CHAPTER LXXXIV
Which has to do with Blue Blood and a Jade-handled Cane
Theduel got upon the town.
Rupert Greppel, strutting with hidalgic air, was concerned in bringing about several affairs. No one was hurt. There was much braying of asses.
The Lord Montagu Askew, dainty, foppish, in the mode, and the Honourable Rupert Greppel, hidalgic, head in air, stood before a shop window in the Rue de la Paix and gazed at their splendid reflections; whilst past them moved on the pavement or whirled by in barouches the great world of Paris—hig-lifsunning its butterfly wings, honey-questing, sipping at any dew that the gods left lying abroad.
Montagu Askew held his jade-handled cane mincingly, and he glowed with a gentleman-like glow, for his dove-coloured little book of poems tinted all the bookstalls.
More than one woman of high rank this morning had stopped her carriage to congratulate him on the exquisite lyric wherein the vast firmament at break of dawn was likened to the grey of a woman’s glove—indeed, it became the vogue of the drawing-rooms—people sang it.
As a fact, Montagu Askew was acknowledged lord of chamber music. Indeed, in his slender careful verse was no rude hint of the full-blooded Rabelaisian love of life; it was innocent of the suggestion of a large emotion; he played upon the accepted measures and the well-authenticated rhyme; he startled with no surprises; he sounded no new note—Montagu never forgot he was a gentleman. Not for him the uncouthness to fling open loud-clanging gates to a new world. He was pretty and serenely mannered before everything, disdainful of them that skipped a foot to the hot jigging blood, or such as showed a strong disdain; nor was he wanting in contempt for the natural emotions. When he condescended to so low an act as to seek nature, he walked through the well-groomed spaces of the world, well-trimmed parks at the outside, where an elaborate etiquette had made the rules even for the trees to grow in seemliness with a most gentlemanly existence. For him were no disturbing peerings intohuman destiny—he raised no rough alarms by strenuous aims and vigorous thinking. Pretty, dandified, he—always. Sinning easily enough, but always like a gentleman. Never a crudity. As a perfumed fan fluttered by jewelled slender fingers, blowing cool fragrant airs that kiss the painted cheek of some frail beauty, he uttered his lines—obscene often, but by the most gentlemanly of innuendoes. The unmannerly thing was the only sin. The display of a profound emotion was the depth of ill-breeding. So sang he, tunefully always, guiltless of all rough accent of originality; sang of peacocks and green carnations and blue roses, of butterflies and pools and dragonflies and souls, of ivory and silver, and of dawn and dusk and dew, and white shoulders sweet, beauties who moved languidly with rustle of silk—so wafted he to you nothing more vibrant than whisper of women and scent of perfumed chambers and flowers and bowers and rose and amarynth and asphodel and daffodil, of moonlight and music and kiss and gavotte and little tiny things—and always in the most gentlemanly manner. He milked the unicorn. Always a would-be suggestion of mysterious deep-hid symbolism that ended where it began, and at most only the dark hint of well-bred tragedy.
He moved impatiently now, as impatiently as he might, complaining that the shop-window into which he deigned to cast his reflection was tinted with amethyst.
“Come, Greppel,” said he—“let us gaze at ourselves in another window—this is an ageing colour.”
Then came the terrible tragedy of a fire at a charity bazaar; a most patrician function with much upper clergy in it was smitten with sudden and awful death. Montagu Askew was in the business. He was one of the few that came out alive.
In the rush of the distraught ladies, princesses, duchesses, maids, to the sole outlet of the seething hell, Montagu Askew got caught near the door—frantic hands of terrified women clutched at him for help—he was almost within reach of the free air—could see the sunlight a few paces before him—a frightened girl clung to his arm in the awful crush, then another—women’s skirts got under foot as they made for the door, and they went down. He tried to shake himself clear of the two girls, he was a little slender man.... The heat was hellish.... One of the girls tripped on her skirt and fell, clinging to him. He beat her down with the jade-handled cane—fought his way blindly through the rush of women for the door—stood at last out in the sunlight.
Some coachmen were dashing into the fiery furnace, lifting up and bringing out fainting women, whose muslin skirts were in flames.
But Monty Askew was frightened.
He smoothed his ruffled dress and went home.
Montagu Askew, entering a café with Rupert Greppel one evening, saluted Noll Baddlesmere, where he stood amongst a group of students; and a silence fell upon the place.
Noll nodded:
“That’s a handsome cane, Askew,” said he—“though they tell me the women have a poor opinion of it.”
Askew’s little gloved hands trembled, and he turned white with anger—as pale as Montagu Askew allowed himself to turn:
“It has belonged to my forefathers for seven generations,” he said—“and every man of them backed his acts with his sword.”
Noll laughed; shrugged his shoulders:
“If your acts are hereditary, it is an excuse for you,” he said.
The following morning, Rupert Greppel and a French cousin called upon Noll; and Rupert stiffly asked if he could refer him to two friends.
“No,” said Noll—Doome was with him—“no—I do not associate with men who associate with Lord Montagu Askew.”
Rupert Greppel paused, dumbfounded:
“I do not think you understand,” he said. “Lord Montagu Askew challenges you to fight him.”
“Tell Lord Montagu Askew from me,” said Noll, “that I only brawl with men. Good-morning.”
The whisperings at the clubs are said to have hit Lord Montagu Askew harder than a pistol-bullet; but Lord Montagu, from lack of experience, is not an authority on being hit with pistol-bullets. He never takes part in ungentlemanly encounters where people are hit. Indeed, he maintains a wondrous silence, except that he challenged Noll; and the jade-handled cane has joined the ancestors.