CHAPTER XXV
MR Hargan and Timothy left Duke Street before dawn.
Taking one look around him, Timothy heaved a poetic sigh.
There seemed to him, in that moment, something both beautiful and sad about the fact that his family, streets away, lay still peacefully sleeping, none the wiser as to the fact that they might be about to lose their dear Timothy forever.
‘To the heath!’ he announced with all the grandeur he felt the moment deserved.
‘Hush,’ Mr Hargan warned him. ‘Someone might hear.’
‘Oh, pish posh,’ Timothy dismissed – but Hargan had a point. While the hour was early enough that few in the fashionable West End were yet awake, they were not entirely alone. For, across the street, toddling off home from a night spent supping with friends, was Major Morgan.
The Major was, admittedly, rather the worse for wear still, but not so bosky that he could not recognise Mr Timothy Allerton when he saw him.
What’s more, he thought with vague interest, he knew Mr Hargan, too – and the third man, climbing into the carriage with them, was strangely familiar.
It took Morgan one further street to make the connection in his mind: the fellow was a surgeon, he realised triumphantly!
One who had had occasion to reinsert a dislocated shoulder of his after a bad fall from his horse on the South Downs – and by God, that had been a good day …
He spent the length of another street in happy reminiscence before the strangeness of young Allerton going to the heath was borne upon him – he had said ‘To the heath’, had he not? – with a doctor in tow, and a gun box in hand …
Frowning, Morgan drew to a halt, and then made an about-turn.
His head might be woolly, but his gut was decisive – this, he felt, was something he ought to lay at Allerton’s door.
Fortunately, he knew exactly where that gentleman was, for he had numbered one of the fellows at the dinner party – though, instead of heading home for bed, he had declared his intention of continuing the evening at an establishment which was, fortunately, not far from here.
‘There you are, old thing!’ he said, relieved to be able to unburden himself so swiftly.
Arthur’s mind, though slower than usual, quickly grasped the salient facts: Timothy – early hours of the morning – surgeon – Hampstead Heath.
Then, once he had put them together, he rejected the idea summarily.
It was ridiculous. Timothy was certainly not the duelling sort.
Anyway, if he was in a situation as grave as that, Arthur would certainly already know about it – Timothy would, naturally, have taken him into his confidence as the first port of call.
There was enough in what Morgan said, however, for Arthur to leave the tavern and make his way over to Duke Street, to see if Timothy’s valet knew the reason for his excursion – if he had even left, for Morgan was certainly bosky enough to have concocted the whole fiction.
His valet did not know, but he had, however, been left a billet bearing Arthur’s name upon it.
Timothy had never been the best letter writer.
His account of the events which would lead to his own demise were confused to say the least – but had the effect of sobering Arthur up as quickly as a douse of cold water.
He consulted his pocket watch. He did not have much time.
His groom was – thankfully – already awake, and though much shocked to find his master appearing at the stables himself, rather than sending a servant to fetch him, he recovered quickly. Side by side, they tacked up his fastest horse and Arthur was soon upon his way.
Riding with more haste than care, it did not take him above half an hour to reach the edges of the heath, where he paused – not knowing which direction he ought to search first – and damned the mist, which would make the task of locating his brother and the others so much more difficult.
After a moment of deliberation, he drove his horse upward, with the logic that he might more easily spot them from a high point, all the while scanning left and right, until he saw a carriage – at last!
Surely that must be connected to the party.
‘Sir!’ he called to the driver as he rode up. ‘Where are they?’
The driver viewed him with some suspicion. ‘To whom do you refer, milord?’
‘The young gentlemen who employed you – where are they?’
‘I’ve been paid handsomely for my discretion,’ the driver insisted stoutly. Then, under the weight of Arthur’s stare, he jerked his head left towards a thicket of trees. ‘A hundred yards that way.’
Arthur wheeled his horse about and made off in that direction at once, weaving through the woods as fast as his horse could carry him.
He came upon them in the next moment. There was a sudden clearing in the trees, and there they were: the paces had been measured, the principals had taken up their positions and Timothy and Corky stared at each other from the edges of the clearing.
It said a great deal for the preoccupation of the group that they did not immediately perceive Arthur, who pulled his horse to a skidding stop only a few feet behind Timothy – whose eyes did not flicker from Mr Hargan’s handkerchief, held briefly aloft in the air.
Arthur threw himself off his horse and propelled himself forward as Mr Hargan’s handkerchief dropped, and Timothy and Corky raised their arms. Arthur was too late, he knew that, even as he collided with Timothy, slamming his body to the ground and his arm to the side.
Timothy’s finger was already tightening on the trigger, and Arthur braced for the searing crack of gunfire – but it never came. Not a sound. Not even a flash. Nothing.
Mr Hargan let out a shout of surprise: so, too, did Corky and Mr Whitfield.
Beneath Arthur, Timothy made no noise. Arthur scrambled to roll him over, an act he had performed dozens of times before, for his dragoons – in bloodier and more horrifying conditions, but this was worse.
His heart was slamming against his ribs as he braced himself for what he would find.
‘I say,’ Timothy wheezed. ‘You’ve clean knocked the stuffing from me.’
The tension left Arthur’s body before his mind even understood the words.
‘Are you hit?’ he demanded urgently. ‘Timothy! Are you hit?’
Timothy raised his head to peer down at himself. ‘I don’t think so. Hard to tell, y’know.’
Arthur helped him gingerly to his feet, and Timothy gave a tentative shake of each of his limbs, as if even now a bullet might be hiding in one of them.
‘Corky deloped!’ Mr Whitfield called.
‘I was going to delope too!’ Timothy complained. ‘Didn’t get the chance before—’ Reminded anew of Arthur’s presence, he glared at him. ‘What are you doing here? Who told you?’ He shared his glare amongst his companions. ‘Who told him?’
‘They didn’t tell me, you buffoon.’ Arthur’s relief was giving way to anger.
‘You announced your intention to the whole street this morning, and Major Morgan heard you – I didn’t at first think you capable of such idiocy, but then I found your note.
’ He gripped Timothy by the shoulder and gave him a shake.
‘What on earth were you thinking, going through with such a thing?’
Timothy pushed Arthur away. ‘As a man of honour, I could hardly—’
‘This is nothing to do with honour,’ Arthur snapped. ‘This is boyish silliness – your nonsense rivalry gone too far!’
‘It was not nonsense! It was betrayal!’ Timothy declared. He looked to his friends for support.
‘Well, I thought it was about lemonade,’ Mr Whitfield confessed.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I own,’ Corky admitted, ‘I don’t fully understand what happened myself.’
Ire rekindled in Timothy’s breast. ‘Don’t you?’ he said. ‘I saw it as bright as day – those damned sweet williams upon Mademoiselle de Nicolet’s gown! When we made a solemn vow to renounce her, you saw your opportunity to undercut me – do you deny it?’
Corky was indignant. ‘By Jupiter, I did not give them to her!’
‘Then how, pray,’ Timothy said very haughtily, ‘did she get them?’
Mr Hargan gave a little cough. ‘Ah – well. My apologies – I thought, since Corky wasn’t going to use them …
’ Timothy and Corky turned to regard him with building outrage.
‘They were my flowers in the first place!’ Unable to prevent a smile from coming to his lips, he murmured to himself: ‘I still cannot believe she wore them.’
‘Good God, man, why did you not say anything?’ Timothy demanded.
‘You told me the whole thing was over lemonade – how was I to know it was about flowers?’
‘Just as silly, if you ask me,’ Mr Whitfield muttered.
Mr Hargan’s defence was not considered, by either Timothy or Corky, as adequate: their upbraiding of his character was fulsome, colourful and rather bonding – never had they found themselves in such agreement.
‘Good God.’ Arthur pressed his hands to his face. ‘This is too absurd. To think you might have been killed over such idiocy.’
‘Never meant to kill him,’ Corky assured Arthur. ‘Always meant to delope.’
‘You didn’t even pull the trigger,’ Timothy berated him. ‘What the devil do you mean by it, Corky? Not the thing, y’know.’
‘I did pull the trigger,’ Corky insisted. ‘Nothing happened.’
‘Yours did not go off, either,’ Arthur said.
Realising the truth of this, Timothy turned once more to Mr Hargan. ‘You should have inspected the weapons! Awfully shoddy behaviour, you know.’
‘Not the thing,’ Corky agreed. ‘When one considers how simple the job is!’
‘Oh, I like that!’ Mr Hargan, slow to temper usually, fired up. ‘Well, next time, you can do it!’
‘There will be no next time.’ Arthur looked them each square in the eye.
‘There will be no duelling, ever again. Next time you fall out with each other, have it out at Jackson’s by all means – but if I discover you have ever done anything such as this again, I will shoot you all myself. Am I understood?’