TOWARDS four o’clock on a hot afternoon Francesca stepped out from a shop
entrance near the Piccadilly end of Bond Street and ran almost into the
arms of Merla Blathlington. The afternoon seemed to get instantly
hotter. Merla was one of those human flies that buzz; in crowded
streets, at bazaars and in warm weather, she attained to the proportions
of a human bluebottle. Lady Caroline Benaresq had openly predicted that
a special fly-paper was being reserved for her accommodation in another
world; others, however, held the opinion that she would be miraculously
multiplied in a future state, and that four or more Merla Blathlingtons,
according to deserts, would be in perpetual and unremitting attendance on
each lost soul.
“Here we are,” she cried, with a glad eager buzz, “popping in and out of
shops like rabbits; not that rabbits do pop in and out of shops very
extensively.”
It was evidently one of her bluebottle days.
“Don’t you love Bond Street?” she gabbled on. “There’s something so
unusual and distinctive about it; no other street anywhere else is quite
like it. Don’t you know those ikons and images and things scattered up
and down Europe, that are supposed to have been painted or carved, as the
case may be, by St. Luke or Zaccheus, or somebody of that sort; I always
like to think that some notable person of those times designed Bond
Street. St. Paul, perhaps. He travelled about a lot.”
“Not in Middlesex, though,” said Francesca.
“One can’t be sure,” persisted Merla; “when one wanders about as much as
he did one gets mixed up and forgets where one _has_ been. I can never
remember whether I’ve been to the Tyrol twice and St. Moritz once, or the
other way about; I always have to ask my maid. And there’s something
about the name Bond that suggests St. Paul; didn’t he write a lot about
the bond and the free?”
“I fancy he wrote in Hebrew or Greek,” objected Francesca; “the word
wouldn’t have the least resemblance.”
“So dreadfully non-committal to go about pamphleteering in those bizarre
languages,” complained Merla; “that’s what makes all those people so
elusive. As soon as you try to pin them down to a definite statement
about anything you’re told that some vitally important word has fifteen
other meanings in the original. I wonder our Cabinet Ministers and
politicians don’t adopt a sort of dog-Latin or Esperanto jargon to
deliver their speeches in; what a lot of subsequent explaining away would
be saved. But to go back to Bond Street—not that we’ve left it—”
“I’m afraid I must leave it now,” said Francesca, preparing to turn up
Grafton Street; “Good-bye.”
“Must you be going? Come and have tea somewhere. I know of a cosy
little place where one can talk undisturbed.”
Francesca repressed a shudder and pleaded an urgent engagement.
“I know where you’re going,” said Merla, with the resentful buzz of a
bluebottle that finds itself thwarted by the cold unreasoning resistance
of a windowpane. “You’re going to play bridge at Serena Golackly’s. She
never asks me to her bridge parties.”
Francesca shuddered openly this time; the prospect of having to play
bridge anywhere in the near neighbourhood of Merla’s voice was not one
that could be contemplated with ordinary calmness.
“Good-bye,” she said again firmly, and passed out of earshot; it was
rather like leaving the machinery section of an exhibition. Merla’s
diagnosis of her destination had been a correct one; Francesca made her
way slowly through the hot streets in the direction of Serena Golackly’s
house on the far side of Berkeley Square. To the blessed certainty of
finding a game of bridge, she hopefully added the possibility of hearing
some fragments of news which might prove interesting and enlightening.
And of enlightenment on a particular subject, in which she was acutely
and personally interested, she stood in some need. Comus of late had
been provokingly reticent as to his movements and doings; partly,
perhaps, because it was his nature to be provoking, partly because the
daily bickerings over money matters were gradually choking other forms of
conversation. Francesca had seen him once or twice in the Park in the
desirable company of Elaine de Frey, and from time to time she heard of
the young people as having danced together at various houses; on the
other hand, she had seen and heard quite as much evidence to connect the
heiress’s name with that of Courtenay Youghal. Beyond this meagre and
conflicting and altogether tantalising information, her knowledge of the
present position of affairs did not go. If either of the young men was
seriously “making the running,” it was probable that she would hear some
sly hint or open comment about it from one of Serena’s gossip-laden
friends, without having to go out of her way to introduce the subject and
unduly disclose her own state of ignorance. And a game of bridge, played
for moderately high points, gave ample excuse for convenient lapses into
reticence; if questions took an embarrassingly inquisitive turn, one
could always find refuge in a defensive spade.
The afternoon was too warm to make bridge a generally popular diversion,
and Serena’s party was a comparatively small one. Only one table was
incomplete when Francesca made her appearance on the scene; at it was
seated Serena herself, confronted by Ada Spelvexit, whom everyone was
wont to explain as “one of the Cheshire Spelvexits,” as though any other
variety would have been intolerable. Ada Spelvexit was one of those
naturally stagnant souls who take infinite pleasure in what are called
“movements.” “Most of the really great lessons I have learned have been
taught me by the Poor,” was one of her favourite statements. The one
great lesson that the Poor in general would have liked to have taught
her, that their kitchens and sickrooms were not unreservedly at her
disposal as private lecture halls, she had never been able to assimilate.
She was ready to give them unlimited advice as to how they should keep
the wolf from their doors, but in return she claimed and enforced for
herself the penetrating powers of an east wind or a dust storm. Her
visits among her wealthier acquaintances were equally extensive and
enterprising, and hardly more welcome; in country-house parties, while
partaking to the fullest extent of the hospitality offered her, she made
a practice of unburdening herself of homilies on the evils of leisure and
luxury, which did not particularly endear her to her fellow guests.
Hostesses regarded her philosophically as a form of social measles which
everyone had to have once.
The third prospective player, Francesca noted without any special
enthusiasm, was Lady Caroline Benaresq. Lady Caroline was far from being
a remarkably good bridge player, but she always managed to domineer
mercilessly over any table that was favoured with her presence, and
generally managed to win. A domineering player usually inflicts the
chief damage and demoralisation on his partner; Lady Caroline’s special
achievement was to harass and demoralise partner and opponents alike.
“Weak and weak,” she announced in her gentle voice, as she cut her
hostess for a partner; “I suppose we had better play only five shillings
a hundred.”
Francesca wondered at the old woman’s moderate assessment of the stake,
knowing her fondness for highish play and her usual good luck in card
holding.
“I don’t mind what we play,” said Ada Spelvexit, with an incautious
parade of elegant indifference; as a matter of fact she was inwardly
relieved and rejoicing at the reasonable figure proposed by Lady
Caroline, and she would certainly have demurred if a higher stake had
been suggested. She was not as a rule a successful player, and money
lost at cards was always a poignant bereavement to her.
“Then as you don’t mind we’ll make it ten shillings a hundred,” said Lady
Caroline, with the pleased chuckle of one who has spread a net in the
sight of a bird and disproved the vanity of the proceeding.
It proved a tiresome ding-dong rubber, with the strength of the cards
slightly on Francesca’s side, and the luck of the table going mostly the
other way. She was too keen a player not to feel a certain absorption in
the game once it had started, but she was conscious to-day of a
distracting interest that competed with the momentary importance of leads
and discards and declarations. The little accumulations of talk that
were unpent during the dealing of the hands became as noteworthy to her
alert attention as the play of the hands themselves.
“Yes, quite a small party this afternoon,” said Serena, in reply to a
seemingly casual remark on Francesca’s part; “and two or three
non-players, which is unusual on a Wednesday. Canon Besomley was here
just before you came; you know, the big preaching man.”
“I’ve been to hear him scold the human race once or twice,” said
Francesca.
“A strong man with a wonderfully strong message,” said Ada Spelvexit, in
an impressive and assertive tone.
“The sort of popular pulpiteer who spanks the vices of his age and
lunches with them afterwards,” said Lady Caroline.
“Hardly a fair summary of the man and his work,” protested Ada. “I’ve
been to hear him many times when I’ve been depressed or discouraged, and
I simply can’t tell you the impression his words leave—”
“At least you can tell us what you intend to make trumps,” broke in Lady
Caroline, gently.
“Diamonds,” pronounced Ada, after a rather flurried survey of her hand.
“Doubled,” said Lady Caroline, with increased gentleness, and a few
minutes later she was pencilling an addition of twenty-four to her score.
“I stayed with his people down in Herefordshire last May,” said Ada,
returning to the unfinished theme of the Canon; “such an exquisite rural
retreat, and so restful and healing to the nerves. Real country scenery;
apple blossom everywhere.”
“Surely only on the apple trees,” said Lady Caroline.
Ada Spelvexit gave up the attempt to reproduce the decorative setting of
the Canon’s homelife, and fell back on the small but practical
consolation of scoring the odd trick in her opponent’s declaration of
hearts.
“If you had led your highest club to start with, instead of the nine, we
should have saved the trick,” remarked Lady Caroline to her partner in a
tone of coldly, gentle reproof; “it’s no use, my dear,” she continued, as
Serena flustered out a halting apology, “no earthly use to attempt to
play bridge at one table and try to see and hear what’s going on at two
or three other tables.”
“I can generally manage to attend to more than one thing at a time,” said
Serena, rashly; “I think I must have a sort of double brain.”
“Much better to economise and have one really good one,” observed Lady
Caroline.
“_La belle dame sans merci_ scoring a verbal trick or two as usual,” said
a player at another table in a discreet undertone.
“Did I tell you Sir Edward Roan is coming to my next big evening,” said
Serena, hurriedly, by way, perhaps, of restoring herself a little in her
own esteem.
“Poor dear, good Sir Edward. What have you made trumps?” asked Lady
Caroline, in one breath.
“Clubs,” said Francesca; “and pray, why these adjectives of
commiseration?”
Francesca was a Ministerialist by family interest and allegiance, and was
inclined to take up the cudgels at the suggested disparagement aimed at
the Foreign Secretary.
“He amuses me so much,” purred Lady Caroline. Her amusement was usually
of the sort that a sporting cat derives from watching the Swedish
exercises of a well-spent and carefully thought-out mouse.
“Really? He has been rather a brilliant success at the Foreign Office,
you know,” said Francesca.
“He reminds one so of a circus elephant—infinitely more intelligent than
the people who direct him, but quite content to go on putting his foot
down or taking it up as may be required, quite unconcerned whether he
steps on a meringue or a hornet’s nest in the process of going where he’s
expected to go.”
“How can you say such things?” protested Francesca.
“I can’t,” said Lady Caroline; “Courtenay Youghal said it in the House
last night. Didn’t you read the debate? He was really rather in form.
I disagree entirely with his point of view, of course, but some of the
things he says have just enough truth behind them to redeem them from
being merely smart; for instance, his summing up of the Government’s
attitude towards our embarrassing Colonial Empire in the wistful phrase
‘happy is the country that has no geography.’”
“What an absurdly unjust thing to say,” put in Francesca; “I daresay some
of our Party at some time have taken up that attitude, but every one
knows that Sir Edward is a sound Imperialist at heart.”
“Most politicians are something or other at heart, but no one would be
rash enough to insure a politician against heart failure. Particularly
when he happens to be in office.”
“Anyhow, I don’t see that the Opposition leaders would have acted any
differently in the present case,” said Francesca.
“One should always speak guardedly of the Opposition leaders,” said Lady
Caroline, in her gentlest voice; “one never knows what a turn in the
situation may do for them.”
“You mean they may one day be at the head of affairs?” asked Serena,
briskly.
“I mean they may one day lead the Opposition. One never knows.”
Lady Caroline had just remembered that her hostess was on the Opposition
side in politics.
Francesca and her partner scored four tricks in clubs; the game stood
irresolutely at twenty-four all.
“If you had followed the excellent lyrical advice given to the Maid of
Athens and returned my heart we should have made two more tricks and gone
game,” said Lady Caroline to her partner.
“Mr. Youghal seems pushing himself to the fore of late,” remarked
Francesca, as Serena took up the cards to deal. Since the young
politician’s name had been introduced into their conversation the
opportunity for turning the talk more directly on him and his affairs was
too good to be missed.
“I think he’s got a career before him,” said Serena; “the House always
fills when he’s speaking, and that’s a good sign. And then he’s young
and got rather an attractive personality, which is always something in
the political world.”
“His lack of money will handicap him, unless he can find himself a rich
wife or persuade someone to die and leave him a fat legacy,” said
Francesca; “since M.P.’s have become the recipients of a salary rather
more is expected and demanded of them in the expenditure line than
before.”
“Yes, the House of Commons still remains rather at the opposite pole to
the Kingdom of Heaven as regards entrance qualifications,” observed Lady
Caroline.
“There ought to be no difficulty about Youghal picking up a girl with
money,” said Serena; “with his prospects he would make an excellent
husband for any woman with social ambitions.”
And she half sighed, as though she almost regretted that a previous
matrimonial arrangement precluded her from entering into the competition
on her own account.
Francesca, under an assumption of languid interest, was watching Lady
Caroline narrowly for some hint of suppressed knowledge of Youghal’s
courtship of Miss de Frey.
“Whom are you marrying and giving in marriage?”
The question came from George St. Michael, who had strayed over from a
neighbouring table, attracted by the fragments of small-talk that had
reached his ears.
St. Michael was one of those dapper bird-like illusorily-active men, who
seem to have been in a certain stage of middle-age for as long as human
memory can recall them. A close-cut peaked beard lent a certain dignity
to his appearance—a loan which the rest of his features and mannerisms
were continually and successfully repudiating. His profession, if he had
one, was submerged in his hobby, which consisted of being an
advance-agent for small happenings or possible happenings that were or
seemed imminent in the social world around him; he found a perpetual and
unflagging satisfaction in acquiring and retailing any stray items of
gossip or information, particularly of a matrimonial nature, that chanced
to come his way. Given the bare outline of an officially announced
engagement he would immediately fill it in with all manner of details,
true or, at any rate, probable, drawn from his own imagination or from
some equally exclusive source. The _Morning Post_ might content itself
with the mere statement of the arrangement which would shortly take
place, but it was St. Michael’s breathless little voice that proclaimed
how the contracting parties had originally met over a salmon-fishing
incident, why the Guards’ Chapel would not be used, why her Aunt Mary had
at first opposed the match, how the question of the children’s religious
upbringing had been compromised, etc., etc., to all whom it might
interest and to many whom it might not. Beyond his industriously-earned
pre-eminence in this special branch of intelligence, he was chiefly
noteworthy for having a wife reputed to be the tallest and thinnest woman
in the Home Counties. The two were sometimes seen together in Society,
where they passed under the collective name of St. Michael and All
Angles.
“We are trying to find a rich wife for Courtenay Youghal,” said Serena,
in answer to St. Michael’s question.
“Ah, there I’m afraid you’re a little late,” he observed, glowing with
the importance of pending revelation; “I’m afraid you’re a little late,”
he repeated, watching the effect of his words as a gardener might watch
the development of a bed of carefully tended asparagus. “I think the
young gentleman has been before you and already found himself a rich mate
in prospect.”
He lowered his voice as he spoke, not with a view to imparting impressive
mystery to his statement, but because there were other table groups
within hearing to whom he hoped presently to have the privilege of
re-disclosing his revelation.
“Do you mean—?” began Serena.
“Miss de Frey,” broke in St. Michael, hurriedly, fearful lest his
revelation should be forestalled, even in guesswork; “quite an ideal
choice, the very wife for a man who means to make his mark in politics.
Twenty-four thousand a year, with prospects of more to come, and a
charming place of her own not too far from town. Quite the type of girl,
too, who will make a good political hostess, brains without being brainy,
you know. Just the right thing. Of course, it would be premature to
make any definite announcement at present—”
“It would hardly be premature for my partner to announce what she means
to make trumps,” interrupted Lady Caroline, in a voice of such sinister
gentleness that St. Michael fled headlong back to his own table.
“Oh, is it me? I beg your pardon. I leave it,” said Serena.
“Thank you. No trumps,” declared Lady Caroline. The hand was
successful, and the rubber ultimately fell to her with a comfortable
margin of honours. The same partners cut together again, and this time
the cards went distinctly against Francesca and Ada Spelvexit, and a
heavily piled-up score confronted them at the close of the rubber.
Francesca was conscious that a certain amount of rather erratic play on
her part had at least contributed to the result. St. Michael’s incursion
into the conversation had proved rather a powerful distraction to her
ordinarily sound bridge-craft.
Ada Spelvexit emptied her purse of several gold pieces and infused a
corresponding degree of superiority into her manner.
“I must be going now,” she announced; “I’m dining early. I have to give
an address to some charwomen afterwards.”
“Why?” asked Lady Caroline, with a disconcerting directness that was one
of her most formidable characteristics.
“Oh, well, I have some things to say to them that I daresay they will
like to hear,” said Ada, with a thin laugh.
Her statement was received with a silence that betokened profound
unbelief in any such probability.
“I go about a good deal among working-class women,” she added.
“No one has ever said it,” observed Lady Caroline, “but how painfully
true it is that the poor have us always with them.”
Ada Spelvexit hastened her departure; the marred impressiveness of her
retreat came as a culminating discomfiture on the top of her ill-fortune
at the card-table. Possibly, however, the multiplication of her own
annoyances enabled her to survey charwomen’s troubles with increased
cheerfulness. None of them, at any rate, had spent an afternoon with
Lady Caroline.
Francesca cut in at another table and with better fortune attending on
her, succeeded in winning back most of her losses. A sense of
satisfaction was distinctly dominant as she took leave of her hostess.
St. Michael’s gossip, or rather the manner in which it had been received,
had given her a clue to the real state of affairs, which, however slender
and conjectural, at least pointed in the desired direction. At first she
had been horribly afraid lest she should be listening to a definite
announcement which would have been the death-blow to her hopes, but as
the recitation went on without any of those assured little minor details
which St. Michael so loved to supply, she had come to the conclusion that
it was merely a piece of intelligent guesswork. And if Lady Caroline had
really believed in the story of Elaine de Frey’s virtual engagement to
Courtenay Youghal she would have taken a malicious pleasure in
encouraging St. Michael in his confidences, and in watching Francesca’s
discomfiture under the recital. The irritated manner in which she had
cut short the discussion betrayed the fact, that, as far as the old
woman’s information went, it was Comus and not Courtenay Youghal who held
the field. And in this particular case Lady Caroline’s information was
likely to be nearer the truth than St. Michael’s confident gossip.
Francesca always gave a penny to the first crossing-sweeper or
match-seller she chanced across after a successful sitting at bridge.
This afternoon she had come out of the fray some fifteen shillings to the
bad, but she gave two pennies to a crossing-sweeper at the north-west
corner of Berkeley Square as a sort of thank-offering to the Gods.