Ethel Churchill/Chapter 106
CHAPTER XXX.
THE CHALLENGE.
'Tis a strange mystery, the power of words!
Life is in them, and death. A word can send
The crimson colour hurrying to the cheek,
Hurrying with many meanings; or can turn
The current cold and deadly to the heart.
Anger and fear are in them; grief and joy
Are on their sound; yet slight, impalpable:—
A word is but a breath of passing air.
Maynard returned home direct from Lady Marchmont. To his surprise he learnt that Sir George was at home: such an early return was a very unusual thing with him. Walter was glad of it; he could not have borne to have passed the night without explanation; and hearing that Kingston was in the library, he at once hurried there, and found him, seemingly, alone and unoccupied.
"Maynard," exclaimed he, as his secretary entered, "do find something to say—I am dying of ennui."
"I have much to say," replied the other: "whether you may like to hear it, is another question."
The tone of his voice arrested Sir George's attention; a thing not easily done when the matter did not concern himself.
"Why," exclaimed he, "you look as pale as if you intended acting a tragedy instead of writing one! Where do you come from?"
"From Lady Marchmont, to whom I have restored all her letters," replied Maynard.
"Are you knave or fool, or both?" cried Sir George, starting from his seat. "What devil could tempt you to do any thing so absurd?"
"So right, you mean," replied Walter.
"And did you, as I suppose you did," asked Sir George, "make the most of your writing them for me?"
"I told her I wrote them every line."
"The devil you did!" exclaimed the other.
"And I told her, moreover, that if there was a man in the world devoid of one spark of honour, or one touch of feeling, that man was yourself."
"Mr. Maynard, this insolence is past bearing: leave the room this moment, meddling fool that you are!" cried Sir George, whose surprise had now become rage. "To-morrow you shall leave this house forever!"
"I shall not," replied the other, "wait your orders, or to-morrow either: I leave it forever to-night!"
"The sooner the better!" exclaimed Sir George, "impertinent and ungrateful as you are!"
"I am not aware," answered Walter, "that there is any impertinence in expressing my opinion of your most dishonourable conduct; and I am not aware that I owe you any gratitude: will you permit me to ask you on what account?"
"This is past bearing," interrupted Kingston; "will you, sir, leave the room?"
"Not, sir, till you tell me when you will give me satisfaction for having made me the tool of your heartless designs."
Sir George burst into a loud fit of contemptuous laughter.
"Why, do you mean that for a challenge? Really it is too good your supposing that I should meet you. I thank you; but, really must beg to decline the honour."
"You dare not," replied Walter; "you would shrink from the shame of refusing to meet me!"
"The shame of refusing to meet you!—from the shame of meeting an equal I might," said Kingston, tauntingly; "but it is absurd to be challenged by my hired servant—a low-born nobody!"
Walter set his teeth. "You know that I am as much a gentleman as yourself!"
"In your own opinion," sneered the other.
"Really, it is very unpleasant to be interrupted in one's first sleep," said a young man; rising from the sofa where he had been lying,—"what are you quarrelling about? I meant to have slept till supper. Come, let me be peacemaker.
"Never," said Walter; "but, perhaps, Lord Alfred, you will explain to Sir George, that his refusing to meet to-night will not tell to his credit to-morrow."
"Lord Alfred," replied Sir George, "will also have the goodness to state by whom the challenge was given—by my secretary, my hireling, my dependant."
"Not the last," interrupted Maynard; "I scorn you too much to depend upon you."
"Really," replied Sir George, "this farce grows tiresome. Mr. Maynard, I order you to leave the room."
"You have no right to order me. Give me the satisfaction to which I am so justly entitled, or I will force you to it."
"I defy you," replied the other, with a sneer.
"Liar and coward!" said Walter, striking him on the face.
"Mr. Maynard, you are too intemperate," cried Lord Alfred, snatching his arm; "what can justify such provocation?"
"Before I ring for my servants to show you to the door," said Sir George, "you will allow me to tell you, that I can only be insulted by my equal: I cannot go out with any but a gentleman!"
"I wonder," said Lord Alfred, interfering, "that you can dream of disputing Mr. Maynard's claim to be considered one. I can only say, so much do I value him, that let him satisfy me as to the quarrel, and I will attend him as second myself."
Walter gave him one eloquent look of gratitude, and Sir George turned livid with rage.
"But little explanation will suffice," said Maynard. "Sir George has, by he knows what false representations, induced me to write letters—love letters for him. I believed that I only gave expression to real feeling—a feeling that I at once regretted and pitied. Instead of that, the passion which he feigned to me, as well as to its object, was a mere deceit, a matter of miserable and vain-glorious boasting. He could place the touching and beautiful letters, full of the most confiding love and the bitterest self-reproaches, in the hands of his mistress, to be tossed about for any chance eye! I have restored the letters to one who was the beloved child of my oldest and kindest friend!"
"Mr. Maynard, I shall be happy to accompany you," said Lord Alfred. "Sir George, what friend shall I communicate with?"
"With none: I will not," said Kingston, doggedly, "meet a moon-struck maniac!—a nobody!—a low-born beggar!"
"Leave out the epithet," returned Maynard, "and I am not ashamed of being the last. Sir George Kingston, my father served with yours, and he was the superior officer. His death-wound was received while defending his friend, Sir Edmund Kingston."
"I see I must give you the lesson myself that I meant you should have received from my servants," replied Sir George, with an insolent laugh. "There is no time like the present for these sort of things: Shelburne," said he to a gentleman, who entered at that moment, "you must take a little exercise before supper. Mr. Maynard has suddenly set up for a squire of dames. His romances have got up into his head, and he needs bleeding; so come with me. The park is lonely enough just now, and we can return to supper."