Vanity Fair - Page 467/573

"She asked you to sup with her?" Captain Macmurdo said.

"After the opera. Here's the note of invitation--stop--no, this is

another paper--I thought I had h, but it's of no consequence, and I

pledge you my word to the fact. If we had come--and it was only one of

Mrs. Wenham's headaches which prevented us--she suffers under them a

good deal, especially in the spring--if we had come, and you had

returned home, there would have been no quarrel, no insult, no

suspicion--and so it is positively because my poor wife has a headache

that you are to bring death down upon two men of honour and plunge two

of the most excellent and ancient families in the kingdom into disgrace

and sorrow."

Mr. Macmurdo looked at his principal with the air of a man profoundly

puzzled, and Rawdon felt with a kind of rage that his prey was escaping

him. He did not believe a word of the story, and yet, how discredit or

disprove it?

Mr. Wenham continued with the same fluent oratory, which in his place

in Parliament he had so often practised--"I sat for an hour or more by

Lord Steyne's bedside, beseeching, imploring Lord Steyne to forego his

intention of demanding a meeting. I pointed out to him that the

circumstances were after all suspicious--they were suspicious. I

acknowledge it--any man in your position might have been taken in--I

said that a man furious with jealousy is to all intents and purposes a

madman, and should be as such regarded--that a duel between you must

lead to the disgrace of all parties concerned--that a man of his

Lordship's exalted station had no right in these days, when the most

atrocious revolutionary principles, and the most dangerous levelling

doctrines are preached among the vulgar, to create a public scandal;

and that, however innocent, the common people would insist that he was

guilty. In fine, I implored him not to send the challenge."

"I don't believe one word of the whole story," said Rawdon, grinding

his teeth. "I believe it a d------ lie, and that you're in it, Mr.

Wenham. If the challenge don't come from him, by Jove it shall come

from me."

Mr. Wenham turned deadly pale at this savage interruption of the

Colonel and looked towards the door.

But he found a champion in Captain Macmurdo. That gentleman rose up

with an oath and rebuked Rawdon for his language. "You put the affair

into my hands, and you shall act as I think fit, by Jove, and not as

you do. You have no right to insult Mr. Wenham with this sort of

language; and dammy, Mr. Wenham, you deserve an apology. And as for a

challenge to Lord Steyne, you may get somebody else to carry it, I

won't. If my lord, after being thrashed, chooses to sit still, dammy

let him. And as for the affair with--with Mrs. Crawley, my belief is,

there's nothing proved at all: that your wife's innocent, as innocent

as Mr. Wenham says she is; and at any rate that you would be a d--fool

not to take the place and hold your tongue."