‘What did you tell her?’
‘To refuse him.’ McIlwraith looked across at Spandrel, his face wreathed in shadow. ‘If her brothers were so concerned about the family’s future, by which they meant their own comfort, they should bestir themselves to secure it, rather than mortgage their sister’s happiness.’ He seemed to smile at the recollection of his words. ‘Such was my advice.’
‘Did she take it?’
‘She refused him, right enough. Which displeased them mightily, as you can imagine. The more so because they knew she’d been to see me before giving Longrigg his answer and suspected I’d put her up to it. Nobly, she denied it. But when they accused me nonetheless, I chose not to deny it. I didn’t care to be summoned to the house and cross-questioned like some tenant caught poaching. Longrigg was with them. The brothers seemed to think they had the right to tell me what to do simply because I was living on their property. Harsh things were said. Tempers were lost. Longrigg had the gall to suggest I was harbouring dishonourable intentions towards Dorothea. Then Augustus went further, implying they might not just be intentions. I demanded he withdraw the slur. He refused. So, I called him out. There was nothing else for it.’
‘You challenged him?’
‘Aye. But the duel was never fought. Dorothea was being held a virtual prisoner by then. I wasn’t permitted to see her. But she knew what had happened. She smuggled a letter to me by her maid pleading with me not to fight her brother. She said she couldn’t bear the thought of either of us dying on her account. I replied, saying it was a matter of honour and I had no choice but to fight, unless Augustus took back the remark, which I knew he wouldn’t. Even then, he was too stubborn for that. And too brave. He’d deliberately provoked the challenge. He wanted to fight me. And I wanted to fight him, God forgive me. But we never did fight. Till now, anyway. A day and time were fixed for us to meet. The night before, Dorothea implored her brother to apologize to me. When he refused, she calmly said good night to him, walked up to the top floor of the house and threw herself over the balustrade into the stair-well.’
Spandrel caught his breath. ‘She killed herself?’
McIlwraith nodded grimly. ‘It was all of a sixty-foot drop to the stone-flagged hall. Certain death. And the only certain way she knew to prevent the duel. She had my letter, my pompous resort to honour as a justification for refusing to withdraw the challenge, concealed in the sleeve of her dress. Augustus found it, of course. He’s a diligent searcher, if he’s nothing else. And finding it somehow enabled him to forget his own responsibility for what she’d done. He laid it all at my door. The duel was called off, naturally, as a mark of respect, as Dorothea had known it would be. As far as Augustus was concerned, though, it was only a postponement, until after the funeral.’
‘But not as far as you were concerned.’
‘No. I couldn’t go through with what Dorothea had laid down her life to avert. I withdrew the challenge.’
‘What did Wagemaker do then?’
‘He issued one of his own. Which I declined, on the tenuous grounds that a junior officer cannot challenge a senior. The actual grounds were rather different, of course. And seemingly beyond his comprehension. As it appears they still are. Now, however, he’s no longer my junior. I cannot decline to meet him.’
‘What will happen?’
‘One of us will die. He hasn’t waited eight years to content himself with a shot into the air. He’s a man of his word. And he’s given it.’
‘But his sister’s memory …’
‘Is more likely to stay my hand than his.’
‘But it won’t, will it? You don’t mean …’
‘I don’t know what I mean, Spandrel. It’s late. And whisky inclines me to mawkishness. I’ll tell you this for what it’s worth, though. I lost no time in quitting Blind Man’s Tower after the funeral and taking off on my travels. The Danish army found a use for me in its war against Sweden. That’s how I came to learn enough of their language to be able to negotiate our passage aboard the Havfrue. I wasn’t the Danes’ only British mercenary, of course. There were a good many. And among them was one who’d met Lieutenant Augustus Wagemaker while serving in Ireland. He’d been a notorious duellist there, apparently. Quick to take offence. Determined to seek satisfaction for it. And never known to miss.’ McIlwraith drained the whisky flask. ‘I think Dorothea knew full well that it was far more likely to be me she was saving than her brother.’ He sighed. ‘There’s a thought to ponder when we reach the standing-place tomorrow. If I’m right, Wagemaker knows it as well as I do. Perhaps she loved me a little. Perhaps more than a little. If so, that’s really what he hates me for. And why he means to kill me.’
No candle burned in the room a few doors down the passage that Colonel Wagemaker was sharing with Nicholas Cloisterman. But only one of its occupants was still awake. Cloisterman lay on his bed, eyes wide open, staring anxiously into the darkness. From the other side of the room came the steady rise and fall of Wagemaker’s slumbering breaths. How a man could sleep so soundly on the eve of a duel Cloisterman could not imagine. He had studiously avoided such affairs of honour himself, preferring any number of apologies and humiliations to the prospect of sudden, painful and, as he saw it, pointless death. He had never served as a second either and had no wish to do so now, but Wagemaker had insisted, deploying the ingenious argument that this was a heaven-sent opportunity to eliminate a dangerous rival in their pursuit of the Green Book and that Cloisterman was therefore obliged to assist him.
The possibility did not seem to have crossed Wagemaker’s mind that he, rather than McIlwraith, might be eliminated by the morning’s exchange of fire. He seemed, indeed, blithely confident of the outcome. ‘McIlwraith’s as good as dead,’ had been his dismissive remark on the subject. As to the reason for the duel, which Cloisterman felt entitled to know if he was to stand as a second, about that too Wagemaker had been sparing with his words. ‘He brought about my sister’s death. Now he must pay for her life with his.’
If these two irascible old warriors were determined to take pot-shots at one another, that, so far as Cloisterman was concerned, they were welcome to do. He certainly could not prevent them. It was also undeniable that it would be easier to wrest the Green Book from Estelle de Vries, whom they would surely overtake before she reached the Simplon Pass, without McIlwraith trying to do the same. None of these considerations eased his mind, however. He did not like Wagemaker and he did not trust him. He did not subscribe to the colonel’s notion that this would be a quick, clean kill, an old score settled and a present problem solved, free of consequences, devoid of penalty. In Cloisterman’s experience, life was never that simple and nor was death.
A particularly disturbing thought was that he had no idea what the attitude of the Swiss was to duelling. For all he knew, it might be forbidden by some ancient cantonal law. If so, the seconds as much as the duellists would be in breach of it. During his visit to the Town Hall, he had represented himself to the Sheriff’s officer with whom he had discussed the deaths of Zuyler and Jupe as a reputable and accredited agent of the British Government. How the Sheriff would react to such a personage involving himself in a duel he did not care to contemplate. But Wagemaker was Walpole’s man. And Walpole seemed likely soon to be the arbiter of all their fates. Cloisterman had no choice but to do as he was bidden.
He did not have to like it, however. He especially resented his inability to think about anything else. There was surely much to ponder in the singular circumstances that had led to the fatal struggle at the Pension Siegwart. Zuyler and Jupe had killed each other and Estelle de Vries had fled with the Green Book. That seemed clear. But where had she fled to? The Simplon Pass was so obvious a destination that Cloisterman feared it might be too obvious. Mrs de Vries had shown herself to be a cool-nerved and resourceful woman. Just how resourceful he was not sure they yet knew. But he could not seem to concentrate on the clues to her intentions that he felt certain were scattered amidst the sparse f
acts of her behaviour to date. Instead, his mind was clogged with the brutal absurdities of a dawn duel between two men he scarcely knew over a long dead woman he had never known at all. It was a miserable scrape to find himself in. And somehow it seemed more miserable still because one of the duellists was sleeping like a baby in the same room where Cloisterman knew he was destined to toss and turn till the long night ended. Whereupon …
‘Damn you, Dalrymple,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘I didn’t deserve this.’
But deserving, as he was all too well aware, had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Chapter Nineteen
The Wages of Honour
THE ROOFS OF Berne rose above them like those of some dream city, floating, girding mountains and all, on the mist that shrouded the river.
It was a still, chill, breathless dawn in the sloping, snow-spattered meadow where the four men assembled, between the mist-line and the Interlaken road. Few words were spoken at first and most of those were in the form of a stumbling effort by Cloisterman to call the duel off, to which Wagemaker responded with a grunted refusal and McIlwraith with a fatalistic shrug. Spandrel and Cloisterman were shivering and clearly ill at ease, whereas the two men who were about to hazard their lives were icily calm. They took off their greatcoats, then Wagemaker opened the pistol-case he had brought and offered McIlwraith his choice of the matched pair. They loaded the weapons themselves, apparently concluding, without the need of saying so, that their seconds were unequal to the task.
‘We should toss a coin to see who has the right to fire first,’ said Cloisterman, fishing one from his pocket. ‘Unless …’ But, with a shake of the head, he abandoned his last attempt at mediation.
‘No need,’ said Wagemaker, holding McIlwraith’s gaze with his. ‘Ten paces each, then turn and shoot. Agreed?’
‘However you please,’ said McIlwraith. ‘Since you want this so badly, you may as well have the ordering of it.’
‘Agreed, then. You can put your money away, Mr Cloisterman.’
‘May I at least count the paces for you?’ Cloisterman asked through pursed lips.
‘You may,’ said Wagemaker. ‘Shall we get on?’
‘One thing,’ put in McIlwraith. ‘Before we do.’
‘Well?’
‘Dorothea wouldn’t have—’
‘Don’t mention my sister by name, sir. I don’t choose to give you the right to.’
‘What you choose to do is to defile her memory.’
‘By God, you have a nerve. Now let’s see how steady it is. Are you here to talk or to fight?’
‘I’m here to give you satisfaction, Colonel. As I’m bound to. But we should be clear. Dorothea sacrificed her life to prevent us doing just this eight years ago.’
‘Is that true?’ asked Cloisterman.
‘It’s no business of yours whether it’s true or not,’ barked Wagemaker. ‘Step back and let’s be doing.’
‘Very well.’ Cloisterman retreated, signalling for Spandrel to follow.
When they were thirty yards or so away, Wagemaker cocked his pistol and McIlwraith cocked his. They nodded to one another, then took up position, back to back.
‘Oh God,’ groaned Cloisterman. ‘This really is going to happen.’
‘Did you think it mightn’t?’ asked Spandrel.
‘I hoped.’ He sighed, then shouted, ‘Ready?’
‘Ready,’ came Wagemaker’s reply.
‘Ready,’ McIlwraith confirmed.
‘One,’ Cloisterman called. And at that they started walking.
Duelling was no part of life in Spandrel’s bracket of society. It was to him a strange and exotic indulgence of the upper classes, to which army officers, however humble their origins, also had habitual recourse. He had witnessed one once, thanks to Dick Surtees overhearing the arrangements being made in a coffee-house by the seconds and suggesting they go along and take a look at ‘two pea-brained sparks using each other for target practice’. It had been a bloodless affray in Hyde Park, the ‘pea-brained sparks’ in question missing their targets by a country mile, looking heartily relieved to do so and departing arm in arm, like the best of friends. Spandrel found himself wishing there could be a similar outcome to the second duel he was ever about to witness. But he knew in his heart there could not be. Blood would be shed at the very least. A life – Wagemaker’s or McIlwraith’s – was likely to be lost in the exchange that now lay only a few seconds in the future. He fervently hoped it would not be McIlwraith’s. But he greatly feared that it would. At the count of ten, he held his breath.
The two men were about twenty yards apart when they turned. Wagemaker spun on his heel, raised his arm and took aim a fraction of a second more swiftly – more naturally – than McIlwraith. The Scotsman’s arm was still just short of the horizontal when Wagemaker fired. The loud crack of the pistol shot broke the silence that had followed Cloisterman’s count of ten, only to be swallowed in a cawing rise of rooks from the mist-blurred trees further down the meadow. For a frozen instant, Spandrel did not know what had happened. There was no answering shot. The two men stood perfectly still, framing the city behind them, the cathedral tower seeming to mark, like a raised finger, the point from which they had measured their paces.
Then McIlwraith groaned and took one stumbling, sideways step. His arm dropped. His other hand moved to his chest. He seemed about to fall. Wagemaker slowly lowered his pistol. ‘He’s done for him,’ said Cloisterman, stepping forward. ‘As he swore he would.’
But McIlwraith did not fall. With a cry more like that of a beast than a man, he wrenched himself upright. Spandrel could see his chest heaving with the effort. He was hit, perhaps fatally, but something stronger than lead shot was holding him on his feet. He took one lurching step back to the position from which he had stumbled, his racing breath pluming into the air around him. Then he raised his pistol once more.
‘He means to fire,’ said Cloisterman, pulling up sharply.
‘You’re a dead man, Captain,’ Wagemaker called to his opponent. ‘You can’t even stand straight, let alone shoot straight.’ With that he threw his pistol to the ground. ‘This is—’
There was a second pistol shot. Wagemaker’s head jerked violently back as bone and blood burst out of it. He swayed for a moment, then fell backwards, hitting the frosted turf with a thud. There was no other movement. He lay where he fell, like a puppet whose strings have been cut, still and lifeless.
‘Good God,’ murmured Cloisterman. ‘Good God Almighty.’
McIlwraith let his pistol fall to the ground. Then, slowly, as if stooping to pray, he slipped to his knees. Spandrel began running towards him. As he ran, he saw the captain topple over onto his side, his body convulsed by a series of spluttering coughs. Then he lay still.
‘Captain?’ Spandrel bent over him and touched his elbow. There was blood on McIlwraith’s waistcoat, oozing through the fingers of the hand he had clasped to the wound and darkening the frost-white grass beneath him. ‘Can you hear me?’
‘I can … hear you,’ McIlwraith replied through clenched teeth. ‘Wagemaker?’
Spandrel looked across at Cloisterman, who had hurried to where the colonel was lying and was stooping over him. Hearing the question, he looked over his shoulder and said, ‘Quite dead, Captain, I assure you.’
‘But he still has the … advantage of me.’ McIlwraith seemed to be smiling. ‘At least he died … cleanly.’
‘You’re not going to die,’ said Spandrel.
‘I wish you were right. But as usual … you’re wide of the mark. Unlike … Wagemaker.’
‘I’ll fetch a doctor,’ said Cloisterman. ‘As fast as I can. Stay here, Spandrel. And go on talking to him. It may help.’
The two men exchanged nods, then Cloisterman took off across the field in a loping run, the tails of his coat flapping out behind him. He was heading towards the houses clustered around the bridge by which they had left the city, the bridge from which Estelle de Vries claimed to ha
ve thrown the Green Book into the river. Since she had uttered that claim, no more than thirty hours or so ago, Zuyler and Jupe and Wagemaker had all met their deaths, suddenly and violently, when they were least expecting to. And now McIlwraith seemed likely to join them.
‘Has he gone?’ McIlwraith’s voice was hoarse and strained.
‘Yes. Don’t worry. He’ll—’
‘Stop jabbering and listen to me, Spandrel. I don’t have long. I’m dying, man.’
‘No. No, you’re not.’
‘Don’t contradict me, damn you. I’ve seen enough death … in my time … to know what it’s like. Just listen to me.’
‘I’m listening, Captain.’
‘Good. This is … important. You must leave here. Now.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘You must. Take my pouch. It’s in my coat. There’s money. Guineas. Louis d’or. And sequins. You’ll need those for Rome.’
‘Rome?’
‘You have to go on … without me.’
‘I can’t leave you like this.’
‘There’s … no choice. I’ve been here before. Not to Berne. But to Switzerland. I know their ways. This is a Calvinist canton. They come down hard on … Catholic indulgences. That’s what they see duelling as. You and Cloisterman will be arrested … as soon as the Sheriff hears what’s happened. Do you want to go back … to prison? Maybe even a Dutch one? A warrant naming you as a suspected murderer … could find its way here from Amsterdam … while you’re in custody. Do you … want that?’
Sea Change Page 17