He came in shortly before noon. He was unaccompanied, and looked grave. Miss Challoner said anxiously: ‘Did you not find this Mr Hammond, sir?’
Mr Comyn carefully laid his hat and riding-whip on a chair. ‘I was fortunate enough to find the gentleman at the château,’ he replied, ‘but I fear I have little dependence on him performing the rite of marriage for us.’
‘Good God!’ cried Miss Challoner. ‘Do you mean that he refuses?’
‘Mr Hammond felt, ma’am, certain qualms which, when I consider the extreme delicacy of the circumstances, I cannot deem altogether unreasonable. My request he could not but think a strange one, and in short, ma’am, I found him very loth to take a part in so equivocal an affair.’
Miss Challoner was conscious of a stab of impatience. ‘But you explained to him – you persuaded him, surely?’
‘I endeavoured to do so, ma’am, but with indifferent success. Happily – or so I trust it may be found – I had my card about me, which in part reassured him as to my standing and credentials. I venture to think that had I been able to be private with him a little longer I might have prevailed with him. But, as we apprehended, he is a guest in the château, and his host – a gentleman of a choleric disposition – broke in on us with some demand which I, insufficiently conversant with the French tongue, was unable to understand. Mr Hammond, not being desirous (as one might readily comprehend) of presenting to the Comte such a dubious visitor as I must have seemed, was at pains to be rid of me. I had nothing to do but to take my leave. I did so, with what grace I could assume under conditions which I found vastly disconcerting, and begged Mr Hammond to be so good as to wait upon us here this afternoon.’
Miss Challoner had listened to this speech with great patience. At the end of it she said, trying not to sound waspish: ‘But will he, sir?’
‘I am inclined to believe so, ma’am.’ A smile disturbed the primness of Mr Comyn’s face. ‘When he showed reluctance, I promised to return to the château to seek another interview with him. A needy divine, ma’am, who has the good fortune to be in charge of a young gentleman making the Grand Tour, has of necessity to be careful of the company he keeps. I, Miss Challoner, appeared to be of so disreputable a character that Mr Hammond, at the mere hint of a second visit, acceded to my request. I venture to think that when he has made your acquaintance he will see the matter in a more favourable light.’
She had to laugh. ‘Of the pair of us, sir, it is you who are the most respectable, I fear. If this provoking Mr Hammond knows my – my lamentable story he will scarcely look on me with approval.’
‘He does not, ma’am. Though not apt in the fabrication of lies, I was able to deceive the reverend gentleman. With your leave, I will now bespeak luncheon.’
‘I suppose there is nothing else to be done,’ agreed Miss Challoner, accepting the situation.
Luncheon was served in the private parlour, but Miss Challoner’s appetite had forsaken her. She was so sure that the Marquis would pursue her that even an hour’s delay fretted her unbearably. Mr Comyn said gently that he wished he could convince her of the impossibility of his lordship’s preventing the marriage. But Miss Challoner, having by now acquired a very fair knowledge of the Marquis’s temper, could not be convinced. Feeling, however, that her prospective bridegroom had already a good deal to put up with, she tried not to appear anxious. Had she but known it her consideration was wasted, for Mr Comyn had a profound belief in the frailty of female nerves, and would have felt himself to be more master of the situation had he been obliged to allay her alarms. Her calm appeared to him to be the expression of an unimaginative nature, and instead of admiring her control, he wondered whether she was stupid, or merely phlegmatic.
Towards three o’clock Miss Challoner’s inward fears were justified. A clatter of hooves and carriage wheels announced the arrival of a chaise. Miss Challoner grew rather pale, and put out her hand towards Mr Comyn. ‘It’s my lord,’ she said unsteadily. ‘Please do not allow him to force you into a duel! I cannot bear to bring so much trouble on you!’ She got up, twining her fingers together. ‘If only we were safe married!’ she said despairingly.
‘Madam, if this is indeed his lordship, I propose, to save you from his importunities, to inform him that we are married,’ said Mr Comyn. He too rose, and glanced towards the door. A voice there was no mistaking was heard outside, raised in a peremptory demand. Mr Comyn’s lips tightened. He looked at Miss Challoner for a moment. ‘It seems that you were right, ma’am,’ he said drily. ‘Do you desire me to say that we are already wed?’
‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘No – I don’t know. Yes, I think.’
A quick step was coming down the passage; the handle of the door was twisted violently round, and the Marquis of Vidal stood on the threshold, booted and spurred, and with raindrops glistening on his greatcoat.
His gaze swept the room, and came to rest on Miss Challoner, standing motionless beside her chair. ‘Ah, Miss Challoner!’ he said. ‘So I find you, do I?’ He strode forward, casting aside the riding-whip he carried, and gripped her by the shoulders. ‘If you thought to escape me so easily, you were wrong, my dear.’
Mr Comyn said in a voice of polite coldness: ‘Will your lordship have the goodness to unhand my wife?’
The grip on Miss Challoner’s shoulders tightened so suddenly that she winced. The Marquis glared at Mr Comyn, his breath coming short and fast. ‘What?’ he thundered. ‘Your wife ?’
Mr Comyn bowed. ‘The lady has done me the honour to wed me this day, my lord.’
The Marquis’s fierce eyes reached Miss Challoner. ‘Is that true? Mary, answer me! Is it true?’
She stared up at him; she was as white as her tucker. ‘Perfectly, sir. I am married to Mr Comyn.’
‘Married?’ he repeated. ‘Married?’ he almost flung her from him. ‘By God, then, you shall be widowed soon enough!’ he swore.
There was murder in his face; one stride brought him to Mr Comyn, who felt instinctively for his sword-hilt. He had no time to draw steel; my lord’s lean fingers had him by the throat, choking the life out of him. ‘You dog! You little damned cur!’ my lord said through his shut teeth.
Miss Challoner, seeing the two men swaying together in the throes of a desperate struggle, started forward, but before she could reach the combatants a piercing scream came from the doorway, and Miss Marling, just arrived on the scene, flew across the room, and cast herself into the fray.
‘You shall not! you shall not!’ shrieked Miss Marling. ‘Let him go, you wicked, wicked brute!’
Miss Challoner, who saw that Mr Comyn was hopelessly overweighted, looked round for a suitable weapon. She caught sight of the water-jug still standing on the table, and with her usual presence of mind picked it up. ‘Stand aside, Juliana!’ she said coolly, and dashed the water impartially over both men. Miss Marling, having paid no heed to the warning, also received her share, and fell back, gasping.
The sudden shock must have sobered his lordship, for he released his grip on Mr Comyn’s throat, and put up his hands to wipe the wet out of his eyes. Mr Comyn went staggering backwards, feeling his neck, and coughing. Miss Marling ran to him, sobbing: ‘Frederick! oh, my poor Frederick, are you hurt?’
It was to be seen that Mr Comyn had lost his prim punctiliousness. He thrust her off unceremoniously, and said angrily: ‘Hurt? No!’ He tried to straighten his damaged neckcloth. He was in as great a rage as the Marquis by this time, and stuttered a little in his haste to utter his challenge. ‘Swords or pistols?’ he demanded. ‘Choose your weapon, and choose it quickly.’
‘No!’ cried Juliana, trying to fling her arms around him. ‘Vidal, you shall not! Frederick, please, please, be calm!’
He disengaged himself from her clinging hands. ‘Madam, I have nothing whatsoever to say to you,’ he snapped. ‘Be good enough to stand away from me! Well, my lord? Which is
it to be?’
The Marquis was looking at Miss Challoner with an odd smile lifting the corners of his mouth. ‘Mary, you little wretch!’ he said softly. He turned his head, and his eyes hardened again as they rested on Mr Comyn’s pale countenance. ‘Either will do your business for you, you treacherous cur!’ he said. ‘Choose which you will.’
Juliana wrung her hands. ‘Oh, you’ll kill him! I know you will!’ she wailed.
‘I shall,’ said his lordship silkily.
Miss Challoner grasped the edge of the mantelpiece. ‘This has gone far enough,’ she said. ‘Please listen to me for a moment.’
Mr Comyn, who was struggling with his top-boots, said quickly: ‘Nothing you can say will deter me from fighting his lordship! Pray hold your peace! We will have this out with swords, my lord, and I trust that I may be able to rid the world of one whose instincts are more those of a beast than of a gentleman of breeding.’
‘Oh, but you will never succeed in killing him!’ almost wept Miss Marling. ‘Oh, Frederick, I am sorry for everything! Don’t fight Vidal! I implore you not to!’
Mr Comyn turned a flint-like face towards her. ‘Madam, I have already informed you that I have nothing to say to you. I do not know why you are here, but you come in excellent time to felicitate me. Miss Challoner has done me the honour to marry me.’
Miss Marling clutched at a chair-back for support. ‘Married?’ she faltered. ‘Oh, oh, oh!’
Only Miss Challoner paid any heed to this fit of mild hysterics. The Marquis took off his greatcoat, coat, and boots, and stood in his shirt and breeches, testing the flexibility of his slim blade. The Dresden ruffles of his shirt fell over his hands, but Mr Comyn rolled up his own sleeves with business-like haste. He cast his lordship a look of angry dislike, and as he pulled his rapier from the scabbard, he said in a low, unsteady voice: ‘You have called me by some names I will presently force down your throat, sir. I take leave to tell you that your persecution of the lady who is my wife –’
But that fatal word fanned the flame of his lordship’s passion. He said, white-lipped: ‘Damn you to hell, you shall not long call her so!’ He thrust the table back against the wall, and turned. ‘On guard!’
‘I am at your service,’ said Mr Comyn.
There was the briefest of salutes; then the blades hissed together with a venom that brought Miss Challoner from Juliana’s side in a flash. She cried out: ‘Shame! shame on you both! Put up! put up! I am not married, no, and shall not be to either of you!’
Her words fell on deaf ears. The duel was too desperate an affair to permit of either man’s listening to her. Each was in a white heat of fury; each meant to make an end of the other.
The rapier was not Vidal’s weapon, but his wrist had great strength and cunning, and he fought with a dashing brilliance disconcerting to the more careful fencer. His sword play was dangerous, he took risks, but drove his opponent hard. Mr Comyn’s fencing was neat, and it was plain he had been well-taught, but my lord had a pace which he lacked, and broke through his guard time after time. He recovered always, and by some dexterous parry escaped the death that threatened, but he was hard-pressed, and the sweat rolled down his forehead in great drops.
Juliana, realising what was going on, abandoned her hysterics, and cowered in the chair hiding her face in her hands, and sobbing. Miss Challoner stood beside her, intently watching the swift thrust and parry of the swords.
‘Make them stop! Oh, good God, can no one make them stop?’ wept Juliana, shuddering as steel rang against steel in a scuffle of blades.
‘I hope very much that they will make an end of each other!’ said Miss Challoner, stiff with anger.
‘How can you say such a thing?’ gasped Juliana. ‘It is all your fault! Oh, but married ! married!’
The stockinged feet padded on the bare floor; Mr Comyn, disengaging above the wrist, was forced back hard against the table. Miss Challoner saw his guard waver, and knew all at once that he was spent. The Marquis followed up his advantage ruthlessly, and Miss Challoner, forgetting her pious wish, seized one of the discarded coats, and ran in on the swords, catching at them through the heavy cloth. She threw herself in the way as the Marquis lunged; Mr Comyn’s blade was entangled in the coat, but his lordship’s point flashed under it, driven by the whole force of his arm. It seemed as though to check were an impossibility; Juliana, peeping through her fingers, gave a scream of warning and horror. The Marquis’s point glanced up Miss Challoner’s arm, ripping her gown at the shoulder, and was wrenched back.
The sword went spinning, my lord caught Miss Challoner’s swaying form in his arms, his face as white as hers. ‘Mary! Mary!’ he said hoarsely. ‘My God, what have I done?’
‘Murderer! You have killed her!’ panted Mr Comyn, and came up close as though to snatch Miss Challoner away from him.
He was thrust aside. ‘Stand off from her!’ the Marquis shot at him. ‘Mary, look at me! Mary, my little love, my precious girl, I’ve not killed you!’
Miss Challoner, who had half fainted, more from shock than actual hurt, opened her eyes and achieved a wan smile. ‘It’s nothing,’ she whispered. ‘The – the – veriest pin-prick. Oh, what did you call me?’
The Marquis lifted her quite off her feet, and carried her to the armchair just vacated by Juliana. He put her gently down in it, and saw the red stain at the neck of her gown. Over his shoulder he threw an order at Mr Comyn. ‘Get the flask from my greatcoat!’
Juliana cried: ‘Oh, there is blood on her dress! Mary, are you dreadfully hurt?’
Without the smallest hesitation the Marquis ripped open the front of Mary’s grey gown, and laid bare the injured shoulder. It was a very slight wound, the sword point having caused no more than a long scratch, but it was bleeding a little. Mary tried to pull her gown up over it, repeating that it was nothing, but was told not to be a fool. This was very much in his lordship’s usual manner, and she could not forbear a smile.
‘No, it’s only a scratch,’ Vidal said, with a sigh of relief. He pulled his handkerchief from his breeches pocket and bound the wound up deftly. ‘Little fool!’ he scolded. ‘Do you know no better than to run in on a fight? You might have been killed!’
‘I thought I was going to be,’ said Miss Challoner in rather an uncertain voice. She lifted her hand to her head. ‘I feel a little dizzy. I shall be well in a moment.’
Mr Comyn, whose face now wore a very thoughtful expression, came to my lord’s elbow with the flask of brandy. Vidal snapped it open, and put it to Mary’s lips, his other arm encircling her. ‘Come, drink this!’ he said.
Mary tried to push it away. ‘Oh, no, I so very much dislike it! I am better now – truly, I am better now!’
‘Do as I bid you!’ commanded his lordship curtly. ‘You know me well enough to be sure I’ll make you.’
Mr Comyn said protestingly: ‘Really, sir, if she does not want it –’
‘Go to the devil!’ said his lordship.
Miss Challoner meekly sipped a small quantity of the brandy, and raised her eyes to see the Marquis smiling down at her with so much tenderness in his face that she hardly recognised him. ‘Good girl!’ he said, and dropped a light kiss on her hair.
His eye fell on Mr Comyn again, and hardened. He removed his arm from about Miss Challoner, and stood up. ‘You may have married her,’ he said fiercely, ‘but she is mine, do you hear me? She was always mine! You – ! do you think I shall let you take her? She may be ten times your wife, but, by God, you shall never have her!’
Mr Comyn, having regained control over his temper, showed no sign of losing it again. ‘As to that, sir, I believe a word with you alone would be timely.’ He looked fleetingly at Juliana, who was standing by the window, her face quite rigid. ‘Juliana – Miss Marling –’ he said.
She gave a shudder. ‘Do not speak to me!’ she said. ‘Oh, F
rederick, Frederick, how could you do it? I did not mean a word that I said! You should have known I did not! I hope I never set eyes on you again!’
Mr Comyn turned away from her to Mary, who was trying to collect her scattered wits. ‘Madam, I believe nothing will serve now but frankness. But I await your pleasure.’
She got up, steadying herself with a hand on the arm of the chair. ‘Do what seems best to you,’ she said faintly. ‘I must be alone a little while. I am not quite myself yet. I’ll go up to my chamber. For God’s sake, gentlemen, let there be no more fighting. I am not worth it.’
‘Juliana, go with her!’ said Vidal sharply.
Miss Challoner shook her head. ‘Please let me be alone. I don’t need Juliana, or anyone.’
‘I’ll not go!’ Juliana said. ‘If she is hurt I vow it serves her right! She stole Frederick from me by a hateful trick, and I wish her joy of him, and she shan’t have him!’
Miss Challoner gave a little laugh that broke in the middle, and went to the door. Mr Comyn opened it for her to pass out, and what seemed to be the entire staff of the inn was disclosed in the passage. The landlord and his wife, two serving-maids, a cook, and three ostlers, were all gathered round the door, and had evidently been listening to everything that had been going on inside the parlour. They looked very sheepish upon the door being so suddenly opened, and dispersed in a hurry. Mr Comyn said sarcastically that he was happy to be a source of so much interest, but since he spoke no English no one understood him. The landlord, who had stood his ground, began to say that so scandalous a fracas in a respectable house could not be permitted. Lord Vidal turned his head, and spoke one soft, short phrase. The landlord looked very much taken aback, excused himself, and withdrew.
Meanwhile, Miss Challoner had walked straight past the group of servants, down the passage to the coffee-room, out of which the stairs rose to the upper floor. She entered it, holding her torn dress together, in time to hear a jovial voice say in English: ‘Burn it, the place is deserted! Hey, there! House!’