The trellised lane, p.11
The Trellised Lane, page 11
Chapter X
Thursday was fine and mild, which, as Miss Piffin said, was a godsend, for a rainy morning would have doomed the party to certain ruin. Mr. Hale would be able to contrive as the only servant at a picnic, but at a house party even he would have been sure to fail. The guests were due to arrive at two, and indeed the Hursts entered quite punctually upon the appointed hour. Julia was showing Mrs. Hurst about the cottage (which the latter declared excessively charming) as Fitzgerald endeavoured valiantly to engage the attention of the captain, when the Norcrosses arrived, accompanied by Monsieur d’Arbois.
Unfortunately, another arrival took place simultaneously with theirs; The virginal had come. The men who delivered it were in no humour for courtesy; in fact, they feigned not to see the assembling company at all. They simply took the virginal up in their hands and attempted to shove it and themselves through the doorway rather as one might use an heavy beam to knock down a locked portal. In this case, the portal was Mrs. Norcross, who had got in their way quite unawares, with the result that all six—Norcrosses, d’Arbois, workmen, and virginal—got firmly wedged into a single knot of confusion. The situation was not at all aided by Fitzgerald’s repeated facetious comments that the instrument could not belong to this house, that the workmen must have come upon the wrong address, for he knew his sister was too kind to inflict upon him yet another keyboard. Julia, between her fury at the delivery men and her embarrassment with regard to her guests, was able to say almost nothing at all.
In the end, Captain Hurst, habituated to giving orders, took command and steered the guests and the instrument clear of one another. Mrs. Norcross thought the whole scene very amusing, while Monsieur d’Arbois seemed rather annoyed at having to make such a ridiculous entrance. It was only Benjamin who realized how pained Julia must have felt at the unfortunate occurrence, and only he who sought to help her by turning the conversation as soon as all were safely indoors. This was no easy thing, as Mrs. Norcross had launched into a monologue, in her usual style, the gist of which seemed to be that this was exactly the sort of adventure that was almost certain to befall any one who set foot in the country.
At last, however, the mishap was forgotten. Miss Tarvinton arrived, accompanied by her maid; Mr. Compton entered in high spirits; Mr. Hale announced to his mistress in a discreet undertone that the refreshments were prepared and ready to go. Julia ascertained once more that the whole party was assembled, and they set off down towards the heath, Mrs. Norcross remarking all the while on the rusticity of the streets and the wild aspect of the grounds.
They settled on a spot not far from where some enterprising soul had established a business of taking town ladies for rides on donkeys and in donkey carts. It was quite amusing for the company to witness the spectacle of city-bred females taking the air in this irregular fashion, and a few of the women present formed the resolution of taking a ride themselves after their repast. Mr. Hale spread the picnic cloth and piled it high with edibles with the utmost skill and despatch, and the guests had soon dispersed themselves comfortably round it. The only person not quite satisfied with this circumstance was Miss Piffin, who perceived that her lovely name-cards were to go quite to waste.
Julia was obliged to spend rather a lot of time entertaining Mr. Compton, for Fitzgerald devoted himself exclusively to Miss Tarvinton. Monsieur d’Arbois, however, sat on Stacey’s other side, and was kind enough to take pains to converse with him. Julia was very grateful, for it gave her opportunity to attend to her other guests; Piffin hovered anxiously over Fitzgerald and his lady, Mr. Norcross and Emma were engaged in a quiet discussion, while Mrs. Norcross and Captain Hurst, surely the most unlikely pair in the company, pursued a most ridiculous colloquy. Julia could not help eavesdropping.
“But, my dear Captain,” Mrs. Norcross was saying, “surely you do not enjoy the country?”
“Madam, I do.”
“Impossible! Why no one actually enjoys the country; that is why we have cities, and towns, and streets, and houses. Now, I will admit that some people are obliged to live in the country—invalids and so forth—and there are some very fine homes outside of London, but my dear sir! The habits those people keep! The hours—the pastimes—the tedium! Captain Hurst, I am persuaded you can not have thought on the subject. Country life is positively melancholy!”
“It grieves me, Mrs. Norcross, but I must take exception to your strictures; I find the country extremely invigorating. There is nothing so healthy, I assure you, as to live in the open.”
“But civilisation, my dear sir, what of civilisation? My goodness, that is a long word for me,” she added, giggling a little. “My dear husband used often to point out to me, there is hardly a pleasure we enjoy that does not require the work of men. Imagine a life without plays, or opera, or concerts, or paintings, or balls, or parties, or fine houses, or even chairs!”
“There are chairs in the country,” observed Mr. Hurst with displeasure. At this point Julia was obliged to discontinue listening to them, for Mr. Compton was addressing her.
The picnic itself was a vast success; all agreed that the victuals provided by Gunther’s were sublime, Mr. Hale did an excellent job of serving the guests, and the day warmed so quickly that it soon, as all declared, felt like summer. Julia’s one regret was that Mr. Norcross was seated quite a distance from her; she invented an hundred little stratagems that would have brought them closer, but it was all to no avail. Monsieur d’Arbois seemed intent on staying close beside her, and the gentlemen’s disesteem of one another precluded Mr. Norcross’s company while the Frenchman stopped nearby.
Mrs. Hurst, however, remained next to Mr. Norcross for the greater part of the afternoon, so that she had ample opportunity of observing him. He kept, she noted, a very close eye on Julia, and seemed quite interested in d’Arbois as well. Mrs. Hurst began to understand what had been distracting Julia at their last meeting, and she thought she might as well praise Julia a little to her neighbour.
“She is very pretty, is she not?” she began, in a quiet tone.
Mr. Norcross turned to her. “Who?”
Mrs. Hurst knew well that Benjamin had been gazing at the lady in question for a good five minutes, but she did not like to quiz him. “Julia,” she answered simply.
“Yes, Lady Julia is indeed pretty. Though I think one must say that Miss Tarvinton is by far more striking.”
“Perhaps,” replied Emma, beginning to wonder if she may have been wrong, after all. “They are both lovely, and doubtless both very sweet. Still, I think one may say that Julia has an elegance that Miss Tarvinton lacks.” She paused, waiting hopefully for an endorsement. It did not come.
“It is so difficult to compare people, is not it? People are not easily divisible into different qualities, I think; two women who are both charming, both intelligent, both kind, may yet be very different from each other indeed.”
“Indeed,” said Emma, marvelling at this unlover-like speech.
“There is something indefinable about a person, any person, that makes him what he is. It is not enough to say a man is generous, or is a leader; we still know nothing of what makes him so. Why is he generous? There are so many motives, and it is motivation that makes a man, is it not?”
“Indeed, you may be right,” Emma answered, realising with an inward grimace that Mr. Norcross had turned the conversation completely, so that she had no chance at all of returning to her original theme. She resigned herself to philosophy.
In the meantime, Julia, Miss Tarvinton, and Mrs. Norcross had gone off with Monsieur d’Arbois to essay the donkey carts. Fitzgerald at last found a moment for his friend Stacey; still, he could not remove the bewitching Lydia from his mind, and he insisted on discussing her.
“She is exquisite, isn’t she?” he said, sighing.
“A real beauty,” agreed Mr. Compton, Esq. Then, as Fitzgerald did not answer, he continued, “By the way, whatever became of you the other night? Your curricle disappeared rather mysteriously—it was you that took it, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, I took it. I—ah, I left the—ah, the house a bit earlier than you, and I didn’t want to wait. I knew you’d understand, my dear fellow.”
“Earlier? I thought you’d stopped there all evening, for I know the curricle was still at my place late that night.”
“Yes, well,” said Fitzgerald, trying to smile knowingly. “Well.”
“Well, well indeed,” responded Stacey. “Anyway, it’s too bad Miss Lydia isn’t a lightskirt, don’t you think? Lovely girl like that?”
“I beg your pardon?” mumbled Fitzgerald inaudibly.
“Indeed. Too bad your sister isn’t a lightskirt, too, old man,” Mr. Compton continued, glancing over to where Julia, with the other ladies, was climbing into a cart.
“I beg your pardon?” Fitzgerald repeated, looking at him very hard.
“I say, it’s too bad your sister—I mean, because she’s so damnably pretty—I mean it as a compliment,” he added, with a touch of alarm at the extraordinary expression on his friend’s face.
“Take it back,” said Fitzgerald breathlessly.
“Take what back? I will not; I only meant it to be nice.”
“It was not nice,” said Fitzgerald, in the same tense accents. “Take it back.”
“I will not, old fellow. I’m sorry if you insist on misunderstanding me, but you know, your sister is a woman, too, like any other, and—”
“Say no more,” said Fitzgerald, with unconscious drama. “This is an affront, a gross affront. You will hear from me in the morning.”
“Hear from you…? My dear fellow, do you mean a duel? You can’t!”
“I do,” said Fitzgerald, rising to his full height. “Find yourself a second. I think you had better leave now,” he added as Stacey continued to sit, stunned, on the picnic cloth.
“Fitzgerald, this is a terrible mistake—” he began.
“Go on!”
Stacey scrambled to his feet. He bowed briefly to Mrs. Hurst, and to Miss Piffin who, having heard the latter half of these proceedings, was in the act of fainting, and took himself off.
“I saw it all, young man,” said Captain Hurst, coming up to Fitzgerald as his wife attended to Miss Piffin. “You did right.”
“Did I?” asked Fitzgerald, in a hollow tone.
“Very right; I like you, sir.”
“You don’t think…I was a trifle hasty? Perhaps I should reconsider—”
“Can’t do that, my dear boy,” said Captain Hurst, thumping him heartily on the back. “Can’t cry off. What’s wrong? Never duelled before? Never mind, I can give you some pointers.”
“Thank you, sir,” replied Fitzgerald faintly, for he had severe doubts about what he had done.
“Nothing at all. And if you need a second, my good fellow—” he began, leaving the rest of the sentence unspoken and going off to aid Emma in reviving Miss Piffin.
“Better think about it a little longer,” Mr. Norcross advised Fitzgerald, who was still standing in the same attitude he had taken when he sent Stacey on his way. “Pay no mind to what the captain says; he’s a military man, and a high stickler. There are other ways out of a duel than fighting it; I think Mr. Compton may be willing to accept a reconciliation.”
“Thank you.”
“Not at all. I would offer to second you myself, you know, but—well frankly, my rank is nothing like yours. It would not do, you know.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Fitzgerald, whose capacity for understanding what was said to him was quite limited at the moment.
“I say, I would offer to second you, but my rank is not close enough to yours. Your second, you know, must have some thing of the same standing in society as you do yourself; otherwise he is not a fair second.”
Fitzgerald shook his head dumbly.
“I mean, you could ask Mr. Hale to second you—with all deference to Mr. Hale, who I am sure is a very good butler—but if it ever came to the point where he had to stand in for you, Mr. Compton would not have satisfaction. I haven’t even an esquire to my name,” he reminded him, “whereas you are a peer. But it doesn’t signify,” he continued, with an effort at cheeriness, “for it needn’t come to that. Think about it, won’t you?”
“Yes. Thank you,” Fitzgerald repeated. “I will.”
When the ladies returned they were, of course, astonished to hear what had happened. There was no question of keeping the affair a secret from those who had been absent, for Miss Piffin had revived and insisted on explaining to everyone what had caused her to swoon. Miss Tarvinton thought Fitzgerald had been very brave indeed, but Julia was appalled. Her immediate impulse was to write home directly, that her father might forbid the duel to take place, but Fitzgerald would hear none of it. Under the amiable influence of Miss Tarvinton’s admiration he had recovered a great deal of his spirit; he was soon cocksure enough to offer to fight an hundred duels in defence of his ladies’ honour. This did nothing at all to compose Julia, however, and the picnic was speedily put to an end amid apologies, condolences, and felicitations.
The one thought in Fitzgerald’s mind when he awoke the next morning was, “How did it happen?” Separated from the excitement of the offence and the challenge by a good night’s sleep, he was hard put to answer his own question. The most frustrating circumstance of all was that the how of the affair could make no difference; the what next was all, and for that a visit to Captain Hurst seemed the most likely solution. Fitzgerald could not bring himself, however, to call on the captain. As a military man, he would surely be well versed in these matters, but he had struck Fitzgerald yesterday as being just a little bit bloodthirsty. A brief meditation of the matter, and a short colloquy with his sister, brought Fitzgerald to the conviction that Monsieur d’Arbois would be a better man to try. He, too, had military training, but he had not seemed so pleased as Captain Hurst at the prospect of a duel. Fitzgerald drove to his lodgings.
D’Arbois answered the door himself, a circumstance that struck Fitzgerald as very odd in a man who affected (at least) to be tonish. Neither were his lodgings much to speak of; they were located in a rather narrow and distinctly unfashionable street, and were quite cramped. D’Arbois, however, seemed pleased to see his guest, and gave him a cup of coffee and a comfortable chair. It did occur to Fitzgerald that d’Arbois’s family might have lost all their money during the revolution; still, he thought he remembered d’Arbois to have mentioned that they were reestablished. These reflexions did not hold his attention long, anyway; his host was eyeing him questioningly, and it was time to plunge in.
“Monsieur,” he began, after drawing a long breath, “1 do not know how one customarily begs a favour of this magnitude; I am grieved to be forced to do it, and I hope that you will feel free to refuse me if you do not like my asking.”
“I wish you will call me Guy, please. What is this great favour?”
“Well, Guy then, I need—I need a second. Would you do me the honour of seconding me? I only ask because there is no one—”
“Pray do not apologise,” the Frenchman interrupted. “It is an honour to be requested. I was anyway hoping you would come to me.”
Fitzgerald released a large sigh. “Thank you, Guy. You must call me Fitz, of course, by the way. Have you any idea how to proceed?”
D’Arbois took a sip of his coffee and leaned over the table a little. “The offence was received yesterday, so the challenge must be delivered to-day. For that we must compose a cartel—you understand?”
“I—I know the term, of course, but what exactly must we say?”
“Several things,” replied the older man. “More coffee? Pray, serve yourself. You must be calm,” he added, as Fitzgerald poured the coffee into his saucer, among other places. “There is absolutely no reason to fret—unless, of course, you can not fight?”
“I think I could do well enough with pistols; do you think we shall have pistols?”
D’Arbois frowned a little. “In France, it would be your right to insist on pistols; in England, however, the choice of weapon belongs to the challenged. The only way to circumvent this, if Mr. Compton chuses swords, is to give your honour that you are no swordsman. But that, my dear fellow, might make you look a little…I don’t know how to say it; a little…”
“A little like a widgeon,” supplied Fitzgerald.
“Yes, I suppose so. But we needn’t worry now; Mr. Compton is a hunter, is it not? In all likeliness, he will chuse pistols, too.”
“In all likeliness,” repeated Fitzgerald, without thinking.
“So. The cartel must include the cause of the challenge. You must explain why you consider it necessary to notice the offence—”
“Which I wonder about myself,” put in Fitzgerald.
“Lady Julia is your sister,” d’Arbois reminded him; “that is reason enough. Also you must name your friend—that is me—and request the appointing of a time and place. I will settle the latter with his second.”
“That will probably be Whipstan. You won’t like him,” cautioned Fitzgerald.
“I am not meant to like him,” d’Arbois pointed out.
“You know, Guy, I shouldn’t like to hurt Stacey at all; do you think I might dumb-fire?”
“It would be extremely dishonourable,” he said. Then, observing Fitzgerald’s discomposure, he added, “I will make every attempt to obtain a reconciliation; since you and Mr. Compton are friends, I have every hope he will offer an apology. Besides, injury should not be your chief preoccupation, it is much more dangerous to be discovered by the government—by a Bow Street runner, for example. In that case—”
