‘You’d no sooner got clear of the place – and a pretty turmoil you left behind you, I can tell you – than in walks Avon with Hugh Davenant.’ Lord Rupert, apparently overcome by the recollection, mopped his brow with his fine lace handkerchief.
‘What, at five o’clock in the morning?’ demanded the Marquis.
‘It wasn’t as much as that, not but what I thought myself ’twas the wine got into my head when I clapped eyes on him. He’d been at Old White’s all night, d’ye see, playing pharaoh, and the devil put it into his head to call in at Timothy’s, to see what sort of a hell it was that his precious son had honoured with his patronage. “And I perceive,” said he, “that it is indeed something beyond the common.” Now I put it to you, Vidal, isn’t it Avon all over to walk in pat like that?’
The frown was lifting. A gleam shone in the Marquis’s eyes. ‘Of course it was inevitable. Tell me it all.’
‘Lord, I was so rattled, I don’t know what happened. There was young Comyn holding a napkin to the wound you’d blown through Quarles’s chest, and someone splashing water about, and Wraxall shouting for the porter to run for a surgeon, and the rest of us in the devil of a fluster, and all at once I saw Avon standing in the doorway with his glass held up to his eye, and Davenant gaping beside him. Well, you know how it is when your father is about. There was an end to the noise; everyone was watching Avon, save Comyn – I’d say that lad is a cool hand – who went on staunching the blood as calm as you please. If you ask me, Avon saw the whole at a glance, but he chose to look all round, mighty bland, and then down at Quarles. Then he says to Davenant: “I was informed, my dear Hugh, that Timothy’s was unlike other hells. And I perceive,” says he – but I told you that bit. Of course, if I’d had my wits about me, I’d have left by the window, but I don’t deny I had a deal of champagne in me. Well, your father turned his infernal quizzing-glass towards me. I was waiting for that. “I suppose,” says he, “I need not ask where is my son.”’ Lord Rupert shook his head wisely. ‘Y’know, he’s devilish acute, Vidal; you must grant him that.’
‘I do,’ said his lordship, with the ghost of a laugh. ‘Go on, what next? I wish I had seen all this.’
‘Do you, begad?’ said his uncle. ‘You might have had my place for the asking. Well, I said you’d gone. Young Comyn took it up in that finicky voice of his. ‘I apprehend, sir,’ says he, ‘that his lordship is by now upon the road to Newmarket.’ Avon turns his glass on him at that. ‘Indeed!’ says he, devilish polite. ‘I fear my son has untidy habits. This gentleman’ – and he points his quizzing-glass at Quarles – ‘this gentleman – I think unknown to me – is no doubt his latest victim?’ I can’t give you his tone, but you know how he says things like that, Vidal.’
‘None better. Oh, but I make him my compliments. He comes off with the honours. Did he make my apologies?’
‘Well, now you mention it, I believe he did,’ said Rupert. ‘But he divided the honours with that Comyn lad. We’d all lost our tongues. But Comyn says – which I thought handsome of him – “As to that, sir, the late affair was in a sort forced upon his lordship. I believe, sir, no man could swallow what was said, though I am bound to confess that neither of the principals was sober.” And I thought to myself, well, you must be damned sober, my lad, to get all that out without so much as a stammer.’
The Marquis’s face showed his interest. ‘Said that, did he? Mighty kind of him.’ He shrugged, half smiling. ‘Or mighty clever.’
Léonie, who had been gazing into the fire, raised her head at that. ‘Why was it clever?’
‘Madame, I spoke a thought aloud.’ He looked at the clock again. ‘I can’t stay longer. Tell my father I will wait on him in the morning. To-night I have an engagement I can’t break.’
‘Dominique, don’t you understand that if that man dies, you must not be in England?’ Léonie cried. ‘Monseigneur says that this time there will be trouble. It has happened too often.’
‘So I’m to make off like a scared mongrel, eh? I think not!’ He bent over her hand for a moment. ‘Pray do not show that anxious face to the world, maman; it accords very ill with our dignity.’
In another moment he was gone. Léonie looked dolefully at Lord Rupert. ‘Do you suppose it is that bourgeoise, Rupert?’
‘Devil a doubt!’ said his lordship glumly. ‘But I’ll tell you what, Léonie; if we can pack him off to France there’ll be an end to that affair.’
It was as well for his peace of mind that he did not follow his nephew that evening. The Marquis stayed only to change his mud-stained garments, and was off again within twenty minutes, bound for the Theatre Royal. The play was more than half over, and in one of the boxes Sophia Challoner displayed a pouting countenance. Eliza Matcham had been twitting her the whole evening on the non-appearance of her fine beau, and she was in no very good humour. Her sister, with Cousin Joshua assiduously at her elbow, said tranquilly that the Marquis could hardly be expected to come after the happenings of the night before.
For the tale of the duel had spread like wildfire, so that the backwash of the sea of rumour had already reached Miss Challoner’s ears. It had also reached those of Cousin Joshua, who was not slow to say what he thought of the profligate Marquis. Sophia told him sharply that it was presumption in him to judge one so far above him, and by the time he had thought out a suitable retort, she had turned her white shoulder, and was talking with great vivacity to Mr Matcham. Cousin Joshua addressed the rest of his homily to Miss Challoner, who listened in silence. Her gaze was so abstracted that he was beginning to suspect her of inattention. Then he observed a change in her expression. She stiffened, and her eyes grew intent and widened a little. Even Joshua could not suppose that this sudden interest was caused by his discourse, and he turned his head to see what had caught her eye.
‘Upon my soul!’ he said, puffing out his cheeks. ‘Shameless! If he has the effrontery to approach Sophia I shall know how to act.’
The Marquis of Vidal was standing in the pit, raking the boxes with his quizzing-glass.
A laugh trembled on Miss Challoner’s lips. Shameless? Of course he was shameless, but he was sublimely unconscious of it, unconscious too of the notice he was attracting from all who recognised him.
Mary looked at her cousin at last. ‘That is just as well, Joshua,’ she said, ‘for I think he is going to approach her now.’
Mr Simpkins saw the Marquis elbowing his way through the crowd in the pit, and tugged at Sophia’s sleeve. ‘Cousin!’ said he, ‘I cannot but consider myself responsible for you, and I forbid you to speak with that profligate.’
This had not quite the desired effect. Sophia’s pout turned to an expression of sparkling eagerness. ‘Oh, is he here? Where? I do not see him. I knew he would never fail me. How I shall scold him for being so late!’
The Marquis had disappeared from the floor of the house by this time, and in a few minutes his knock fell on the door of the box, and he entered.
Sophia greeted him with a smile that reproached and yet beckoned. ‘Why, is it you indeed, my lord? I vow I had given you up. La, we have been hearing such tales of you! I declare I am half afraid of you.’
‘Are you? Why?’ inquired his lordship, kissing her hand. ‘Do you think I would hurt anything half so pretty as you?’
‘Oh, lord, I don’t know what you might not do if I angered you,’ laughed Sophia.
‘Then don’t anger me,’ advised the Marquis. ‘Walk with me in the corridor instead. The curtain won’t go up for a few minutes yet.’
‘No, but do you know this is the fifth act? Positively, you have only come in time to hear the end of the play, and the farce.’