THE COWARD.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXII, Issue XIV, 2 April 1904, Page 56

THE COWARD.

A Complete Story by

Edwin Pugh.

r. 'At peep of dawn on a certain morning four men sat at cards in a famous gaming house in London. They had played from six o’clock on the previous evening, and the stakes had risen feverishly hour by hour. Of the fonr were two men of middle age, two were young men, one little more than a boy and a good deal less than a man, as I am about to prove. There "Were a few onlookers chained to the spot by the fascinating spectacle of ruin, but they had thinned out steadily for ithe last hour, and gone yawning into the keen air, in pairs, in knots, and singly. The room was hot and tainted ■with a hundred heavy odours,, hideously commingled. The yellow light of the candles shivered and grew pale before the insidious attack of the cool blue light of morn. The faces of the players ■were greasy and pallid, smudged with floating motes of soot, and stained about the mouth with wine. The two men of middle age were named Major llardebecke, and Stepney Gore. The major ■was a man who lived on his evil reputation; Stepney Gore had been a poet before he took to shaking the elbow. The two younger mon were Robert Granby and Sir Simoon Vale. Granby was a sturdy, upstanding limb of the national oak; Sir Simeon was a blonde, effeminate boy; He had lost heavily, nearly all his lately acquired patrimony, it was whispered, and ho was bearing Ins losses with increasing ill grace. He had not spared the wine, and his hands shook and his eyeballs were shot with gouts of blood. His pretty face was screwed into an expression of acute peevishness, his dried-up month was slack and tremulous. His friend Granby, who had also lost, seemed anxious for the good conduct of the young baronet, and from time time whispered him to stop playing, to which the other sulkly replied: “No, curse you! 1 want to win first—• curse it. I must have my revenge on ’em—curse ’em!” This in a tone clearly audible all over the room. And Granby would fall back in his seat with a despairing face. “As before, Sir Simeon?” asked the major, with his head cocked insinuatingly askew. The young man answered with a sullen nod. The cards were dealt, and again he lost. He pushed his stake across the. table with so rough a hand that the pile of money broke and scattered over the board, a few coins falling with a jingle to the floor. The major frowned, then smiled. Stepney Gore pursed his lips, Jhnd hummed si gentle note. Robert Granby with a. shocked fade looked from his friend to the two elder men, anxiously. Sir Simeon got up stiffly. “Finished?” asked the major. The young man growled assent. “You have been unfortunate, Sir Simeon. It was not your night. Perhaps to-morrow —who knows?—you may win all back, and more.” Sir Simeon f med hint and muttered nn answer of some length. His words were unintelligible, but his manner was consciously aggressive. “I do not understand you. Sir Rimeon,” the major said sternly. “I said,” repeated the young man more dearly, ‘ I said that it is possible I may win to-morrow, for T shall not play with you again. . . .”

“Sir Simeon is not himself," cried Robert Granby in an agonised voice, catching at his friend’s arm. “You will see that, sir?”

“1 see nothing, sir. oxcopt that my honour has been impugned,” the' ma jor replied. “But I presume your friend is willing to give me full satisfaction for the insult he has offered?”

“Do you hear. Vale?” whispered Gran by fiercely. “You must fight!”

“light!” faltered Sir Simoon twisting round his drowsy head th? better to stir»ey his friend. ’ u “Fight, of course.”

“Fight! What for?” The major caught up a glass of wine and dashed some lees in the young man’s face.

“To make yourself clean, Sir Simeon Vale.”

Half a dozen of the onlookers rushed forward with intent to restrain the young man from falling upon his opponent. But Sir Simeon seemed dazed, unwitting of his position. He stood wiping his face and staring blankly about him through the lace of his handkerchief.

“You will appoint a friend, sir?” said Robert Granby, bowing to the major. The major turned to Stepney Gore. “With pleasure,” murmured the esipoet.

“Granby, what is this?” asked Sir Simeon, speaking suddenly, as one awakened. There was a shrill note of panic terror in his voice. “What have I said —done ?”

“Do not disturb yourself,” said Granby. “Gome, let me conduct you home.” He turned to Stepney Gore, who hovered with fluttering hands in their vicinity. “I will communicate with you, sir.” Tiie other bowed low, and Robert Granby led his quaking friend through the lane of silent onlookers into the sunstained street. , 11. It was late in the afternoon when Sir Simeon awaked from feverish sleep and rang for his man. The winter twilight was ruddy with the glow of the great frosty sun, and the heavy hangings of the bed-chamber were tinted a generous wine colour. “Hock and seltzer, sir?” “Of course, dolt.” The man, with a mask-like face, made a stately bow and withdrew. Sir Simeon began to dress slowly. His man returned, and he quaffed his “morning” dram. “Any news, Ryan?” “Mr Robert Granby has been awaiting an audience with you this last hour, and Mistress Nancy ” “What does Mr Granby want, I wonder?” “An audience with you, Sir Simeon.” “So you said. I was not asking you to divulge the unknowable, fool! Go and tell him I will join him in a moment. And ask him from me what sort of a lining he has to his head this afternoon. You will remember that? It is important you preserve the words exactly.” “1 will remember, Sir Simeon.” “And, Ryan.” - “Sir Simeon ?” “Perhaps he had better come up here. No; I will go downstairs.’ He stood twitching his hands nervously “At whnt hour did I arrive home, Ryan?” ’’At twenty-three minutes before nine, Sir Simeon” “All!” ’lhe man left the room‘once more, and the young baronet slowly finished his toilet. It was dark when lie stepped dizzily downstairs, and the tapers were lighting in the hall. Robert Granby greeted him with a cold, set face. “This is a serious imbroglio, Vale,” said he. "You must forgive me. I have forgotten what has happened. Except just one moment.... 1.... What happened, Granby ?’’ “You accused Major Hardebecke of cheating. He threw a glass of wine in your fnee. I haVe just come from Mr Stepney Gore.” “What concern has lie in this matter?” “He is Major Hardebecke's friend, the major has elected to choose pistols. With your pleasure. Vale, the affair is arranged for to-morrow morning at eight, behind The Bottle at Chalk Farm.” ,

The young baronet collapsed into * chair.

“Granby,” said he, “I—l cannot fight." “Not fight!” Granbys eyebrow* Climbed his forehead.

“I—l disapprove of duelling.” “You offered him the worst insult. He retaliated grossly. There is no possibility of escape from the Inevitable meeting. All London has heard of the affair.” “Granby,” wailed the young mah, “I —I tell you it is impossible. I—l cannot fight this man.” “He has held the king’s commission.” “I will apologise!’ “Impossible. It has gone too far. I should be compromised, made to appear ridiculous. And how can you apologise for the insult he has put upon you? The glass of wine?” “I was the original offender. I was drunk.”

“If you apologise for your offence you will but humiliate yourself to no end. He will not apologise for his.’

Sir Simeon bowed his head on his hands and groaned. “You will perceive that a meeting is unavoidable?”

“I do not see that it is imperative in the least. I do not see why I should expose my life to this risk. I do not want to fight. I will not fight.” “My dear Vale, I protest that you astonish me. I had looked for a better spirit in my friend, and one of your house. What you mean by this strange pusillanimity I eannot divine. You must fight, or forfeit for ever your title to the rank and name of a gentleman.” “Because I -thrink from bloodshed?” “Because there is a code of manners —must be. Because all London echoes with the bruiting of this affair. Because it is the one course open to you in honour.” “I deny that.” Robert Granby took an impatient turn up and down the room. “He will surely kill me if I fight.” “He will surely horsewhip you if you do not.” “He is a dead shot. I am but an indifferent one.” Robert Granby paused before his friend. “Are you afraid to fight, Vale?” The young baronet looked up shamefacedly. His lips quivered and went white. , “Are you afraid?” Still there came no answer. “Are you a coward, Sir Simeon Vale?” “1....0 my God, I do not know.” Robert Granby turned his back on him. “Shall I say that my principal is afraid? That he shirks the encounter, fears to offer satisfaction? That he is a coward?” “Is it such an unpardonable thing to love your life?” “It is unpardonable to love it above honour.” He crossed to the door. “I await your final word.” “I will—will not fight,” whispered Sir Simeon huskily. He started up. “O Granby!” he cried. “You don’t think so much the worse of me?” "I abjure your friendship from this moment, I will never touch your hand again. A coward! My friend a coward! 1 could not bear to hear that said. To hear it said in public, with a laugh behind a hand. God! Vale, Vale, you don’t understand. You have some noble reason. Or you are suffering from some passing affliction that unmans you. You are tainted by some insidious madness. Y'ou cannot really intend to afford the world this opportunity of levelling at you the finger of such intolerable contempt. You cannot intend to forfeit to a qualm of the stomach all claim to rank with men of honour. A coward!” “I am not afraid of a convention. Granby.” “The coward’s argument.” “O God!” cried Sir Simeon Vale, rising in a sudden access of wintry passionate despair. “If I could but bring myself

to fight, if I Could but bring myself to think that I should not disgrace myself upon the field, I would let the challenge go. But I eannot trust my courage even as far as that.” He held out his hands in appeal. “Am I to blame for the nature Fate has thrust upon me? Do you think I am a coward from choice, Granby?” “Thia is mere froth,” said Robert Granby. “I cannot listen to it. Goodbye to you, sir.” He passed out. “Coward!” And the door shut. I * ~ HL The young Sir Simeon sank down on a chair, and hiding his face in his hands rocked back and forth, back and forth, in agony of emotion. His heart was riven with shame. Now that be was alone he could no longer entertain any sophistical defence of his turpitude. He knew that he was a coward—a coward self-confessed. And self-condemnation scorched him as with a living fire. He remebered the face of his friend; the contempt mingled with grief, reproach, and shame that it had showed, and he sobbed aloud.

“Why,” he asked vainly of the silence, “why did God endow me with a man’s body and a woman’s heart?” The door opened noiselessly, and a woman entered the room—Sir Simeon’s sister the famed Mistress Nancy Vale, one of those meteoric creatures of a decade who flash across the social sky and leave no trace save a dim radiance and a name. In her day, notable alike for her wit, for her virtue, and for beauty, she ruled a gorgeous little world with beck and nod and smile. And books of beauty vainly tried to fix her charms in elegant futile verse and pictured page. Her sayings enjoyed a vogue which the record of them seems hardly to justify, because they now lack the setting of rose leaves and pearl her dainty mouth provided. That she Was a good woman who can doubt who remembers that appreciation of her virtues was on five occasions fired into a man’s body from the muzzle of a pistol, and twice pinked into him at the sword’s point? And that she 'was beautiful as rumour sayeth, the mere existence of such champions as those who defended her name must prove beyond all possibility of cavil. She stood against the door, very erectly, with her mouth set in a tragic line, her face drawn and pale, her great blue eyes slumbrously afire. Iler pile of powdered hair showed blue-grey against the milk-white pallor of her face. She uttered her brother’s name —• “Simeon!” He raised Jiis haggard head. “Nancy!” She stood looking at his degraded figure, and his face questioned her helplessly. S “Simeon, I have overheard what has passed between you and Mr Robert Granby. I know” —something clicked in her throat—“l know that my brother is a coward!” He tried to meet the indignation of her eyes. “It is easy for one who is but a woman to talk,” he quavered. “It will be hard for one woman to talk of her brother after to-day.” “You do not understand, Nancy. You are only a woman.” “Are you a man?” He crouched and cowered before her. “Oh, for the love of God, O, my my sister, do not you condemn me also! Pity me! Pity me! ” “My brother asks pity of a woman!” He gurged out a heartbroken appeal to her. She wavered. The stiffness c-f her bearing relaxed. She made two angry gestures of impatience at her own weakness, then knelt on the floor liJ&ido him. s very woman, pleading, tearf 11, loving. , “O, Simeon, you will not play the coward ?” “I an: afraid,” he whispered.

“What of that? Tou need not betray your fear. Courage is but a sublime hypocrisy. Bear yourself as a brave nun, nud you are the braver for being a cowaid at lurt.” "I wish before God that I could!” “You ean. Hemember our name, the line of which you are. For what have our forefathers fought if not to instil into their children’s children the lessrn of the fear of naught save fear? Let the thought that thousands of brave men have passed through the ordeal that you are passing through, and emerged triumphantly, nerve you to vindicate your honour now. Come, Simeon, brother, wear the body of a man if you have not the heart. Show a man’s face to this fear. Stare it out of countenance.”

"It is too late,” said he. Granby is gone, and the words of my cowardice is gone with him to be spread over the world.”

“It is not too late. He is my lover. I know his heart. He will wait and wait and hope against hope for a sign that shall redeem the friendship between you. He will not betray your cowardice to the world so long as concealment of it is possible. He is waiting now. Send a message after him. Tell him you are’a man again, that you will fight.” Her voice was low and earnest; it thrilled him as an inspiration. With her arms she was essaying to raise him up. “Go now and save our name, Simeon!” He leaped to his feet. “I will!” He struck a vainglorious attitude. “I am a brave man now. She encouraged him with her eyes as he strode about the room,” “Give me paper, a pen.” He sat down, a flush deepening in his cheeks, and wrote his cartel of defiance. An hour later Robert Granby, sitting in mute sorrow for a departed illusion, had his despair lightened by receipt of it. Thus ran the cartel:— “I will affort Major Hardebeeke the satisfaction he demands, and will meet you to-morrow at the eighni hour before noon, beyond The Bottle, Chalk Farm. I ask your earnest prayers for my successful emergence from this encounter and subscribe myself your friend, —Simeon Vale.” IV. At the hour of assignation, Robert Granby loitered in the fields that lay over against the hills of Hampstead, awaiting his principle. A clammy mist hung low upon the rank grass, and beat against the rimy hedgerows in snaky whirls of cloud. The heights loomed impalpable through the gloom edged with a line of red dawn. The trees upon the elopes were massed in a wavering similitude of smoke that seemed to pourdown in a flood from the vanishing flame-touehed summits. It was cold, but not the cold alone caused Granby's limbs to shiver beneath him. He had yet to regain faith in the new-found courage of his friend, and his mind was a-quiver with the pangs of apprehension. There was a rumble of wheels adown the road and a chaise drew near. He went to meet it. As he advanced he saw the figure of his friend approaching him, swollen and large in the shifting mirk. They met, and he looked hard into the face of Sir Simeon, pearl-white and shadowy as a dream-face in the clinging dimness of the morning light.

The young baronet seemed to have attained to s sew dignity. His eyes were steady and ealm, his bearing stately.

“Good-morning to jou, Vale,'* said Robert Granby. The other whispered a response to the salutation, and turned and walked with a firm step beside his friend. “Major Hardbecke has not yet arrived,” said Robert Granby. But even as he spoke the nimble of a second post-chaise came to them. The horses seemed to be driven very furiously. The chaise rocked up and passed them, then stopped with a rattle and elank and slither of hoofs on the stiff mud of the road. Two figures alighted. “There is no reason for any delay, I sincerely trust,” the ex-poet murmured hurriedly, as he came up bowing. “My principal has the ill-fortune to be chased by the Crown officer, and can spare no more than a few minutes to the encounter. If you . will pcHEiit me to arrange preliminaries with you at once, Major Hardebecke will be everlastingly grateful to you for the favour. A few minutes should be sufficient. He will not ned to fire twice.” Sir Simeon uttered a tiny gasp and swung back his eloak across his chin. They moved along in a disjointed body to the field. Even as the seconds paced out the allotted distance that was to separate the principals a clamorously faint pad-pad of hoofs sounded far along the road. “ ’Tis cursedly unfortunate,” breathed Stepnev Gore. “If they should interrupt us, Major Hardebecke will be consumed with spleen. ’Fore Gad, these hounds are all ears. They must have picked up knowledge of the affair from the clubs. But it is a favourite device of theirs to take a man at sport of this kind. They know it is an appointment not to be evaded by men of honour.” , “If Sir Simeon Vale is ready ” breathed the major, throwing an anxious glance through the driving mist. “Quite ready,” said Granby. The principals moved to their stations. The seconds placed the pistols in their hands acock, and Robert Granby drew out his handkerchief. The sound of the officer’s approach was now thunderous upon the adjacent highway. Granby dropped ..ie handkerchief, and the two shots rang out as one. Even as the report split the humid air some filmy figures burst in upon the scene and seized on Major Hardebecke as he stood uninjured with his smoking pistol at his side. Robert Granby turned to Sir Simeon, who had dropped limply to the ground, and knelt beside him on the hoar-laden grass. His hat had fallen oil, and his face was now more plainly apparent. A gleam of sunshine rent the mist and touched the golden hair. “O Robert!” sighed the sinking figure. “O Robert!” Robert Granby drew a hissing breath. He stooped and raised up the broken figure, and kissed the white face ately“Hush!” whispered Nancy Vale. “Do not let them guess.” And she collapsed weakly in his arms. Stepney Gore minced towards them. “I trust,” said he, “that Sir Simeon is not more than slightly injured. My principal regrets that by reason cf the incivility of the Crown myrmidons he is

unable to express personally that solicitude for the condition of the unfortunate victim of his bullet which he so deeply feels, and the cause of which he so ardently deplores.” Robert Granby, bending low over the stricken sister of the cownrd, made an unintelligible answer. He raised her senseless be jy up and bore it to the postchaise. A word in conclusion to explain. This story is one well known in county chronicles, and on them rests the burden of all its omissions and inconsistencies. The truth of it did not leak out until all chance was gone of spoiling Mistress Nancy’s high-spirited scheme for saving the family honour. Which was well. Her impulse to impersonate her brother in the affair was consequent on her discovery, on the morning set apart for the duel, that he had fled abroad before a new gust of fear. In a shameful agony th,? inspiration had come to her. She acted upon it, as we have seen. An t the result was the more satisfactory in that Mistress Nancy did not lose her life, but only a portion of her beautiful flesh above the waist. It is not to >n? remarkable that the deception was successful. Added to the fact that few of us observe our intimates very closely, it must be remembered that in those days most of the visible part of humanity was artificial as fashion eould make it; hair, colouring, and figure wore alike disguised. So, endowed with the family features and clad in her brother’s clothes, the imposture was easy enough to Mistress Nancy. And to those young ladies reading this story who are inclined to believe that their lovers would recognise them through any disguise, I would suggest the test of an eighteenth century costume of the powdered hair and patches period. Or, failing that, a little burst of anger—after marriage.