The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(188)

‘H’m!’ thought Wilfrid. ‘Gone for his whip!’ And from the stump of his cigarette he lighted another. A voice behind him said:

‘What’d I tell you, sir? That’s Mr Muskham.’

‘He seems to have forgotten something.’

‘Ah!’ said the waiter, ‘he’s regular as a rule. They say at the stud he’s a Turk for order. Here he comes again; not lost much time, ’as ’e?’

He was coming at a canter. About thirty yards away he reined up and got off. Wilfrid heard him say to the pony, ‘Stand, Betty!’ His heart began to beat, his hands in his pockets were clenched fast; he still leaned against the gate. The waiter had withdrawn, but with the tail of his eye Wilfrid could see him at the hotel door, waiting as if to watch over the interview he had fostered. His cabman was still engaged in the endless conversation of those who drive cars; the shopman still cleaning his windows; the butcher’s man rejoining his cart. Muskham came deliberately, a cut-and-thrust whip in his hand.

‘Now!’ thought Wilfrid.

Within three yards Muskham stopped. ‘Are you ready?’

Wilfrid took out his hands, let the cigarette drop from his lips, and nodded. Raising the whip, the long figure sprang. One blow fell, then Wilfrid closed. He closed so utterly that the whip was useless and Muskham dropped it. They swayed back clinched together against the gate; then both, as if struck by the same idea, unclinched and raised their fists. In a moment it was clear that neither was any longer expert. They drove at each other without science, but with a sort of fury, length and weight on one side, youth and agility on the other. Amidst the scrambling concussions of this wild encounter, Wilfrid was conscious of a little crowd collecting – they had become a street show! Their combat was so breathless, furious and silent, that its nature seemed to infect that gathering, and from it came nothing but a muttering. Both were soon cut on the mouth and bleeding, both were soon winded and half dazed. In sheer breathlessness they clinched again and stood swaying, striving to get a grip of each other’s throats.

‘Go it, Mr Muskham!’ cried a voice.

As if encouraged, Wilfrid wrenched himself free and sprang; Muskham’s fist thumped into his chest as he came on, but his outstretched hands closed round his enemy’s neck. There was a long stagger, and then both went crashing to the ground. There, again as if moved by the same thought, they unclinched and scrambled up. For a moment they stood panting, glaring at each other for an opening. For a second each looked round him. Wilfrid saw Muskham’s blood-stained face change and become rigid, his hands drop and hide in his pockets; saw him turn away. And suddenly he realized why. Standing up in an open car, across the street, was Dinny, with one hand covering her lips and the other shading her eyes.

Wilfrid turned as abruptly and went into the hotel.





Chapter Twenty-five




WHILE Dinny dressed and skimmed along the nearly empty streets, she had been thinking hard. That letter brought last night by hand surely meant that Muskham was the cause of Wilfrid’s early sortie. Since he had slipped like a needle in to a bundle of hay, her only chance was to work from the other end. No need to wait for her uncle to see Jack Muskham. She could see him alone just as well as, perhaps better. It was eight o’clock when she reached Cork Street, and she at once said: ‘Has Mr Desert a revolver, Stack?’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘Has he taken it?’

‘No.’

‘I ask because he had a quarrel yesterday.’

Stack passed his hand over his unshaven chin. ‘Don’t know where you’re going, miss, but would you like me to come with you?’

‘I think it would be better if you’d go and make sure he isn’t taking a boat train.’

‘Certainly, miss. I’ll take the dog, and do that.’

‘Is that car outside for me?’

‘Yes, miss. Would you like it opened?’

‘I would; the more air, the better.’

The henchman nodded, his eyes and nose seeming to Dinny unusually large and intelligent.

‘If I run across Mr Desert first, where shall I get in touch with you, miss?’

‘I’ll call at Royston post-office for any telegram. I’m going to see a Mr Muskham there. The quarrel was with him.’

‘Have you had anything to eat, miss? Let me get you a cup of tea.’

‘I’ve had one, thank you.’ It saved time to say what was not true.

That drive, on an unknown road, seemed interminable to her, haunted by her uncle’s words: ‘If Jack didn’t date so, I shouldn’t worry…. He’s a survival.’ Suppose that, even now, in some enclosure – Richmond Park, Ken Wood, where not – they were playing the old-fashioned pranks, of honour! She conjured up the scene – Jack Muskham, tall, deliberate; Wilfrid, girt-in, defiant, trees around them, wood-pigeons calling, their hands slowly rising to the level – ! Yes, but who would give the word? And pistols! People did not go about with duelling pistols nowadays. If that had been suggested, Wilfrid would surely have taken his revolver! What should she say if, indeed, she found Muskham at home? ‘Please don’t mind being called a cad and coward! They are really almost terms of endearment.’ Wilfrid must never know that she had tried to mediate. It would but wound his pride still further. Wounded pride! Was there any older, deeper, more obstinate cause of human trouble, or any more natural and excusable! The consciousness of having failed oneself! Overmastered by the attraction that knows neither reason nor law, she loved Wilfrid none the less for having failed himself; but she was not blind to that failure. Ever since her father’s words ‘by any Englishman who’s threatened with a pistol’ had touched some nerve in the background of her being, she had realized that she was divided by her love from her instinctive sense of what was due from Englishmen.