The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II

Charles James Lever

The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II (of II)

CHAPTER I. A MORNING OF MISADVENTURES

“Well, my Lord, are we to pass the day here,” said Count Trouville, the second of the opposite party, as Norwood returned from a fruitless search of George Onslow, “or are we to understand that this is the English mode of settling such matters?”

“I am perfectly ready, Monsieur le Comte, to prove the contrary, so far as my own poor abilities extend,” said Norwood, calmly.

“But your friend has disappeared, sir. You are left alone here.”

“Which is, perhaps, the reason of your having dared to insult me,” rejoined the other; “that being, perhaps, the French custom in such affairs.”

“Come, come, gentlemen,” interposed an old cavalry officer, who acted as second friend to Guilmard, “you must both see that all discussion of this kind is irregular and unseemly. We have come here this morning for one specific purpose, – to obtain reparation for a great injury. The gentleman who should have offered us the amende has suddenly withdrawn himself. I offer no opinion on the fact that he came out accompanied by only one friend; we might, perhaps, have devised means to obviate this difficulty. For his own absence we have no remedy. I would therefore ask what you have to propose to us in this emergency?”

“A little patience, – nothing more. My friend must have lost his way; some accident or other has detained him, and I expect to see him here every instant.”

“Shall we say half an hour longer, my Lord?” rejoined the other, taking out his watch. “That will bring us to eight o’clock.”

“Which, considering that our time was named ‘sharp six,’” interposed Trouville, “is a very reasonable ‘grace.’”

“Your expression is an impertinence, Monsieur,” said Norwood, fiercely.

“And yet I don’t intend to apologize for it,” said the other, smiling.

“I ‘m glad of it, sir. It’s the only thing you have said to-day with either good sense or spirit.”

“Enough, quite enough, my Lord,” replied the Frenchman, gayly. “‘Dans la bonne société, on ne dit jamais de trop.’ Where shall it be, and when?”

“Here, and now,” said Norwood, “if I can only find any one who will act for me.”

“Pray, my Lord, don’t go in search of him,” said Trouville, “or we shall despair of seeing you here again.”

“I will give a bail for my reappearance, sir, that you cannot doubt of,” cried Norwood, advancing towards the other with his cane elevated.

A perfect burst of horror broke from the Frenchmen at this threat, and three or four immediately threw themselves between the contending parties.

“But for this, my Lord,” said the old officer, “I should have offered you my services.”

“And I should have declined them, sir,” said Norwood, promptly. “The first peasant I meet with will suffice;” and, so saying, he hurried from the spot, his heart almost bursting with passion. With many a malediction of George – with curses deep and cutting on every one whose misconduct had served to place him in his present position – he took his way towards the high-road.

“What could have happened?” muttered he; “what confounded fit of poltroonery has seized him? a fellow that never wanted pluck in his life! Is it possible that he can have failed now? And this to occur at the very moment they are beggared! Had they been rich, as they were a few months back, I’d have made the thing pay. Ay, by Jove! I ‘d have ‘coined my blood,’ as the fellow says in the play, and written a swingeing check with red ink! And now I have had a bad quarrel, and nothing to come of it! And so to walk the high-roads in search of some one who can load a pistol.”

A stray peasant or two, jogging along to Florence, a postilion with return horses, a shabbily dressed curate, or a friar with a sack behind him, were all that he saw for miles of distance, and he returned once more to interrogate the calessino driver as to the stranger who accompanied him from the city.

Any one whose misfortune it may have been to make inquiries from an Italian vetturino of any fact, no matter how insignificant or unimportant, will sympathize with Norwood’s impatience at the evasive and distrustful replies that now met his questions. Although the fact could have no possible concern or interest for him, he prevaricated and contradicted himself half-a-dozen times over, as to the stranger’s age, country, and appearance, so that, utterly baffled and provoked, the Viscount turned away and entered the park.

“I, too, shall be reported missing, I suppose,” said he, bitterly, as he walked along a little path that skirted a piece of ornamental water. “By Jupiter! this is a pleasant morning’s work, and must have its reparation one day or other.”

A hearty sneeze suddenly startled him as he spoke; he turned hastily about, but could see no one, and yet his hearing was not to be deceived! He searched the spot eagerly; he examined the little boat-shed, the copse, the underwood, – everything, in fact, – but not a trace of living being was to be seen; at last a slight rustling sound seemed to issue from a piece of rustic shell-work, representing a river god reclining on his urn, and, on approaching, he distinctly detected the glitter of a pair of eyes within the sockets of the figure.

“Here goes for a brace of balls into him,” cried Norwood, adjusting a cap on his pistol. “A piece of stonework that sneezes is far too like a man to be trusted.”

Scarcely was the threat uttered, when a tremulous scream issued from within, and a voice, broken with terror, called out, —

“D-don’t fire, my Lord. You’ll m-m-murder me. I’m Purvis – Sc-Sc-Scroope Purvis.”

“How did you come to be there, then?” asked Norwood, half angrily.

“I ‘ll tell you when I g-get out!” was the answer; and he disappeared from the loophole at which he carried on the conversation for some seconds. Norwood began to fancy that the whole was some mystification of his brain, for no trace of him was to be had; when he emerged from the boat-house with his hat stripped of the brim, and his clothes in tatters, his scratched face and hands attesting that his transit had not been of the easiest. “It’s like a r-r-rat-hole,” cried he, puffing for breath.

“And what the devil brought you there?” asked Norwood, rudely.

“I ca-came out to see the fight!” cried he; “and when you’re inside there you have a view of the whole park, and are quite safe, too.”

“Then it was you who drove out in the calessino meant for the doctor?” said Norwood, with the air of a man who would not brook an equivocation.

“Yes; that was a d-d-dodge of mine to get out here,” said he, chuckling.

“Well, Master Purvis,” said Norwood, drawing his arm within his own, “if you can’t be the ‘doctor,’ you shall at least be the ‘second.’ This is a dodge of mine; so come along, and no more about it.”

“But I ca-can’t; I never was – I never could be a se-se-second.”

“You shall begin to-day, then, or my name’s not Norwood. You’ve been the cause of a whole series of mishaps and misfortunes; and, by Jove! if the penalty were a heavier one, you should pay it.”

“I tell you, I n-never saw a duel; I – I never f-fought one; I never will fight one; I don’t even know how they g-go about it.”

“You shall learn, sir, that ‘s all,” said Norwood, as he hastened along, dragging the miserable Purvis at his side.

“But for you, sir,” continued he, in a voice thick with passion, – “but for you, sir, and your inveterate taste for prying into what does not concern you, we should have experienced no delay nor disappointment this morning. The consequences are, that I shall have to stand where another ought to have stood, and take to myself a quarrel in which I have had no share.”

“H-how is that? Do – do – do tell me all about it!” cried Purvis, eagerly.

“I ‘ll tell you nothing, sir, not a syllable. Your personal adventures on this morning must be the subject of your revelations when you get back to Florence, if ever you do get back.”

“Why, I – I’m – I’m not going to fight anybody,” exclaimed he, in terror.

“No, sir, but I am; and in the event of any disastrous incident, your position may be unpleasant. If Trouville falls, you ‘ll have to make for Lombardy, and cross over into Switzerland; if he shoots me, you can take my passport; it is visé for the Tyrol. As they know me at Innsprück, you ‘d better keep to the southward, – some of the smaller places about Botzen, or Brixen.”

“But I don’t know Bo-Bo-Botzen on the map! and I don’t see why I ‘m to sk-sk-skulk about the Continent like a refu-refu-refugee Pole!”

“Take your own time, then; and, perhaps, ten years in a fortress may make you wiser. It’s no affair of mine, you know; and I merely gave you the advice, as I ‘m a little more up to these things than you are.”

“But, supposing that I ‘ll have no-nothing to do with the matter, that I ‘ll not be present, that I refuse to see – ”

“You shall and you must, sir; and if I hear another word of objection out of your mouth, or if you expose me, by any show of your own poltroonery, to the ribald insolence of these Frenchmen, by Heaven! I ‘ll hold your hand in my own when I fire at Count Trouville.”

“And I may be mu-mu-murdered!” screamed Purvis. “An innocent man’s bl-blood shed, all for nothing!”

“Bluebeard treated his wives to the same penalty for the same crime, Master Purvis. And now listen to me, sir, and mark well my words. With the causes which have led to this affair you have no concern whatever; your only business here is in the capacity of my second. Be present when the pistols are loaded; stand by as they step the ground; and, if you can do no more, try, at least, to look as if you were not going to be shot at.” Neither the counsel nor the tone it was delivered in were very reassuring; and Purvis went along with his head down and his hands in his pockets, reflecting on all the “accidents by firearms” he had read of in the newspapers, together with the more terrible paragraphs about fatal duels, and criminal proceedings against all concerned in them.

The Frenchmen were seated in the garden, at a table, and smoking their cigars, as Norwood came up, and, in a few words, explained that a countryman of his own, whom he had met by chance, would undertake the duties of his friend.

“I have only to say, gentlemen,” he added, “that he has never even witnessed an affair of this kind; and I have but to address myself to the loyal good faith of Frenchmen to supply any deficiencies in his knowledge. Mr. Purvis, Messieurs.”

The old Colonel, having courteously saluted him, took him to a short distance aside, and spoke eagerly for a few minutes; while Norwood, burning with anxiety and uneasiness, tried to smoke his cigar with every semblance of unconcern.

“I ‘m sure, if you think so,” cried Scroope, aloud, “I’m not the m-man to gainsay the opinion. A miss is as g-g-good as a m-mile; and as he did n’t strike him – ”

“Tonnerre de Dieu! sir – strike him!” screamed the old soldier. “Did you say strike him?”

“No, I didn’t – I couldn’t have meant that,” broke in Purvis. “I meant to remark that, as there was no mischief done – ”

“And who will venture to say that, sir?” interposed the other. “Is it nothing that a Frenchman should have been menaced?”

“That’s a gr-great deal, – a tremendous deal. It’s as much as beating another man; I know that,” muttered poor Purvis, deprecatingly.

“Is this a sneer, sir?” asked the Colonel, drawing himself up to his full height.

“No, no, it ain’t; no, upon my soul, I ‘m quite serious. I never was less disposed for a jest in my life.”

“You could never have selected a less opportune moment for one, sir,” rejoined the other, gravely. “Am I to conclude, sir,” resumed he, after a second’s interval, “that we have no difference of opinion on this affair?”

“None whatever. I agree with you in everything you have s-said, and everything you in-intend to say.”

“Your friend will then apologize?” resumed the Colonel.

“He shall, – he must.”

“Simply expressing his regret that an unguarded action should have occasioned a misconception, and that in lifting his arm he neither intended the gesture as a menace nor an insult. Is n’t that your meaning?”

“Just so; and that if he had struck he would n’t have hurt him.”

“Feu d’enfer! sir, what are you saying? or do you mean this for a mockery of us?” screamed the Colonel, in a fit of passion.

“You terrify me so,” cried Purvis; “You are so impeimpe-impetuous, I don’t know what I ‘m saying.”

The Frenchman measured him with a glance of strange meaning. It was evident that such a character was somewhat new to him, and it required all his skill and acuteness to comprehend it “Very well, sir,” said he, at last, “I leave the details entirely to yourself; speak to your friend, arrange the matter between you, and let us finish the affair as speedily as may be.”

“What is all this delay about?” muttered Norwood, angrily, as the other joined him; “is there any difficulty in stepping twelve or twenty paces?”

“None; but we’ve hit upon a b-better plan, and you’ve only to say that you ‘re sorry for it all, that you did n’t m-mean anything, and that you never did b-b-beat a Frenchman, nor will you ever do so in future.”

“Why, what do you mean?” asked Norwood, in astonishment.

“That we ‘ll all go back and lunch at the ‘Luna;’ for there’s no-nothing to fight about.”

Norwood pushed by him contemptuously, and with hurried steps walked up to where the old Colonel stood. “You are a French officer, sir,” said he, “and I rely upon your honor that, whether from the ignorance or inaptitude of that gentleman, no blame may attach itself to me in this business. I have no apology to offer, nor any amende save one.”

“Very well, sir, we are ready,” said the Colonel. “I will ask one of my countrymen to act for you, for I see you are in very indifferent hands.”

And now, like men who were well accustomed to the task, they set about the details of the duel; while Purvis, being at full liberty, slipped from the spot, and retired into the wood.

“You ‘ve won the first fire, my Lord,” said a young Frenchman to Norwood. “The conditions are twelve paces – back to back – to torn at the word, and fire.”

Norwood bowed, and, without speaking, followed the other to the spot where he was to stand. As he waited thus, pistol in hand, he was directly opposite to the place wherein Purvis had taken refuge, and who, seeing Norwood in front of him, with a cocked pistol, and his finger on the trigger, uttered a scream of terror, and fell flat on the ground. Before the rest could discover the cause of the outcry, a shout from outside of “The Police!” “The Gendarmes!” was heard, and Dr. Grounsell rushed into the garden, followed by several dismounted dragoons. In an instant all were away. Norwood sprang over a low balcony into a vineyard; while in various directions the others scampered off, leaving Purvis alone upon the field.

But too happy to have fallen into the safe keeping of the authorities, Purvis accepted his captivity with a most placid contentment.

“Where’s Captain Onslow? Have you seen him, sir?” whispered Grounsell to him.

“I have seen everybody, but I don’t re-remember anything. It’s all a dr-dr-dream to me.”

“There was no duel? They hadn’t fought?” asked Grounsell.

“I – I – I think not; pro-pro-probably not,” said Purvis, whose faculties were still very cloudy.

Grounsell turned away from him in disdain, and entered the house. To all his inquiries from the waiters of the inn the answers were vague and insufficient, nor could the doctor discover either what had occurred, or the reasons of the long delay on the ground. Meanwhile the Carabinieri, stimulated by liberal promises of reward, were searching the park in every quarter, and scouring the country around to arrest the fugitives; and the peasantry, enlisted in the pursuit, hastened hither and thither to aid them. Whether really unable to come up with them, or, as is more probable, concurring in the escape through bribery, the dragoons returned to the inn after about an hour’s absence, without the capture of a single prisoner.

Grounsell cursed their Italian indolence, and reviled every institution of their lazy land. How he raved about foreign falsehood and rascality, and wished for a London detective and a magistrate of Bow Street! Never did Lord Palmerston so thirst to implant British institutions in a foreign soil, as did he to teach these “macaroni rascals what a good police meant.” What honest indignation did he not vent upon English residents abroad, who, for sake of a mild climate and lax morality, could exchange their native country for the Continent; and at last, fairly worn out with his denunciations, he sat down on a bench, tired and exhausted.

“Will you t-t-tell them to let me go?” cried Purvis. “I’ve done nothing. I never do anything. My name is Purvis, – Sc-Sc-Scroope Purvis, – bro-brother to Mrs. Ricketts, of the Villino Zoe.”

“Matters which have no possible interest for me, sir,” growled out Grounsell; “nor am I a corporal of gendarmes, to give orders for your liberation.”

“But they ‘ll take me to – to prison!” cried Purvis.

“With all my heart, sir, so that I be not your fellow captive,” rejoined the doctor, angrily, and left the spot; while the police, taking as many precautions for securing Purvis as though he had been a murderer or a house-breaker, assisted him into a calèche, and, seated one on either side of him, with their carbines unslung, set out for Florence.

“They’ll take me for Fr-Fr-Fra Diavolo, if I enter the city in this fashion,” cried Purvis; but certainly his rueful expression might have belied the imputation.

Grounsell sat down upon a grassy bench beside the road, overcome with fatigue and disappointment. From the hour of his arrival in Florence, he had not enjoyed one moment of rest. On leaving Lady Hester’s chamber he had betaken himself to Sir Stafford’s apartment; and there, till nigh daybreak, he sat, breaking the sad tidings of ruin to his old friend, and recounting the terrible story of disasters which were to crush him into poverty. Thence he hastened to George Onslow’s room; but he was already gone. A few minutes before he had started with Norwood for Pratolino, and all that remained for Grounsell was to inform the police of the intended meeting, while he himself, wisely suspecting that nothing could go forward in Florence unknown to Jekyl, repaired to that gentleman’s residence at once.

Without the ceremony of announcement, Grounsell mounted the stairs, and opened the door of Jekyl’s apartment, just as its owner had commenced the preparations for his breakfast. There was an almost Spartan simplicity in the arrangements, which might have made less composed spirits somewhat abashed and ill at ease. The little wooden platter of macaroni, the small coffee-pot of discolored hue and dinged proportions, the bread of Ethiopian complexion, and the bunch of shrivelled grapes offered a meal irreproachable on the score of either costliness or epicurism. But Jekyl, far from feeling disconcerted at their exposure to a stranger’s eyes, seemed to behold them with sincere satisfaction, and with a most courteous smile welcomed the doctor to Florence, and thanked him for the very polite attention of so early a visit.

“I believe I ought to apologize for the unseasonable hour, sir,” blundered out Grounsell, who was completely thrown off his balance by this excessive urbanity; “but the cause must plead for me.”

“Any cause which has conferred the honor on me is sure of being satisfactory. Pray come nearer the table. You ‘ll find that macaroni eat better than it looks. The old Duke de Montmartre always recommended macaroni to be served on wood. His maxim was, ‘Keep the “plat d’argent” for a mayonnaise or a galantine.’”

“Excuse me if I cannot join you, sir. Nothing but a matter of extreme importance could warrant my present intrusion. I only reached this city a few hours back, and I find everything at the Mazzarini Palace in a state of discord and confusion. Some are questions for time and consideration; others are more immediately pressing. One of these is this affair of George Onslow’s. Who is he about to meet, and for what?”

“His antagonist is a very agreeable young man; quite a gentleman, I assure you, attached to the French mission here, and related to the ‘Morignys,’ whom you must have met at ‘Madame Parivaux’s’ formerly.”

“Never heard of one of them, sir. But what’s the quarrel?”

“It originated, I believe, in some form of disputation, – an altercation,” simpered Jekyl, as he sweetened and sipped his coffee.

“A play transaction, – a gambling affair, eh?”

“I fancy not; Count Guilmard does not play.”

“So far, so good,” said Grounsell. “Now, sir, how is it to be arranged? – what settlement can be effected? I speak to you frankly, perhaps bluntly, Mr. Jekyl, for my nature has few sympathies with courteous ambiguities. Can this business be accommodated without a meeting?”

Jekyl shook his head, and gave a soft, plaintive little sigh.

“Is friendly interference out of the question, sir?”

Another shake of the head, and a sigh.

“Is there any law in the country? Can the police do nothing?”

“The frontiers are always easily accessible,” simpered Jekyl, as he stole a look at his watch.

“Ay, to be sure,” broke in Grounsell, indignantly; “the very geography of the Continent assists this profligacy, and five paces over an imaginary boundary gives immunity in a case of murder! Well, sir, come along with me to the place of meeting. It is just possible that we may be of some service even yet.”

“Nothing could be more agreeable to me than the opportunity of cultivating your acquaintance, Dr. Grounsell; but I have already sent off a few lines to Lord Norwood, to apologize for my absence, – a previous engagement.”

“What! at this hour of the morning, sir!” burst out Grounsell.

“Even at this early hour, doctor, our cares commence,” said Jekyl, blandly.

“Upon this occasion they must give way to duties, then,” said Grounsell, sternly. “The word may sound strangely in your ears, sir, but I use it advisedly you have been well received and hospitably entertained by this family. They have shown you many marks of kindness and attention. Now is the opportunity to make some sort of requital. Come, then, and see if this young man cannot be rescued from peril.”

“You touch my feelings in the very tenderest spot,” said Jekyl, softly. “When gratitude is mentioned, I am a child, – a mere child.”

“Be a man, then, for once, sir; put on your hat and accompany me,” cried Grounsell.

“Would you have me break an appointment, doctor?”

“Ay, to be sure I would, sir, – at least, such an appointment as I suspect yours to be. This may be a case of life or death.”

“How very dreadful!” said Jekyl, settling his curls at the glass. “Pascal compares men to thin glass phials, with an explosive powder within them, and really one sees the force of the similitude every day; but Jean Paul improves upon it by saying that we are all burning-glasses of various degrees of density, so that our passions ignite at different grades of heat.”

“Mine are not very far from the focal distance at this moment,” said Grounsell, with savage energy; “so fetch your hat, sir, at once, or – ”

“Unless I prefer a cap, you were going to add,” interposed Jekyl, with a sweet smile.

“We must use speed, sir, or we shall be too late,” rejoined the doctor.

“I flatter myself few men understand a rapid toilet better,” said Jekyl, rising from the table; “so if you’ll amuse yourself with ‘Bell’s Life,’ ‘Punch,’ or Jules Janin, for five minutes, I ‘m your man.”

“I can be company for myself for that space, sir,” said the other, gruffly, and turned to the window; while Jekyl, disappearing behind the drapery that filled the doorway, was heard humming an opera air from within.

Grounsell was in no superlative mood of good temper with the world, nor would he have extended to the section of it he best knew the well-known eulogy on the “Bayards.” “Swindlers,” “Rakes,” and “Vagabonds” were about the mildest terms of the vocabulary he kept muttering to himself, while a grumbling thunder-growl of malediction followed each. The very aspect of the little chamber seemed to offer food for his anger; the pretentious style of its decoration jarred and irritated him, and he felt a wish to smash bronzes and brackets and statues into one common ruin.