Tristram of Blent Part 8

"But though you refuse my offer, I shall consider Lady Tristram. I will not move while she lives, unless you force me to it."

"By marrying the heiress you want?" sneered Harry.

"By carrying out your swindling plans." Duplay's temper began to fail him. "Listen. As soon as your engagement is announced--if it ever is--I go to Mr Iver with what I know. If you abandon the idea of that marriage, you're safe from me. I have no other friends here; the rest must look after themselves. But you shall not delude my friends with false pretences."

"And I shall not spoil your game with Miss Iver?"

Duplay's temper quite failed him. He had not meant this to happen; he had pictured himself calm, Harry wild and unrestrained--either in fury or in supplication. The young man had himself in hand, firmly in hand; the elder lost self-control.

"If you insult me again, sir, I'll throw you in the river!"

Harry's slow smile broke across his face. With all his wariness and calculation he measured the Major's figure. The att.i.tude of mind was not heroic; it was Harry's. Who, having ten thousand men, will go against him that has twenty thousand? A fool or a hero, Harry would have said, and he claimed neither name. But in the end he reckoned that he was a match for the Major. He smiled more broadly and raised his brows, asking of sky and earth as he glanced round:

"Since when have blackmailers grown so sensitive?"

In an instant Duplay closed with him in a struggle on which hung not death indeed, but an unpleasant and humiliating ducking. The rain fell on both; the water waited for one. The Major was taller and heavier; Harry was younger and in better trim. Harry was cooler too. It was rude hugging, nothing more; neither of them had skill or knew more tricks than the common dimly remembered devices of urchinhood. The fight was most unpicturesque, most unheroic; but it was tolerably grim for all that. The gra.s.s grew slippery under the rain and the slithering feet; luck had its share. And just behind them ran the Queen's highway. They did not think of the Queen's highway. To this pa.s.s a determination to be calm, whatever else they were, had brought them.

The varying wriggles (no more dignified word is appropriate) of the encounter ended in a stern stiff grip which locked the men one to the other, Duplay facing down the valley, Harry looking up the river. Harry could not see over the Major's shoulder, but he saw past it, and sighted a tall dog-cart driven quickly and rather rashly down the hill. It was raining hard now, and had not looked like rain when the dog-cart started. Hats were being ruined--there was some excuse for risking broken knees to the horse and broken necks to the riders. In the middle of his struggle Harry smiled: he put out his strength too; and he did not warn his enemy of what he saw; yet he knew very well who was in the dog-cart. Duplay's anger had stirred him to seek a primitive though effective revenge. Harry was hoping to inflict a more subtle punishment.

He needed only a bit of luck to help him to it; he knew how to use the chance when it came--just as well as he knew who was in the dog-cart, as well as he guessed whence the dog-cart came.

The luck did not fail. Duplay's right foot slipped. In the effort to recover himself he darted out his left over the edge of the bank. Harry impelled him; the Major loosed his hold and set to work to save himself--none too soon: both his legs were over, his feet touched water, he lay spread-eagled on the bank, half on, half off, in a ludicrous att.i.tude; still he slipped and could not get a hold on the short slimy gra.s.s. At that moment the dog-cart was pulled up just behind them.

"What are you doing?" cried Janie Iver, leaning forward in amazement; Mina Zabriska sat beside her with wide-open eyes. Harry stooped, caught the Major under the shoulders, and with a great effort hauled him up on the bank, a sad sight, draggled and dirty. Then, as Duplay slowly rose, he turned with a start, as though he noticed the new-comers for the first time. He laughed as he raised his cap.

"We didn't know we were to have spectators," said he. "And you nearly came in for a tragedy! He was all but gone. Weren't you, Major?"

"What were you doing?" cried Janie again. Mina was silent and still, scrutinizing both men keenly.

"Why, we had been talking about wrestling, and the Major offered to show me a trick which he bet a shilling would floor me. Only the ground was too slippery; wasn't it, Major? And the trick didn't exactly come off. I wasn't floored, so I must trouble you for a shilling, Major."

Major Duplay did not look at Janie, still less did he meet his niece's eye. He spent a few seconds in a futile effort to rub the mud off his coat with muddy hands; he glanced a moment at Harry.

"I must have another try some day," he said, but with no great readiness.

"Meanwhile--the shilling!" demanded Harry good-humoredly, a subtle mockery in his eyes alone showing the imaginary character of the bet which he claimed to have won.

In the presence of those two inquisitive young women Major Duplay did not deny the debt. He felt in his pocket, found a shilling, and gave it to Harry Tristram. That young man looked at it, spun it in the air, and pocketed it.

"Yes, a revenge whenever you like," said he. "And now we'd better get home, because it's begun to rain."

"Begun to! It's rained for half-an-hour," said Janie crossly.

"Has it? I didn't notice. I was too busy with the Major's trick."

As he spoke he looked full in Mina Zabriska's face. She bore his glance for a moment, then cried to Janie, "Oh, please drive on!" The dog-cart started; the Major, with a stiff touch of his hat, strode along the road. Harry was left alone by the Pool. His gayety and defiance vanished; he stood there scowling at the Pool. On the surface the honors of the encounter were indeed his; the real peril remained, the real battle had still to be fought. It was with heart-felt sincerity that he muttered, as he sought for pipe and tobacco:

"I wish I'd drowned the beggar in the Pool!"

VI

THE ATTRACTION OF IT

Mr Jenkinson Neeld sat at lunch at the Imperium Club, quite happy with a neck chop, last week's _Athenaeum_, and a pint of Apollinaris. To him enter disturbers of peace.

"How are you, Neeld?" said Lord Southend, taking the chair next him.

"Sit down here, Iver. Let me introduce you--Mr Iver--Mr Neeld. Bill of fare, waiter." His lordship smiled rather maliciously at Mr Neeld as he made the introduction, which Iver acknowledged with bluff courtesy, Neeld with a timid little bow. "How are things down your way?" pursued Southend, addressing Iver. "Lady Tristram's very ill, I hear?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Wonderful woman that, you know. You ought to have seen her in the seventies--when she ran away with Randolph Edge."

A gentleman, two tables off, looked round.

"Hush, Southend! That's his brother," whispered Mr Neeld.

"Whose brother?" demanded Southend.

"That's Wilmot Edge--Sir Randolph's brother."

"Oh, the deuce it is. I thought he'd been pilled."

Blackb.a.l.l.s also were an embarra.s.sing subject; Neeld sipped his Apollinaris nervously.

"Well, as I was saying" (Lord Southend spoke a little lower), "she went straight from the d.u.c.h.ess of Slough's ball to the station, as she was, in a low gown and a scarlet opera cloak--met Edge, whose wife had only been dead three months--and went off with him. You know the rest of the story. It was a near run for young Harry Tristram! How is the boy, Iver?"

"The boy's very much of a man indeed; we don't talk about the near run before him."

Southend laughed. "A miss is as good as a mile," he said, "eh, Neeld?

I'd like to see Addie Tristram again--though I suppose she's a wreck, poor thing!"

"Why couldn't she marry the man properly, instead of bolting?" asked Iver. He did not approve of such escapades.

"Oh, he had to bolt anyhow--a thorough bad lot--debts, you know--her people wouldn't hear of it; besides she was engaged to Fred Nares--you don't remember Fred? A devilish pa.s.sionate fellow, with a wart on his nose. So altogether it was easier to cut and run. Besides she liked the sort of thing, don't you know. Romantic and all that. Then Edge vanished, and the other man appeared. That turned out all right, but she ran it fine. Eh, Neeld?"

Mr Neeld was sadly fl.u.s.tered by these recurring references to him. He had no desire to pose as an authority on the subject. Josiah Cholderton's diary put him in a difficulty. He wished to goodness he had been left to the peaceful delights of literary journalism.

"Well, if you'll come down to my place, I can promise to show you Harry Tristram; and you can go over and see his mother if she's better."

"By Jove, I've half a mind to! Very kind of you, Iver. You've got a fine place, I hear."

"I've built so many houses for other people that I may be allowed one for myself, mayn't I? We're proud of our neighborhood," he pursued, politely addressing himself to Mr Neeld. "If you're ever that way, I hope you'll look me up. I shall be delighted to welcome a fellow-member of the Imperium."

A short chuckle escaped from Lord Southend's lips; he covered it by an exaggerated devotion to his broiled kidneys. Mr Neeld turned pink and murmured incoherent thanks; he felt like a traitor.

"Yes, we see a good deal of young Harry," said Iver, with a smile--"and of other young fellows about the place too. They don't come to see me, though. I expect Janie's the attraction. You remember my girl, Southend?"