The next six weeks went on tranquilly1 at Merle Park without a word spoken about Hamel. Sir Thomas, who was in the country as little as possible, showed his scorn to his son-in-law simply by the paucity2 of his words, speaking to him, when he did speak to him, with a deliberate courtesy which Mr Traffick perfectly3 understood. It was that dangerous serenity4 which so often presages5 a storm. “There is something going to be up with your father,” he said to Augusta. Augusta replied that she had never seen her father so civil before. “It would be a great convenience”, continued the Member of Parliament, “if he could be made to hold his tongue till Parliament meets; but I’m afraid that’s too good to expect.” In other respects things were comfortable at Merle Park, though they were not always comfortable up in London. Tom, as the reader knows, was misbehaving himself sadly at the Mountaineers. This was the period of unlimited6 champagne7, and of almost total absence from Lombard Street. It was seldom that Sir Thomas could get hold of his son, and when he did that broken-hearted youth would reply to his expostulations simply by asserting that if his father would induce Ayala to marry him everything should go straight in Lombard Street. Then came the final blow. Tom was of course expected at Merle Park on Christmas Eve, but did not make his appearance either then or on Christmas Day. Christmas fell on a Wednesday, and it was intended that the family should remain in the country till the following Monday. On the Thursday Sir Thomas went up to town to make inquiries8 respecting his heir, as to whom Lady Tringle had then become absolutely unhappy. In London he heard the disastrous9 truth. Tom, in his sportive mood, had caused serious inconvenience to a most respectable policeman, and was destined10 to remain another week in the hands of the Philistines11. Then, for a time, all the other Tringle troubles were buried and forgotten in this great trouble respecting Tom. Lady Tringle was unable to leave her room during the period of incarceration12. Mr Traffick promised to have the victim liberated13 by the direct interference of the Secretary of State, but failed to get anything of the kind accomplished14. The girls were completely cowed by the enormity of the misfortune; so that Tom’s name was hardly mentioned except in sad and confidential15 whispers. But of all the sufferers Sir Thomas suffered the most. To him it was a positive disgrace, weighing down every moment of his life. At Travers and Treason he could not hold up his head boldly and open his mouth loudly as had always been his wont16. At Travers and Treason there was not a clerk who did not know that “the governor” was an altered man since this misfortune had happened to the hope of the firm. What passed between Sir Thomas and his son on the occasion has already been told in a previous chapter. That Sir Thomas, on the whole, behaved with indulgence must be acknowledged; but he felt that his son must in truth absent himself from Lombard Street for a time.
Tom had been advised by his father to go forth17 and see the world. A prolonged tour had been proposed to him which to most young men might seem to have great attraction. To him it would have had attraction enough, had it not been for Ayala. There would have been hardly any limit to the allowance made to him, and he would have gone forth armed with introductions, which would have made every port a happy home to him. But as soon as the tour was suggested he resolved at once that he could not move himself to a distance from Ayala. What he expected — what he even hoped — he could not tell himself. But while Ayala was in London, and Ayala was unmarried, he could not be made to take himself far away.
He was thoroughly18 ashamed of himself. He was not at all the man who could bear a week of imprisonment19 and not think himself disgraced. For a day or two he shut himself up altogether in his lodgings20, and never once showed himself at the Mountaineers. Faddle came to him, but he snubbed Faddle at first, remembering all the severe things his father had said about the Faddles in general. But he soon allowed that feeling to die away when the choice seemed to be between Faddle and solitude21. Then he crept out in the dark and ate his dinners with Faddle at some tavern22, generally paying the bill for both of them. After dinner he would play half a dozen games of billiards23 with his friend at some unknown billiard-room, and then creep home to his lodgings — a blighted24 human being!
At last, about the end of the first week in January, he was induced to go down to Merle Park. There Mr and Mrs Traffick were still sojourning, the real grief which had afflicted25 Sir Thomas having caused him to postpone26 his intention in regard to his son-in-law. At Merle Park Tom was cosseted27 and spoilt by the women very injudiciously. It was not perhaps the fact that they regarded him as a hero simply because he had punched a policeman in the stomach and then been locked up in vindication28 of the injured laws of his country; but that incident in combination with his unhappy love did seem to make him heroic. Even Lucy regarded him with favour because of his constancy to her sister; whereas the other ladies measured their admiration29 for his persistency30 by the warmth of their anger against the silly girl who was causing so much trouble. His mother told him over and over again that his cousin was not worth his regard; but then, when he would throw himself on the sofa in an agony of despair — weakened perhaps as much by the course of champagne as by the course of his love — then she, too, would bid him hope, and at last promised that she herself would endeavour to persuade Ayala to look at the matter in a more favourable31 light. “It would all be right if it were not for that accursed Stubbs,” poor Tom would say to his mother. “The man whom I called my friend! The man I lent a horse to when he couldn’t get one anywhere else! The man to whom I confided32 everything, even about the necklace! If it hadn’t been for Stubbs I never should have hurt that policeman! When I was striking him I thought that it was Stubbs!” Then the mother would heap feminine maledictions on the poor Colonel’s head, and so together they would weep and think of revenge.
From the moment Tom had heard Colonel Stubbs’s name mentioned as that of his rival he had meditated33 revenge. It was quite true when he said that he had been thinking of Stubbs when he struck the policeman. He had consumed the period of his confinement34 in gnashing his teeth, all in regard to our poor friend Jonathan. He told his father that he could not go upon his long tour because of Ayala. But in truth his love was now so mixed up with ideas of vengeance35 that he did not himself know which prevailed. If he could first have slaughtered37 Stubbs then perhaps he might have started! But how was he to slaughter36 Stubbs? Various ideas occurred to his mind. At first he thought that he would go down to Aldershot with the biggest cutting-whip he could find in any shop in Piccadilly; but then it occurred to him that at Aldershot he would have all the British army against him, and that the British army might do something to him worse even than the London magistrate38. Then he would wait till the Colonel could be met elsewhere. He ascertained39 that the Colonel was still at Stalham, where he had passed the Christmas, and he thought how it might be if he were to attack the Colonel in the presence of his friends, the Alburys. He assured himself that, as far as personal injury went, he feared nothing. He had no disinclination to be hit over the head himself, if he could be sure of hitting the Colonel over the head. If it could be managed that they two should fly at each other with their fists, and be allowed to do the worst they could to each other for an hour, without interference, he would be quite satisfied. But down at Stalham that would not be allowed. All the world would be against him, and nobody there to see that he got fair play. If he could encounter the man in the streets of London it would be better; but were he to seek the man down at Stalham he would probably find himself in the County Lunatic Asylum40. What must he do for his revenge? He was surely entitled to it. By all the laws of chivalry41, as to which he had his own ideas, he had a right to inflict42 an injury upon a successful — even upon an unsuccessful — rival. Was it not a shame that so excellent an institution as duelling should have been stamped out? Wandering about the lawns and shrubberies at Merle Park he thought of all this, and at last he came to a resolution.
The institution had been stamped out, as far as Great Britain was concerned. He was aware of that. But it seemed to him that it had not been stamped out in other more generous countries. He had happened to notice that a certain enthusiastic politician in France had enjoyed many duels44, and had never been severely45 repressed by the laws of his country. Newspaper writers were always fighting in France, and were never guillotined. The idea of being hanged was horrible to him — so distasteful that he saw at a glance that a duel43 in England was out of the question. But to have his head cut off, even if it should come to that, would be a much less affair. But in Belgium, in Italy, in Germany, they never did cut off the heads of the very numerous gentlemen who fought duels. And there were the Southern States of the American Union, where he fancied that men might fight duels as they pleased. He would be ready to go even to New Orleans at a day’s notice if only he could induce Colonel Stubbs to meet him there. And he thought that, if Colonel Stubbs really possessed46 half the spirit which seemed to be attributed to him by the British army generally, he would come, if properly invoked47, and fight such a duel as this, whether at New Orleans or at some other well-chosen blood-allowing spot on the world’s surface. Tom was prepared to go anywhere for blood.
But the invocation must be properly made. When he had wanted another letter of another kind to be written for him, the Colonel himself was the man to whom he had gone for assistance. And, had his present enemy been any other than the Colonel himself, he would have gone to the Colonel in preference to anyone else for aid in this matter. There was no one, in truth, in whom he believed so thoroughly as in the Colonel. But that was out of the question. Then he reflected what friend might now stand him in stead. He would have gone to Houston, who wanted to marry his sister; but Houston seemed to have disappeared, and he did not know where he might be found. There was his brother-in-law, Traffick — but he feared lest Traffick might give him over once more into the hands of the police. He thought of Hamel, as being in a way connected with the family; but he had seen so little of Hamel, and had so much disliked what he had seen, that he was obliged to let that hope go by. There was no one left but Faddle whom he could trust. Faddle would do anything he was told to do. Faddle would carry the letter, no doubt, or allow himself to be named as a proposed second. But Faddle could not write the letter. He felt that he could write the letter himself better than Faddle.
He went up to town, having sent a mysterious letter to Faddle, bidding his friend attend him in his lodgings. He did not yet dare to go to the Mountaineers, where Faddle would have been found. But Faddle came, true to the appointment. “What is it, now?” said the faithful friend. “I hope you are going back to Travers and Treasons’. That is what I should do, and walk in just as though nothing had happened.”
“Not if you were me, you wouldn’t.”
“That makes a difference, of course.”
“There is something else to be done before I can again darken the doors of Travers and Treason — if I should ever do so!”
“Something particular?”
“Something very particular. Faddle, I do think you are a true friend.”
“You may say that. I have stuck to you always — though you don’t know the kind of things my people say to me about it. They say I am going to ruin myself because of you. The governor threatened to put me out of the business altogether. But I’m a man who will be true to my friend, whatever happens. I think you have been a little cool to me, lately; but even that don’t matter.”
“Cool! If you knew the state that I’m in you wouldn’t talk of a fellow being cool! I’m so knocked about it all that I don’t know what I’m doing.”
“I do take that into consideration.”
“Now, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” Then he stood still, and looked Faddle full in the face. Faddle, sitting awe-struck on his chair, returned the gaze. He knew that a moment of supreme48 importance was at hand. “Faddle, I’ll shoot that fellow down like a dog.”
“Will you, indeed?”
“Like a dog — if I can get at him. I should have no more compunction in taking his life than a mere49 worm. Why should I, when I know that he has sapped the very juice of my existence?”
“Do you mean — do you mean — that you would — murder him?”
“It would not be murder. Of course it might be that he would shoot me instead. Upon the whole, I think I should like that best.”
“Oh; a duel!” said Faddle.
“That’s what I mean. Murder him! Certainly not. Though I should like nothing half so well as to thrash him within an inch of his life. I would not murder him. My plan is this — I shall write to him a letter inviting50 him to meet me in any corner of the globe that he may select. Torrid zone or Arctic circle will be all the same to me. You will have to accompany me as my second.” Faddle shivered with excitement and dread51 of coming events. Among other ideas there came the thought that it might be difficult to get back from the Arctic circle without money if his friend Tom should happen to be shot dead in that locality. “But first of all”, continued Tom, you will have to carry a letter.”
“To the Colonel?” suggested Faddle.
“Of course. The man is now staying with friends of his named Albury at a place called Stalham. From what I hear they are howling swells53. Sir Harry54 Albury is Master of the Hounds, and Lady Albury when she is up in London has all the Royal Family constantly at her parties. Stubbs is a cousin of his; but you must go right away up to him among ’em all, and deliver the letter into his hands without minding ’em a bit.
“Couldn’t it go by post?”
“No; this kind of letter mustn’t go by post. You have to be able to swear that you delivered it yourself into his own hands. And then you must wait for an answer. Even though he should want a day to think of it, you must wait.”
“Where am I to stay, Tom?”
“Well; it may be they’ll ask you to the house, because, though you carry the letter for me, you are not supposed to be his enemy. If so, put a jolly face on it, and enjoy yourself as well as you can. You must seem, you know, to be just as big a swell52 as anybody there. But if they don’t ask you, you must go to the nearest inn. I’ll pay the bill.”
“Shall I go today?” asked Faddle.
“I’ve got to write the letter first. It’ll take a little time, so that you’d better put it off till tomorrow. If you will leave me now I’ll write it, and if you will come back at six we’ll go and have a bit of dinner at Bolivia’s.” This was an eating-house in the neighbourhood of Leicester Square, to which the friends had become partial during this troubled period of their existence.
“Why not come to the Mountaineers, old boy?” Tom shook his head, showing that he was not yet up to such festivity as that; and then Faddle took his departure.
Tom at once got out his pen and paper, and began to write his letter. It may be imagined that it was not written off-hand, or without many struggles. When it was written it ran as follows:
SIR ,
You will not, I think, be surprised to hear from me in anything but a friendly spirit. I went down to you at Aldershot as to a friend whom I could trust with my bosom’s dearest secret, and you have betrayed me. I told you of my love, a love which has long burned in my heart, and you received my confidence with a smile, knowing all the time that you were my rival. I leave it to you to say what reply you can make as to conduct so damning, so unmanly, so dastardly — and so very unlike a friend as this!
However, there is no place here for words. You have offered me the greatest insult and the greatest injury which one man can inflict upon another! There is no possibility of an apology, unless you are inclined to say that you will renounce55 for ever your claim upon the hand of Miss Ayala Dormer. This I do not expect, and, therefore, I call upon you to give me that satisfaction which is all that one gentleman can offer to another. After the injury you have done me I think it quite impossible that you should refuse.
Of course, I know that duels cannot be fought in England because of the law. I am sorry that the law should have been altered, because it allows so many cowards to escape the punishment they deserve. [Tom, as he wrote this, was very proud of the keenness of the allusion56.] I am quite sure, however, that a man who bears the colours of a colonel in the British army will not try to get off by such a pretext57. [He was proud, too, about the colours.] France, Belgium, Italy, the United States, and all the world, are open! I will meet you wherever you may choose to arrange a meeting. I presume that you will prefer pistols.
I send this by the hands of my friend, Mr Faddle, who will be prepared to make arrangements with you or with any friend on your behalf. He will bring back your reply, which no doubt will be satisfactory.
I am, Sir, your most obedient servant, THOMAS TRINGLE , junior
When, after making various copies, Tom at last read the letter as finally prepared, he was much pleased with it, doubting whether the Colonel himself could have written it better, had the task been confided to his hands. When Faddle came, he read it to him with much pride, and then committed it to his custody58. After that they went out and ate their dinner at Bolivia’s with much satisfaction, but still with a bearing of deep melancholy59, as was proper on such an occasion.
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tranquilly
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| adv. 宁静地 | |
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paucity
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| n.小量，缺乏 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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serenity
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| n.宁静，沉着，晴朗 | |
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presages
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| v.预示，预兆( presage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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inquiries
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| n.调查( inquiry的名词复数 )；疑问；探究；打听 | |
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disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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destined
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| adj.命中注定的；(for)以…为目的地的 | |
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philistines
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| n.市侩，庸人( philistine的名词复数 )；庸夫俗子 | |
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incarceration
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| n.监禁，禁闭；钳闭 | |
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liberated
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| a.无拘束的，放纵的 | |
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accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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confidential
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| adj.秘（机）密的，表示信任的，担任机密工作的 | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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imprisonment
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| n.关押，监禁，坐牢 | |
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lodgings
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| n. 出租的房舍, 寄宿舍 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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tavern
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| n.小旅馆，客栈；小酒店 | |
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billiards
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| n.台球 | |
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blighted
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| adj.枯萎的，摧毁的 | |
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afflicted
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| 使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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postpone
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| v.延期，推迟 | |
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cosseted
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| v.宠爱，娇养，纵容( cosset的过去式 ) | |
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vindication
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| n.洗冤，证实 | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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persistency
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| n. 坚持(余辉, 时间常数) | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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confided
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| v.吐露（秘密，心事等）( confide的过去式和过去分词 )；（向某人）吐露（隐私、秘密等） | |
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meditated
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| 深思，沉思，冥想( meditate的过去式和过去分词 )； 内心策划，考虑 | |
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confinement
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| n.幽禁，拘留，监禁；分娩；限制，局限 | |
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vengeance
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| n.报复，报仇，复仇 | |
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slaughter
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| n.屠杀，屠宰；vt.屠杀，宰杀 | |
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slaughtered
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| v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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magistrate
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| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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ascertained
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| v.弄清，确定，查明( ascertain的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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asylum
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| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
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chivalry
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| n.骑士气概，侠义；（男人）对女人彬彬有礼，献殷勤 | |
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42
inflict
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| vt.(on)把…强加给，使遭受，使承担 | |
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duel
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| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
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duels
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| n.两男子的决斗( duel的名词复数 )；竞争，斗争 | |
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severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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invoked
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| v.援引( invoke的过去式和过去分词 )；行使（权利等）；祈求救助；恳求 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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inviting
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| adj.诱人的，引人注目的 | |
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dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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55
renounce
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| v.放弃；拒绝承认，宣布与…断绝关系 | |
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56
allusion
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| n.暗示，间接提示 | |
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pretext
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| n.借口，托词 | |
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custody
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| n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留 | |
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melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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