William Makepeace Thackeray: Vanity Fair

55. LV: In Which the Same Subject is Pursued (continued)

"After the opera. Here's the note of invitation--stop --no, this is another paper--I thought I had h, but it's of no consequence, and I pledge you my word to the fact. If we had come--and it was only one of Mrs. Wenham's headaches which prevented us--she suffers under them a good deal, especially in the spring--if we had come, and you had returned home, there would have been no quarrel, no insult, no suspicion--and so it is positively because my poor wife has a headache that you are to bring death down upon two men of honour and plunge two of the most excellent and ancient families in the kingdom into disgrace and sorrow."

Mr. Macmurdo looked at his principal with the air of a man profoundly puzzled, and Rawdon felt with a kind of rage that his prey was escaping him. He did not believe a word of the story, and yet, how discredit or disprove it?

Mr. Wenham continued with the same fluent oratory, which in his place in Parliament he had so often practised--"I sat for an hour or more by Lord Steyne's bedside, beseeching, imploring Lord Steyne to forego his intention of demanding a meeting. I pointed out to him that the circumstances were after all suspicious--they were suspicious. I acknowledge it--any man in your position might have been taken in--I said that a man furious with jealousy is to all intents and purposes a madman, and should be as such regarded--that a duel between you must lead to the disgrace of all parties concerned--that a man of his Lordship's exalted station had no right in these days, when the most atrocious revolutionary principles, and the most dangerous levelling doctrines are preached among the vulgar, to create a public scandal; and that, however innocent, the common people would insist that he was guilty. In fine, I implored him not to send the challenge."

"I don't believe one word of the whole story," said Rawdon, grinding his teeth. "I believe it a d-- lie, and that you're in it, Mr. Wenham. If the challenge don't come from him, by Jove it shall come from me."

Mr. Wenham turned deadly pale at this savage interruption of the Colonel and looked towards the door.