Chico Williams - The Ups and Downs of Life

'I don't care!'

'Come, come!' said R-, 'this won't do old fellar, if you have any grievance against young S-

you've got your remedy, but I won't allow him to be insulted.'

'You be damned!' cried M-.

'All right, old fellar,' said R-, 'we'll settle our little affair afterwards, but, meantime, what have you got to accuse little S- of?'

'He's a blackguard and a scoundrel,' roared M-.

'You are a scoundrel yourself, M-,' said I, 'and have seduced Mrs T-. You are a coward and a beast, who has bullied her and me, you great blundering brute.'

'Very well, my little fellow, you shall pay for this bravado.'

'All right,' said I, 'my friend R- will receive any message you may wish to send,' and hooking on to R-, he and I strode out of the bungalow and drove off.

'You did that capitally; now you're all right; he never had a rapier in his hand in his life. He is a horrid bully, and I hope you pink him.'

'I'll try my best to do so.'

'Good! Now it's nearly seven, I'll come and dine with you.'

'With great pleasure,' said I, and we drove to the mess house and played a game at billiards, while waiting for dinner. At dinner I called twice for champagne, and made R- as welcome as I could.

My brother officers looked curiously at us; nobody ever asked R- to dinner unless a duel was on the tapis.

Dinner was over and we were sitting on the verandah smoking when J- of the — th approached.

'I want a word with you, R-,' said he.

R- rose up; they walked in the compound together. R- came back looking very merry.

'Well?' said I.

'All right, old fellar; with swords, tomorrow at six, at the old pagoda near the tank; but have you any weapons?'

'I have a pair of the finest rapiers you ever saw; they were made by Riviere, of Paris, and my great grandfather bought them there in 1742.'

'Did he fight?' asked R-, with much interest.

'Oh, yes, he killed Lord R- with one of those swords in the Bois de Boulogne the next year.'

'Really!'

'Yes.'

'You come of a good lot then?' said R-.

'Pretty well; but wait.'

Punctually at six we were on the ground next morning. R- held the swords in their antique shagreen case under his arm. We had not been two minutes on the ground when M- and J-

appeared.

M- looked very pale, but he sought to throw off his evident trepidation by an apparent bravado. 'It seems,' said he, laughing with great contempt, 'that if I escape the spit of young S-, I am to try my Joe Manton's with you R-.' (Manton was the great maker of hair-trigger duelling pistols in those days.)

'With all my heart,' said R-, 'you're a good shot, and I'm not a bad one, I hope I may get the chance, old fellar.'

'Gentlemen! gentlemen!' said J-, 'this is not en regle at all. I cannot allow this. You have the swords, R-, permit me to inspect them?'

He opened the case, measured them carefully, weighed them in his hand, and then said, 'It seems to me this is the best weapon, don't you think so, M-?'

'I know nothing about rapiers,' said M-, with disdain, 'I thought they were exploded with the last century, give me whichever my opponent rejects.'

'Not so,' said R-, 'my friend desires you will take your choice.'

M- chose the sword his friend had pronounced the best and we set to work.

Poor M- knew nothing of fencing, that soon became manifest; I was young, I had a heart then, I did not want to kill him, so watching a chance I ran him through the sword arm. The blood spurted out, the seconds interfered, but M- swore a great oath and said if I did not kill him, he'd kill me. His arm was bound up with a handkerchief, and he attacked me with the wildest fury; but I had not learnt of Angelo for nothing, and parried all his lunges; but at length he ran in and made such a desperate pass at my breast that I was obliged to volte, so that I received him on my weapon, and he fell back dead as a stone. They raised him up, but he never spoke, and so mounting our horses we rode off.

'It's just as well as it is,' said R-, 'for if you hadn't killed him, I should.'

Of course there was a court of inquiry and all that, but it being proved that I was the challenged party, I was released from arrest and ordered to return to my duty, Brigadier L- merely observing to me that it was as well to abstain from such rencontres in future, as they were quite contrary to the Articles of War.

Now it is very absurd, you will say, but I must confess I felt that poor fellow's death poignantly; after all he had been wronged, though not legally, and the respect which it procured me, did not compensate for the anguish I endured at having cut off in the prime of life a gallant young fellow of twenty-eight. I felt this for years afterwards. I often feel it now, and would give all I possess to be free from the stain of that man's blood.

Yet such is life, and so inconsistent is human nature, that it did not prevent me from passing the next night in the arms of Mrs T-, who called me her little Cid, her true knight, and caressed me in the most flattering manner. I told her I was sorry I had killed him; she laughed and said, 'Why, you silly boy, did he not take two shots at you, and the first that went through the sail seems to have gone very near your pretty little head. If he had hit you it would have been murder; your affair is a mere matter of course, an affair of honour, be easy.'

'But he could not fence, he knew nothing of the straight sword,' said I, 'it would have been more plucky if I had let him use his own weapon.'

'Nonsense, silly boy, he would have shot you through the heart as he did T- and D-, and poor young K-.'

'Has he killed so many?' said I.

'Oh, yes, he was a Goliath of Gath with the pistol, but my little David has slain the giant!'

I was a little comforted at this information, and began to think that it was just as well that M-

was out of the world, but I would rather that R- had killed him than I.

However, I threw off the megrims for the nonce, and gave myself up to the enjoyment of Mrs T-'s perfections.

What a happy night we had! what gamahuching, what fucking, and what a delicious supper she gave me. With her for the time, I was a little hero, and Venus never served Mars with greater empressement than that lovely girl did me that night.

Women may sometimes like a smooth cheek, and a boyish figure, but they adore a brave heart, and she thought me a worthy gallant. But, in point of fact, I had little to boast of but a skill in fencing.

'Tis true he had little to boast of but a correct eye at twelve paces, and would have killed me to a certainty; still his not being a hero did not constitute me one, and spite of all the flattery I received from her and others, the adulation of young ladies and the gracious looks of the men, many of them veterans in war, I was not happy at the result of that ever to be lamented duel.

Now although Mrs T- was certainly as fine a woman as any man could desire to possess, she was so very lustful and insatiable, that a very few days of her company sufficed to cloy me and cool my ardour, and the last night I passed with her I had some difficulty in bringing a second embrace to a satisfactory conclusion, notwithstanding all the blandishments of that lovely woman, so true it is that too much of the same pleasure wearies and nauseates in the long run. I was, therefore, not sorry to remember that the major would return on the morrow, and cut short our amorous meetings.

But there was, perhaps, another reason for my waning passion. I had made the acquaintance of a delicious creature, the wife of an artillery officer, to whom I paid great attention.

Mrs B- was just eighteen, and had been married about six months, she was the beau ideal of a pretty English girl. She had fine blue eyes, full of expression and even fire, an oval face, luxuriant chestnut hair and a charming figure. I admired her extremely, and did not attempt to conceal my admiration.