As he stood turning the seething brew of his dark thoughts, there came
a pair of knowing raps upon the street-door, and in upon him strode
with cheery step and cry the friends he was expecting.
"Ah, Jasper, lad," cried Tom Stafford, and struck him upon his
shoulder, "lying in wait for us? Gad, you're a blood-thirsty fellow!"
"And quite right," said Colonel Villiers, clinking spurred legs, and
flinging off a military cloak. "Zounds, man, would you have him sit
down in his dishonour?"
Sir Jasper stretched a hand to each; and holding him by the elbows they
entered his private apartment and closed the door with such carefulness
that the tall footman had no choice but to take it in turns to listen
and peep through the key-hole.
"Tom," said Sir Jasper, "Colonel Villiers, when I begged you to favour
me with this interview, I was anxious for your services because, as I
told you, of a strong suspicion of Lady Standish's infidelity to me.
Now, gentlemen, doubt is no longer possible, I have the proofs!"
"Come, come, Jasper, never be down-hearted," cried jovial Tom Stafford.
"Come, sir, you have been too fond of the little dears in your day not
to know what tender yielding creatures they are. 'Tis their nature
man; and then, must they not follow the mode? Do you want to be the
only husband in Bath whose wife is not in the fashion? Tut, tut, so
long as you can measure a sword for it and let a little blood, why,
'tis all in the day's fun!"
"Swords?" gurgled Colonel Villiers. "No, no, pistols are the thing,
boy. You are never sure with your sword: 'tis but a dig in the ribs, a
slash in the arm, and your pretty fellow looks all the prettier for his
pallor, and is all the more likely to get prompt consolation in the
proper quarter. Ha!"
"Consolation!" cried Sir Jasper, as if the word were a blow. "Ay,
consolation! damnation!"
"Whereas with your bullet," said the Colonel, "in the lungs, or in the
brain--at your choice--the job is done as neat as can be. Are you a
good hand at the barkers, Jasper?"
"Oh, I can hit a haystack!" said Sir Jasper. But he spoke vaguely.
"I am for the swords, whenever you can," cried comely Stafford,
crossing a pair of neat legs as he spoke and caressing one rounded calf
with a loving hand. "'Tis a far more genteel weapon. Oh, for the feel
of the blades, the pretty talk, as it were, of one with the other!
'Ha, have I got you now, my friend?'--'Ha, would you step between me
and my wife? or my mistress? or my pleasure?'--as the case may be.
'Would you? I will teach you, sa--sa!' Now--now one in the ribs! One
under that presuming heart! Let the red blood flow, see it drop from
the steel: that is something like! Pistols, what of them! pooh! Snap,
you blow a pill into the air, and 'tis like enough you have to swallow
it yourself! 'Tis for apothecaries, say I, and such as have not been
brought up to the noble and gentlemanly art of self-defence."
"Silence, Tom," growled the Colonel; "here is no matter for jesting.
This friend of ours has had a mortal affront, has he not? 'Tis
established. Shall he not mortally avenge himself upon him who has
robbed him of his honour? That is the case, is it not? And, blast me,
is not the pistol the deadlier weapon and therefore the most suited?
Hey?"
Sir Jasper made an inarticulate sound that might have passed for assent
or dissent, or merely as an expression of excessive discomfort of
feeling.
"To business then," cried Colonel Villiers. "Shall I wait upon Lord
Verney and suggest pistols at seven o'clock to-morrow morning in
Hammer's Fields? That is where I generally like to place such affairs:
snug enough to be out of disturbers' way, and far enough to warm the
blood with a brisk walk. Gad, 'twas but ten days ago that I saw poor
Ned Waring laid as neatly on his back by Lord Tipstaffe (him they call
Tipsy Tip, you know) as ever it was done; as pretty a fight! Six
paces, egad, and Ned as determined a dog as a fellow could want to
second. 'Villiers,' said he, as I handed him his saw-handle, 'if I do
not do for him, may he do for me! One of us must kill the other,' said
he. 'Twas all about Mistress Waring, you know, dashed pretty woman!
Poor Ned, he made a discovery something like yours, eh? Faith! ha, ha!
And devil take it, sir, Tip had him in the throat at the first shot,
and Ned's bullet took off Tipstaffe's right curl! Jove, it was a
shave! Ned never spoke again. Ah, leave it to me; see if I do not
turn you out as rare a meeting."
"But stay," cried Stafford, as Sir Jasper writhed in his arm-chair,
clenched and unclenched furious hands and felt the curl of red hair
burn him where he had thrust it into his bosom. "Stay," cried
Stafford, "we are going too fast, I think. Do I not understand from
our friend here that he called Lord Verney a rat? Sir Jasper is
therefore himself the insulting party, and must wait for Lord Verney's
action in the matter."
"I protest," cried the Colonel, "the first insult was Lord Verney's in
compromising our friend's wife."
"Pooh, pooh," exclaimed Stafford, recrossing his legs to bring the left
one into shapely prominence this time, "that is but the insult
incidental. But to call a man a rat, that is the insult direct.
Jasper is therefore the true challenger; the other has the choice of
arms. It is for Lord Verney to send to our friend!"
"Sir!" exclaimed the Colonel, growing redder about the gills than
Nature and port wine had already made him. "Sir, would you know better
than I?"
"Gentlemen," said Sir Jasper, sitting up suddenly, "as I have just told
you, since I craved of your kindness that you would help me in this
matter, I have made discoveries that alter the complexion of the affair
very materially. I have reason to believe that if Lord Verney be
guilty in this matter it is in a very minor way. You know what they
call in France _un chandelier_. Indeed it is my conviction--such is
female artfulness--that he has merely been made a puppet of to shield
another person. It is this person I must find first, and upon him that
my vengeance must fall before I can attend to any other business. Lord
Verney indeed has already sent to me, but his friend, Captain Spicer, a
poor fool (somewhat weak in the head, I believe), left suddenly without
our coming to any conclusion. Indeed, I do not regret it--I do not
seek to fight with Lord Verney now. Gentlemen," said Sir Jasper,
rising and drawing the letter from his breast--"gentlemen, I shall
neither eat nor sleep till I have found out the owner of this curl!"
He shook out the letter as he spoke, and fiercely thrust the tell-tale
love-token under the noses of his amazed friends. "It is a red-haired
man, you see! There lives no red-haired man in Bath but him I must
forthwith spit or plug lest the villain escape me!"
Colonel Villiers started to his feet with a growl like that of a tiger
aroused from slumber.
"Zounds!" he exclaimed. "An insult."
"How!" cried Jasper, turning upon him and suddenly noticing the sandy
hue of his friend's bushy eyebrows. "You, good God! You? Pooh, pooh,
impossible, and yet.... Colonel Villiers, Sir!" cried Sir Jasper, in
awful tones, "did you write this letter? Speak! Yes or no, man!
Speak, or must I drag the words from your throat?"
Purple and apoplectic passion well-nigh stifled Colonel Villiers.
"Stafford, Stafford," he spluttered, "you are witness. These are gross
affronts, affronts which shall be wiped out."
"Did you write that letter? Yes or no!" screamed Sir Jasper, shaking
the offending document in the Colonel's convulsed countenance.
"I?" cried the Colonel, and struck away Sir Jasper's hand with a
furious blow, "I? I write such brimstone nonsense? No, sir! Now,
damn you body and soul, Sir Jasper, how dare you ask me such a
question?"
"No," said Sir Jasper, "of course not! Ah, I am a fool, Villiers.
Forgive me. There's no quarrel between us! No, of course it could not
be you! With that nose, that waistcoat, your sixty years! Gad, I am
going mad!"
"Why, man," said Stafford, as soon as he could speak for laughing,
"Villiers has not so much hair on all his head as you hold in your hand
there. Off with your wig, Villiers, off with your wig, and let your
bald pate proclaim its shining innocence."
The gallant gentleman thus addressed was by this time black in the
face. Panting as to breath, disjointed as to speech, his fury had
nevertheless its well-defined purpose.
"I have been insulted, I have been insulted," he gasped; "the matter
cannot end here. Sir Jasper, you have insulted me. I am a red-haired
man, sir. I shall send a friend to call upon you."
"Nay, then," said Sir Jasper, "since 'tis so between us I will even
assure myself that Tom has spoken the truth and give you something to
fight for!" He stretched out his hand as he spoke, and plucked the wig
from Colonel Villiers' head.
Before him indeed spread so complete an expanse of hairless candour,
that further evidence was not necessary; yet the few limp hairs that
lingered behind the Colonel's ears, if they had once been ruddy, shone
now meekly silver in the candle-light.
"I thank you," said Sir Jasper, "that is sufficient. When you send
your friend to call upon me, I shall receive him with pleasure." He
handed back the Colonel's wig with a bow.
The Colonel stood trembling, his knotted hand instinctively fumbled for
his sword. But remembering perhaps that this was eminently a case for
pistols, he bethought himself, seized his wig, clapped it on defiantly,
settled it with minute care, glared, wheeled round and left the room,
muttering as he went remarks of so sulphurous a nature as to defy
recording.
Sir Jasper did not seem to give him another thought. He fell into his
chair again and spread out upon his knee the sorely crumpled letter.
"Confusion!" said he. Who can it be? "Tom, you scamp, I know your
hair is brown. Thou art not the man, Tom. Oh, Tom, oh, Tom, if I do
not kill him I shall go mad!"
Stafford was weak with laughter, and tears rolled from his eyes as he
gasped:
"Let us see, who can the Judas be? (Gad, this is the best joke I have
known for years. Oh, Lord, the bald head of him! Oh, Jasper, 'tis
cruel funny! Stab me, sir, if I have known a better laugh these ten
years!) Nay, nay, I will help thee. Come, there's his Lordship the
Bishop of Bath and Wells, he is red, I know, for I have seen him in the
water. Gad, he was like a boiled lobster, hair and all. Could it be
he, think you? They have a way, these divines, and Lady Standish has a
delicate conscience. She would like the approval of the Church upon
her deeds. Nay, never glare like that, for I will not fight you! Have
you not got your rosary of red polls to tell first. Ha! there is
O'Hara, he is Irish enough and rake enough and red enough. Oh, he is
red enough!"
"O'Hara," cried Sir Jasper, struck.
There came a fine rat-tat-tat at the door, a parley in the hall, and
the servant announced Mr. Denis O'Hara.
"Talk of the devil," said Stafford.
Sir Jasper rose from his armchair with the air of one whose enemy is
delivered into his hands.