The Quiet Gentleman Read online

  ‘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