‘If he hadn’t told a waiter—a waiter!—to show me out—!’
‘Ought to have called for the porter,’ agreed Sir Francis. He then perceived that this amiable response had failed to please his fiery young friend, and begged pardon. A powerful thought assailed him. He turned his eyes towards Mr Wadworth, and said suddenly: ‘You know what, Bernie? He shouldn’t have accepted Charlie’s challenge. Must know he ain’t been on the town above six months!’
‘The point is he did accept it,’ said Mr Wadworth. ‘But it ain’t too late. Charlie dashed well ought to apologize.’
‘I will not!’ said Lord Saltwood tensely.
‘You were in the wrong,’ insisted Mr Wadworth.
‘I know it, and I mean to fire in the air. That will show that I acknowledge my fault, but was not afraid to meet Rotherfield!’
This noble utterance caused Sir Francis to drop with a clatter the cane whose amber knob he had been meditatively sucking, and Mr Wadworth to stare at his principal as though he feared for his reason. ‘Delope?’ he gasped. ‘Against Rotherfield? You must be queer in your attic! Why, man, you’d be cold meat! Now, you listen to me, Charlie! If you won’t beg the fellow’s pardon, you’ll come up the instant you see the handkerchief drop, and shoot to kill, or I’m dashed if I’ll have anything more to do with it!’
‘Awkward business, if he killed him,’ objected Sir Francis. ‘Might have to leave the country.’
‘He won’t kill him,’ said Mr Wadworth shortly.
He said no more, but it was plain to Saltwood that his seconds thought poorly of his chances of being able to hit his opponent at a range of twenty-five yards. He was by no means a contemptible shot, but he suspected that it might be easier to hit a small wafer at Manton’s Galleries than a large man at Paddington Green.
Mr Wadworth called for him in a tilbury very early in the morning. He did not find it necessary to throw stones up at his lordship’s window, for his lordship had not slept well, and was already dressed. He stole downstairs, and let himself out of the house, bidding Mr Wadworth good morning with very creditable composure. Mr Wadworth nodded, and cast a knowledgeable eye over him. ‘No bright buttons on your coat?’ he asked.
The question did nothing to allay the slightly sick feeling at the pit of Saltwood’s stomach. Mr Wadworth followed it up with a reminder to him to turn up his collar, and to be careful to present the narrowest possible target to his adversary. Lord Saltwood, climbing into the tilbury, answered with spurious cheerfulness: ‘I must suppose it can make little difference to such a shot as they say Rotherfield is.’
‘Oh, well—! No sense in taking needless risks,’ said Mr Wadworth awkwardly.
After that, conversation became desultory. They were the first to arrive on the ground, but they were soon joined by Sir Francis, and a man in a sober-hued coat, who chatted about the weather. Saltwood realized that this insensate person must be the doctor, gritted his teeth, and hoped that Rotherfield would not be late. It seemed to him that he had strayed into nightmare. He felt cold, sick, and ashamed; and it said much for the underlying steel in his spoilt and wayward nature that it did not enter his head that he might even now escape from a terrifying encounter by apologizing to Rotherfield for conduct which he knew to have been disgraceful.
Rotherfield arrived even as the church clocks were striking the hour. He was driving himself in his sporting curricle, one of his friends seated beside him, the other following him in a high-perch phaeton. He appeared to be quite nonchalant, and it was obvious that he had dressed with all his usual care. The points of his shirt stood up stiffly above an intricate neckcloth; his dark locks were arranged with casual nicety; there was not a speck upon the gleaming black leather of his Hessian boots. He sprang down from the curricle and cast his drab driving-coat into it. The seconds met, and conferred, and presently led their principals to their positions, and gave into their hands the long-barrelled duelling-pistols, primed and cocked. Across what seemed to be an immeasurable stretch of turf, Saltwood stared at Rotherfield. That cold, handsome face might have been carved in stone; it looked merciless, faintly mocking.
The doctor turned his back; Saltwood drew in his breath, and grasped his pistol firmly. One of Rotherfield’s seconds was holding the handkerchief high in the air. It fell, and Saltwood jerked up his arm and fired.
He had been so sure that Rotherfield would hit him that it seemed to him that he must have been hit. He recalled having been told that the bullet had a numbing effect, and cast an instinctive glance down his person. But there did not seem to be any blood, and he was certainly still standing on his feet. Then he heard someone ejaculate: ‘Good God! Rotherfield!’ and, looking in bewilderment across the grass, he saw that Mr Mayfield was beside Rotherfield, an arm flung round him, and that the doctor was hurrying towards them. Then Mr Wadworth removed his own pistol from his hand, and said in a stupefied voice: ‘He missed!’
Young Lord Saltwood, realizing that he had hit the finest pistol-shot in town and was himself untouched, was for a moment in danger of collapsing in a swoon. Recovering, he pushed Mr Wadworth away, and strode impetuously up to the group gathered round Rotherfield. He reached it in time to hear that detested voice say: ‘The cub shoots better than I bargained for! Oh, go to the devil, Ned! It’s nothing—a graze!’
‘My lord!’ uttered Saltwood. ‘I wish to offer you my apology for—’
‘Not now, not now!’ interrupted the doctor testily.
Saltwood found himself waved aside. He tried once more to present Rotherfield with an apology, and was then led firmly away by his seconds.
3
‘Most extraordinary thing I ever saw!’ Mr Wadworth told Dorothea, when dragged by her into the small saloon, and bidden disclose the whole to her. ‘Mind, now! Not a word to Charlie! Rotherfield missed!’
Her eyes widened. ‘Fired in the air?’
‘No, no! Couldn’t expect him to do that! Dash it, Dolly, when a man does that he’s owning he was at fault! Don’t mind telling you I felt as sick as a horse. He was looking devilish grim. Queer smile on his face, too. I didn’t like it above half. I’ll swear he took careful aim. Fired a good second before Charlie did. Couldn’t have missed him by more than a hair’s breadth! Charlie got him in the shoulder: don’t think it’s serious. Thing is, shouldn’t be surprised if it’s done Charlie good. Tried to beg Rotherfield’s pardon on the ground, and he’s called once in Mount Street since then. Not admitted: butler said his lordship was not receiving visitors. Given Charlie a fright: he’ll be more the thing now. But don’t you breathe a word, Dolly!’
She assured him she would not mention the matter. An attempt to discover from him who, besides Lord Rotherfield, resided in Mount Street could not have been said to have advanced the object she had in mind. Mr Wadworth was able to recite the names of several persons living in that street; but when asked to identify a gentleman who apparently resembled a demi-god rather than an ordinary mortal, he said without hesitation that he had never beheld anyone remotely corresponding to Miss Saltwood’s description. He began then to show signs of suspicion, so Dorothea was obliged to abandon her enquiries and to cast round in her mind for some other means of discovering the name of her brother’s unknown preserver. None presented itself; nor, when she walked down Mount Street with her maid, was she able to recognize the house in which she had taken refuge. A wistful fancy that the unknown gentleman might perhaps write to tell her that he had kept his word was never very strong, and by the end of the week had vanished entirely. She could only hope that she would one day meet him, and be able to thank him for his kind offices. In the meantime, she found herself to be sadly out of spirits, and behaved with such listless propriety that even Augusta, who had frequently expressed the wish that something should occur to tame her sister’s wildness, asked her if she were feeling well. Lady Saltwood feared that she was going into a decline, and herself succumbed immediately to a severe nervous spasm.