Miss Challoner, who saw that Mr Comyn was hopelessly overweighted, looked round for a suitable weapon. She caught sight of the water-jug still standing on the table, and with her usual presence of mind picked it up. ‘Stand aside, Juliana!’ she said coolly, and dashed the water impartially over both men. Miss Marling, having paid no heed to the warning, also received her share, and fell back, gasping.
The sudden shock must have sobered his lordship, for he released his grip on Mr Comyn’s throat, and put up his hands to wipe the wet out of his eyes. Mr Comyn went staggering backwards, feeling his neck, and coughing. Miss Marling ran to him, sobbing: ‘Frederick! oh, my poor Frederick, are you hurt?’
It was to be seen that Mr Comyn had lost his prim punctiliousness. He thrust her off unceremoniously, and said angrily: ‘Hurt? No!’ He tried to straighten his damaged neckcloth. He was in as great a rage as the Marquis by this time, and stuttered a little in his haste to utter his challenge. ‘Swords or pistols?’ he demanded. ‘Choose your weapon, and choose it quickly.’
‘No!’ cried Juliana, trying to fling her arms around him. ‘Vidal, you shall not! Frederick, please, please, be calm!’
He disengaged himself from her clinging hands. ‘Madam, I have nothing whatsoever to say to you,’ he snapped. ‘Be good enough to stand away from me! Well, my lord? Which is
it to be?’
The Marquis was looking at Miss Challoner with an odd smile lifting the corners of his mouth. ‘Mary, you little wretch!’ he said softly. He turned his head, and his eyes hardened again as they rested on Mr Comyn’s pale countenance. ‘Either will do your business for you, you treacherous cur!’ he said. ‘Choose which you will.’
Juliana wrung her hands. ‘Oh, you’ll kill him! I know you will!’ she wailed.
‘I shall,’ said his lordship silkily.
Miss Challoner grasped the edge of the mantelpiece. ‘This has gone far enough,’ she said. ‘Please listen to me for a moment.’
Mr Comyn, who was struggling with his top-boots, said quickly: ‘Nothing you can say will deter me from fighting his lordship! Pray hold your peace! We will have this out with swords, my lord, and I trust that I may be able to rid the world of one whose instincts are more those of a beast than of a gentleman of breeding.’
‘Oh, but you will never succeed in killing him!’ almost wept Miss Marling. ‘Oh, Frederick, I am sorry for everything! Don’t fight Vidal! I implore you not to!’
Mr Comyn turned a flint-like face towards her. ‘Madam, I have already informed you that I have nothing to say to you. I do not know why you are here, but you come in excellent time to felicitate me. Miss Challoner has done me the honour to marry me.’
Miss Marling clutched at a chair-back for support. ‘Married?’ she faltered. ‘Oh, oh, oh!’
Only Miss Challoner paid any heed to this fit of mild hysterics. The Marquis took off his greatcoat, coat, and boots, and stood in his shirt and breeches, testing the flexibility of his slim blade. The Dresden ruffles of his shirt fell over his hands, but Mr Comyn rolled up his own sleeves with business-like haste. He cast his lordship a look of angry dislike, and as he pulled his rapier from the scabbard, he said in a low, unsteady voice: ‘You have called me by some names I will presently force down your throat, sir. I take leave to tell you that your persecution of the lady who is my wife –’
But that fatal word fanned the flame of his lordship’s passion. He said, white-lipped: ‘Damn you to hell, you shall not long call her so!’ He thrust the table back against the wall, and turned. ‘On guard!’
‘I am at your service,’ said Mr Comyn.
There was the briefest of salutes; then the blades hissed together with a venom that brought Miss Challoner from Juliana’s side in a flash. She cried out: ‘Shame! shame on you both! Put up! put up! I am not married, no, and shall not be to either of you!’
Her words fell on deaf ears. The duel was too desperate an affair to permit of either man’s listening to her. Each was in a white heat of fury; each meant to make an end of the other.
The rapier was not Vidal’s weapon, but his wrist had great strength and cunning, and he fought with a dashing brilliance disconcerting to the more careful fencer. His sword play was dangerous, he took risks, but drove his opponent hard. Mr Comyn’s fencing was neat, and it was plain he had been well-taught, but my lord had a pace which he lacked, and broke through his guard time after time. He recovered always, and by some dexterous parry escaped the death that threatened, but he was hard-pressed, and the sweat rolled down his forehead in great drops.
Juliana, realising what was going on, abandoned her hysterics, and cowered in the chair hiding her face in her hands, and sobbing. Miss Challoner stood beside her, intently watching the swift thrust and parry of the swords.
‘Make them stop! Oh, good God, can no one make them stop?’ wept Juliana, shuddering as steel rang against steel in a scuffle of blades.
‘I hope very much that they will make an end of each other!’ said Miss Challoner, stiff with anger.
‘How can you say such a thing?’ gasped Juliana. ‘It is all your fault! Oh, but married ! married!’
The stockinged feet padded on the bare floor; Mr Comyn, disengaging above the wrist, was forced back hard against the table. Miss Challoner saw his guard waver, and knew all at once that he was spent. The Marquis followed up his advantage ruthlessly, and Miss Challoner, forgetting her pious wish, seized one of the discarded coats, and ran in on the swords, catching at them through the heavy cloth. She threw herself in the way as the Marquis lunged; Mr Comyn’s blade was entangled in the coat, but his lordship’s point flashed under it, driven by the whole force of his arm. It seemed as though to check were an impossibility; Juliana, peeping through her fingers, gave a scream of warning and horror. The Marquis’s point glanced up Miss Challoner’s arm, ripping her gown at the shoulder, and was wrenched back.
The sword went spinning, my lord caught Miss Challoner’s swaying form in his arms, his face as white as hers. ‘Mary! Mary!’ he said hoarsely. ‘My God, what have I done?’
‘Murderer! You have killed her!’ panted Mr Comyn, and came up close as though to snatch Miss Challoner away from him.
He was thrust aside. ‘Stand off from her!’ the Marquis shot at him. ‘Mary, look at me! Mary, my little love, my precious girl, I’ve not killed you!’
Miss Challoner, who had half fainted, more from shock than actual hurt, opened her eyes and achieved a wan smile. ‘It’s nothing,’ she whispered. ‘The – the – veriest pin-prick. Oh, what did you call me?’
The Marquis lifted her quite off her feet, and carried her to the armchair just vacated by Juliana. He put her gently down in it, and saw the red stain at the neck of her gown. Over his shoulder he threw an order at Mr Comyn. ‘Get the flask from my greatcoat!’