Chapter Nine #2
Impetuosity had betrayed him into a false position from which he could see no way of extricating himself with credit.
Leaving Undershaw on the crest of his fury he had indulged for a time in very much the sort of imaginings which Damerel had described to Venetia; but even such wrath as his could not be maintained at fever-heat for long.
Thanks to Damerel’s dawdling return to the Priory his had subsided into resentment some time before the gray horse came into sight, and for a full half hour he had been trying to make up his mind what to do, and without once allowing it to wander into the realm of fancy.
From the moment when it occurred to him that the humiliation he had suffered was the direct result of his own misconduct the affair had been too serious for grandiose dreams. He suddenly perceived that Damerel had played the part he had imagined for himself: it was the villain who had rescued the lady from the hero.
So appalling was this realization that for several minutes he could see no other solution to his troubles than instant flight from Yorkshire, and a future spent in obscurity, preferably at the other end of the world.
His next and more rational impulse was to abandon his plan of challenging Damerel to a duel; and he had actually started for home when another hideous thought entered his head: he had addressed fatal words to Damerel, and if he did not make them good Damerel would believe that he had failed to do so because he was afraid.
So he turned back again, because whatever else Damerel might say of him he was determined he should never be able to say that he had no more pluck than a dunghill cock.
The challenge must be delivered, but try as he would Oswald could not recapture his eagerness.
An uneasy suspicion that persons more familiar with the Code of Honour than himself would condemn his action as grossly improper nagged at him; and when he placed himself in Damerel’s path he would have given everything he possessed to have been a hundred miles away.
Damerel pulled the gray up, and surveyed his youthful foe sardonically. ‘All that is needed to complete the picture is a mask and a pair of horse-pistols,’ he remarked.
‘I have been waiting for you, my lord!’ said Oswald, gritting his teeth.
‘I see you have.’
‘I imagine your lordship must know why! I said – I told you that you should hear from me!’
‘You did, but you’ve had time enough to think better of it. Try for a little wisdom, and go home!’
‘Do you think I’m afraid of you?’ Oswald demanded fiercely. ‘I’m not, my lord!’
‘I can see no reason why you should be,’ said Damerel. ‘You must know that there’s not the least possibility of my accepting a challenge from you.’
Oswald flushed. ‘I know nothing of the sort! If you mean to say I’m unworthy of your sword I’ll take leave to tell you, sir, that I’m as well-born as you!’
‘Don’t rant! How old are you?’
Oswald glared at him. There was a derisive gleam in the eyes which scanned him so indifferently, and it filled him with a primitive longing to smash his fist between them. ‘My age is of no consequence!’ he snapped.
‘On the contrary: it is of the first consequence.’
‘Here it may be! I don’t regard that, and you need not either! I have been about the world a little, and visited places where –’ He stopped, suddenly recollecting that he was talking to a man who had travelled widely.
‘If you have visited places where men of my years accept challenges from boys who might well be their sons you must have strayed into some pretty queer company,’ remarked Damerel.
‘Well, anyway, I’m reckoned to be a fair shot!’ said Oswald.
‘You terrify me. On what grounds do you mean to issue this challenge?’
The angry young eyes held his for an instant longer, and then looked away.
‘I won’t press you for an answer,’ said Damerel.
‘Wait!’ Oswald blurted out, as Crusader moved forward. ‘You shan’t fob me off like that! I know I ought not to have – I never meant – I don’t know how I came to – But there was no need for you to –’
‘Go on!’ said Damerel encouragingly, as Oswald broke off. ‘No need for me to rescue Miss Lanyon from a situation which she was plainly not enjoying? Is that what you mean?’
‘Damn you, no!’ Oswald sought for words to express the hopeless tangle of his thoughts; none came to him, only the age-old cry of youth: ‘You don’t understand!’
‘You may ascribe the astonishing guard I have so far kept over my temper to the fact that I do,’ was the rather unexpected reply.
‘Patience, however, was never numbered amongst my few virtues, so the sooner we part the better. I am very sorry for you, but there’s nothing I can do to help you to recover from these pangs, and your inability to open your mouth without going off into rodomontade does rather alienate my sympathy, you know. ’
‘I don’t want your damned sympathy!’ Oswald flung at him, intolerably stung.
‘One thing you can do, my lord! You can stop trying to give Venetia a slip on the shoulder!’ He saw the flash in Damerel’s eyes, and hurried on recklessly: ‘W-walking into her house as though it were your own, cajoling her with your man-of-the-town ways, c-cutting a wheedle with her because she’s too innocent to know it’s all a rig, and you’re bamboozling her!
T-talking to me as if I was the loose-screw!
I m-may have lost my head but I mean honestly by her!
And you needn’t think I don’t know it’s uncivil to say things like this to you, because I do, and I don’t care a rush, and if you choose to nab the rust you may do so – in fact, I hope you will!
– And I don’t care if you tell my father I’ve been uncivil to you either! ’
Damerel had been looking a little ugly, but this sudden anticlimax dispelled his wrath, and made him laugh.
‘Oh, I won’t proceed to such extreme measures as that!
’ he said. ‘If there were a horse-pond at hand –! But there isn’t, and at least you’ve made me a speech without any high-flown bombast attached to it.
But unless you have a fancy for eating your dinner with your plate on the mantelpiece for the next few days don’t make me any more such speeches! ’
Oswald gave a gasp of outrage. ‘Only dismount, and we’ll try that!’ he begged.
‘My deluded youth, that is being more childish valourous than manly wise: I’m sure you’re full of pluck, and equally sure that it would be bellows to mend with you in rather less than two minutes.
I’m not a novice, you see. No, keep your mouth shut!
It is now my turn to make a speech! It will be quite short, and, I trust, quite plain!
I’ve borne with you because I haven’t forgotten the agonies of first love, or what a fool I made of myself at your age; and also because I perfectly understand your desire to murder me.
But when you have the infernal impudence to tell me I can stop trying to seduce Miss Lanyon you’ve gone very far beyond the line of what I’ll take from you!
Only her brother has the right to question my intentions.
If he chooses to do it I’ll answer him, but the only answer I have for you is contained in the toe of my boot! ’
‘Her brother isn’t here!’ Oswald retorted swiftly. ‘If he were it would be a different matter!’
‘What the devil – Oh, you’re talking of her elder brother, are you? I wasn’t.’
‘Aubrey?’ exclaimed Oswald incredulously. ‘That scrubby little ape? Much good he could do – even if he tried! What does he know about anything but his fusty classics? If he thought about it at all he wouldn’t have the least notion what sort of a game you’re playing!’
Damerel gathered up his bridle, saying dryly: ‘Don’t despise him on that head! Neither have you the least notion.’
‘I know you don’t mean marriage!’ Oswald retorted.
Damerel looked at him for a moment, an oddly disquieting smile in his eyes. ‘Do you?’ he said.
‘Yes, by God I do!’ As Crusader moved forward, Oswald wrenched his own horse round, staring after Damerel in sudden dismay. He stammered: ‘Marriage? You and Venetia? She wouldn’t – she couldn’t!’
There was undisguised revulsion in his voice, but the only response it drew from Damerel was a laugh, as he turned Crusader in through the gateway of the Priory, and cantered away down the long weed-grown avenue.
Oswald could hardly have been more shocked had Damerel openly declared the most dishonourable of intentions.
He was left a prey to doubt and disbelief, and with no other course open to him than to ride tamely home to Ebbersley.
It was a long, dull ride, and with only the most humiliating reflections to occupy his mind he very soon became so sunk in gloom that not even the knowledge that his last words at least had flicked Damerel on the raw would have done much to elevate his spirits.
Marston, gathering up Damerel’s discarded coat and breeches, looked thoughtfully at him, but offered no comment, either then or much later, when he found Imber, an expression of long-suffering on his face, decanting a bottle of brandy.
‘On the cut!’ said Imber. ‘I thought it wouldn’t be long before he was making indentures. He’s finished the Diabolino, what’s more, so if he doesn’t relish what was always good enough for his late lordship it’s no manner of use for him to blame me. I told him a se’ennight past how it was.’
‘I’ll take it to him,’ Marston said.