Friday's Child (26 page)

“Oh, I’m not going to kill Sherry!” said his lordship carelessly. “What put that into your head?”

She released his coat, and stood staring at him. “But they told me—Gil and Ferdy—”

“You don’t mean that that brace of gudgeons blabbed the whole thing to you?” George ejaculated.

“But what else could they do, when they thought you meant to kill Sherry?”

“Pooh! nonsense! Who said anything about killing anyone? Good God, Sherry’s a friend of mine!”

“Yes, but—but if you do not mean to beg his pardon, I am much afraid he will insist on fighting you,” said Hero.

“Oh, lord, yes! He’s a regular good ’un, Sherry!” said George, with the utmost cordiality.

Hero regarded him blankly. “George, if you mean to wound Sherry, I would much, much rather you did not!”

“No, no, I won’t hurt a hair of his head!” he assured her. “I shall delope.”

“What is that, please?”

“Oh!—fire into the air!”

“Well, George, indeed I am much obliged to you, but would it not be better not to meet Sherry at all?”

“Hang it, no! We must meet! He challenged me!”

“Yes, I know, but—George, if you mean to fire into the air, it seems to me that Sherry may very likely kill you!”

“Sherry? At twenty-five yards?” said George. “Wouldn’t hit a haystack at that range! That’s why I chose it. Not but what I don’t care if he does put a bullet through me,” he added, his brow clouding suddenly.

“Well, I care!” said Hero tartly. “He would have to fly the country, and what would become of me then?”

George’s gloom vanished in a grin. “Oh, Kitten, you horrid little wretch! Don’t tease yourself! He won’t hit me.”

“You don’t feel that I had better warn him you mean to fire in the air?” she asked anxiously.

He took her by the shoulders, and gave her a shake. “You dare tell Sherry one word about this!” he said. “If he knew what you’d done he’d be fit to murder the pair of us! Besides, you’ve no business to be mixed up in it! You must go home. And not a word to a soul, mind!”

“But I must tell Gil—”

“No, you must not! I’ll settle Gil! Deserves to be called out himself for frightening you like this!”

“Oh, no, pray don’t do that, George!” she said hastily.

“Wouldn’t be any use if I did: there’s no getting Gil out at all. But you know, Kitten, I do think you should have known I wouldn’t hurt Sherry!”

“To tell you the truth,” she confided. “I did not think so, until Gil and Ferdy came to see me. But how odious it was of you to lead them to think you meant to kill him! You are quite abominable, George, you know you are!”

He admitted it, but pleaded that Gil and Ferdy had been in such a pucker that he could not help himself. Hero laughed at this; he escorted her out to her barouche, and they parted on the best of terms. Hero drove back to Half Moon Street, and George sent round a note to Mr Ringwood’s lodging, desiring him to stop making a cake of himself. Mr Ringwood showed this cryptic missive to Mr Fakenham, and both gentlemen came to the conclusion that whatever had been the outcome of Miss Milborne’s intervention George had no intention of killing Sherry on the morrow.

Sherry, meanwhile, had been spending a singularly depressing morning with his lawyer. He had been making his Will, a task that engendered in him such a mood of melancholy that he dispatched a note to Sir Montagu Revesby, excusing himself from making one of a card party that evening, and would have spent the evening by his own fireside had it not occurred to him that such tame behaviour might be thought to augur a disinclination (to put it no higher) to meet Lord Wrotham upon the morrow. So instead of indulging his gloomy reflections in his wife’s drawing-room he took her to the theatre, and, since the piece was a lively one, contrived to be tolerably amused. Hero enjoyed herself hugely, a circumstance which led his lordship to suppose that she could not be aware of his assignation at Westbourn Green. He naturally would not have dreamed of mentioning such a matter to her, but he could not help thinking that it might come as a severe shock to her if his lifeless corpse were to be borne into the house just as she was sitting down to breakfast, so he tried to drop her a hint.

“You know, Kitten,” he said, outside her chamber door, “if anything were to happen to me at any time—mind you, I don’t say anything will, but you never know!—well, what I mean is, I’ve made all the proper provisions, and—and no strings tied to ’em, so that you’ll be able to marry again, if you choose.”

“I never, never should!” Hero said, holding his hand very tightly.

“No reason why you shouldn’t. Only don’t have George, brat! He wouldn’t suit you at all!”

“Sherry, don’t!” she begged. “Nothing will happen to you!”

“No, I dare say not, but I thought I might just mention the matter,” he said carelessly. “And if it
did,
I wouldn’t wish you to fret about it, you know.”

“No, no, I won’t!” she promised. “Only don’t talk in that way, Sherry, for even though I know nothing will happen to you I do not like it!”

“Silly little puss!” he said, pinching her nose. “Did you enjoy the play?”

“Oh, I
did
!”

“Well, I’m glad of that, at all events,” he said, and on this altruistic thought took himself upstairs to bed.

His cousin Ferdy called at the house for him at a chill, slightly misty hour on the following morning. The Viscount was quite ready for him, and except that he looked a trifle more serious than was customary, he seemed to be in good spirits. He jumped up into the tilbury beside Ferdy, his many-caped greatcoat buttoned up to his throat, and asked briskly: “Got the pistols?”

“Gil has,” replied Ferdy. He added: “Thought we had best engage a surgeon too, just in case … Still, I dare say he won’t be needed.”

“You never know,” said the Viscount. “Mist’s lifting nicely. Couldn’t have had a better morning for it!”

They arrived at the appointed meeting-place to find George and Mr Ringwood already upon the ground. The two principals exchanged formal bows. The seconds, inspecting the deadly weapons, held a short, whispered colloquy.

“George said anything to you?” asked Ferdy.

“No. Putting on airs to be interesting,” replied Mr Ringwood, with brutal candour.

“Dash it, he
can’t
mean to blow a hole through Sherry!”

“Just what I think myself. Queer I didn’t hear from Lady Sherry, though.”

While this dialogue was in progress, Sherry had cast off his drab driving coat, and buttoned the plain, dark coat he wore under it up to his chin, so that it completely hid his white shirt. He had been careful to choose a coat with small, dark buttons, so that he should afford his adversary no unnecessary mark; and he noticed, with some annoyance, that Lord Wrotham, as though in open contempt of his marksmanship, was wearing the blue and yellow striped waistcoat of the Four Horse Club, and a coat with gleaming silver buttons.

The paces were measured; the principals took up their positions, the duelling pistols, with their ten-inch barrels and hair-triggers set at half cock, pointing earthwards; the seconds retreated eight paces; the doctor turned his back upon the proceedings; and Mr Ringwood took out a handkerchief, and held it up. As it fell, George jerked up his right hand, and deloped. A second later the Viscount’s bullet buried itself in a tree trunk quite three feet to the left of his opponent. The next instant he had lowered his pistol, and said furiously: “Damn you, George, will you
stop
being noble?”

“Good God, Sherry!” George said, disgustedly surveying the wounded tree, “you can do better than that, dash it, man!”

“Better than that? I meant to hit it!” retorted Sherry, much incensed.

“Who’s being noble now?” demanded George, strolling across the ground to give his pistol up to Mr Ringwood. “You must have been practising. Here you are, Gil!”

Mr Ringwood, too relieved for speech, took the weapon, held out his hand for Sherry’s and restored both to their case. The late antagonists looked at one another measuringly.

“What I’ve a dashed good mind to do,” said Sherry, “is to take my coat off to you, George, and see if I can’t draw your claret! It’s what I ought to have done in the first place!”

“No, my God, not before we’ve had breakfast!” replied George. His reluctant grin dawned; he thrust out his hand. “I’m sorry, Sherry! Never meant to do it, you know, and really there wasn’t a mite of harm in it.”

“Oh, go to the devil!” responded Sherry, gripping his hand. “If ever I met such a fellow! Here, did you think to order breakfast, Ferdy?”

Chapter 14

The last shreds of animosity vanished over the substantial breakfast provided by the landlord of an adjacent inn; and so mellowing was the effect of the ale with which the four young gentlemen washed down vast quantities of beef, ham, and pigeon pie, that Sherry had no hesitation in allowing his friends to share the jest of his having actually gone to the lengths of drawing up his Will on the previous day. George shouted with laughter when he heard about this, and said that if he had known that Sherry could hit a tree when he aimed at it he would very likely have drawn up his own Will. This naturally put Sherry on his mettle, and he at once challenged George to a shooting contest, to be held at Manton’s Gallery. Mr Ringwood and Mr Fakenham, always ready for a side bet, objected that unless George were to be suitably handicapped no one in his senses would bet against him, and the rest of the meal passed in arguing over all the more impossible forms of handicap which suggested themselves to four gentlemen in the sort of high spirits into which sudden relief from twenty-four hours of anxiety had plunged them. When they finally left the inn, Ferdy and Mr Ringwood went off together in Ferdy’s tilbury, and George took up Sherry in his phaeton, promising to set him down in Half Moon Street.

“Kitten will be wanting to be assured of your safety,” he grinned.

“Oh, she don’t know anything about it!” replied Sherry.

George made no remark upon this for a moment or two, but when he had thought the matter over he decided to be open with Sherry. He said frankly: “Yes, she does. Wasn’t going to tell you, but now I come to think of it your coachman knows, and ten to one if you heard of it through him you’d be wanting to cut my liver out again. It was Gil’s fault. Ferdy’s too. The silly gudgeons thought I meant to kill you. They must think I’m a rum ’un! What must they do but go off to tell Kitten the whole! The lord knows what they thought she could do, for even Ferdy can’t have supposed you’d rat, and they can’t either of them have meant that she should come to see me—which is what she did do.”

“What?” gasped Sherry.

George nodded. “Yesterday morning. You know, Sherry, you ought to keep an eye on your Kitten. Not my business, but she’s such a baby there’s no knowing what she’ll do next. Came to beg me not to meet you.”

“If that isn’t like Kitten!” exclaimed Sherry. “You know, George, there’s no keeping pace with her at all! How was I to guess I ought to have warned her to take a hackney, if she meant to call at a man’s lodgings?”

George looked a trifle startled, and said: “The point is she ought not to call at a fellow’s lodgings, old boy.”

“No, by Jove, she ought not!” agreed Sherry. “Devil of a business being married, George! You’ve no notion! Never thought I should be kept so busy, but what with the Royal Saloon, the Peerless Pool—yes, I was only in the very nick of time to stop her going off there!—Bartholomew Fair, and now this, not to mention a few other starts—dash it, I don’t have a quiet moment!”

“She don’t mean a bit of harm, Sherry,” said George awkwardly.

“Oh, lord, no! The thing is, she ain’t up to snuff yet, and that cousin of hers never put her in the way of things.”

George feather-edged a corner before saying: “I dare say she wouldn’t do anything she thought you might not like. Devilish fond of you, Sherry.”

“Yes, I’ve known her since she was eight years old, you see,” responded Sherry, with an unconcern that effectually silenced his friend.

While these events had been taking place, Hero had received an early morning visit from Miss Milborne, who was ushered into the dining-room before the breakfast dishes had been removed from the table. She was looking rather pale, and she bore herself with something less than her usual poise. Without pausing to apologize for calling at so unseasonable an hour, she said impetuously: “You were right! I have not been able to sleep for thinking of it! Indeed I did not mean to be so disobliging! I will do what I may to dissuade Wrotham from engaging in this affair!”