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The Queen's Scarlet, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 2. In Hot Blood |
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_ CHAPTER TWO. IN HOT BLOOD "Yes, and you'll have to wait," cried Richard Frayne, as the door closed on the man, and he listened to the departing steps as he involuntarily crossed to the stand, picked up his flute, and rearranged the music, but only to throw it down angrily and replace his instrument. "The scoundrel!" he cried. "Here, I must have this out at once." He was no longer the quiet, dreamy-looking musician, but full of angry energy; and in this spirit he went straight to his cousin's room, knocked, and went in; but the place was empty. "Seen my cousin?" he cried, as he encountered Jerry, the house servant, valet, and factotum. "See him smoking in the garden 'arf a hour ago, S'Richard." Richard hurried down into the extensive grounds, and came plump upon Mr Draycott, the well-known military tutor and coach, tramping laboriously up and down one of the gravel paths, with his hands behind, giving a loud puff at every second step, for he was an enormously fat man, to whom walking was a severe trial, but a trial he persevered in from a wholesome dread that, if he neglected proper exercise, he would grow worse. "Hullo, Frayne!" he cried, "I want to see you--" _puff_. "Yes, sir?" "Look here, I'm very much put out about you, Frayne--I am, indeed!"--_puff_. "What about, sir?" "Oh, you know"--_puff_. "Of course, I never object to my pupils having their own hobbies; but you have been carrying your musical"--_puff_--"whims to excess"--_puff_. Richard coloured. "I do not see why a soldier"--_puff_--"should not be a good musician, though the trumpet"--_puff_--"seems more in the way than the piano"--_puff_. "But you ought not to have gone in debt over such a matter"--_puff_. "In debt, sir?" "Yes. Don't repeat my words!"--_puff_. "Now, I have warned you against it!"--_puff_. "You did, sir; but I don't understand your allusions," said Richard, though he suspected that he did. "Then you ought to, sir!"--_puff_. "Hasn't that money-lending tailor"--_puff_--"just come from dunning you?" "Yes, sir; but--" "There, I know all about it. Pay him off, and never get into such a hobble again"--_puff_. "Coming, my dear!"--_puff_. Mrs Draycott, an exceedingly thin lady, was calling from the French window of the drawing-room, and the "Heavy Coach," as his pupils nicknamed him, went puffing off up to the house. "Oh, I can't stand this!" said Richard to himself. "I must have a thorough explanation. Mark shall speak out. Why, Draycott believes it, too! That scoundrelly little tailor must have told him. Hi! Dillon, seen my cousin?" This was to a fellow-pupil, who was coming down the garden. "Five minutes--ten minutes--ago, going across the Close. Gone to see the river; it's getting flooded. What's the row?" "Oh, nothing--nothing." "But you look as if you were going to knock his head off." "I am," cried Richard, over his shoulder, as he hurried off. "That's right. Hit hard! Save me a lock of his hair!" shouted the youth; and then to himself: "Serve the beast right! What's he been doing now?" Richard Frayne met a couple more of the "Heavy Coach's" pupils as he crossed the Cathedral Close, where the calm silence of the old place ought to have quelled the angry throbbing in his veins; but it had an opposite effect, and the cries of the jackdaws which clung about the mouldering tower sounded like impish derisive laughter. "Anything the matter?" said one of the pair. "Yes; seen my cousin?" "Yes; he's down in the ruins, seated, like Patience on a broken monument, smoking and smiling at the river. Don't pitch him in. I say: is there a row on?" Richard Frayne did not answer, but walked away, crossed the creek bridge, beneath which the water ran thundering as it hurried toward the river, giving indications that there must have been a heavy rainstorm in the hills twenty miles away, though all was sunshine there. He hurried on along the lane, turned out of it, crossed a couple of fields, and made his way toward a pile of ivy-clad ruins, whose base was washed by the river, now brimful, and here and there making patches and pools in the lower meadows further on. These ruins were the remains of one of the great ecclesiastical buildings dismantled in the days of Bluff King Hal, and still showed the importance of the edifice, with its lancet windows and high walls surrounding a green patch that was at one time an inner garden surrounded by cloisters, of which only a few columns were left, and was now as secluded and lonely a spot as could be found for miles. A visitor would have paused directly to admire the beauty of the old place, which raised up thoughts of the past, but Richard did not stay, for to him it only raised up secular thoughts of the present, with tailors' bills, borrowed money, forgery, and lies. But there was no sign of Mark Frayne; and, growing moment by moment more excited and angry, Richard hurried here and there, looking sharply round, coming to the conclusion that either he had been misinformed or his cousin had gone, when he caught sight of a yellow and black fragment of flannel projecting from behind a pile of stones at the corner farthest away from the swollen river. "The cur!" he muttered, as he hurried forward, leaping over fallen blocks and fragments which showed still the groinings of the old cloisters. "That's like you!" he cried, as he came suddenly upon Mark leaning back in a niche, and who looked first white, then scarlet. "What do you mean? Hiding, like the sneaking coward you are." "You're an idiot! I came here to see the flood rising." "At this end?" cried Richard, contemptuously. "No, you didn't. You hid here because you saw me coming." "What! Hide from you!" cried Mark, defiantly. "I like that! Why should I hide from you, fiddler?" "Because you felt what was coming out, and that I knew the miserable cheating act of which you have been guilty." "Here! what do you mean?" cried Mark, in a bullying tone, as he edged up, scowling, towards him, and looked down upon the meek musician, whom he felt he could at any moment pretty well crush. "I mean that if poor sick Uncle James knew what I have just heard it would break his heart." "I don't want to hear any cant about my father," cried Mark, changing colour a little. "Tell me what you mean, or--" He made a menacing gesture; but, to his surprise, Richard did not shrink. "I mean that that wretched man has been to me about your debts." "About my debts? Oh, you mean Simpson about his bill. Well, I don't want your help now. I can pay him. He must wait." "But he will not wait. He threatens to expose you if the matter is not settled at once." "Pooh! what is there to expose? Every fellow gets in debt more or less. Tailors have to wait. Every fellow gets behind for his togs." "Yes; but he does not forge his cousin's name when he wants money." "What?" roared Mark, shaken for the moment. "Here," he cried, seizing Richard by the arm, after a glance round to see if they were alone, "what does this mean?" "It means this," cried Richard passionately, "that your creditor has been to me this morning, and has just left me, after showing me how you have disgraced the good old name of Frayne." "I? How?" "How?" cried Richard, whose voice was husky from emotion; "by writing my name to the cheque for the money you borrowed, telling the man it was for me." "Well, so it was!" cried Mark, seizing him by the other shoulder and shaking him. "No backing out now!" "What?" "You had it nearly all. And, if it has come to this, we'll have it all out now. What do you mean about the cheque?" "I mean that you forged my name. I knew nothing of it till just now." "I--I--did what?" cried Mark, as if astounded. "I have told you. Take your dirty hands off me! It is disgrace enough, without--" "I--I put your name to a cheque!" roared Mark. "Why, you infamous, lying cad: unsay every word! You know the money was borrowed for you, and that you spent it on your miserable music! Confess it before I break every bone in your skin!" Staggered, mentally and bodily, by his cousin's retort, Richard Frayne gave way, and was borne back against the ruined wall of the old sanctuary; for Mark had, by a quick action, seized him hard by the throat and held him fast. "Why, you must be mad! You dare to say I did that, you infamous-- lying--" He had gone too far, and there was a moment's pause; for, before he could utter the next word, Richard Frayne had given himself a violent wrench sidewise, freed himself and struck out at his assailant. But it was a feeble blow, consequent upon his crippled position, and, with a savage laugh, Mark turned at him again. "I'll teach you to talk like that! Down on your knees and swear that it was all a hatched-up lie, or--" Mark Frayne's words were checked again, for he had never really seen of what his cousin was capable till now. He knew that he took part in athletic exercises, and he had had the gloves on with him often enough before, and knocked him about to his heart's content. But he had now to learn that Richard Frayne, the white-handed lover of music, fought better without gloves than with, while the soft-palmed hands had knuckles as bony as his own. "Liar!" muttered Richard between his teeth as he struck out with his left full at Mark's mouth, sending him staggering back, but only to recover directly and come on furiously again. There was only another round, and it was very short. Richard Frayne, with every nerve twitching with rage and indignation, followed up his second blow with others, planted so truly, and with such effect, that within a minute he was driving his adversary back step by step, till, blind now with fury, he put all his strength and weight into a blow which sent Mark down like a piece of wood, to lie, inert, with his head resting against the broken, lichen-covered fragment of an arch. "Steady! Hold hard!" shouted a couple of voices, and the two young fellow-pupils, who had followed, leaped down through a broken window, from whence, hidden by the ivy, they had watched the fray. "You second Dick Frayne," cried the first, "and I'll see to Mark." Richard hardly heard what was said, for there was a sound as of surging waters in his ears, followed by a roar of words that seemed to thunder. For, as the last speaker went down on one knee to raise up the fallen lad, he uttered a cry of horror, and then let the young man's head hurriedly down, to shrink away with his hands fouled by blood. "What is it?" cried the other, running forward; while Richard's hands clutched at the air. "What is it?--cut?" "Cut!" sobbed out the other. "A doctor!--quick! Dick Frayne, what have you done? He's dead!" _ |
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