Chapter Thirteen #3
‘Well, I care!’ said Hero tartly. ‘He would have to fly the country, and what would become of me then?’
George’s gloom vanished in a grin. ‘Oh, Kitten, you horrid little wretch! Don’t tease yourself! He won’t hit me.’
‘You don’t feel that I had better warn him you mean to fire in the air?’ she asked anxiously.
He took her by the shoulders, and gave her a shake. ‘You dare tell Sherry one word about this!’ he said. ‘If he knew what you’d done he’d be fit to murder the pair of us! Besides, you’ve no business to be mixed up in it! You must go home. And not a word to a soul, mind!’
‘But I must tell Gil –’
‘No, you must not! I’ll settle Gil! Deserves to be called out himself for frightening you like this!’
‘Oh, no, pray don’t do that, George!’ she said hastily.
‘Wouldn’t be any use if I did: there’s no getting Gil out at all. But you know, Kitten, I do think you should have known I wouldn’t hurt Sherry!’
‘To tell you the truth,’ she confided, ‘I did not think so, until Gil and Ferdy came to see me. But how odious it was of you to lead them to think you meant to kill him! You are quite abominable, George, you know you are!’
He admitted it, but pleaded that Gil and Ferdy had been in such a pucker that he could not help himself.
Hero laughed at this; he escorted her out to her barouche, and they parted on the best of terms. Hero drove back to Half Moon Street, and George sent a note to Mr Ringwood’s lodging, desiring him to stop making a cake of himself.
Mr Ringwood showed this cryptic missive to Mr Fakenham, and both gentlemen came to the conclusion that whatever had been the outcome of Miss Milborne’s intervention George had no intention of killing Sherry on the morrow.
Sherry, meanwhile, had been spending a singularly depressing morning with his lawyer.
He had been making his Will, a task that engendered in him such a mood of melancholy that he despatched a note to Sir Montagu Revesby, excusing himself from making one of a card-party that evening, and would have spent the evening by his own fireside had it not occurred to him that such tame behaviour might be thought to augur a disinclination (to put it no higher) to meet Lord Wrotham upon the morrow.
So instead of indulging his gloomy reflections in his wife’s drawing-room he took her to the theatre, and, since the piece was a lively one, contrived to be tolerably amused.
Hero enjoyed herself hugely, a circumstance which led his lordship to suppose that she could not be aware of his assignation at Westbourn Green.
He naturally would not have dreamed of mentioning such a matter to her, but he could not help thinking that it might come as a severe shock to her if his lifeless corpse were to be borne into the house just as she was sitting down to breakfast, so he tried to drop her a hint.
‘You know, Kitten,’ he said, outside her chamber door, ‘if anything were to happen to me at any time – mind you, I don’t say anything will, but you never know!
– well, what I mean is, I’ve made all the proper provisions, and – and no strings tied to ’em, so that you’ll be able to marry again, if you choose. ’
‘I never, never should!’ Hero said, holding his hand very tightly.
‘No reason why you shouldn’t. Only don’t have George, brat! He wouldn’t suit you at all!’
‘Sherry, don’t!’ she begged. ‘Nothing will happen to you!’
‘No, I dare say not, but I thought I might just mention the matter,’ he said carelessly. ‘And if it did, I wouldn’t wish you to fret about it, you know.’
‘No, no, I won’t!’ she promised. ‘Only don’t talk in that way, Sherry, for even though I know nothing will happen to you I do not like it!’
‘Silly little puss!’ he said, pinching her nose. ‘Did you enjoy the play?’
‘Oh, I did!’
‘Well, I’m glad of that, at all events,’ he said, and on this altruistic thought took himself upstairs to bed.
His cousin Ferdy called at the house for him at a chill, slightly misty hour on the following morning.
The Viscount was quite ready for him, and except that he looked a trifle more serious than was customary, he seemed to be in good spirits.
He jumped up into the tilbury beside Ferdy, his many-caped greatcoat buttoned up to his throat, and asked briskly: ‘Got the pistols?’
‘Gil has,’ replied Ferdy. He added: ‘Thought we had best engage a surgeon too, just in case …. Still, I dare say he won’t be needed.’
‘You never know,’ said the Viscount. ‘Mist’s lifting nicely. Couldn’t have had a better morning for it!’
They arrived at the appointed meeting-place to find George and Mr Ringwood already upon the ground. The two principals exchanged formal bows. The seconds, inspecting the deadly weapons, held a short, whispered colloquy.
‘George said anything to you?’ asked Ferdy.
‘No. Putting on airs to be interesting,’ replied Mr Ringwood, with brutal candour.
‘Dash it, he can’t mean to blow a hole through Sherry!’
‘Just what I think myself. Queer I didn’t hear from Lady Sherry, though.’
While this dialogue was in progress, Sherry had cast off his drab driving-coat, and buttoned the plain, dark coat he wore under it up to his chin, so that it completely hid his white shirt.
He had been careful to choose a coat with small, dark buttons, so that he should afford his adversary no unnecessary mark; and he noticed, with some annoyance, that Lord Wrotham, as though in open contempt of his marksmanship, was wearing the blue and yellow-striped waistcoat of the Four Horse Club, and a coat with gleaming silver buttons.
The paces were measured; the principals took up their positions, the duelling pistols, with their ten-inch barrels and hair-triggers set at half-cock, pointing earthwards; the seconds retreated eight paces; the doctor turned his back upon the proceedings; and Mr Ringwood took out a handkerchief, and held it up.
As it fell, George jerked up his right hand, and deloped.
A second later the Viscount’s bullet buried itself in a tree-trunk quite three feet to the left of his opponent.
The next instant he had lowered his pistol, and said furiously: ‘Damn you, George, will you stop being noble?’
‘Good God, Sherry!’ George said, disgustedly surveying the wounded tree, ‘you can do better than that, dash it, man!’
‘Better than that? I meant to hit it!’ retorted Sherry, much incensed.
‘Who’s being noble now?’ demanded George, strolling across the ground to give his pistol up to Mr Ringwood. ‘You must have been practising. Here you are, Gil!’
Mr Ringwood, too relieved for speech, took the weapon, held out his hand for Sherry’s, and restored both to their case. The late antagonists looked at one another measuringly.
‘What I’ve a dashed good mind to do,’ said Sherry, ‘is to take my coat off to you, George, and see if I can’t draw your claret! It’s what I ought to have done in the first place!’
‘No, my God, not before we’ve had breakfast!’ replied George. His reluctant grin dawned; he thrust out his hand. ‘I’m sorry, Sherry! Never meant to do it, you know, and really there wasn’t a mite of harm in it!’
‘Oh, go to the devil!’ responded Sherry, gripping his hand. ‘If ever I met such a fellow! Here, did you think to order breakfast, Ferdy?’