The Convenient Marriage Read online

  ‘Ecod, you’re mad, Pel!’ said Mr Fox. ‘She’s had four girls already!’

  ‘Mad be damned!’ quoth the Viscount. ‘I had the news on the way here. I’ve won.’

  ‘What, she’s never given Danvers an heir at last?’ cried Mr Boulby.

  ‘An heir?’ said the Viscount scornfully. ‘Two of ’em! She’s had twins!’

  After this amazing intelligence no one could doubt that the signs were extremely propitious for the Viscount. In fact, one cautious gentleman removed himself to the quinze room, where a number of gamesters sat round tables in silence, with masks on their faces to conceal any betraying emotion, and rouleaus of guineas in front of them.

  As the night wore on the Viscount’s luck, which had begun by fluctuating in an uncertain fashion, steadied down. He started the evening by twice throwing out three times in succession, a circumstance which induced Mr Fox to remark that the gull-gropers, or money-lenders, who waited in what he called the Jerusalem chamber for him to rise, would find instead a client in his lordship. However, the Viscount soon remedied this set-back by stripping off his coat and putting it on again inside out, a change that answered splendidly, for no sooner was it made than he recklessly pushed three rouleaus into the centre of the table, called a main of five, and nicked it. By midnight his winnings, in the form of rouleaus, bills and several vowels, or notes of hand, fairly littered the stand at his elbow, and Mr Fox, a heavy loser, called for his third bottle.

  There were two tables in the hazard-room, both round, and large enough to accommodate upwards of twenty persons. At the one every player was bound by rule to keep not less than fifty guineas before him, at the other the amount was fixed more moderately at twenty guineas. A small stand stood beside each player with a large rim to hold his glass or his teacup and a wooden bowl for the rouleaus. The room was lit by candles in pendent chandeliers, and so bright was the glare that quite a number of gamesters, the Viscount amongst them, wore leather guards bound round their foreheads to protect their eyes. Others, notably Mr Drelincourt, who was feverishly laying and staking odds at the twenty-guinea table, affected straw hats with very broad brims, which served the double purpose of shading their eyes and preventing their wigs from becoming tumbled. Mr Drelincourt’s hat was adorned with flowers and ribands and was held by several other Macaronis to be a vastly pretty affair. He had put on a frieze greatcoat in place of his own blue creation, and presented an astonishing picture as he sat alternately sipping his tea and casting the dice. However, as it was quite the thing to wear frieze coats and straw hats at the gaming table, not even his severest critics found anything in his appearance worthy of remark.

  For the most part silence broken only by the rattle of the dice and the monotonous drone of the groom-porters’ voices calling the odds brooded over the room, but from time to time snatches of desultory talk broke out. Shortly after one o’clock quite a burst of conversation proceeded from the twenty-guinea table, one of the gamesters having taken it into his head to call the dice in the hope of changing his luck. Someone, while they waited for a fresh bale, had started an interesting topic of scandal and a shout of laughter most unpleasantly assailing the ears of Lord Cheston, a rather nervous gambler, caused him to deliver the dice at the other table with a jerk that upset his luck.

  ‘Five-to-seven, and three-to-two against!’ intoned the groom-porter dispassionately.

  The laying and staking of bets shut out the noise of the other table, but as silence fell again and Lord Cheston picked up the box, Mr Drelincourt’s voice floated over to the fifty-guinea table with disastrous clarity.

  ‘Oh, my lord, I protest; for my part I would lay you odds rather on my Lord Lethbridge’s success with my cousin’s stammering bride!’ said Mr Drelincourt with a giggle.

  The Viscount, already somewhat flushed with wine, was in the act of raising his glass to his lips when this unfortunate remark was wafted to his ears. His cerulean blue eyes, slightly clouded but remarkably intelligent still, flamed with the light of murder, and with a spluttered growl of ‘Hell and damnation!’ he lunged up out of his chair before anyone could stop him.

  Sir Roland Pommeroy made a grab at his arm. ‘Pel, I say, Pel! Steady!’

  ‘Lord, he’s three parts drunk!’ said Mr Boulby. ‘Here’s a pretty scandal! Pelham, for God’s sake think what you’re doing!’

  But the Viscount, having shaken Pommeroy off, was already striding purposefully over to the other table, and seemed to have not the least doubt of what he was doing. Mr Drelincourt, looking round, startled to see who was bearing down upon him, let his jaw drop in ludicrous dismay, and received the contents of his lordship’s glass full in his face. ‘You damned little rat, take that!’ roared the Viscount.

  There was a moment’s shocked silence, while Mr Drelincourt sat with the wine dripping off the end of his nose, and staring at the incensed Viscount as one bemused.

  Mr Fox, coming over from the other table, grasped Lord Winwood by the elbow, and addressed Mr Drelincourt with severity. ‘You’d best apologize, Crosby,’ he said. ‘Pelham, do recollect! This won’t do, really it won’t!’

  ‘Recollect?’ said the Viscount fiercely. ‘You heard what he said, Charles! D’you think I’ll sit by and let a foul-mouthed –’

  ‘My lord!’ interrupted Mr Drelincourt, rising and dabbing at his face with a rather unsteady hand. ‘I – I apprehend the cause of your annoyance. I assure your lordship you have me wrong! If I said anything that – that seemed –’

  Mr Fox whispered urgently: ‘Let it alone now, Pel! You can’t fight over your sister’s name without starting a scandal.’

  ‘Be damned to you, Charles!’ said the Viscount. ‘I’ll manage it my way. I don’t like the fellow’s hat!’

  Mr Drelincourt fell back a pace; someone gave a snort of laughter, and Sir Roland said wisely: ‘That’s reasonable enough. You don’t like his hat. That’s devilish neat, ’pon my soul it is! Now you come to mention it, ecod, I don’t like it either!’

  ‘No, I don’t like it!’ declared the Viscount, rolling a fiery eye at the offending structure. ‘Pink roses, egad, above that complexion! Damme, it offends me, so it does!’

  Mr Drelincourt’s bosom swelled. ‘Sirs, I take you all to witness that his lordship is in his cups!’

  ‘Hanging back, are you?’ said the Viscount, thrusting Mr Fox aside. ‘Well, you won’t wear that hat again!’ With which he plucked the straw confection from Mr Drelincourt’s head and casting it on the floor ground his heel in it.

  Mr Drelincourt, who had borne with tolerable composure the insult of a glass of wine thrown in his face, gave a shriek of rage, and clapped his hands to his head. ‘My wig! My hat! My God, it passes all bounds! You’ll meet me for this, my lord! I say you shall meet me for this!’

  ‘Be sure I will!’ promised the Viscount, rocking on the balls of his feet, his hands in his pockets. ‘When you like, where you like, swords or pistols!’

  Mr Drelincourt, pale and shaking with fury, besought his lordship to name his friends. The Viscount cocked an eyebrow at Sir Roland Pommeroy. ‘Pom? Cheston?’

  The two gentlemen indicated expressed their willingness to serve him.

  Mr Drelincourt informed them that his seconds would wait upon them in the morning, and with a somewhat jerky bow withdrew from the room. The Viscount, his rage at the insult to Horatia slightly assuaged by the satisfactory outcome of the disturbance, returned to his table and continued there in the highest fettle until eight in the morning.

  Somewhere about noon, when he was still in bed and asleep, Sir Roland Pommeroy visited his lodging in Pall Mall and, disregarding the valet’s expostulations, pushed his way into my lord’s room and rudely awakened him. The Viscount sat up, yawning, rolled a blear-eye upon his friend, and demanded to know what the devil was amiss.

  ‘Nothing’s amiss,’ replied Sir Roland, seating himself on the edge of the bed. ‘
We have it all fixed, snug as you please.’

  The Viscount pushed his nightcap to the back of his head and strove to collect his scattered wits. ‘What’s fixed?’ he said thickly.

  ‘Lord, man, your meeting!’ said Sir Roland, shocked.

  ‘Meeting?’ The Viscount brightened. ‘Have I called someone out? Well, by all that’s famous!’

  Sir Roland, casting a dispassionate and expert eye over his principal, got up and went over to the wash-basin and dipped one of his lordship’s towels in cold water. This he wrung out and silently handed to the Viscount, who took it gratefully and bound it round his aching brow. It seemed to assist him to clear his brain, for presently he said: ‘Quarrelled with someone, did I? Damme, my head’s like to split! Devilish stuff, that burgundy.’

  ‘More likely the brandy,’ said Sir Roland gloomily. ‘You drank a deal of it.’

  ‘Did I so? You know, there was something about a hat – a damned thing with pink roses. It’s coming back to me.’ He clasped his head in his hands, while Sir Roland sat and picked his teeth in meditative patience. ‘By God, I have it! I’ve called Crosby out!’ suddenly exclaimed the Viscount.

  ‘No, you haven’t,’ corrected Sir Roland. ‘He called you. You wiped your feet on his hat, Pel.’

  ‘Ay, so I did, but that wasn’t it,’ said the Viscount, his brow darkening.

  Sir Roland removed the gold toothpick from his mouth, and said succinctly: ‘Tell you what, Pel, it had best be the hat.’

  The Viscount nodded. ‘It’s the devil’s own business,’ he said ruefully. ‘Ought to have stopped me.’

  ‘Stop you!’ echoed Sir Roland. ‘You flung a glass of wine in the fellow’s face before anyone knew what you was about.’

  The Viscount brooded, and presently sat up again with a jerk. ‘By God, I’m glad I did it! You heard what he said, Pom?’

  ‘Drunk, belike,’ offered Sir Roland.

  ‘There’s not a word of truth in it,’ said the Viscount with grim meaning. ‘Not a word, Pom, d’you take me?’

  ‘Lord, Pel, no one ever thought there was! Ain’t one fight enough for you?’

  The Viscount grinned rather sheepishly and leaned back against the bed-head. ‘What’s it to be? Swords or pistols?’

  ‘Swords,’ replied Sir Roland. ‘We don’t want to make it a killing matter. Fixed it all up for you out at Barn Elms, Monday at six.’

  The Viscount nodded, but seemed a trifle abstracted. He discarded the wet towel and looked wisely across at his friend. ‘I was drunk, Pom, that’s the tale.’

  Sir Roland, who had resumed the use of his toothpick, let it fall in his surprise, and gasped: ‘You’re never going to back out of it, Pel?’

  ‘Back out of it?’ said the Viscount. ‘Back out of a fight? Burn it, if I don’t know you for a fool, Pom, I’d thrust that down your gullet, so I would!’

  Sir Roland accepted this shamefacedly, and begged pardon.

  ‘I was drunk,’ said the Viscount, ‘and I took a dislike to Crosby’s hat – Damn it, what’s he want with pink roses in his hat? Answer me that!’

  ‘Just what I said myself,’ agreed Sir Roland. ‘Fellow can wear a hat at Almack’s if he likes. Do it myself sometimes. But pink roses – no.’

  ‘Well, that’s all there is to it,’ said the Viscount with finality. ‘You put it about I was in my cups. That’s the tale.’

  Sir Roland agreed that ought certainly to be the tale and picked up his hat and cane. The Viscount prepared to resume his interrupted slumber, but upon Sir Roland’s opening the door, opened one eye and adjured him on no account to forget to order breakfast at Barn Elms.

  Monday dawned very fair, a cool lifting mist giving promise of a fine day to come. Mr Drelincourt, accompanied in a coach by his seconds, Mr Francis Puckleton and Captain Forde, arrived at Barn Elms some time before six, this excessive punctuality being accounted for by the irregularity of the Captain’s watch. ‘But it’s no matter,’ said the Captain. ‘Drink a bumper of cognac and take a look at the ground, hey, Crosby?’

  Mr Drelincourt assented with rather a wan smile.

  It was his first fight, for though he delighted in the delivery of waspish speeches he had never until that fatal Friday felt the least desire to cross swords with anyone. When he had seen the Viscount stalking towards him at Almack’s he had been quite aghast, and would have been perfectly willing to eat the rash words that had caused all the bother had not the Viscount committed that shocking rape upon his hat and wig. Mr Drelincourt was so much in the habit of considering his appearance above anything else that this brutal action had roused him to a really heroic rage. At that moment he had quite genuinely wanted to spit the Viscount on the end of a small-sword, and if only they could have engaged there and then he had no doubt that he would have acquitted himself very well. Unfortunately etiquette did not permit of so irregular a proceeding, and he had been forced to kick his heels for two interminable days. When his rage had died down it must be confessed that he began to look forward with apprehension to Monday’s meeting. He spent a great deal of the weekend perusing Angelo’s Ecole d’Armes, a work that made his blood run quite cold. He had, of course, learned the art of fencing, but he had a shrewd notion that a buttoned foil presented a very different appearance from a naked duelling sword. Captain Forde congratulated him on having hit upon a worthy opponent in the Viscount, who, he said, though he was perhaps a trifle reckless, was no mean swordsman. He had already fought two duels, but one had been with pistols, with which weapon he was considered to be very dangerous. Mr Drelincourt could only be thankful that Sir Roland had chosen swords.

  Captain Forde, who seemed to take a gruesome delight in the affair, recommended his principal to go early to bed on Sunday night and on no account to drink deep. Mr Drelincourt obeyed him implicitly, but passed an indifferent night. As he tossed and turned, wild ideas of inducing his seconds to settle for him crossed his brain. He wondered how the Viscount was spending the night and entertained a desperate hope that he might be drinking himself under the table. If only some accident or illness would befall him! Or perhaps he himself could be smitten by a sudden indisposition? But in the cold light of dawn he was forced to abandon this scheme. He was not a very brave man, but he had his pride: one could not draw back from an engagement.

  Mr Puckleton was the first of his seconds to arrive in the morning, and while Crosby dressed he sat astride a chair sucking the knob of his tall cane and regarding his friend with a melancholy and not unadmiring eye.

  ‘Forde’s bringing the weapons,’ he said. ‘How do you feel, Crosby?’

  There was an odd sensation in the pit of Mr Drelincourt’s stomach, but he replied: ‘Oh, never better! Never better, I assure you.’

  ‘For myself,’ said Mr Puckleton, ‘I shall leave it all to Forde. To tell you the truth, Crosby, I’ve never acted for a man before. Wouldn’t do it for anyone but you. I can’t stand the sight of blood, you know. But I have my vinaigrette with me.’

  Then Captain Forde arrived with a long flat case under his arm. Lord Cheston, he said, had engaged to bring a doctor with him, and Crosby had better make haste, for it was time they were starting.

  The morning air struck a chill into Mr Drelincourt’s bones; he huddled himself into his greatcoat and sat in a corner of the coach listening to the macabre conversation of his two companions. Not that either the Captain or Mr Puckleton talked about the duel; in fact, they chatted on the most mild subjects such as the beauty of the day, the quietness of the streets, and the Duchess of Devonshire’s al fresco party. Mr Drelincourt found himself hating them for their apparent callousness, yet when the Captain did mention the duel, reminding him to meet so dashing a fighter as the Viscount with steadiness and caution, he turned a sickly hue and did not answer.

  Arrived at Barn Elms they drew up at an inn adjacent to the meeting place, and there the Captain discovered that his watc
h was considerably in advance of the correct time. Casting a knowing glance at his pallid principal, he then made his suggestion they should drink a glass of cognac, for, said he in Mr Puckleton’s ear: ‘We’ll never get our man on the ground by the looks of it.’

  The brandy did little to restore Mr Drelincourt’s failing spirits, but he drank it, and with an assumption of nonchalance accompanied his seconds out of the back of the inn and across a field to the ground, which was pleasantly situated in a sort of spinney. Captain Forde said that he could not have a better place for fighting. ‘Upon my word, I envy you, Crosby!’ he said heartily.

  After that they walked back to the inn, to find that a second coach had driven up, containing Lord Cheston and a neat little man in black who clasped a case of instruments, and bowed very deeply to everybody. At first he mistook Captain Forde for Mr Drelincourt, but this was soon put right, and he bowed again to Crosby and begged pardon.

  ‘Let me assure you, sir, that if it should chance that you are to be my patient you need have no alarms, none at all. A clean sword wound is a very different affair from a bullet wound, oh, very different!’

  Lord Cheston offered his snuff-box to Mr Puckleton. ‘Attended a score of these affairs, haven’t you, Parvey?’

  ‘Dear me, yes, my lord!’ replied the surgeon, rubbing his hands together. ‘Why, I was present when young Mr Ffolliot was fatally wounded in Hyde Park. Ah, before your time, that would be, my lord. A sad business – nothing to be done. Dead on the instant. Dreadful!’

  ‘Dead on the instant?’ echoed Mr Puckleton, turning pale. ‘Oh, I trust nothing of that sort – really I wish I had not consented to act!’

  The Captain gave a scornful snort and turned his shoulder, addressing Cheston. ‘Where’s Sir Roland, my lord?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, he’s coming with Winwood,’ replied Cheston, shaking some specks of snuff out of his lace ruffle. ‘Daresay they’ll drive straight to the ground. Thought Pom had best go and make sure Winwood don’t over-sleep. The very devil to wake up is Pel, you know.’