The Quiet Gentleman (6 page)

‘Saphead! Why should I?’

‘There ain’t any reason, but whenever you take one of your pets,’ said Mr Warboys frankly, ‘it don’t seem to signify to you whose cork you draw! All I say is, it ain’t going to be mine!’

Meanwhile, Sir Thomas, having ushered the Earl into one of his saloons and furnished him with a comfortable chair, and a glass of Madeira, had arrived at a more precise understanding of the service which had been rendered to his daughter. He chuckled a good deal over it, rubbing his hands together, and ejaculating: ‘Cow-handed little puss! I shall roast her finely for this, I can tell you! All’s well that ends well – though I’ll wager her Mama will have something to say to her giving her groom the slip! But there! she is our only chick, my lord, and we don’t care to be too strict, and that’s the truth! Yes, the Almighty never saw fit to give us another, and though I shan’t deny we did wish for a son – for there will be no one to inherit the baronetcy when I’m gone, you know – it was not to be, and, damme, we wouldn’t exchange our naughty puss for all the sons in creation!’

Gervase said what was proper, and sipped his wine, watching Sir Thomas, as he bustled about, casting another log on to the fire, altering the position of a screen to exclude a possible draught, tugging at the bell-rope to summon a servant to bring in the ratafia-wine for Miss Marianne. He was a stout little man, with a shrewd pair of eyes set in a round face whose original ruddy complexion had been much impaired by a tropical climate. He was dressed without much pretension to fashion in a blue coat and buckskin breeches, but he wore a large ruby-pin in his neckcloth, and another set in a ring upon his finger, so that he was clearly a person of affluence, if not of taste. The Earl was at a loss to decide from what order of society he had sprung, for although the cast of his countenance was aristocratic, with its aquiline nose, and finely-moulded lips, and his voice that of a well-bred man, his manners lacked polish, and he had a rough, colloquial way of expressing himself. His wife, on the other hand, had the appearance and the manners of a gentlewoman, and the style in which his house had been furnished was as elegant as it was expensive. That he had at some period during his lifetime visited the East was indicated by various specimens of oriental art which were scattered about the room. He saw the Earl glancing at the ornaments on the mantelshelf, and said: ‘Ay, you are looking at my ivories, my lord. I bought them for the most part in Calcutta, and a pretty sum they cost me, I can tell you! You won’t find any finer, for although I don’t know much about art, I won’t buy trumpery, and I’m a hard man to cheat.’

‘You have resided in India, sir?’

‘Spent the better part of my life there,’ replied Sir Thomas briskly. ‘If you hear anyone speak of the Nabob, that’s me, or, at any rate, it’s what they call me here at home, and I won’t deny it’s true enough, though I could name you a good few men who made bigger fortunes in India than ever I did. Still, I’m reckoned to be a warm man, as they say. Queer world, ain’t it? I often wonder what my poor father would think if he had lived to see the Prodigal Son come home only just in time to save the family from landing in the basket! Ay, I was a wild young fellow, I can tell you, and caused my father a deal of trouble, God forgive me! The end of it was I was shipped off to India, and I daresay they all hoped I should be heard of no more. I don’t say I blame them, but it was a desperate thing to do, wasn’t it? I wouldn’t serve a son of mine so, but it all turned out for the best; and when I came home, with a snug fortune, and my girl just six years old, and as pretty as a picture, the tables were turned indeed! For what should I find but that brother of mine that was always used to have been as prim and as
tonnish
as the starchiest nob of them all regularly under the hatches! The silly fellow had been speculating, and he hadn’t the least head for it. A bubble-merchant, that’s what I called him! I found him as near to swallowing a spider as makes no matter, and what he found to squander his money on, with never a chick nor a child to call his own, is more than I can tell you. I daresay it was my lady who spent it, for it was always my lady who must have this, and my lady who was used to have that, till I told him to his head his lady might go hang for all of me! For ever prating about her grand family, she was, but she came to the wrong shop, for I married a girl who was better-born than she, and never any fine-lady nonsense about her, bless her! Well, the long and the short of it was that poor George was never so glad to see anyone in his life as he was to see me, for he actually had an execution in the house! And the worst set of Jeremy Diddlers hanging round him – well, well, I soon sent them packing, you may be sure! The joke of it was that George wasn’t pleased above half, because he had been always in the way of thinking himself much above my touch! Ah, well, he’s dead now, poor fellow, and I should not be laughing at him! Ay, he died a matter of six years ago, leaving no one but me to succeed him. He felt it, and so, I warrant you, does Caroline, though between you and me that don’t by any means stop her expecting me to drop my blunt into her purse every now and then!’ He laughed heartily at this reflection, and his guest, considerably taken aback by these revelations, and scarcely knowing what to say in reply to them, was thankful when the door opened just then to admit the two ladies.

Marianne, who had changed her habit for a dress of sprigged muslin, tied with blue ribbons, was looking lovelier than ever; and the Earl found that he had not been mistaken in his first reading of Lady Bolderwood’s character. A fair, slender woman of considerable beauty, she was affable without being effusive. Without assuming any airs of consequence, or seeming to deprecate her husband’s free manners, she had a quiet dignity of her own, and talked very much like a sensible woman. While Sir Thomas boisterously rallied his daughter on her lack of horsemanship, she sat down beside the Earl, and conversed amiably with him. He decided that he liked both her and Sir Thomas. He was made to feel at home, and although both, in their several degrees, were grateful to him for the service he had rendered Marianne, neither showed the least disposition to toad-eat him. As for Marianne, he could not suppose that a lovelier or a sunnier-tempered girl existed. She bore all her father’s roasting with laughter, and coaxing pleas to be forgiven for having caused him anxiety; and when she saw that he had finished his wine, she jumped up to set down his glass for him.

‘I hope that now we have been so unceremoniously introduced, you will visit us again, Lord St Erth. We do not pretend to entertain in any formal style while we are in the country, for Marianne cannot be considered to be out, you know, until we remove to London next month; but if you don’t disdain a game of lottery-tickets, or to stand up to dance in a room with only perhaps half a dozen couples, I shall be very happy to welcome you whenever you should care to come.’

‘That’s right!’ said Sir Thomas, overhearing. ‘No state or flummery! We reserve all that for Grosvenor Square. If I had my way – but, there! this little puss of mine is determined to drag me to all manner of routs and soirées and balls, aren’t you, my pretty?’

She was seated on the arm of his chair, and at once bent to lay her cheek against his, and to say caressingly: ‘Dear Papa! Now, confess! You would not forgo any of it for the world!’

‘Ay, I know you! You are a rogue, miss, and think you may twist me round your finger! Come and eat your mutton at Whissenhurst when you feel so inclined, my lord! You know your way, and if you did not, young Martin would show it to you fast enough. No offence, but I’ve a pretty good notion of the way things are at Stanyon, and although I’m sure her ladyship is a very good sort of a woman, I’ll go bail you are yawning till your jaws crack six days out of the seven!’

The Earl laughed, thanked him, and rose to take his leave. As he shook hands with Marianne, she smiled up at him in her innocent way, and said: ‘Do come again! We sometimes have the merriest parties – everyone comes to them!’

‘I shall most certainly come,’ Gervase said. ‘And you, I hope –’ his glance embraced them all – ‘will honour Stanyon with a visit. My mother-in-law is planning one or two entertainments: I believe you must shortly be receiving cards from her.’

‘Oh, famous!’ Marianne cried, clapping her hands. ‘Will you give a ball at Stanyon? Do say you will! It is the very place for one!’

‘Miss Bolderwood has only to give her commands! A ball it shall be!’

‘My love, it is time and more that you ceased to be such a sad romp!’ said Lady Bolderwood, with a reproving look. ‘Pray do not heed her, Lord St Erth!’

She gave him her hand, charged him to deliver her compliments to the Dowager, and Sir Thomas escorted him to the front-door, and stayed chatting to him on the steps, while his horse was brought round from the stables.

‘There is no need for you to be giving a ball unless you choose,’ he said bluntly. ‘Puss will have enough of them in another month, and I daresay her Mama don’t care for her to appear at any bang-up affair until after our own ball in Grosvenor Square. We’ll send you a card. But come and visit us in a friendly way when you choose! I like to see young people round me, enjoying themselves, and I remember my old Indian ways enough still to be glad to keep open house.’ He chuckled. ‘No fear of
our
being dull in the country! If there’s any young spark for twenty-five miles round us whom you won’t find at Whissenhurst, one day or another, I wish I may meet him! But what I say to Mama is, there’s safety in numbers, and I can tell you this, my lord, we ain’t anxious to see our girl married too young! Sometimes I wonder what will become of us, when she sets up her own establishment! There were plenty of people to advise us to bring her out last Season, but, No, we said: there’s time and to spare! Hallo! is this your horse! Now, horseflesh is something I flatter myself I
do
understand! Ay, grand hocks! forelegs well before him! You’ll hear men praising cocktails, but what I say is, the best is always the best, and give me a thoroughbred every time!’

It was some time before Martin returned to Stanyon, his friend having persuaded him, with the best intentions possible, to accompany him to his parental home. Mr Warboys, inured by custom to Martin’s tantrums, formed the praiseworthy scheme of allowing that young gentleman’s wrath time to cool before he again encountered his half-brother. In itself, the scheme was excellent, but it was rendered abortive first by the encomiums bestowed by Mrs Warboys, a fat and very nearly witless lady of forty summers, on the very pronounced degree of good-looks enjoyed by the Earl; and second by a less enthusiastic but by far more caustic remark uttered by Mr Warboys, senior, to the effect that Martin, his own son, and almost every other young aspirant to the Beauty’s favours could be thought to stand no chance at all against a belted Earl.

‘Unless Bolderwood is a bigger fool than I take him for,’ he said, ‘he will lose no time in securing St Erth for that chit of his!’

Shocked by such a display of tactlessness on the part of his progenitors, Mr Warboys, junior, said: ‘Shouldn’t think St Erth has any serious intentions, myself!’

It was perhaps not surprising that the cumulative effect of these remarks should have sent Martin Frant back to Stanyon in a mood of smouldering anger.

Although he could not have been said to have received any particular encouragement from Sir Thomas, or from Lady Bolderwood, he was generally acknowledged to have been, before the arrival of his half-brother at Stanyon, the most likely candidate for Marianne’s hand. He had first known her when she was a schoolroom miss, and he a freshman at Oxford, his thoughts far removed from matrimony. Long before he had thought more about her than that she was a very good sort of a girl, pluck to the backbone, even if lacking in judgment, he had captured her maiden fancy. He was a handsome young man, whose magnificent background lent his careless, imperious ways a romantic aura. He was a stylish cricketer, a good shot, and a bruising rider to hounds, and his patronage could not but give consequence to a schoolgirl. Lady St Erth, whose discreet enquiries had early established the fact that the Beauty was heiress to something in the region of a hundred thousand pounds, from the outset smiled upon the friendship. Sir Thomas might have eaten his dinner at Stanyon every day of the week had he chosen to do so; and not only were his manners pronounced to be refreshingly natural, but he provided her ladyship with a subject for a pious lecture on the value of golden hearts that were hid under rough exteriors. Sir Thomas, cherishing no illusions on the substance of the Dowager’s heart, and unimpressed by her rank, visited Stanyon as seldom as common civility permitted, but was perfectly ready to extend his hospitality to Martin, whom he thought of as a wild colt, not vicious, but in need of breaking to bridle.

By the time Martin awoke to the realization that his little madcap friend had become the toast of the neighbourhood, Marianne, courted on all sides, was no longer hanging admiringly upon his lips, or gazing worshipfully up into his face. Instead, she was flirting in the prettiest, most unexceptionable way with several other young gentlemen. The knowledge, not only that he was in love with her, but that she unquestionably belonged to him, then burst upon Martin, and caused him to conduct himself in a style which made one poetically-minded damsel, who would not have objected to finding herself the object of his jealous regard, say that he reminded her of a black panther. Mr Warboys, without putting himself to the trouble of deciding which of the more ferocious animals his friend resembled, stated the matter in simple, and courageously frank terms. ‘Y’know, old fellow,’ he once told Martin, ‘if you had a tail, damme if you wouldn’t lash it!’

The tail, if not lashing, was certainly on the twitch when Martin reached Stanyon, but although some part of the time spent on his solitary ride home from Westerwood House had been occupied by him in dwelling upon his grievances, he also had time to reflect on the extreme unwisdom of quarrelling openly with his brother, and had no real intention of forcing an issue. Unfortunately, he had occasion to go into the Armoury, which was one of the broad galleries which flanked the Chapel Court, and was also used as a gunroom, and he found the Earl there.

Gervase was in his shirt-sleeves, trying the temper of a pair of foils. He seemed to have been engaged in oiling his pistols, for these lay in an open case on a table near him, with some rags and a bottle of oil standing beside them. He looked up as Martin entered through the door at one end of the gallery, and it occurred to Martin for the first time that he was indeed a damnably handsome man – if one had a taste for such delicate, almost womanish features.

‘Oh! You here!’ Martin said, in no very agreeable voice.

Gervase regarded him meditatively. ‘As you see. Is there any reason why I should not be here?’

‘None that I know of!’ Martin replied, shrugging, and walking over to a glass-fronted case which contained several sporting guns.

‘I am so glad!’ said Gervase. ‘So much that I do seems to anger you that I am quite alarmed lest I should quite unwittingly cause you offence.’

The gentle irony in his tone was not lost on Martin. He wheeled about, and said trenchantly: ‘If that is so, let me advise you to leave Marianne Bolderwood alone!’

Gervase said nothing, but kept his eyes on Martin’s face, their expression amused, yet watchful.

‘I hope I make myself plain, brother!’

‘Very plain.’

‘You may think you can come into Lincolnshire, flaunting your title, and your damned dandy-airs, and amuse yourself by trifling with Miss Bolderwood, but I shall not permit it, and so I warn you!’

‘Oh, tut-tut!’ Gervase interrupted, laughing.

Martin took a hasty step towards him. ‘Understand, I’ll not have it!’

Gervase seemed to consider him for a moment. He still looked amused, and, instead of answering, he lifted the second foil from where he had laid it on the table, set both hilts across his forearm, and offered them to Martin.

Martin stared at him. ‘What’s this foolery?’

‘Don’t you fence?’

‘Fence? Of course I do!’

‘Then choose a foil, and see what you can achieve with it! All these wild and whirling words don’t impress me, you know. Perhaps your sword-play may command my respect!’ He paused, while Martin stood irresolute, and added softly: ‘No? Do you think you can’t creditably engage with such a dandified fellow as I am?’

Martin’s eyes flashed; he grasped one of the hilts, exclaiming furiously: ‘We’ll see that!’

‘Gently! Don’t draw the blade through my hand!’ Gervase said, allowing him to take the foil he had chosen. ‘How does the length suit you?’

‘I have frequently fenced with this pair!’

‘You have the advantage of me, then: I find them a trifle overlong, and not as light in hand as I could wish. However, that is a common fault.’

He moved away to the centre of the Armoury as he spoke, and waited there while Martin flung off his coat. Martin swiftly followed him, torn between annoyance and a desire to demonstrate his skill to one whom he suspected of mocking him. He knew himself to have been well-taught, and was, indeed, so much above the average at most forms of sport that he expected to give a very good account of himself. But after a few minutes he was brought to realize that he had met his master. The Earl fought with a pace and a dexterity which flustered him a little, and never did he seem to be able to break through that unwavering guard. Every attack was baffled by a close parade, and when he attempted a feint, Gervase smiled, his wrist in no way led astray, and said as he delivered a straight thrust: ‘Oh, no, no! If you must feint, you should oppose your forte, moving your point nearer to my forte, or you won’t very easily hit me.’

Martin returned no answer. He was panting, and the sweat was beginning to stain his shirt. Had his adversary been any other man he would have been delighted to have found himself matched with a swordsman so much superior to himself, and would not in the least have resented his inability to score a hit. But it galled him unspeakably to be unable to break through the guard of so effeminate a person as Gervase, who never seemed at any moment to be hard-pressed, or even to be exerting himself very much. He was obliged to acknowledge a number of hits, his choler steadily rising. A return from the wrist, which caught him in mid-thrust, destroyed the last rags of his temper; he parried a carte thrust half-circle, his weight thrown on to his left hip, and swiftly turned his wrist in tierce, inclining the point on the left, with the intention of crossing the Earl’s blade. But just as he was about to do so, Gervase disengaged, giving way with the point, so that it was Martin’s blade, meeting no opposition, which leaped from his hand, and not his brother’s.

‘So your master taught you that trick!’ Gervase said, a little out of breath. ‘Very few do so nowadays. But it’s dangerous, you know, unless you have very great swiftness and precision. Try again! Or have you had enough?’

‘No!’ Martin shot at him, snatching up his foil, and dragging his shirt-sleeve across his wet brow. ‘Damn you, I’m not so easily exhausted! I’ll hit you yet! I’m out of practice!’

‘You might hit me out of practice; you won’t do it out of temper,’ said Gervase dryly.

‘Won’t I?
Won
’
t
I?’ gasped Martin, stung to blind rage by this merited but decidedly provocative rebuke.

He closed the Earl’s blade, and on the instant saw that the button had become detached from his point. Gervase saw it too, and quickly retired his left foot, to get out of distance. ‘Take care!’ he said sharply.

‘
You
may take care!’ Martin panted, and delivered a rather wild thrust in prime. It was parried by the St George Guard; and even as he became conscious of the enormity of what he had done, he found himself very hard-pressed indeed. He would have dropped his point at a word, but the word was not spoken. Gervase was no longer smiling, and his eyes had narrowed, their lazy good-humour quite vanished. Martin was forced to fight. A careless, almost mechanical thrust in carte over the arm was parried by a sharp beat of the Earl’s forte, traversing the line of his blade, and bearing his wrist irresistibly upwards. The Earl’s left foot came forward; his hand seized the shell of Martin’s sword, and forced it out to the right; he gripped it fast, and presented the button of his foil to Martin’s face.

‘The Disarm!’ he said, holding Martin’s eyes with his own.

Martin relinquished his foil. His chest was heaving; he seemed as though he would have said something, but before he could recover his breath enough to do so an interruption occurred. Theo, who, for the past few minutes, had been standing, with Miss Morville, rooted on the threshold, strode forward, ejaculating thunderously: ‘Martin! Are you
mad
?’

Martin started, and looked round, a sulky, defensive expression on his flushed countenance. His brother laid down the foils. Miss Morville’s matter-of-fact voice broke into an uncomfortable silence. ‘How very careless of you, not to have observed that the button is off your point!’ she said severely. ‘There might have been an accident, if your brother had not been sharper-eyed than you.’

‘Oh, no, there might not!’ Martin retorted. ‘I couldn’t touch him! There was no danger!’

He caught up his coat as he spoke, and, without looking at Gervase, went hastily out of the gallery.

‘I expect,’ said Miss Morville, with unruffled placidity, ‘that swords are much like guns. My Papa was used to say, when they were boys, that he would not trust my brothers with guns unless he were there to keep an eye on them, for let a boy become only a little excited and he would forget the most commonplace precautions. I came to tell you, Lord St Erth, that your Mama-in-law wishes you will join her in the Amber Drawing-room. General Hawkhurst has come to pay his respects to you.’

‘Thank you! I will come directly,’ he replied.

‘Drusilla, you will not mention to anyone – what you saw a moment ago!’ Theo said.

She paused in the doorway, looking back over her shoulder. ‘Oh, no! Why should I, indeed? I am sure Martin would very much dislike it if anyone were to roast him for being so heedless.’

With this prosaic reply, she left the Armoury, closing the door behind her.

‘Gervase, what happened?’ Theo said. ‘How came Martin to be fencing with a naked point?’

‘Oh, he tried to cross my blade, but since I am rather too old a hand to be caught by such a trick as that, it was his sword, not mine, which was lost,’ Gervase said lightly. ‘The button was loosened, I daresay, by the fall.’

‘Are you trying to tell me that he did not perceive it?’

Gervase smiled. ‘Why, no! But the thing was, you see, that he was so angry with me for being the better swordsman that his rage quite overthrew his judgment, and he tried to pink me. I was never in any danger, you know: he has not been so badly taught, but he lacks precision and pace.’

‘So I saw! You had him clearly at your mercy, but that cannot excuse his conduct!’

‘As to that, perhaps I was a little at fault,’ Gervase confessed. ‘But, really, you know, Theo, he is such an unschooled colt that I thought he deserved a set-down! I own, I said what I knew must enrage him. No harm done: he is now very much ashamed of himself, and that must be counted as a gain.’

‘I hope you may be found to be right. But –’ He broke off, his brows contracting.

‘Well?’

‘It happened as you have described, of course, but –’ he raised his eyes to his cousin’s face, and said bluntly: ‘Gervase, be a little more careful, I beg of you! You might not have noticed it, but I saw, in his face, such an expression of fury – I had almost said, of hatred – !’

‘Yes, I did notice it,’ Gervase said quietly. ‘He would have been happy to have murdered me, would he not?’

‘No, no, don’t think it! He is, as you have said, an unschooled colt, and he has been used to being so much petted and praised – But he would not murder you!’

‘It was certainly his intention, my dear Theo!’

‘Not his intention!’ Theo said swiftly. ‘His impulse, at that instant!’

‘The distinction is too nice for his victim to appreciate. Come, Theo! Be plain with me, I beg of you! You tried to put me on my guard, I fancy, that first evening, when you came to my bedchamber, and drank a glass of brandy with me there. Was it against Martin that you were warning me?’ He waited for a moment. ‘I am answered, I suppose!’