The meeting was appointed by my Lord Rotherby for seven o'clock next
morning in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It is true that Lincoln's Inn Fields
at an early hour of the day was accounted a convenient spot for the
transaction of such business as this; yet, considering that it was in
the immediate neighborhood of Stretton House, overlooked, indeed, by the
windows of that mansion, it is not easy to rid the mind of a suspicion
that Rotherby appointed that place of purpose set, and with intent to
mark his contempt and defiance of his father, with whom he supposed Mr.
Caryll to be in some league.
Accompanied by the Duke of Wharton and Major Gascoigne, Mr. Caryll
entered the enclosure promptly as seven was striking from St. Clement
Danes. They had come in a coach, which they had left in waiting at the
corner of Portugal Row.
As they penetrated beyond the belt of trees they found that they were
the first in the field, and his grace proceeded with the major to
inspect the ground, so that time might be saved against the coming of
the other party.
Mr. Caryll stood apart, breathing the freshness of the sunlit morning,
but supremely indifferent to its glory. He was gloomy and preoccupied.
He had slept ill that night after his interview with Sir Richard,
tormented by the odious choice that lay before him of either breaking
with the adoptive father to whom he owed obedience and affection, or
betraying his natural father whom he had every reason to hate, yet who
remained his father. He had been able to arrive at no solution. Duty
seemed to point one way; instinct the other. Down in his heart he felt
that when the moment came it would be the behests of instinct that he
would obey, and, in obeying them, play false to Sir Richard and to the
memory of his mother. It was the only course that went with honor; and
yet it was a course that must lead to a break with the one friend he had
in the world--the one man who stood to him for family and kin.
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, and 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 stricken 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.
“'Twould be dangerous to move him far,” said he. “'Twill increase the
hemorrhage.”
“My men shall carry him across to Stretton House,” said Lord Ostermore.
“Lend a hand here, you gaping oafs.”
The footmen advanced. The crowd, which was growing rapidly and was
watching almost in silence, awed, pressed as close as it dared upon
these gentlemen. Mainwaring procured a couple of cloaks and improvised
a stretcher with them. Of this he took one corner himself, Gascoigne
another, and the footmen the remaining two. Thus, as gently as might be,
they bore the wounded man from the enclosure, through the crowd that
had by now assembled in the street, and over the threshold of Stretton
House.
A groom had been dispatched for a doctor, and his Grace of Wharton had
compelled Rotherby to accompany them into his father's house, sternly
threatening to hand him over to a constable at once if he refused.
Within the cool hall of Stretton House they were met by her ladyship
and Mistress Winthrop, both pale, but the eyes of each wearing a vastly
different expression.
“What's this?” demanded her ladyship, as they trooped in. “Why do you
bring him here?”
“Because, madam,” answered Ostermore in a voice as hard as iron, “it
imports to save his life; for if he dies, your son dies as surely--and
on the scaffold.”
Her ladyship staggered and flung a hand to her breast. But her recovery
was almost immediate. “'Twas a duel--” she began stoutly.
“'Twas murder,” his lordship corrected, interrupting--“murder, as any
of these gentlemen can and will bear witness. Rotherby ran Mr. Caryll
through the back after Mr. Caryll had spared his life.”
“'Tis a lie!” screamed her ladyship, her lips ashen. She turned to
Rotherby, who stood there in shirt and breeches and shoeless, as he had
fought. “Why don't you say that it is a lie?” she demanded.
Rotherby endeavored to master himself. “Madam,” he said, “here is no
place for you.”
“But is it true? Is it true what is being said?”
He half-turned from her, with a despairing movement, and caught the
sharp hiss of her indrawn breath. Then she swept past him to the side of
the wounded man, who had been laid on a settle. “What is his hurt?” she
inquired wildly, looking about her. But no one spoke. Tragedy--more
far than the tragedy of that man's possible death--was in the air, and
struck them all silent. “Will no one answer me?” she insisted. “Is it
mortal? Is it?”
His Grace of Wharton turned to her with an unusual gravity in his blue
eyes. “We hope not, ma'am,” he said. “But it is as God wills.”
Her limbs seemed to fail her, and she sank down on her knees beside the
settle. “We must save him,” she muttered fearfully. “We must save his
life. Where is the doctor? He won't die! Oh, he must not die!”
They stood grouped about, looking on in silence, Rotherby in the
background. Behind him again, on the topmost of the three steps that led
up into the inner hall, stood Mistress Winthrop, white of face, a wild
horror in the eyes she riveted upon the wounded and unconscious man.
She realized that he was like to die. There was an infinite pity in
her soul--and, maybe, something more. Her impulse was to go to him; her
every instinct urged her. But her reason held her back.
Then, as she looked, she saw with a feeling almost of terror that his
eyes were suddenly wide open.
“Wha--what?” came in feeble accents from his lips.
There was a stir about him.
“Never move, Justin,” said Gascoigne, who stood by his head. “You are
hurt. Lie still. The doctor has been summoned.”
“Ah!” It was a sigh. The wounded man closed his eyes a moment, then
re-opened them. “I remember. I remember,” he said feebly. “It is--it is
grave?” he inquired. “It went right through me. I remember!” He surveyed
himself. “There's been a deal of blood lost. I am like to die, I take
it.”
“Nay, sir, we hope not--we hope not!” It was the countess who spoke.
A wry smile twisted his lips. “Your ladyship is very good,” said he. “I
had not thought you quite so much my well-wisher. I--I have done you
a wrong, madam.” He paused for breath, and it was not plain whether he
spoke in sincerity or in sarcasm. Then with a startling suddenness he
broke into a soft laugh and to those risen, who could not think what had
occasioned it, it sounded more dreadful than any plaint he could have
uttered.
He had bethought him that there was no longer the need for him to come
to a decision in the matter that had brought him to England, and his
laugh was almost of relief. The riddle he could never have solved for
himself in a manner that had not shattered his future peace of mind, was
solved and well solved if this were death.
“Where--where is Rotherby?” he inquired presently.
There was a stir, and men drew back, leaving an open lane to the place
where Rotherby stood. Mr. Caryll saw him, and smiled, and his smile held
no tinge of mockery. “You are the best friend I ever had, Rotherby,” he
startled all by saying. “Let him approach,” he begged.
Rotherby came forward like one who walks in his sleep. “I am sorry,” he
said thickly, “cursed sorry.”
“There's scarce the need,” said Mr. Caryll. “Lift me up, Tom,” he begged
Gascoigne. “There's scarce the need. You have cleared up something that
was plaguing me, my lord. I am your debtor for--for that. It disposes of
something I could never have disposed of had I lived.” He turned to the
Duke of Wharton. “It was an accident,” he said significantly. “You all
saw that it was an accident.”
A denial rang out. “It was no accident!” cried Lord Ostermore, and swore
an oath. “We all saw what it was.”
“I'faith, then, your eyes deceived you. It was an accident, I say--and
who should know better than I?” He was smiling in that whimsical
enigmatic way of his. Smiling still he sank back into Gascoigne's arms.
“You are talking too much,” said the Major.
“What odds? I am not like to talk much longer.”
The door opened to admit a gentleman in black, wearing a grizzle wig and
carrying a gold-headed cane. Men moved aside to allow him to approach
Mr. Caryll. The latter, not noticing him, had met at last the gaze of
Hortensia's eyes. He continued to smile, but his smile was now changed
to wistfulness under that pitiful regard of hers.
“It is better so,” he was saying. “Better so!”
His glance was upon her, and she understood what none other there
suspected--that those words were for her alone.
He closed his eyes and swooned again, as the doctor stooped to remove
the temporary bandages from his wound.
Hortensia, a sob beating in her throat, turned and fled to her own room.