She gave him her hand, charged him to deliver her compliments to the Dowager, and Sir Thomas escorted him to the front-door, and stayed chatting to him on the steps, while his horse was brought round from the stables.
‘There is no need for you to be giving a ball unless you choose,’ he said bluntly. ‘Puss will have enough of them in another month, and I daresay her Mama don’t care for her to appear at any bang-up affair until after our own ball in Grosvenor Square. We’ll send you a card. But come and visit us in a friendly way when you choose! I like to see young people round me, enjoying themselves, and I remember my old Indian ways enough still to be glad to keep open house.’ He chuckled. ‘No fear of our being dull in the country! If there’s any young spark for twenty-five miles round us whom you won’t find at Whissenhurst, one day or another, I wish I may meet him! But what I say to Mama is, there’s safety in numbers, and I can tell you this, my lord, we ain’t anxious to see our girl married too young! Sometimes I wonder what will become of us, when she sets up her own establishment! There were plenty of people to advise us to bring her out last Season, but, No, we said: there’s time and to spare! Hallo! is this your horse! Now, horseflesh is something I flatter myself I do understand! Ay, grand hocks! forelegs well before him! You’ll hear men praising cocktails, but what I say is, the best is always the best, and give me a thoroughbred every time!’
Five
It was some time before Martin returned to Stanyon, his friend having persuaded him, with the best intentions possible, to accompany him to his parental home. Mr Warboys, inured by custom to Martin’s tantrums, formed the praiseworthy scheme of allowing that young gentleman’s wrath time to cool before he again encountered his half-brother. In itself, the scheme was excellent, but it was rendered abortive first by the encomiums bestowed by Mrs Warboys, a fat and very nearly witless lady of forty summers, on the very pronounced degree of good-looks enjoyed by the Earl; and second by a less enthusiastic but by far more caustic remark uttered by Mr Warboys, senior, to the effect that Martin, his own son, and almost every other young aspirant to the Beauty’s favours could be thought to stand no chance at all against a belted Earl.
‘Unless Bolderwood is a bigger fool than I take him for,’ he said, ‘he will lose no time in securing St Erth for that chit of his!’
Shocked by such a display of tactlessness on the part of his progenitors, Mr Warboys, junior, said: ‘Shouldn’t think St Erth has any serious intentions, myself!’
It was perhaps not surprising that the cumulative effect of these remarks should have sent Martin Frant back to Stanyon in a mood of smouldering anger.
Although he could not have been said to have received any particular encouragement from Sir Thomas, or from Lady Bolderwood, he was generally acknowledged to have been, before the arrival of his half-brother at Stanyon, the most likely candidate for Marianne’s hand. He had first known her when she was a schoolroom miss, and he a freshman at Oxford, his thoughts far removed from matrimony. Long before he had thought more about her than that she was a very good sort of a girl, pluck to the backbone, even if lacking in judgment, he had captured her maiden fancy. He was a handsome young man, whose magnificent background lent his careless, imperious ways a romantic aura. He was a stylish cricketer, a good shot, and a bruising rider to hounds, and his patronage could not but give consequence to a schoolgirl. Lady St Erth, whose discreet enquiries had early established the fact that the Beauty was heiress to something in the region of a hundred thousand pounds, from the outset smiled upon the friendship. Sir Thomas might have eaten his dinner at Stanyon every day of the week had he chosen to do so; and not only were his manners pronounced to be refreshingly natural, but he provided her ladyship with a subject for a pious lecture on the value of golden hearts that were hid under rough exteriors. Sir Thomas, cherishing no illusions on the substance of the Dowager’s heart, and unimpressed by her rank, visited Stanyon as seldom as common civility permitted, but was perfectly ready to extend his hospitality to Martin, whom he thought of as a wild colt, not vicious, but in need of breaking to bridle.
By the time Martin awoke to the realization that his little madcap friend had become the toast of the neighbourhood, Marianne, courted on all sides, was no longer hanging admiringly upon his lips, or gazing worshipfully up into his face. Instead, she was flirting in the prettiest, most unexceptionable way with several other young gentlemen. The knowledge, not only that he was in love with her, but that she unquestionably belonged to him, then burst upon Martin, and caused him to conduct himself in a style which made one poetically-minded damsel, who would not have objected to finding herself the object of his jealous regard, say that he reminded her of a black panther. Mr Warboys, without putting himself to the trouble of deciding which of the more ferocious animals his friend resembled, stated the matter in simple, and courageously frank terms. ‘Y’know, old fellow,’ he once told Martin, ‘if you had a tail, damme if you wouldn’t lash it!’
The tail, if not lashing, was certainly on the twitch when Martin reached Stanyon, but although some part of the time spent on his solitary ride home from Westerwood House had been occupied by him in dwelling upon his grievances, he also had time to reflect on the extreme unwisdom of quarrelling openly with his brother, and had no real intention of forcing an issue. Unfortunately, he had occasion to go into the Armoury, which was one of the broad galleries which flanked the Chapel Court, and was also used as a gunroom, and he found the Earl there.
Gervase was in his shirt-sleeves, trying the temper of a pair of foils. He seemed to have been engaged in oiling his pistols, for these lay in an open case on a table near him, with some rags and a bottle of oil standing beside them. He looked up as Martin entered through the door at one end of the gallery, and it occurred to Martin for the first time that he was indeed a damnably handsome man – if one had a taste for such delicate, almost womanish features.
‘Oh! You here!’ Martin said, in no very agreeable voice.
Gervase regarded him meditatively. ‘As you see. Is there any reason why I should not be here?’
‘None that I know of!’ Martin replied, shrugging, and walking over to a glass-fronted case which contained several sporting guns.
‘I am so glad!’ said Gervase. ‘So much that I do seems to anger you that I am quite alarmed lest I should quite unwittingly cause you offence.’
The gentle irony in his tone was not lost on Martin. He wheeled about, and said trenchantly: ‘If that is so, let me advise you to leave Marianne Bolderwood alone!’
Gervase said nothing, but kept his eyes on Martin’s face, their expression amused, yet watchful.
‘I hope I make myself plain, brother!’
‘Very plain.’
‘You may think you can come into Lincolnshire, flaunting your title, and your damned dandy-airs, and amuse yourself by trifling with Miss Bolderwood, but I shall not permit it, and so I warn you!’
‘Oh, tut-tut!’ Gervase interrupted, laughing.
Martin took a hasty step towards him. ‘Understand, I’ll not have it!’
Gervase seemed to consider him for a moment. He still looked amused, and, instead of answering, he lifted the second foil from where he had laid it on the table, set both hilts across his forearm, and offered them to Martin.
Martin stared at him. ‘What’s this foolery?’
‘Don’t you fence?’
‘Fence? Of course I do!’
‘Then choose a foil, and see what you can achieve with it! All these wild and whirling words don’t impress me, you know. Perhaps your sword-play may command my respect!’ He paused, while Martin stood irresolute, and added softly: ‘No? Do you think you can’t creditably engage with such a dandified fellow as I am?’
Martin’s eyes flashed; he grasped one of the hilts, exclaiming furiously: ‘We’ll see that!’
‘Gently! Don’t draw the blade through my hand!’ Gervase said, allowing him to take t
he foil he had chosen. ‘How does the length suit you?’
‘I have frequently fenced with this pair!’
‘You have the advantage of me, then: I find them a trifle overlong, and not as light in hand as I could wish. However, that is a common fault.’
He moved away to the centre of the Armoury as he spoke, and waited there while Martin flung off his coat. Martin swiftly followed him, torn between annoyance and a desire to demonstrate his skill to one whom he suspected of mocking him. He knew himself to have been well-taught, and was, indeed, so much above the average at most forms of sport that he expected to give a very good account of himself. But after a few minutes he was brought to realize that he had met his master. The Earl fought with a pace and a dexterity which flustered him a little, and never did he seem to be able to break through that unwavering guard. Every attack was baffled by a close parade, and when he attempted a feint, Gervase smiled, his wrist in no way led astray, and said as he delivered a straight thrust: ‘Oh, no, no! If you must feint, you should oppose your forte, moving your point nearer to my forte, or you won’t very easily hit me.’
Martin returned no answer. He was panting, and the sweat was beginning to stain his shirt. Had his adversary been any other man he would have been delighted to have found himself matched with a swordsman so much superior to himself, and would not in the least have resented his inability to score a hit. But it galled him unspeakably to be unable to break through the guard of so effeminate a person as Gervase, who never seemed at any moment to be hard-pressed, or even to be exerting himself very much. He was obliged to acknowledge a number of hits, his choler steadily rising. A return from the wrist, which caught him in mid-thrust, destroyed the last rags of his temper; he parried a carte thrust half-circle, his weight thrown on to his left hip, and swiftly turned his wrist in tierce, inclining the point on the left, with the intention of crossing the Earl’s blade. But just as he was about to do so, Gervase disengaged, giving way with the point, so that it was Martin’s blade, meeting no opposition, which leaped from his hand, and not his brother’s.
‘So your master taught you that trick!’ Gervase said, a little out of breath. ‘Very few do so nowadays. But it’s dangerous, you know, unless you have very great swiftness and precision. Try again! Or have you had enough?’
‘No!’ Martin shot at him, snatching up his foil, and dragging his shirt-sleeve across his wet brow. ‘Damn you, I’m not so easily exhausted! I’ll hit you yet! I’m out of practice!’
‘You might hit me out of practice; you won’t do it out of temper,’ said Gervase dryly.
‘Won’t I? Won’t I?’ gasped Martin, stung to blind rage by this merited but decidedly provocative rebuke.
He closed the Earl’s blade, and on the instant saw that the button had become detached from his point. Gervase saw it too, and quickly retired his left foot, to get out of distance. ‘Take care!’ he said sharply.
‘You may take care!’ Martin panted, and delivered a rather wild thrust in prime. It was parried by the St George Guard; and even as he became conscious of the enormity of what he had done, he found himself very hard-pressed indeed. He would have dropped his point at a word, but the word was not spoken. Gervase was no longer smiling, and his eyes had narrowed, their lazy good-humour quite vanished. Martin was forced to fight. A careless, almost mechanical thrust in carte over the arm was parried by a sharp beat of the Earl’s forte, traversing the line of his blade, and bearing his wrist irresistibly upwards. The Earl’s left foot came forward; his hand seized the shell of Martin’s sword, and forced it out to the right; he gripped it fast, and presented the button of his foil to Martin’s face.
‘The Disarm!’ he said, holding Martin’s eyes with his own.
Martin relinquished his foil. His chest was heaving; he seemed as though he would have said something, but before he could recover his breath enough to do so an interruption occurred. Theo, who, for the past few minutes, had been standing, with Miss Morville, rooted on the threshold, strode forward, ejaculating thunderously: ‘Martin! Are you mad?’
Martin started, and looked round, a sulky, defensive expression on his flushed countenance. His brother laid down the foils. Miss Morville’s matter-of-fact voice broke into an uncomfortable silence. ‘How very careless of you, not to have observed that the button is off your point!’ she said severely. ‘There might have been an accident, if your brother had not been sharper-eyed than you.’
‘Oh, no, there might not!’ Martin retorted. ‘I couldn’t touch him! There was no danger!’
He caught up his coat as he spoke, and, without looking at Gervase, went hastily out of the gallery.
‘I expect,’ said Miss Morville, with unruffled placidity, ‘that swords are much like guns. My Papa was used to say, when they were boys, that he would not trust my brothers with guns unless he were there to keep an eye on them, for let a boy become only a little excited and he would forget the most commonplace precautions. I came to tell you, Lord St Erth, that your Mama-in-law wishes you will join her in the Amber Drawing-room. General Hawkhurst has come to pay his respects to you.’
‘Thank you! I will come directly,’ he replied.
‘Drusilla, you will not mention to anyone – what you saw a moment ago!’ Theo said.
She paused in the doorway, looking back over her shoulder. ‘Oh, no! Why should I, indeed? I am sure Martin would very much dislike it if anyone were to roast him for being so heedless.’
With this prosaic reply, she left the Armoury, closing the door behind her.
‘Gervase, what happened?’ Theo said. ‘How came Martin to be fencing with a naked point?’
‘Oh, he tried to cross my blade, but since I am rather too old a hand to be caught by such a trick as that, it was his sword, not mine, which was lost,’ Gervase said lightly. ‘The button was loosened, I daresay, by the fall.’
‘Are you trying to tell me that he did not perceive it?’
Gervase smiled. ‘Why, no! But the thing was, you see, that he was so angry with me for being the better swordsman that his rage quite overthrew his judgment, and he tried to pink me. I was never in any danger, you know: he has not been so badly taught, but he lacks precision and pace.’
‘So I saw! You had him clearly at your mercy, but that cannot excuse his conduct!’
‘As to that, perhaps I was a little at fault,’ Gervase confessed. ‘But, really, you know, Theo, he is such an unschooled colt that I thought he deserved a set-down! I own, I said what I knew must enrage him. No harm done: he is now very much ashamed of himself, and that must be counted as a gain.’
‘I hope you may be found to be right. But –’ He broke off, his brows contracting.
‘Well?’
‘It happened as you have described, of course, but –’ he raised his eyes to his cousin’s face, and said bluntly: ‘Gervase, be a little more careful, I beg of you! You might not have noticed it, but I saw, in his face, such an expression of fury – I had almost said, of hatred – !’
‘Yes, I did notice it,’ Gervase said quietly. ‘He would have been happy to have murdered me, would he not?’
‘No, no, don’t think it! He is, as you have said, an unschooled colt, and he has been used to being so much petted and praised – But he would not murder you!’
‘It was certainly his intention, my dear Theo!’
‘Not his intention!’ Theo said swiftly. ‘His impulse, at that instant!’
‘The distinction is too nice for his victim to appreciate. Come, Theo! Be plain with me, I beg of you! You tried to put me on my guard, I fancy, that first evening, when you came to my bedchamber, and drank a glass of brandy with me there. Was it against Martin that you were warning me?’ He waited for a moment. ‘I am answered, I suppose!’
‘I don’t know. I dare not say so! Only be a little wary, Gervase! If some accident were to befall you – why, I dare swear he himself would adm
it to being glad of it! But that he would contrive to bring about such an accident I have never believed, until I saw his face just now! The suspicion did then flash into my mind – but it must be nonsensical!’
‘Theo, I do think you should have rushed in, and thrown yourself between us!’ Gervase complained.
‘Yes, and so I would have done had I wished to startle you into dropping your guard!’ Theo retorted, laughing. ‘What I might have felt myself impelled to do had you appeared to me to be hard-pressed I know not! Something heroic, no doubt! But stop bamming, Gervase! What have you been doing to make Martin ready to murder you?’
‘Why, I have been flaunting my title and my dandified airs in the eyes of his inamorata, and he fears she may be dazzled!’
‘Oh! I collect that you have somehow contrived to meet Miss Bolderwood?’
‘Yes, and I wish you will tell me why no one has ever told me of her existence! She is the sweetest sight my eyes have alighted upon since I came into Lincolnshire!’
Theo smiled, but perfunctorily, and turned a little aside, to lay the foils in their case. ‘She is very beautiful,’ he agreed, in a colourless tone.
‘An heiress too, if I have understood her father! Shall I try my fortune?’
‘By all means.’
Gervase glanced quickly at his averted profile. ‘Theo! You too?’
Theo uttered a short laugh. ‘Don’t disturb yourself! I might as well aspire to the hand of a Royal Princess!’ He shut the sword-case, and turned. ‘Come! If General Hawkhurst has honoured you with a visit, you had better make yourself a little more presentable.’
‘Very true: I will do so at once!’ Gervase said, rather glad to be relieved of the necessity of answering his cousin’s embittered words. From the little he had seen of both, he could not but feel that the staid Drusilla would make a more suitable bride for Theo than the livelier and by far more frivolous Marianne; he must, moreover, have been obliged to agree that there could be little hope that Sir Thomas would bestow his only child on a man in Theo’s circumstances.