Authors: Rafael Sabatini
"If I do the thing at all, it shall be done tomorrow," answered Mr. Caryll.
"If at all?" cried Sir Richard, frowning again. "If at all?"
Caryll turned to him. He crossed to the table, and leaning across it, until his face was quite close to his adoptive father's. "Sir Richard," he begged, "let us say no more tonight. My will is
all to do the thing. It is my—my instincts that rebel. I think that the day will be carried by my will. I shall strive to that end, believe me. But let us say no more now."
Sir Richard, looking deep into Mr. Caryll's eyes, was touched by something that he saw. "My poor Justin!" he said gently. Then, checking the sympathy as swiftly as it rose: "So be it, then," he
said briskly. "You'll come to me tomorrow after you have seen his lordship?"
"Will you not remain here?"
"You have not the room. Besides, Sir Richard Everard is too well known for a Jacobite to be observed sharing your lodging. I have no right at all in England, and there is always the chance of my
being discovered. I would not pull you down with me. I am lodged at the corner of Maiden Lane, next door to the sign of Golden Flitch. Come to me there tomorrow after you have seen Lord
Ostermore." He hesitated a moment. He was impelled to recapitulate his injunctions; but he forbore. He put out his hand abruptly. "Goodnight, Justin."
Justin took the hand and pressed it. The door opened, and Leduc entered.
"Captain Mainwaring and Mr. Falgate are here, sir, and would speak with you," he announced.
Mr. Caryll knit his brows a moment. His acquaintance with both men was of the slightest, and it was only upon reflection that he bethought him they would, no doubt, be come in the matter of his
affair with Rotherby, which in the stress of his interview with Sir Richard had been quite forgotten. He nodded.
"Wait upon Sir Richard to the door, Leduc," he bade his man. "Then introduce these gentlemen."
Sir Richard had drawn back a step. "I trust neither of these gentlemen knows me," he said. "I would not be seen here by any that did. It might compromise you."
But Mr. Caryll belittled Sir Richard's fears. "Pooh! 'Tis very unlike," said he; whereupon Sir Richard, seeing no help for it, went out quickly, Leduc in attendance.
Lord Rotherby's friends in the ante-room paid little heed to him as he passed briskly through. Surveillance came rather from an entirely unsuspected quarter. As he left the house and crossed the
square, a figure detached itself from the shadow of the wall, and set out to follow. It hung in his rear through the filthy, labyrinthine streets which Sir Richard took to Charing Cross, followed
him along the Strand and up Bedford Street, and took note of the house he entered at the corner of Maiden Lane.
CHAPTER XI
THE ASSAULT-AT-ARMS
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.