“Oh,” said Mr Drelincourt, with a self-conscious laugh, “I don’t profess to be Winwood’s match with swords!”
“My dear Crosby, I did not suppose you a master, but this is surely over-modesty?”
Mr Drelincourt said stiffly: “My Lord Winwood is known to be no mean exponent of the art, I believe.”
“Well, no,” replied the Earl, considering the point. “I don’t think I should call him mean. That is being too severe, perhaps. Let us say a moderate swordsman.”
Mr Drelincourt gathered the scattered sheets of the Morning Chronicle together with one shaking hand. “Very well, my lord, very well, and is that all you have to say? I am ordered to rest, you know.”
“Now you put me in mind of it,” said the Earl, “I remember there was something else. Ah yes, I have it! Do tell me Crosby—if you are not too exhausted by this tiresome visit of mine, of course—why did you call Pelham out? I am quite consumed by curiosity.”
Mr Drelincourt shot a quick look at him. “Oh, you might well ask! Indeed, I believe I should have made allowance for his lordship’s condition. Drunk, you know, amazingly drunk!”
“You distress me. But continue, dear cousin, pray continue!”
“It was absurd—a drunken fit of spleen, I am persuaded. His lordship took exception to the hat I wear at cards. His behaviour was most violent. In short, before I could know what he would be at he had torn the hat from my head. I could do no less than demand satisfaction, you’ll agree.”
“Certainly,” agreed Rule. “Er—I trust you are satisfied, Crosby?” Mr Drelincourt glared at him. His lordship crossed one leg over the other. “Strange how misinformed one may be!” he mused. “I was told—on what I thought credible authority—that Pelham threw a glass of wine in your face.”
There was an uncomfortable pause. “Well, as to that—his lordship was quite out of his senses, not accountable, you know.”
“So he did throw his wine in your face, Crosby?”
“Yes, oh yes! I have said, he was most violent, quite out of his senses.”
“One might almost suppose him to have been forcing a quarrel on you, might not one?” suggested Rule.
“I daresay, cousin. He was bent on picking a quarrel,” muttered Mr Drelincourt, fidgeting with his sling. “Had you been present you would know there was no doing anything with him.”
“My very dear Crosby, had I been present,” said Rule softly, “my well-meaning but misguided young relative would not have committed any of these assaults upon your person.”
“N-no, c-cousin?” stammered Mr Drelincourt.
“No,” said Rule, rising, and picking up his hat and stick. “He would have left the matter in my hands. And I, Crosby, should have used a cane, not a small-sword.”
Mr Drelincourt seemed to shrink into his pillows. “I—I am at a loss to understand you, Marcus!”
“Would you like me to make my meaning even clearer?” inquired his lordship.
“Really, I—really, Marcus, this tone—! My wound—I must beg of you to leave me! I am in no fit state to pursue this conversation, which I protest I do not understand. My doctor is expected, moreover!”
“Don’t be alarmed, cousin,” said the Earl. “I shan’t try to improve this time on Pelham’s handiwork. But you should remember to render up thanks in your prayers for that wound, you know.” With which sweetly-spoken valediction he went out of the room, and quietly closed the door behind him.
Mr Drelincourt might have been slightly consoled had he known that his late opponent had come off very little better at the Earl’s hands.
Rule, visiting him earlier, had not much difficulty in getting the full story from Pelham, though the Viscount had tried at first to adhere to precisely the tale Mr Drelincourt told later. However, with those steady grey eyes looking into his, and that lazy voice requesting him to speak the truth, he had faltered, and ended by telling Rule just what happened. Rule listened in patently unadmiring silence, and at the end said: “Ah—am I expected to thank you for this heroic deed, Pelham?”
The Viscount, who was in the middle of his breakfast, fortified himself with a long draught of ale, and replied airily: “Well, I won’t deny I acted rashly, but I was a trifle in my cups, you know.”
“The thought of what you might have felt yourself compelled to do had you been more than a trifle in your cups I find singularly unnerving,” remarked the Earl.
“Damn it, Marcus, do you tell me you’d have had me pass it by?” demanded Pelham.
“Oh, hardly that!” said Rule. “But had you refrained from taking it up in public I should have been greatly in your debt.”
The Viscount carved himself a slice of beef. “Never fear,” he said. “I’ve seen to it no one will talk. I told Pom to set it about I was drunk.”
“That was indeed thoughtful of you,” said Rule dryly. “Do you know, Pelham, I am almost annoyed with you?”
The Viscount laid down his knife and fork and said resignedly : “Burn it if I see why you should be!”
“I have a constitutional dislike of having my hand forced,” said Rule. “I thought we were agreed that I should be allowed to—er—manage my affairs alone, and in my own way.”
“Well, so you can,” said the Viscount. “I ain’t stopping you.”
“My dear Pelham, you have—I trust—already done your worst. Until this lamentable occurrence your sister’s partiality for Lethbridge was not such as to attract any—er—undue attention.”
“It attracted that little worm’s attention,” objected the Viscount.
“Do, Pelham, I beg of you, allow your brain the indulgence of a little thought,” sighed his lordship. “You forget that Crosby is my heir. The only sustained emotion I have ever seen him display is his violent dislike of my marriage. He has made the whole world privy to it. In fact, I understand he causes considerable amusement in Polite Circles. Without your ill-timed interference, my dear boy, I venture to think that his remark would have been considered mere spite.”
“Oh!” said the Viscount, rather dashed. “I see.”
“I had hoped that you might,” said Rule.
“Well, but Marcus, so it was spite! Damned spite!”
“Certainly,” agreed Rule. “But when the lady’s brother springs up in a noble fury—you must not think I do not sympathize with you, my dear Pelham: I do, from the bottom of my heart—and takes the thing in so much earnest that he forces a quarrel on willy-nilly; and further issues a veiled challenge to the world at large—you did, did you not, Pel? Ah, yes, I was sure of it!—in case any should dare to repeat the scandal—why, then, there is food enough for speculation! By this time I imagine that there is scarcely a pair of eyes in town not fixed on Horry and Lethbridge. For which, Pelham, I have undoubtedly you to thank.”
The Viscount shook his head despondently. “As bad as that, is it? I’m a fool, Marcus, that’s what it is. Always was, you know. To tell you the truth, I was devilish set on fighting the fellow. Ought to have let him eat his words. Believe he would have.”
“I am quite sure he would,” agreed Rule. “However, it is too late now. Don’t distress yourself, Pelham: at least you have the distinction of being the only man in England to have succeeded in provoking Crosby to fight. Where did you wound him?”
“Shoulder,” said the Viscount, his mouth full of beef. “Could have killed him half a dozen times.”
“Could you?” said Rule. “He must be a very bad swordsman.”
“He is,” replied the Viscount with a grin.
Having visited both the principals in the late affair, the Earl dropped into White’s to look at the journals. His entry into one of the rooms seemed to interrupt a low-voiced conversation which was engaging the attention of several people gathered together in one corner. The talk ceased like a snapped thread, to be resumed again almost immediately, very audibly this time. But the Earl of Rule, giving no sign, did not really suppose that horse-flesh was the subject of the first debate.