms as you, the poor wretch will be lucky if he gets off with a month in bed nursing a slashed face or a punctured lung.’
‘Nay; I’ve no intention of causing him grevious harm. I mean to disarm him if I can.’
She gave him a puzzled look. ‘If you will be so easily satisfied, it makes this meeting even more senseless. Surely you would have done better when you got up from the floor to return him blow for blow. He’d not have hit you a second time, I’ll be bound; and you could have left it at that.’
‘Had we been in Russia, that is just what I would have done. The nobility there indulge in fisticuffs at the least pro
vocation, and even use their canes upon one another. Like yourself, and I admit with some reason, they maintain that duelling settles nothing, and that the men of the western nations who resort to it are crazy. But ...’
‘Then I vow these Muscovites, whom we look on as barbarians, are more civilised than ourselves.’
‘Maybe, m’dear. But, as I was about to say, our customs are different. And when in Rome ...’
‘Oh! Roger, I know the stupid conventions that form the code of so-called men of honour well enough. Yet only the weak follow convention slavishly; and, in this instance, the blow was intended not for you but for Papa. Surely it was a case in which you could have composed the quarrel, instead of deliberately flouting my request that it should not lead to a duel?’
He sighed. ‘I’m sorry; truly sorry. Had the circumstances been slightly different I would gladly have acceded to your wish. The kernel of the matter was Sheridan being present. The others we could have bound to secrecy with a reasonable hope that they would hold their tongues, at least to the extent of making no mention of the fact that Malderini knocked me down. But you know Richard Brinsley even better than myself. It’s not in his nature to refrain from telling a good story; so every detail of this affair will be all over London by Monday afternoon. Within a week, I’d have been forced to resign from my Clubs had I not insisted on the Venetian giving me satisfaction.’
‘I had not thought of that,’ Georgina murmured. Then her lovely face was lit once more by her warm smile and she said, ‘You are excused, Sir; but not from having kept me talking for a part of our precious hour.’ As she spoke she held out her arms.
Punctually at a quarter-to-six, Roger joined Droopy Ned and Colonel Thursby down in the main hall. They had there three types of pike for him to choose from. Having handled all three weapons, he chose the heaviest, on the assumption that, being stronger than Malderini, it would more easily enable him to beat down the Venetian’s guard. Droopy took the two rejected weapons back to the billiards room and returned with the pair to the one Roger had selected. Then they set off for the rendezvous.
It was a slightly misty morning which promised another lovely day. As it was a Sunday, none of Georgina’s platoon of gardeners was scything the lawns or replanting the borders. Those who looked after the glasshouses would do their airing and watering before putting on their ‘black’ to attend church; but not for an hour or so yet.
Seven minutes’ walk round the edge of the lake brought them to its far shore. At intervals in the wood along it, broad rides, which were kept clear for the pheasant shooting, came down to its edge. From one of them a turning led off to an open glade with a hillock at its far end. On it there was a small temple, or belvedere, consisting of six pillars of Verona marble on carved stone bases and supporting a dome of delicately scrolled ironwork. A dozen yards from the temple, on the edge of the flat centre of the glade, two men were standing. They were Dr. Chudleigh and Major Rawton.
Greetings were exchanged and the Doctor reported that in case one of the combatants was too seriously wounded to walk, he had left his coachman and carriage beyond the trees in the next ride, which was less than a hundred yards away.
Meanwhile, the Major, an elderly, paunchy, red-faced man who clung to the fashion of wearing a wig, was eyeing the two pikes with a puzzled frown. On being informed that they were the weapons to be used in the encounter, he almost burst with indignation declaring that he was being made a fool of, as it was unthinkable that gentlemen should resort to such unorthodox means of settling a difference of opinion.
Fortunately, at that moment the other party arrived and Sheridan, who had also brought a pair of pikes, was able to pacify him. As principals, Roger and Malderini, who was wearing a heavy cloak, stood some distance apart, and away from the others while they settled final details.
The pikes that Sheridan had brought were much lighter than those Roger had chosen, so a coin was tossed up to decide which pair should be used. Droopy lost the toss, so Roger was deprived of any advantage he might have gained from the heavier weapons. He and Malderini were then brought face to face by their seconds and asked if they could see their way to compose their differences. Roger replied that he did not regard the insult to which he had been subject as mortal; but, having been struck, he must exercise his right to strike back in accordance with the conventions of polite society.
On that the principals were marched away to prepare themselves. Roger stripped to his shirt, but Malderini, alleging the chill of the early morning air as his reason, refused to take off anything except his cloak. Roger, who now felt that, as he had to fight with a strange weapon, he would be foolish to give away too many advantages, then wondered if he had been wise. The thick cloth of Malderini’s coat, and even the multiple folds of his cravat, would, to some extent, protect him from a thrust. On the other hand, they would tend to restrict swift movement, and as Roger was relying mainly on his agility to secure a quick victory, he decided to face his antagonist in shirtsleeves and open necked.
Side by side, Colonel Thursby and Major Rawton measured twelve paces in the middle of the most even stretch of turf. Droopy and Sheridan handed their principals the pikes and led them up to the markers. Stepping back to a central position on either side of the combatants, they received from the Colonel and the Major the two heavier pikes, so that they might, if necessary, intervene and with them beat down the weapons of their principals.
‘Attention!’ cried Sheridan. ‘Lord Edward will count three; and on the word three, you will engage.’
‘One!’ Droopy’s voice rang through the silence of the woodland glade. ‘Two!’ The duellists raised the points of the long pikes. ‘Three!’
Next moment they were at it hammer and tongs. Roger had never before handled a pike and, as far as he could judge, neither had Malderini. Both, at first, used them much in the way they would have single-sticks, each endeavouring to knock aside the other’s weapon. But, very soon, Roger realised that he dare not put his full strength into his blows; for, if he did, the wooden staff of his pike might snap and leave him at the mercy of his antagonist.
Malderini had, from the beginning, done little more than parry Roger’s efforts to beat down his guard; so the tempo of the fight changed and, following each sharp clack of the wooden shafts, one of them essayed a swift thrust at the body of the other. Yet both were greatly handicapped by the fact that the pikes were ten feet long, so terribly unwieldy for anyone who had no experience of handling them. The tassel-decorated, sharp, metal spears on their ends tended to weigh them down, and after each thrust it needed a considerable effort to make a swift recovery.
Owing to Roger’s ignorance about pike fighting, it was some minutes before he realised that the Venetian was fighting an almost entirely defensive encounter. He had hardly shifted his ground at all, but was stamping back and forth over the same square yard, while his attacker circled round and round him, striving to find an opening. For every three times Roger thrust, Malderini thrust only once, conserving his strength and waiting his opportunity.
Yet Roger, as he sprang in and out and from side to side, felt confident that Malderini could not stand the pace, and must shortly weaken so that for a moment he would lower his guard. Then, one swift lunge should settle the business.
The witnesses of the encounter maintained an absolute silence. The stillness of the glade was broken only by the clack of the wooden pike shafts as they came together, and the heavy breathing of the duellists.
By the time they had been at this furious slash and thrust for six or seven minutes, Roger was sweating from his exertions. During them he had been constantly switching his glance from Malderini’s pike point to his face. This, again, was on account of the strangeness to him of the weapon he was using. Had it been a sword, he would have kept his gaze riveted on his enemy’s eyes, it being a first principle of fencing that only by so doing can one divine one’s opponent’s intentions. Now, he decided that he would be wiser to adopt deceptive tactics. He woul
d pretend to tire, slacken off his attack and tempt the Venetian into making an all-out lunge at him. By watching his eyes he should be able to foresee the movement, side step the thrust and come in himself with a well-aimed stab, which would render the heavy, awkward figure confronting him hors de combat.
He had adopted this new policy for not more than a long half-minute before he suddenly became aware that he had thrown himself open to a deadly peril. Having stared for that time into the curious eyes of the Venetian, he could not now wrench his gaze away from them. In vain he strove to do so. Like a magnet applied to iron filings they held his own eyes fixed. Too late, he recalled the Princess Sirisha’s warning: Have care not to look in his eyes.’ He was doing so now and could not stop himself.
In an agony of apprehension he continued to flail this way and that with his pike. He knew now that Malderini had got the best of him. The Venetian’s choice of pikes had had more to it than a reluctance to fight with swords or pistols. He had known that such a long weapon would give him the best chance of fending his enemy off until he could hold his gaze and exert hypnotic influence on him.
Sweating now with a fear greater than he had known for many years past, Roger faced the fact that within a few minutes he might be dead. Those saucer-like eyes into which he was staring were now impelling him to lower the point of his weapon. Desperately he summoned every ounce of will-power he had to resist the impulse. There was cold, calculating evil in those eyes and an undisguised hatred. He felt certain that the moment he gave up his now rapidly weakening efforts to guard himself, the point of Malderini’s pike would be thrust into his heart.
Gasping, and with the sweat pouring from him, so that his shirt was now sticking to his back and chest, he plunged wildly from side to side across the already brutally trampled earth. It flashed into his mind that it was madness to stay there and be slaughtered. A serious wound he would have faced rather than be branded as a coward; but this was a question of life or death. And to die in fair combat was one thing; to be rendered helpless by invisible bonds, then murdered, was quite another. Whatever the shame he would have to live down, he decided to throw away his pike and dash off into the woods.
The Rape of Venice Page 8
