The Quiet Gentleman

‘There’s your proof!’ the Viscount said, pointing to the cord.

‘My dear Lucy, proof that someone tried to play a malicious trick on me, but not proof that my death was intended.’

‘Stuff!’ the Viscount said explosively. ‘How can you stand there talking such crack-brained nonsense to me, Ger?’

‘Well, I am not dead, am I?’ said Gervase. ‘I am not even hurt, and that I was stunned for a moment or two might be thought a mischance. If I had not fallen with my head upon the carriage-drive, that would not have occurred.’

‘What the devil are you trying to make me believe now?’ demanded Ulverston, staring at him. ‘Do you take this to have been a schoolboy prank? There is no schoolboy in the case!’

‘Oh, don’t you think so? I find Martin not a step removed from that state. I own, I do not perfectly understand him, but it is sufficiently plain to me that he thinks I should be the better for a sharp set-down. You heard what passed at the table this morning: “St Erth is perfection itself!” was what he said before he flung himself out of the room. Well! it would certainly have afforded him satisfaction had I, the day you came here, suffered a ducking in a muddy stream. I did not do so, so perhaps I had instead to be made to tumble off my horse – such a nonpareil among horsemen am I said to be! By the way, I wonder who did say so?’

‘It don’t matter who said it, or if no one said it!’ replied the Viscount, quite exasperated. ‘This is all a damned hum! Your precious brother ain’t such a boy that he didn’t know the thing might have had fatal consequences!’

‘If he had paused to consider the matter at all,’ agreed St Erth. ‘It is quite a question, you know, whether he does pause to consider what may be the outcome of his more headlong actions. Come in!’

A knock had sounded on the door, and this opened to admit Theo. Gervase instantly said: ‘Oh, the devil! No. Go away, Theo! Lucy has said it all for you!’

Theo shut the door, and advanced into the room. ‘No use, Gervase! I am determined to know what happened to you this afternoon. Ulverston has already said enough to make me uneasy – and I beg that you won’t insult my intelligence with any more tales of stumbling into rabbit-holes, for they won’t fadge!’

‘All you’ll get from Ger is a bag of moonshine!’ said the Viscount roundly. ‘The plain truth is that his horse was brought down by a cord stretched across his path – and there is the cord, if you doubt me!’

‘Oh, my God!’ Theo said. ‘Martin?’

His cousin shrugged. He walked over to the fire, and stood staring down into it, his face hard to read.

‘What I’m saying is that it’s time Ger was rid of that lad!’ announced the Viscount.

‘Theo will not agree with you,’ interposed Gervase. ‘We have spoken of this before today.’

‘This had not happened then!’ Theo said, slightly raising his head.

‘Are you of another mind now?’ Gervase asked, watching him.

Theo stood frowning. ‘No,’ he said, at last. ‘No, I am not of another mind. If Martin did indeed do this – but do you know that? – I am of the opinion that it was done in one of his fits of blind, unreasoning rage. His quarrel with you last night, his sister’s teasing today – oh, I know Martin! He was as mad as a baited bear today, and in that mood he would not pause to consider the consequences of whatever foolish revenge he chose to take on you!’

‘This,’ said the Viscount, not mincing matters, ‘is all fudge!’

‘You don’t know Martin as I do. But if he had a more dreadful purpose in mind – then I say keep him here, under your eye!’

The Viscount rubbed the tip of his nose reflectively. ‘Something to be said for that, Ger,’ he admitted.

‘I have no intention, at present, of driving him away from Stanyon,’ Gervase said.

‘Do you mean to charge him with today’s misadventure?’ Theo asked.

‘No, and I beg you will not either!’

‘Very well. I certainly did no good by anything I said to him about his conduct over the bridge,’ Theo said, with a wry grimace. ‘I wish I may not have goaded him into this. I begin to be sorry that I urged you to remain at Stanyon, Gervase. It might have been better, perhaps, to have given Martin time to have grown used to the thought that it is you who are master here now.’

‘He had a year in which to grow used to that thought,’ replied Gervase dryly. ‘Are you now advising me to retire to London? You are too late: I do not choose to be driven out of Stanyon.’

‘No, I would not advise that course. Matters must come to a head between you and Martin – but what that head will be, and whether you will be able to settle it without injury, and without scandal, I know not.’

‘Nor I, but I shall do my possible. Both injury and scandal I should dislike quite as much as you, Theo, I assure you. Meanwhile, there is no more to be said. It must be time for dinner: let us go and join her ladyship!’

They found the rest of the party already assembled in the Long Drawing-room. Martin was standing a little apart from the group near the fire, fidgeting with a pair of snuffers. He looked round when he heard the door open, and coloured a little. He had not encountered his brother since his outbreak of temper at the nuncheon-table, which might have accounted for the slight constraint with which he said: ‘Hallo, St Erth! They tell me you have taken a toss. How came that about?’

‘Mere carelessness. Cloud set his near-fore in a rabbit-hole.’