COAXING A FIGHT
Mr. Ryfe could now congratulate himself that his puppets were fairly
on the stage prepared for their several parts; and it remained but to
bring them into play, and with that view, he summoned all the craft of
his experience to assist the cunning of his nature.
Lord Bearwarden, amongst other old-fashioned prejudices, clung to an
obsolete notion that there are certain injuries, and those of the
deepest and most abiding, for which neither the opinion of society,
nor the laws of the land, afford redress, and which can only be wiped
out by personal encounter of man to man. It seemed to him that he
could more easily forget his sorrow, and turn with a firmer tread into
the beaten track of life, after a snap shot at Mr. Stanmore across a
dozen yards of turf. Do not blame him--remember his education and
the opinions of those amongst whom he lived. Remember, too, that his
crowning sorrow had not yet taught him resignation, an opiate which
works only with lapse of time. There is a manlier and a truer courage
than that which seeks a momentary oblivion of its wrongs in the
excitement of personal danger--there is a heroism of defence, far
above the easier valour of attack--and those are distinguished as the
bravest troops that under severe loss preserve their discipline and
formation, without returning the fire of an enemy.
Lord Bearwarden, however, as became the arm of the service to which he
belonged, was impatient of inaction, and had not yet learned to look
on hostilities in this light.
"We'll parade him, Tom," said he, affecting a cheerfulness which did
not the least deceive his companion. "I don't want to make a row about
it, of course. I'll spare _her_, though she hardly deserves it, but
I'll have a slap at _him_, and I'll shoot him, too, if I can! You
needn't put us up much farther than the width of this room!"
They were closeted together at the back of a certain unassuming hotel,
where their addresses, if required, would be consistently denied. The
room in question was small, gloomy, and uncomfortable, but so shaded
and sequestered, that, lulled by its drowsy glimmer, for its inmates,
as for the lotus-eaters, "it was always afternoon."
"Suppose he won't fight," observed Tom, shaking his head.
"Won't fight!" repeated his lordship, in high disdain. "Curse him--he
_must_ fight. I'll horsewhip him in the Park! That's all nonsense,
Tom. The fellow's a gentleman. I'll say that for him. He'll see the
propriety of keeping the whole thing quiet, if it was only out of
regard for _her_. You must settle it, Tom. It's a great deal to ask. I
know I ought to have gone to a brother-officer, but this is a peculiar
case, you see, and the fewer fellows in the hunt the better!"
Mr. Ryfe mused. He didn't much like his job, but reflected that, under
the management of any one else, an explanation would assuredly put
everything in its true light, and his web would all be brushed away.
What he required was a scandal; a slander so well sustained, that Lady
Bearwarden's character should never recover it, and for such a purpose
nothing seemed so efficacious as a duel, of which she should be the
cause. He imagined also, in his inexperience, like the immortal Mr.
Winkle, that these encounters were usually bloodless, and mere,
matters of form.
"You're resolved, I suppose," said Tom. "I needn't point out to you, my
lord, that such a course shuts every door to reconciliation--precludes
every possibility of things coming right in future. It's a strong
measure--a very strong measure--and you really mean to carry it
through?"
"I've made up my mind to shoot him," answered the other doggedly.
"What's the use of jawing about it? These things should be done at
once, my good fellow. If we have to go abroad, we'll start to-morrow
night."
"I'd better try and hunt him up without delay," said Tom. "It's easier
to find a fellow now than in the middle of the season, but I might not
hit upon him to-night, nevertheless."
Lord Bearwarden looked at his watch. "Try his club," said he. "If he
dines there, it's about the time. They'll know his address at any
rate, and if you look sharp you might catch him at home dressing for
dinner. I'll wait here and we'll have a mutton-chop when you come in.
Stick to him, Tom. Don't let him back out. It would have saved a deal
of trouble," added his lordship, while the other hurried off, "if I
could have caught that cab to-day. She'd have been frightened, though,
and upset. Better as it is, perhaps, after all."
Mr. Ryfe did not suffer the wheels of his chariot to tarry, nor the
grass to grow beneath his feet. Very few minutes elapsed before he
found himself waiting in the strangers' room of a club much affected
by Dick Stanmore, comforted with a hall-porter's assurance that the
gentleman he sought had ordered dinner, and could not fail to arrive
almost immediately. He had scarcely taken up the evening paper when
Mr. Stanmore came in.
Anything less like a conscience-stricken Lothario, burdened with the
guilt of another man's wife, can scarcely be imagined. Dick's eye
was bright, his cheek blooming, his countenance radiant with health,
happiness, and the light from within that is kindled by a good
conscience and a loving heart. He came up to Ryfe with a merry
greeting on his lips, but stopped short, marking the gravity of that
gentleman's face and the unusual formality of his bow.
"My errand is a very painful one," said Tom. "I regret to say, Mr.
Stanmore, that I have come to you on a most unpleasant business."
"I thought you'd come to dinner," answered Dick, no whit disconcerted.
"Never mind. Let's have it out. I dare say it's not half so bad as it
seems."
"It could not possibly be worse," was the solemn rejoinder. "It
involves life and honour for two gentlemen, both of whom I respect and
esteem. For the sake of one, a very dear friend, I have consented
to be here now. Mr. Stanmore, I come to you on behalf of Lord
Bearwarden."
Dick started. The old wound was healed, and, indeed, perfectly cured
now, but the skin had not yet grown quite callous over that injured
part.
"Go on," said he. "Why didn't Lord Bearwarden come himself?"
"Impossible!" answered Tom, with great dignity. "Contrary to all
precedent. I could not have permitted such a thing. Should not have
listened to it for a moment. Quite inadmissible. Would have placed
every one in a false position. His lordship has lost no time in
selecting an experienced friend. May I hope Mr. Stanmore will be
equally prompt? You understand me, of course."
"I'm hanged if I _do_!" replied Dick, opening his eyes very wide. "You
must speak plainer. What is it all about?"
"Simply," said the other, "that my principal assures me he feels
confident your own sense of honour will not permit you to refuse him a
meeting. Lord Bearwarden, as you must be aware, Mr. Stanmore, is a
man of very high spirit and peculiarly sensitive feelings. You have
inflicted on him some injury of so delicate a nature that even from
me, his intimate friend, he withholds his confidence on the real facts
of the case. He leads me to believe that I shall not find my task very
difficult, and my own knowledge of Mr. Stanmore's high character and
jealous sense of honour points to the same conclusion. You will, of
course, meet me half-way, without any further negotiation or delay."
("If he's ever spoken three words of endearment to 'the viscountess,'"
reflected Tom, "he'll understand at once. If he hasn't, he'll think
I'm mad!")
"But I can't fight without I'm told what it's for," urged Dick, in
considerable bewilderment. "I don't know Lord Bearwarden well. I've
nothing to do with him. We've never had a quarrel in our lives."
"Mr. Stanmore!" replied the other. "You surprise me. I thought you
quite a different sort of person. I thought a _gentleman_"--here a
flash in Dick's eye warned him not to go too far--"a gentleman of your
intelligence would have anticipated my meaning without trying to force
from me an explanation, which indeed it is out of my power to make.
There _are_ injuries, Mr. Stanmore, on which outraged friendship
cannot bear to enlarge; for which a man of honour feels bound to offer
the only reparation in his power. Must we _force_ you, Mr. Stanmore,
into the position we require, by overt measures, as disgraceful to you
as they would be unbecoming in my friend?"
"Stop a moment, Mr. Ryfe," said Dick. "Do you speak now for yourself
or Lord Bearwarden?"
There was a slight contraction of the lip accompanying this remark
that Tom by no means fancied. He hastened to shelter himself behind
his principal.
"For Lord Bearwarden, decidedly," said he, "and without intention of
the slightest discourtesy. My only object is indeed to avoid, for both
parties, anything so revolting as a personal collision. Have I said
enough?"
"No, you haven't!" answered Dick, who was getting warm while his
dinner was getting cold. "If you won't tell me what the offence is,
how can I offer either redress or apology?"
"No apology would be accepted," replied Mr. Ryfe loftily. "Nor,
indeed, does his lordship consider that his injuries admit of
extenuation. Shall I tell you his very words, Mr. Stanmore, addressed
to me less than an hour ago?"
"Drive on," said Dick.
"His lordship's words, not my own, you will bear in mind," continued
Tom, rather uncomfortable, but resolved to play out his trump card.
"And I only repeat them as it were in confidence, and at your own
request. 'Tom,' said he, 'nothing on earth shall prevent our meeting.
No, not if I have to horsewhip Mr. Stanmore in the Park to bring it
about.'"
"If that don't fetch him," thought Tom, "he's not the man I take him
for."
It _did_ fetch him. Dick started, and turned fiercely on the speaker.
"The devil!" he exclaimed. "Two can play at that game, and perhaps he
might come off the worst! Mr. Ryfe, you're a bold man to bring such
a message to _me_. I'm not sure how far your character of ambassador
should bear you harmless; but, in the meantime, tell your principal
I'll accommodate him with pleasure, and the sooner the better."
Dick's blood was up, as indeed seemed natural enough under so gross
an insult, and he was all for fighting now, right or wrong. Tom Ryfe
congratulated himself on the success of this, his first step in a
diplomacy leading to war, devoutly hoping that the friend to whom Mr.
Stanmore should refer him might prove equally fierce and hot-headed.
He bowed with the studied courtesy assumed by every man concerned,
either as principal or second, in an act of premeditated homicide, and
smoothed his hat preparatory to taking leave.
"If you will kindly favour me with your friend's name," said he in a
tone of excessive suavity, "I will wish you good-evening. I fear I
have already kept you too long from dinner."
Dick considered for a few seconds, while he ran over in his mind the
sum-total of intimates on whom he could rely in an emergency like the
present. It is wonderful how short such lists are. Mr. Stanmore could
not recall more than half-a-dozen, and of these four were out of town,
and one lay ill in bed. The only available man of the six was Simon
Perkins. Dick Stanmore knew that he could trust him to act as a stanch
friend through thick and thin, but he had considerable scruples
in availing himself of the painter's assistance under existing
circumstances.
Time pressed, however, and there was nothing for it but to furnish Mr.
Ryfe with Simon's name and address in Berners Street.
"Can I see him at once?" asked Tom, strangely anxious to hasten
matters, as it seemed to Dick Stanmore, who could not help wondering
whether, had the visitor been a combatant, he would have proved
equally eager for the fray.
"I am afraid not till to-morrow," was the reply. "He has left his
painting-room by this time and gone out of town. I cannot ask you to
take another journey to-night. Allow me to offer you a glass of sherry
before you go."
Tom declined the proffered hospitality, bowing himself out, as
befitted the occasion, with much ceremonious politeness, and leaving
the other to proceed to his club-dinner in a frame of mind that
considerably modified the healthy appetite he had brought with him
half-an-hour ago.
He congratulated himself, however, before his soup was done, that he
had not sent Mr. Ryfe down to the cottage at Putney. He could not bear
to think of that peaceful, happy retreat, the nest of his dove, the
home of his heart, as desecrated by such a presence on such an errand.
"Come what might," he thought, "Nina must be kept from all terrors and
anxieties of this kind--all knowledge of such wild, wicked doings as
these."
So thinking, and reflecting, also, that it was very possible with
an encounter of so deadly a nature before him they might never meet
again, he knew too well by the heaviness at his heart how dear this
girl had become in so short a time--how completely she had filled up
that gaping wound in his affections from which he once thought he must
have bled hopelessly to death; how entirely he was bound up in her
happiness, and how, even in an hour of trouble, danger, and vexation
like this, his chief anxiety was lest it should bring sorrow and
suffering to _her_.
He drank but little wine at his solitary dinner, smoked one cigar
after it, and wrote a long letter to Nina before he went to bed--a
letter in which he told her all his love, all the comfort she had been
to him, all his past sorrows, all his future hopes, and then tore this
affectionate production into shreds and flung it in the fire-place. It
had only been meant to reach her hands if he should be killed. And
was it not calculated, then, to render her more unhappy, more
inconsolable? He asked himself the question several times before he
found resolution to answer it in the practical manner described. I
think he must have been very fond of Nina Algernon indeed, although he
did not the least know she was at that moment looking out of window,
with her hair down, listening to the night breeze in the poplars, the
lap and wash of the ebb-tide against the river-banks, thinking how
nice it was to have met him that morning, by the merest accident,
how nice it would be to see him in the painting-room, by the merest
accident again, of course, to-morrow afternoon.
The clock at St. George's, Hanover Square, struck nine as Mr. Ryfe
returned to his hotel. He found Lord Bearwarden waiting for him, and
dinner ready to be placed on the table.
"Have you settled it?" asked his lordship, in a fierce whisper that
betrayed no little eagerness for action--something very like a
thirst for blood. "When is it for, Tom? To-morrow morning? I've got
everything ready. I don't know that we need cross the water, after
all."
"Easy, my lord," answered Tom. "I can't get on quite so quick as you
wish. I've seen our man, and learned his friend's name and address.
That's pretty well, I think, for one day's work."
"You'll meet the friend to-night, Tom!" exclaimed the other. "Who is
he? Do we know him? He's a soldier, I hope?"
"He's a painter, and he lives out of town; so I _can't_ see him till
to-morrow. In the meantime, I would venture to suggest, my lord,
that I'm recovering from a severe illness, and I've been eight hours
without food."
Tom spoke cheerily enough, but in good truth he looked haggard and
out-worn. Lord Bearwarden rang the bell.
"I'm ashamed of myself," said he. "Let's have dinner directly; and as
for this cursed business, don't let us think any more about it till
to-morrow morning."
They sat down accordingly to, good food, well cooked, good wine, well
decanted: in good society, too, well chosen from a select fraternity
usually to be found in this secluded resort. So they feasted, and were
merry, talking of hounds, horses, hunting, racing, weight for age,
wine, women, and what not. The keenest observer, the acutest judge
of his kind, could never have detected that one of these men was
meditating bloodshed, the other prompting him to something very like
murder as an accessory before the fact.
I will never believe that Damocles ate his supper with less appetite,
drank his wine with less zest, for the threatening sword suspended
overhead.