The Quiet Gentleman (17 page)

‘You will not! Do you think I want the whole world to know of this?’

‘Precious soon will know of it,’ commented the sapient Mr Warboys. ‘All over the countryside within twenty-four hours! A nice cry-out there will be! You take a damper, dear boy! much the best thing to do!’

‘I tell you the fellow knocked me down, and has accepted my challenge!’

‘You told me it wasn’t till you gave him a facer that he did accept your challenge. Good sort of a man, Ulverston,’ said Mr Warboys thoughtfully. ‘Withdraw the challenge. Nothing else to be done.’

‘No?’ said Martin, through his shut teeth. ‘I’ll show you what else is to be done!’

‘Won’t show
me
,’ said Mr Warboys, in a tone of strong resolution. ‘The more I think about it the more I think it ain’t the kind of affair I want to be mixed up with. Can’t call a fellow out when he’s staying in your house.’

‘St Erth’s house, not mine!’

‘Comes to the same thing. Very important to be nice in all points of honour. Another thing! no business to have challenged him at all. Quite the thing, when he knocked you over: nothing to say against that! When you hit him, his business to ask for satisfaction, not yours. Damme, you’ve made a ramshackle business of it, Martin!’

‘I have, have I? Do you think I’ll withdraw because you tell me to?’ demanded Martin furiously.

‘No,’ said Mr Warboys mournfully. ‘Just thought of that. Ought to have told you to go on with it. Never knew such a fellow for going against everyone! Often crossed my mind you wouldn’t have run mad after Miss Bolderwood if you hadn’t seen the rest of us hanging round her. Nothing would do for you but to carry her off just to spite us!’

‘By God, Barny, if you weren’t a friend of mine – !’ Martin said, his fists clenching.

‘If I weren’t a friend of yours, wouldn’t have dared to say it,’ responded Mr Warboys frankly. ‘Quite true, though. Dash it, Ulverston did the right thing when he gave you that leveller! Sorry I didn’t see it. Might have tried to do it myself, if I’d seen you frightening that poor little angel! Don’t say I’d have succeeded because I never was up to your weight, but there it is: daresay I should have been carried away.’

‘You would!’ retorted Martin, with grim humour.

Mr Warboys, grappling with deep thoughts, paid no heed to this, but pronounced, after a moment: ‘Tell you what, Martin! Shouldn’t be surprised if there was more to it than we know. Occurred to me the other evening: seems devilish taken with Ulverston, don’t she? No sense in putting a bullet into the fellow: might easily give her a distaste for you, and then where are you?’

This eminently reasonable point of view found no favour. Martin said roughly: ‘I didn’t come here to listen to you prosing like the saphead you are! Will you, or will you not, act for Ulverston?’

‘No,’ said Mr Warboys. He added scrupulously: ‘That is, not if he don’t ask me to. If he does – ask my father!’

‘And you call yourself a friend of mine!’ Martin said bitterly.

‘Dash it, Martin, it ain’t the part of a friend of yours to second your opponent! Told you I’d act for you, didn’t I? Stupid thing to do, but not the man to go back on my word.’

‘Barny, if he applies to you, will you act for him?’

Mr Warboys scratched his chin. ‘Might have to,’ he conceded. ‘But if I act for him, who’s to act for you? Tell me that!’

‘Good God, anyone! Rockcliffe – Alston!’

‘Ay, that will be a capital go!’ said Mr Warboys scathingly. ‘Why don’t you ask out the town-crier from Grantham, and ask
him
to act for you? Lord, Martin, dashed if I don’t think you must be queer in your attic!’

‘Very well! I’ll have Caversham!’ said Martin, a little taken aback, but recovering. ‘
He
won’t talk!’

‘No, and he won’t hear either!’ retorted Mr Warboys, justly incensed. ‘You can’t choose a man to be your second who has to have everything written down on a slate!’

‘It makes no odds to me!’ Martin said, picking up his gloves and his whip.

‘I know it don’t make any odds to you:
you
won’t have to fix the arrangements with him! If you want to fight, get your cousin to act for you!’

‘He won’t do it,’ Martin said briefly. ‘The first thing is to tell Ulverston you are willing to stand his friend.’

‘If Theo Frant won’t second you, you
are
wrong!’ said Mr Warboys.

But Martin had already stormed out of the house, leaving his long-suffering friend to search in his father’s library for a copy of the
Code of Honour.
Careful perusal of this invaluable work revealed the fact that the first duty of a second was to seek a reconciliation. Mr Warboys spent the rest of the evening endeavouring to compress into as few words as could conveniently be written on a small slate a moving appeal to his prospective colleague to assist him in promoting this excellent object.

Martin rode back to Stanyon. That a meeting with Ulverston at the dinner-table must be attended by considerable embarrassment he knew, but his temper was too much chafed to permit of his caring for that. He did not even consider it; still less did he consider what must be the unpleasant consequences of killing the Viscount, which he was determined to do. In blackbrowed silence he allowed his valet to help him to change his riding-dress for his evening-coat and knee-breeches; in the same dangerous mood he left his room, and strode along the gallery in the direction of the Grand Stairway. He was checked by the Earl’s voice, speaking his name, and looked round to see that Gervase had come out of his own room. He said curtly: ‘Well?’

‘Come into my room! I want to speak to you.’

‘I have nothing to say to you, St Erth!’

‘But I have something to say to you. Here, if you wish, but I had rather it were in a less public place.’

‘I know what you mean to say, and you may spare your breath!’

‘You don’t know it.’

Martin stared at him, hostility and suspicion in his eyes. He hesitated, then shrugged, and followed the Earl into his bedchamber. ‘You mean to try to make me cry off meeting Ulverston. Don’t tell me I can’t do it, for I can, and, by God, I will!’

‘No. It is quite impossible that you should.’

‘I know of only one circumstance that would make it so! If
he
were to cry off! Is that it? Hasn’t he the stomach for it?’

‘Ulverston will meet you where and when you will,’ the Earl replied. ‘If you are determined on it, he will delope, and so, I think, will you.’

‘You are wrong!’ Martin said, with an ugly little laugh. ‘If he chooses to do so, the more fool he! Warn him! I shan’t miss
my
mark!’

‘I have warned him,’ replied Gervase. ‘He will take his chance. It’s not for him to withdraw: the challenge was yours.’

‘It was mine, and you cannot force me to withdraw it!’

‘No, of course I cannot,’ said the Earl, his tranquil voice in odd contrast to Martin’s fiery tones. ‘But you acted under a misapprehension, Martin. He is betrothed to Miss Bolderwood.’

‘
What?
’ Martin thundered, the colour rushing into his cheeks, and fading almost as swiftly, to leave his face very white.

‘There is to be no announcement until after her presentation, but he has been accepted.’

‘It’s a lie!’ stammered Martin. ‘You say it so that I shan’t meet Ulverston! I’ll not believe it!’

Gervase made him no answer. He was standing before the fire, and he neither looked at Martin nor seemed to attend to his words, but stirred one of the logs in the grate with his foot, and meditatively watched the shower of sparks fly up the chimney. A hasty movement on Martin’s part made him glance up, but Martin had only flung over to the curtained window, as though desirous of putting as much space as possible between himself and his half-brother, and the Earl lowered his eyes again to the fire.

‘She might have told me!’ burst from Martin.

‘Yes.’

‘She knew I – she
knew
– !’

‘She is young, and a little heedless.’

‘Heedless! Oh, no! Not that! A title – a great position!
those
were the things she wanted! She is very welcome to them! If
you
had offered she would have accepted you! If you were dead, and I stood in your shoes, she would take me, and Ulverston might go hang!’

‘You would scarcely want her upon such terms.’

‘On any terms!’ Martin declared wildly. ‘She is the only woman I shall ever love!’

The Earl diplomatically refrained from commenting upon this assertion. If there was a flicker of amusement in his eyes, Martin did not see it.

‘Women!’ Martin ejaculated, with loathing. ‘Now I know what they are! I shall never again be taken in!’ He took a turn about the room, his restless hands picking up, and discarding, a book that lay on the table, twitching a fold of the curtains into place, tugging at one of the heavy tassels adorning the hangings of the great bed, and finally seizing on an ivory comb from the dressing-table, and bending it savagely until it snapped in two pieces. He cast them from him, saying defiantly: ‘I’ve broken your comb! I beg your pardon!’

‘It is of no consequence.’

‘I suppose you have a dozen combs!’ Martin said, as though this likelihood added to his hatred of his brother.

A discreet knock on the door made the Earl turn his head. It heralded the entrance of a footman, who said apologetically that he was sent to inform his lordship that dinner awaited his pleasure.

‘Desire Abney to announce it in a quarter of an hour’s time, if you please.’

‘Yes, my lord. Her ladyship –’

‘Convey my excuses to her ladyship. I have been detained, and have not yet completed my toilet.’

The footman cast a covert look from him to Martin, and bowed himself out.

The door had hardly closed behind him before Martin exclaimed: ‘Do you expect me to continue to remain under the same roof as Ulverston?’

‘He has told me that he finds himself obliged to leave Stanyon. I believe it will give rise to less comment if he remains until Monday, but it shall be as you wish.’

‘If I must sit at table with him tonight, I may as well do so for ever!’ said Martin disagreeably. He took another turn about the room, and fetched up abruptly in front of the Earl, as a thought occurred to him. ‘After all, he knocked me down! He owes me satisfaction!’

‘Would you think so, had your positions been reversed?’

Martin resumed his pacing, reminding his brother irresistibly of a caged wild creature. After a turn or two, he flung over his shoulder: ‘What should I do?’

‘You may meet him, if you choose, and acknowledge the justice of his action by deloping.’

‘Folly!’

‘So I think.’

‘I’ll not beg his pardon! No, by God, that’s too much! How could I guess – ?’

‘I believe him to be sensible of the misapprehension under which you acted. He is not the man to demand an apology from you. If you wish it, I can settle it for you, so that it will be unnecessary for any mention of the matter to be made between you. If you charge me with this office, I shall tell him that I have disclosed to you the secret of his betrothal, upon which you have naturally withdrawn your challenge.’

After a moment’s inward struggle, Martin said in a choked voice: ‘Very well!’ He cast one of his smouldering looks at Gervase, and said: ‘Obliging of you! You think I should be grateful, no doubt! I’m not grateful! If it had not been for you, that fellow would never have come here!’

‘Why, no! But if she had returned your affection, Martin, his coming would not have injured you,’ the Earl said gently.

Martin seemed to brush aside these words. ‘All was right until
you
came here!
You
put the wish to become a Countess into Marianne’s head, trifling with her, flattering her with your balls and your distinguishing attentions – to cast my pretensions into the shade! Then you brought in Ulverston, encouraged him to remain here! You set everyone against me! Marianne, Theo, Louisa – even my mother! Yes, even my mother, bemoaning the fact that you are going away to London! She will miss you amazingly! Ay, that is what she says! But there is
one
person you haven’t cozened with your soft words,
one
person who will not miss you! I hate you, St Erth! From the bottom of my heart, I hate you!’

‘If that is what you think, I cannot wonder at it,’ the Earl said, a little sadly.

‘Tell my mother I have gone to dine with Warboys!’ Martin said fiercely, and flung out of the room.

Martin was too much in the habit of dining from home for his absence to be greatly felt by his mother. Beyond saying several times that she had had no notion he meant to go to the Warboys’ that day, and supposing that he would drink tea at Whissenhurst, she made no comment. Her mind was engrossed by one of the complicated relationships in which she delighted, for she had chanced to read in the Gazette that a son had been born to the wife of a Mr Henry Lamberhurst, which instantly reminded her that a third cousin of her own had married a Lamberhurst, who, in his turn, was linked by two other marriages with a branch of the Austell family. With the Viscount’s good-natured, if not very valuable, assistance, she beguiled the dinner-hour by pursuing through all their ramifications every offshoot of both families until she reached, with the dessert, the apparently satisfactory conclusion that the unknown Henry Lamberhurst could not be connected with the Lamberhursts she knew.

The Viscount was spared her subsequent recollections of some people she had once met at Ramsgate, and whom she rather fancied to have been in some way related to the family, these being imparted only to Miss Morville, when the two ladies withdrew to one of the saloons. Miss Morville, who had contrived to evade giving an account of her discoveries at Whissenhurst, and who had no wish to be more closely interrogated on that subject, encouraged these tedious reminiscences, and by interpolating a question now and then managed to keep her ladyship’s mind occupied until the appearance of the gentlemen turned her thoughts towards whist.

It was not until the party had broken up that Theo was able to exchange any private conversation with the Earl. He detained him then, as he was about to leave the library in the Viscount’s wake, and said in his blunt way: ‘One moment, St Erth! What happened at Whissenhurst today between Martin and Ulverston?’

‘A misunderstanding only.’

‘Gervase, Martin must not be allowed to call Ulverston out!’

‘He will not do so.’

Theo looked shrewdly at him. ‘He seems to have had that intention. Did you scotch it?’

‘Not that precisely. He was not fully informed of the circumstances.’

‘I see. In short, Ulverston has offered for Miss Bolderwood, and has been accepted?’

‘The engagement is not to be made generally known yet,’ the Earl warned him.

‘You need not be afraid that I shall spread the news. Well! I guessed as much. I am sorry for Martin. He has not had time to grow accustomed to the knowledge that he is not of sufficient consequence to aspire to the hand of an heiress.’

‘Really, Theo, I think you wrong Miss Bolderwood!’

‘Never. This is her parents’ doing. I always knew they had set their ambition high. Oh, don’t think I blame them! it was inevitable.’ He forced a smile. ‘I fancy
you
raised expectations, trifler that you are!’

‘Nonsense!’

‘My dear Gervase, you cannot be such an innocent as to suppose that Sir Thomas would not have jumped at the chance of seeing his daughter Countess of St Erth!’

‘You sound very like my mother-in-law,’ remarked the Earl. ‘He gave me no encouragement, nor do I think that his wishing not to announce this engagement immediately shows him to be jumping at the chance of seeing Miss Bolderwood the future Countess of Wrexham.’

‘I daresay not. He had hoped for better. The Frants were Earls of St Erth before ever the Austells rose to the dignity of a barony!’

‘
Very
like my mother-in-law!’ murmured Gervase.

Theo was obliged to laugh, but he said: ‘However you may disregard the difference you may be sure the Bolderwoods do not! Offer for Marianne before her betrothal to Ulverston is announced, and see what Sir Thomas will say to you!’

‘My dear Theo, where have your wits gone begging? It was a case of love at first sight with them both! You must have seen that!’

‘Did Martin?’

‘Oh, Martin – ! Does he ever see beyond his nose?’

‘No, and for that reason I am more than ever sorry for him. I believe he had no suspicion, and the news must have come to him as a severe shock.’

‘I am afraid you are right, but he will very soon recover from it. He is at present forswearing women – an excellent sign!’

‘Where is he?’

‘Unless he did indeed visit his friend Warboys, I don’t know.’

‘I hope he has done nothing foolish!’ Theo said, a crease appearing between his brows. ‘He almost knocked me over when he brushed past me on his way out of the house, and looked as though he would have willingly murdered me, had I dared to address him.’

‘Poor Theo!’ said the Earl lightly. ‘I’m afraid you were acting as my scapegoat – or possibly Lucy’s!’

‘Did you quarrel?’ Theo asked, the crease deepening.

‘It takes two to make a quarrel.’

‘Evasion, Gervase! Was he –’ He broke off, for a quick footstep was heard approaching the library across the Great Hall beyond it, and in another instant Martin had entered the room.

He was looking tired, and pale, his face rather set, and his expressive eyes sombre. He checked on the threshold when he saw his cousin, and ejaculated: ‘Oh – ! You here!’

‘Do you wish to speak to Gervase? I am just off to bed.’

‘It doesn’t signify. I have no doubt you know the whole!’ He glanced at St Erth, and then lowered his eyes. ‘I only wished to say – I was in a rage!’

‘Yes, I know,’ the Earl replied quietly.

Another fleeting glance was cast up at him. ‘I think I said – I don’t know: I do say things, in a rage, which – which I don’t mean!’

‘I did not regard it, and you need not either.’

Martin seemed to force his rigid mouth to smile. ‘No. Well – mighty good of you to take it so! Of course I know it was not your fault. Good-night!’

He went quickly away, and for a full minute there was silence in the library. The Earl snuffed a guttering candle, and said: ‘Do you mean to return to Stanyon when you have done all your business at Evesleigh, Theo, or do you go on immediately to Studham?’

‘I believe I may postpone my journey,’ Theo said slowly.

‘Indeed! May I know why?’

Theo looked frowningly at him. ‘It might be best if I were to remain at Stanyon – for the present.’

‘Oh, are you at that again? I have told you already that I don’t need a watch-dog, my dear fellow!’

‘And still I should prefer to remain!’

‘Why? when you have heard Martin make me an apology?’

Theo met the deep blue eyes full. ‘In all the years I have known Martin,’ he said deliberately, ‘I have never heard him utter an apology, or even acknowledge a fault!’

‘My regenerating influence!’ said Gervase flippantly.

‘I should be happy to think so.’

‘But you don’t?’

‘No,’ Theo said. ‘I don’t!’

‘Nevertheless, Theo, you will oblige me by going to Evesleigh tomorrow, as you have planned to do.’

‘Very well. But I wish this business of Ulverston’s had not been disclosed!’ Theo said.

The breakfast-party on the following morning was attended, inevitably, by a certain measure of constraint. It was the first time Martin and the Viscount had met since their encounter at Whissenhurst, and even Mr Clowne seemed to be conscious of the tension. His nervous platitudes filled the gap between the exchange of cool greetings between these two and the entrance of the Earl, who made his appearance in a coat of such exquisite cut that the Viscount exclaimed at it, demanding to be told the name of the tailor who had made it. ‘Not Scott!’ he said.

‘No, Weston,’ responded the Earl. ‘Martin, what’s this I hear of kestrels in the West Wood?’

He could have said nothing that would have made Martin more certainly forget, for the moment, his injuries. The dark eyes lit; Martin replied: ‘So Pleasley says! He swears there is a pair, and believes they may be nesting in one of the old magpies’ nests. I know the place.’

‘Too early in the year, isn’t it?’ asked the Viscount.

‘I have known them to start breeding as early as March,’ Martin said. ‘It is not usual, I own, but it is very possible.’ He turned his head to address his brother. ‘I have said I’ll ride to Roxmere this morning, to look at some likely young ’uns, but I mean to take a gun out this afternoon, and try for them.’

‘It is sad that the kestrel, or, as I like to call it, the windhover, should be so destructive,’ said Mr Clowne. ‘To see them hovering above, as though suspended, is a pretty sight.’

‘I question whether they are so destructive as people suppose,’ remarked Theo.

‘Good God, if we were to have a pair of them breeding in the West Wood we should not have a pheasant or a partridge chick left!’ Martin exclaimed.

‘I fancy you would find, if you could observe them closely, that they subsist mostly on field-mice. Had you said
sparrow-hawks
, now – !’

In refuting this heresy, and in recalling to Theo’s memory various incidents which seemed to support his own theory, Martin for a little while forgot his care, and talked with an animation which would not have led anyone to suppose that he was suffering all the more severe pangs of unrequited love. He looked as though he had not slept well, but he ate a large breakfast, and only towards the end of it remembered that his affections had been blighted, and that his arch-enemy sat opposite to him, unconcernedly consuming cold beef. The cloud descended again on to his brow, and he relapsed into silence; but when he rose from the table, and the Earl called after him: ‘Keep your eyes open for anything that might suit me at Roxmere!’ he paused in the doorway, and replied quite cordially: ‘If you wish it, but I don’t think Helston has much to show me but young ’uns.’

‘I don’t mind that. A good three-year-old, Martin, not too short in the back, and well ribbed-up! But you know the style of thing!’

Martin nodded. ‘I’ll see,’ he said.

He did not return to Stanyon until noon, and by that time the Viscount had driven himself over to Whissenhurst. Martin walked into one of the saloons just as his mother, Miss Morville, and Gervase were sitting down to partake of cold chickens and fruit. He brought with him two letters, which had been fetched up from the receiving-office. ‘One for you, Drusilla, and one for you, St Erth. From Louisa,’ he added. ‘Lay you a pony she wants you to invite them all to Stanyon in June!’

‘From Louisa?’ said the Dowager. ‘Why should Louisa be writing to St Erth? Depend upon it, you are mistaken! It cannot be from her!’

‘Well, it’s Louisa’s writing, and Grampound franked it,’ said Martin, displaying the letter, which was directed in large, sloping characters, and stamped Free.

The sight of Lord Grampound’s signature, scrawled across one corner, convinced the Dowager that the letter was indeed from her daughter; and after satisfying herself that Martin had not misread The Right Honourable the Countess for The Right Honourable the Earl, she reluctantly allowed her stepson to assume possession of his property. While he broke the wafer that sealed it, and read its two crossed sheets, she maintained an unbroken flow of comment, surmise, and astonishment. ‘I do not understand what Louisa can mean by sending a letter to St Erth,’ she said. ‘What can she possibly have to say to him? Why has she not written to me? Are you sure there is not a letter for me, Martin?’

‘Of course I am, ma’am!’ he said impatiently. ‘The rest are for Theo, but he has gone off somewhere with Hayle.’

‘It is most extraordinary!’ she said, in a displeased tone. ‘I should have been very glad to have had a letter from Louisa.’

‘My dear ma’am, you might have this one with my good-will,’ said Gervase, perusing the crossed lines through his quizzing-glass. ‘In fact, you
shall
have it, for I find Louisa’s writing quite baffling.’

The Dowager had no hesitation in taking the sheets from him. ‘Louisa’s writing is particularly elegant,’ she said. ‘I do not find it at all difficult to read. She would have done better to have directed her letter to me.’

‘Does she want to come here?’ demanded Martin.

‘No, something about double-doors at Kentham, and Pug.’

‘That creature!’ ejaculated Martin, with a look of disgust. ‘What the devil has Pug to do with you?’

‘Too much, I fear. Well, ma’am? What is it precisely that Louisa feels I can have not the least objection to doing for her? I fear the worst, and beg you won’t keep me in suspense!’

‘You will be very happy to render Louisa your assistance,’ stated the Dowager, in a voice that did not admit of argument. ‘Poor Louisa! But I told her how it would be, for I am sure there was never anyone more disobliging than Mrs Neath, and now, you see, she will not answer above half the questions Louisa has addressed to her. It is all of a piece! She behaved in a very unhandsome way to Mrs Warboys about a poultry-woman once, and when I heard Grampound had the intention of hiring Kentham I advised him rather to come to Stanyon, for, depend upon it, I said, you will not like to hire Mrs Neath’s house, for she is a very disagreeable woman. You see what has come of it! Louisa cannot recall whether the two saloons can be thrown into one, or how many beds they are able to make up, and so St Erth is obliged to drive there to discover how it may be! It is a great deal too bad of Mrs Neath, and I should not be at all surprised if she has neglected to reply to Louisa’s questions on purpose to drag St Erth into her set! She is a very encroaching woman, and I have never invited her to Stanyon, save on Public Days. If you do not care to put yourself in her way, Gervase, Theo may go in your stead.’

‘My dear ma’am, Theo is going in the opposite direction to Kentham!’

‘It cannot signify to him, if he goes first to Kentham. However, I daresay she will more readily accede to your requests than to his. He is not at all conciliatory – not that I should wish to conciliate Mrs Neath, but how shocking it would be if she refused to permit poor little Pug to go to Kentham!’

‘Are you going all that way to beg favours for Pug?’ demanded Martin scornfully.

‘I suppose so. Something tells me it would be the wisest course. I may as well drive over to Kentham this afternoon, for I have nothing else to do – unless I go with you, after these kestrels of yours.’

‘Oh – ! If you choose! But I daresay I shan’t get a sight of them,’ Martin replied ungraciously. ‘You will be wasting your time, I expect – and I may stay out later than you would like, on the chance of a rabbit or two.’