Highgate Rise tp-11

by Anne Perry

  “No sir.” Murdo looked even more miserable. “They’re planning to fight this morning-at dawn, sir.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” Pitt snapped. “Who on earth is going to get out of a warm bed at dawn and plan to have a quarrel? Somebody’s having a very ill considered joke at your expense.” He turned to hang up his coat again.

  “No sir,” Murdo said stolidly. “They already had the quarrel, yesterday. The fight is this morning at sunrise-in the field between Highgate Road and the cemetery-with swords.”

  Pitt grasped for one more wild instant at the concept of a joke, saw in Murdo’s face that it was not, and lost his temper.

  “Hell’s teeth!” he said furiously. “We’ve got two houses in ruins, charred bodies of two brave, kind people-others injured and terrified-and two bloody idiots want to fight a duel over some damnable piece of paper.” He snatched the coat back again and pushed Murdo off the step onto the pavement, slamming the door. The cab Murdo had come in was only a few yards away. “Come on!” Pitt yanked the door open and climbed in. “Highgate Road!” he shouted. “I’ll show these two prancing fools what a real fight is! I’ll arrest them for disturbing the Queen’s peace!”

  Murdo scrambled in beside him, falling sideways as the cab jerked into motion and only just catching the door as it swung away. “I don’t suppose they’ll hurt each other,” he said lamely.

  “Pity.” Pitt was totally without sympathy. “Serve them both right if they were skewered like puddings!” And he rode the rest of the way in furious silence, Murdo not daring to make any further suggestions.

  Eventually the cab came to an abrupt halt and Pitt threw open the door and jumped out, leaving the fare to Murdo to pay, and set off across the path through the field, Highgate Road to his left and the wall of the magnificent cemetery to his right. Three hundred yards ahead of him, paced out on the grass, their figures squat in the distance, were five people.

  The solid figure of Quinton Pascoe was standing, feet a little apart, a cape slung over one shoulder, the cold, early sun, clear as springwater, on his shock of white hair. In front of him the dew was heavy on the bent heads of the grass, giving the leaves a strange hint of turquoise as the light refracted.

  No more than half a dozen yards away, John Dalgetty, dark-headed, his back to the sun, the shadow masking his face, stood with one arm thrown back and a long object raised as if he were about to charge. Pitt thought at first it was a walking stick. The whole thing was palpably ridiculous. He started to run towards them as fast as his long legs would carry him.

  Standing well back were two gentlemen in black frock coats, a little apart from each other. Presumably they were acting as seconds. Another man, who had taken his coat off-for no apparent reason, it was a distinctly chilly morning-was standing in shirtsleeves and shouting first at Pascoe, then at Dalgetty. His voice came to Pitt across the distance, but not his words.

  With a flourish Pascoe swung his cloak around his arm and threw it onto the ground in a heap, regardless of the damp. His second rushed to pick it up and held it in front of him, rather like a shield.

  Dalgetty, who had no cloak, chose to keep his coat on. He flourished the stick, or whatever it was, again, and let out a cry of “Liberty!” and lunged forward at a run.

  “Honor!” Pascoe shouted back, and brandishing something long and pale in his hand, ran forward as well. They met with a clash in the middle and Dalgetty slipped as his polished boots failed to take purchase on the wet grass.

  Pascoe turned swiftly and only just missed spearing him through the chest. Instead he succeeded in tearing a long piece from Dalgetty’s jacket and thoroughly enraging him. Dalgetty wielded what Pitt could now see was a sword stick, and dealt Pascoe a nasty blow across the shoulders.

  “Stop it!” Pitt bellowed as loudly as his lungs would bear. He was running towards them, but he was still a hundred and fifty yards away, and no one paid him the slightest attention. “Stop it at once!”

  Pascoe was startled, not by Pitt but by the blow, which must have hurt considerably. He stepped back a pace, shouted, “In the name of chivalry!” and swiped sideways with his ancient and very blunt sword, possibly an ill-cared-for relic of Waterloo, or some such battle.

  Dalgetty, with a modern sword stick, sharp as a needle, parried the blow so fiercely the neglected metal broke off halfway up and flew in an arc, catching him across the cheek and opening up a scarlet weal which spurted blood down his coat front.

  “You antiquated old fool!” he spluttered, startled and extremely angry. “You fossilized bigot! No man stands in the path of progress! A medieval mind like you won’t stop one single good idea whose time has come! Think you can imprison the imagination of man in your old-fashioned ideas! Rubbish!” He swung his broken sword high in the air so wildly the singing sound of it was audible to Pitt even above the rasping of his own breath and the thud of his feet. It missed Pascoe by an inch, and clipped a tuft off the top of his silver head and sent it flying like thistledown.

  Pitt tore off his coat and threw it over Dalgetty.

  “Stop it!” he roared, and caught him across the chest with his shoulder, sending them both to the ground. The broken sword stick went flying bright in the sun to fall, end down, quivering in the ground a dozen yards away.

  Pitt picked himself up and disregarded Dalgetty totally. He did not bother to straighten his clothes and dust off the earth and grass. He faced a shaken, weaponless and very startled Pascoe.

  By this time Murdo had dealt with the cab driver and run across the field to join them. He stood aghast at the spectacle, helpless to know what do to.

  Pitt glared at Pascoe.

  “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” he demanded at the top of his voice. “Two people are dead already, God knows who did it, or why-and you are out here trying to murder each other over some idiotic monograph that nobody will read anyway! I should charge you both with assault with a deadly weapon!”

  Pascoe was deeply affronted. Blood was seeping through the tear across the shoulder of his shirt and he was clearly in some pain.

  “You cannot possibly do that!” his voice was high and loud.”It was a gentieman’s difference of opinion!” He jerked his hand up wildly. “Dalgetty is a desecrator of values, a man without judgment or discretion. He propagates the vulgar and destructive and what he imagines to be the cause of freedom, but which is actually license, indiscipline and the victory of the ugly and the dangerous.” He waved both arms, nearly decapitating Murdo, who had moved closer. “But I do not lay any charge against him. He attacked me with my full permission-so you cannot arrest him.” He stopped with some triumph and stared at Pitt out of bright round eyes.

  Dalgetty climbed awkwardly to his feet, fighting his way out of Pitt’s coat, his cheek streaming blood.

  “Neither do I lay charge against Mr. Pascoe,” he said, reaching for a handkerchief. “He is a misguided and ignorant old fool who wants to ban any idea that didn’t begin in the Middle Ages. He will stop any freedom of ideas, any flight of the imagination, any discovery of anything new whatsoever. He would keep us believing the earth is flat and the sun revolves around it. But I do not charge him with attacking me-we attacked each other. You are merely a bystander who chose to interfere in something which is none of your affair. You owe us an apology, sir!”

  Pitt was livid. But he knew that without a complaint he could not make an arrest that would be prosecuted.

  “On the contrary,” he said with sudden freezing contempt. “You owe me a considerable gratitude that I prevented you from injuring each other seriously, even fatally. If you can scramble your wits together long enough, think what that would have done to your cause-not to mention your lives from now on.”

  The possibility, which clearly had not occurred to either of them, stopped the next outburst before it began, and when one of the seconds stepped forward nervously, Pitt opened his mouth to round on him for his utter irresponsibility.

  But before he could continue
on his tirade the other second shouted out and swung around, pointing where across the field from the Highgate direction were rapidly advancing five figures, strung out a dozen yards from each other. The first was obviously, even at that distance, the vigorous, arm-swinging Stephen Shaw, black bag in his hand, coattails flying. Behind him loped the ungainly but surprisingly rapid figure of Hector Clitheridge, and running after him, waving and calling out, his wife, Eulalia. Separated by a slightly longer space was a grim figure with scarf and hat which Pitt guessed to be Josiah Hatch, but he was too distant to distinguish features. And presumably the woman behind him, just breaking into a run, was Prudence.

  “Thank God,” one of the seconds gasped. “The doctor-”

  “And why in God’s name didn’t you call him before you began, you incompetent ass?” Pitt shouted at him. “If you are going to second in a duel, at least do it properly! It could have meant the difference between a man living or dying!”

  The man was stung at last by the injustice of it, and the thoroughgoing fear that Pitt was right.

  “Because my principal forbade me,” he retaliated, pulling himself up very straight.

  “I’ll wager he did,” Pitt agreed, looking at Dalgetty, now dripping blood freely and very pasty-faced; then at Pascoe holding his arm limply and beginning to shake from cold and shock. “Knew damned well he’d prevent this piece of idiocy!”

  As he spoke Shaw came to a halt beside them, staring from one to the other of the two injured men, then at Pitt.

  “Is there a crime?” he said briskly. “Is any of this palaver”-he waved his hands, dropping the bag to the ground-“needed for evidence?”

  “Not unless they want to sue each other,” Pitt said disgustedly. He could not even charge them with disturbing the peace, since they were out in the middle of a field and no one else was even aware of their having left their beds. The rest of Highgate was presumably taking its breakfast quietly in its dining rooms, pouring its tea, reading the morning papers and totally unaffected.

  Shaw looked at the two participants and made the instant decision that Dalgetty was in the more urgent need of help, since he seemed to be suffering from shock whereas Pascoe was merely in pain, and accordingly began his work. He had done no more than open his bag when Clitheridge arrived, acutely distressed and embarrassed.

  “What on earth has happened?” he demanded. “Is somebody hurt?”

  “Of course somebody’s hurt, you fool!” Shaw said furiously. “Here, hold him up.” He gestured at Dalgetty, who was covered in blood and was beginning to look as if he might buckle at the knees.

  Clitheridge obeyed gladly, his face flooding with relief at some definite task he could turn himself to. He grasped Dalgetty, who rather awkwardly leaned against him.

  “What happened?” Clitheridge made one more effort to understand, because it was his spiritual duty. “Has there been an accident?”

  Lally had reached them now and her mind seized the situation immediately.

  “Oh, how stupid,” she said in exasperation. “I never thought you’d be so very childish-and now you’ve really hurt each other. And does that prove which of you is right? It only proves you are both extremely stubborn. Which all Highgate knew anyway.” She swung around to Shaw, her face very slightly flushed. “What can I do to be of assistance, Doctor?” By that time Josiah Hatch had also reached them, but she disregarded him. “Do you need linen?” She peered in his bag, then at the extent of the bloodstains, which were increasing with every minute. “How about water? Brandy?”

  “Nobody’s going to pass out,” he said sharply, glaring at Dalgetty. “For heaven’s sake put him down!” he ordered Clitheridge, who was bearing most of Dalgetty’s weight now. “Yes, please, Lally-get some more linen. I’d better tie some of this up before we move them. I’ve got enough alcohol to disinfect.”

  Prudence Hatch arrived breathlessly, gasping as she came to a halt. “This is awful! What on earth possessed you?” she demanded. “As if we haven’t enough grief.”

  “A man who believes in his principles is sometimes obliged to fight in order to preserve them,” Josiah said grimly. “The price of virtue is eternal vigilance.”

  “That is freedom,” his wife corrected him.

  “What?” he demanded, his brows drawing down sharply.

  “The price of freedom is eternal vigilance,” she replied. “You said virtue.” Without being told she was taking a piece of clean cloth out of Shaw’s bag, unfolding it and soaking it in clean spirit from one of his bottles. “Sit down!” she commanded Pascoe smartly, and as soon as he did, she began to clean away the torn outer clothing and then the blood till she could see the ragged tear in the flesh. Then she held the pad of cloth to it and pushed firmly.

  He winced and let out a squeak as the spirit hit the open wound, but no one took any notice of him.

  “Freedom and virtue are not the same thing at all,” Hatch argued with profound feeling, his face intent, his eyes alight. To him the issue obviously far outweighed the ephemeral abrasions of the encounter. “That is precisely what Mr. Pascoe risked his life to defend!”

  “Balderdash!” Shaw snapped. “Virtue isn’t in any danger-and prancing about on the heath with swords certainly isn’t going to defend anything at all.”

  “There is no legal way to prevent the pernicious views and the dangerous and degrading ideas he propagates,” Pascoe shouted across Prudence’s instructions, his lips white with pain.

  Lally was already setting off again towards the road on her errand. Her upright figure, shoulders back, was well on its way.

  “There should be.” Hatch shook his head. “It is part of our modern sickness that we admire everything new, regardless of its merit.” His voice rose a little and he chopped his hands in the air. “We get hold of any new thought, rush to print any idea that overturns and makes mock of the past, the values that have served our forefathers and upon which we have built our nation and carried the faith of Christ to other lands and peoples.” His shoulders were hunched with the intensity of his emotion. “Mr. Pascoe is one of the few men in our time who has the courage and the vision to fight, however futilely, against the tide of man’s own intellectual arrogance, his indiscriminate greed for everything new without thought as to its value, or the result of our espousing it.”

  “This is not the place for a sermon, Josiah.” Shaw was busy working on Dalgetty’s cheek and did not even look up at him. Murdo was assisting him with considerable competence. “Especially the arrant rubbish you’re talking,” he went on. “Half these old ideas you’re rehearsing are fossilized walls of cant and hypocrisy protecting a lot of rogues from the light of day. It’s long past time a few questions were asked and a few shoddy pretenses shown for what they are.”

  Hatch was so pale he might have been the one wounded. He looked at Shaw’s back with a loathing so intense it was unnerving that Shaw was oblivious of it.

  “You would have every beautiful and virtuous thing stripped naked and paraded for the lewd and the ignorant to soil-and yet at the same time you would not protect the innocent from the mockery and the godless innovations of those who have no values, but constant titillation and endless lust of the mind. You are a destroyer, Stephen, a man whose eyes see only the futile and whose hand holds only the worthless.”

  Shaw’s fingers stopped, the swab motionless, a white blob half soaked with scarlet. Dalgetty was still shaking. Maude Dalgetty had appeared from somewhere while no one was watching the path across the field.

  Shaw faced Hatch. There was dangerous temper in every line of his face and the energy built up in the muscles of his body till he seemed ready to break into some violent motion.

  “It would give me great pleasure,” he said almost between his teeth, “to meet you here myself, tomorrow at dawn, and knock you senseless. But I don’t settle my arguments that way. It decides nothing. I shall show you what a fool you are by stripping away the layers of pretense, the lies and the illusions-”

  Pi
tt was aware of Prudence, frozen, her face ashen pale, her eyes fixed on Shaw’s lips as if he were about to pronounce the name of some mortal illness whose diagnosis she had long dreaded.

  Maude Dalgetty, on the other hand, looked only a little impatient. There was no fear in her at all. And John Dalgetty, half lying on the ground, looked aware only of his own pain and the predicament he had got himself into. He looked at his wife with a definite anxiety, but it was obvious he was nervous of her anger, not for her safety or for Shaw in temper ruining her long-woven reputation.

  Pitt had seen all he needed. Dalgetty had no fear of Shaw-Prudence was terrified.

  “The whited sepulchers-” Shaw said viciously, two spots of color high on his cheeks. “The-”

  “This is not the time,” Pitt interrupted, putting himself physically between them. “There’s more than enough blood spilled already-and enough pain. Doctor, get on with treating your patients. Mr. Hatch, perhaps you would be good enough to go back to the street and fetch some conveyance so we can carry Mr. Pascoe and Mr. Dalgetty back to their respective homes. If you want to pursue the quarrel on the merits or necessities for censorship, then do it at a more fortunate time-and in a more civilized manner.”

  For a moment he thought neither of them was going to take any notice of him. They stood glaring at each other with the violence of feeling as ugly as that between Pascoe and Dalgetty. Then slowly Shaw relaxed, and as if Hatch had suddenly ceased to be of any importance, turned his back on him and bent down to Dalgetty’s wound again.

  Hatch, his face like gray granite, his eyes blazing, swiveled on his heel, tearing up the grass, and marched along the footpath back towards the road.

  Maude Dalgetty went, not to her husband, with whom she was obviously out of patience, but to Prudence Hatch, and gently put her arm around her.

  10

  “I suppose we should have expected it-had we bothered to take the matter seriously at all,” Aunt Vespasia said when Charlotte told her about the duel in the field. “One might have hoped they would have more sense, but had they any proportion in things in the first place, they would not have become involved in such extremes of opinion. Some men lose track of reality so easily.”