CONCERNING CAVENDISH SQUARE, AND ITS WHEREABOUTS IN THE EARLY
FIFTIES. MRS. FITZHERBERT AND PRINCESS CAROLINE. TWO LONG-FORGOTTEN
CARD-PACKS. DUMMY, AND HOW MR. PELLEW TOOK HIS HAND. GWEN'S
PERVERTED WHIST-SENSE. THE DUST OF AGES, AT ITS FINEST. HOW IT
TURNED THE TALK, AND MOULDED EVENT. HOW GWEN'S PEN SCRATCHED ON
INTO THE NIGHT
Aesthetic Topography is an interesting study. Seen by its light, at the
date of this story, Oxford Street was certainly at one and the same time
the South of the North of London, and the North of the South. For
whereas Hanover Square, which is only a stone's throw to the south of
it, is, so to speak, saturated with Piccadilly--and when you are there
you may just as well be in Westminster at once--it is undeniable that
Cavendish Square is in the zone of influence of Regent's Park, and that
Harley and Wimpole Streets, which run side by side north from it, never
pause to breathe until they all but touch its palings. Once in Regent's
Park, how can Topography--the geometric fallacy apart--ignore St. John's
Wood? And once St. John's Wood is admitted, how is it possible to turn a
cold shoulder to Primrose Hill? Cross Primrose Hill, and you may just as
well be out in the country at once.
But there!--our impressions may be but memories of fifty years ago, and
our reader may wonder why Cavendish Square suggests them.
He himself, probably very much our junior--a bad habit other people
acquire as Time goes on--may consider Harley Street and Wimpole Street
just as much town as Hanover Square, and St. John's Wood--even Primrose
Hill!--as on all fours with both. We forgive him. One, or possibly we
ought to say several, should learn to be tolerant of the new-fangled
opinions of hot-headed youth. We were like that ourself, when a boy. But
let him have his own way. These streets shall be unmitigated Town now,
to please him, in spite of the walks Dr. Johnson had in Marylebone
Fields. To be sure, Marylebone Fields soon became Gardens then-abouts,
like Ranelagh, and you drove along Harley Street to a musical
entertainment there, with music by Pergolesi and Galuppi.
The time of this story is post-Johnsonian, but it is older than its
readers; unless, indeed, a chance oldster now and then opens it to see
if it is a proper book to have in the house. The world in the early
fifties was very unlike what it is in the present century, and _that_
isn't yet in its teens. It was also very unlike what it had been in the
days when the family mansion in Cavendish Square, that had not had a
family in it then for forty years, was as good as new. It was so, no
doubt, for a good while after George the Third ceased to be King,
because the thorough griming it has had since had hardly begun, and
fields were sweet at Paddington, and the Regent could be bacchanalian in
that big drawing-room on the first floor without any consciousness that
he had a Park in the neighbourhood. Oh dear--how near the country
Cavendish Square was in those days!
By the time Queen Victoria was on the throne the grime had set in in
earnest, and was hard at work long before the fifty-one Exhibition
reported progress--progress in bedevilment, says the Pessimist? Never
mind him! Let him sulk in a corner while the Optimist dwells on the
marvellous developments of which fifty-one was only symptomatic--the
quick-firing guns and smokeless powder; the mighty ships, a dozen of
them big enough to take all the Athenians of the days of Pericles to the
bottom at once; the machines that turn out books so cheap that their
contents may be forgotten in six months, and no one be a penny the
worse; the millionaires who have so much money they can't spend
it--heaps and heaps of wonders up-to-date that no one ever feels
surprised at nowadays. The Optimist will tell you all about them. For
the moment, let's pretend that none of them have come to pass, and get
back to Cavendish Square at the date of the story, and the suite of
rooms on the second floor that had been Sister Nora's town anchorage
when she first made Dave Wardle's acquaintance as an unconscious
Hospital patient, and that had been renovated since her father's death
to serve as a _pied-a-terre_ until she could be sure of her arrangements
in the days to come.
Her friends were not the least too tired, thank you, after the journey,
to be shown the great drawing-room, on which the touching incident in
the life of a Royal Personage had conferred an historical dignity. "I
think--" said she "--only I haven't quite made up my mind yet--that I
shall call this ward Mrs. Fitzherbert, and the next room Princess
Caroline. Or the other way round. Which do you think?" For one of her
schemes was to turn the old family mansion into a Hospital.
"Let me see!" said Gwen. "I've forgotten my history. Mrs. Fitzherbert
was his wife, wasn't she?"
Miss Dickenson was always to be relied on for general information.
"Unquestionably," said she. "But he repudiated her for political
reasons, a course open to him as heir to the throne. Legally, Princess
Caroline of Brunswick was his lawful wife...."
"And, lawfully," said Gwen, "Mrs. Fitzherbert was his legal wife.
Nothing can be clearer. Yes--I should say certainly call the big room
Mrs. Fitzherbert. Whom shall you call the other rooms after, Clo?"
"All the others. There's any number! Mrs. Robinson, Lady Jersey, Lady
Conyngham ... one for every room in the house, and several over. Just
fancy!--the room has never been altered, since those days. It was
polished up for my poor mother--whom no doubt I saw in my youth, but
took no notice of. You see, I wasn't of an age to take notice, when she
departed to Kingdom-come, and my father exiled himself to Scotland...."
"And he kept it packed up like this--how long?"
"Well--you know how old I am. Twenty-seven."
Aunt Constance corrected dates. "George the Fourth," said she
chronologically, "ascended the throne in 1820. Consequently he cannot
have become intoxicated in this room...."
Sister Nora interrupted. Of course he couldn't--not in her father's
time. The cards and dice were going in her great-uncle's time, who drank
himself to death forty years ago. "There used to be some packs of
cards," said she, "in one of these drawers. I know I saw some there,
only it's a long time back--almost the only time I ever came into the
room. I'll look.... Take care of the dust!"
It was lucky that the cabinet-maker who framed that inlaid table knew
his business--they did, in his day--or the rounded front might have
called for a jerk, instead of giving easily to the pull it had awaited
so patiently, through decades. "There they are!" said Gwen, "with
nobody to deal them. Poor cards--locked up in the dark all these years!
Do let's have them out and play dummy to-night."
A spirit of Conservatism suggested that it would be impious to disturb a
_status quo_ connected with Royalty. But Gwen said, touching a visible
ace:--"Just think, Clo, if _you_ were an ace, and had a chance of being
trumps, how would you like to be shut up in a drawer again?" This appeal
to our common humanity had its effect, and a couple of packs were
brought out for use. No language could describe the penetrating powers
of the dust that accompanied their return to active duties. It ended the
visit _en passant_ of these three ladies, who were not sorry to find
themselves in an upstairs suite of rooms with a kitchen and a miniature
household, just established regardless of expense. Because three hundred
a year was what Miss Grahame was "going to" live upon, as soon as she
had "had time to turn round," and for the moment it was absurd to draw
hard and fast lines. Just wait and give her time, to get a little
settled!
The fatigue of the journey was enough to negative any idea of going out
anywhere, and indeed there was nothing in the way of theatre or concert
that was at all tempting. But it was not enough to cause collapse, and
whist became plausible within half an hour after dinner. There was
something delightful in the place, too, with its windows opening on the
tree-tops of the Square, and the air of a warm autumn evening bringing
in the sound of a woebegone brass band from afar, mixed with the endless
hum of wheels with hoof-beats in the heart of it, like currants in a
cake. The air was all the sweeter that a whiff of chimney-smoke broke
into it now and again, and emphasized its quality. When the band left
off the "Bohemian Girl" and rested, and imagination was picturing the
trombone in half, at odds with condensation, a barrel-organ was able to
make itself heard, with _Il Pescatore_, till the band began again with
The Sicilian Bride, and drowned it.
Miss Dickenson had been discreet about her expectation of a visitor. She
maintained her discretion even when the sound of a hansom's lids,
followed by "Yes--this house!" and a double knock below, turned out not
to be a mistake, but the Hon. Percival Pellew, Carlton Club. She
nevertheless roused the interested suspicion of Gwen and her hostess,
who looked at each other, and said respectively:--"Oh, it's my cousin
Percy," and "Oh, Mr. Pellew"; the former adding:--"He can take Dummy's
hand"; the latter,--"Oh, of course, ask him to come up, Maggie! Don't
let him go away on any account." But neither of these ladies expressed
any surprise at the rather prompt recrudescence of Mr. Pellew, last seen
at the Towers two days since.
The only flaw in a pretext that Mr. Pellew had come to leave Tennyson's
"Princess," with his card in it, and run away as if the book-owner would
bite him, was perhaps the ostentation with which that lady left his
detention to her hostess. It would have been at once more candid and
more skilful to say, "Oh yes, it's my book. But I didn't want Mr. Pellew
to bother about bringing it back," with a judicious infusion of
enthusiasm that the visitor's efforts to get away should fail. However,
the flaw was slight, and no one cared about the transparency of the
pretext. Moreover, Maggie, a new importation from the Highlands, thought
that her young ladyship, whose beauty had overwhelmed her, was at the
bottom of it--not Aunt Constance.
"Now you _are_ here, Percy, you had better make yourself useful. Sit as
we are. I'm not sorry you're come, because I hate playing dummy." This
was Gwen, naturally.
The impersonality of Dummy furnished a topic to tide over the
assimilation of things, and help the social _fengshui_ to plausibility.
There was a fillah--said Mr. Pellew--at the Club, who wouldn't take
Dummy unless that fiction was accommodated with a real chair. And there
was another fillah who couldn't play unless the vacant chair was taken
away. Something had happened to this fillah when he was a boy, and
anything like a ghost was uncongenial to him. You shouldn't lock up
children in the dark or make grimaces at them if you wanted them not to
be nervous in after-life ... and so forth.
Gwen was a bad whist-player, sometimes taking a very perverted view of
the game. As, for instance, when, after Mr. Pellew had dealt, she asked
her partner how many trumps she held. "Because, Clo," said she, "I've
only got two, and unless you've got at least four, I don't see the use
of going on." Public opinion condemned this attitude as unsportsmanlike,
and demanded another deal. Gwen welcomed the suggestion, having only a
Knave and a Queen in all the rest of her hand.
Her partner expressed disgust. "I think," she said, "you might have held
your tongue, Gwen, and played it out. But I shan't tell you why."
"Oh, I know, of course, without your telling me. You're made of trumps.
I'm so sorry, dear! There--see!--I've led." She played Knave.
"This," said Mr. Pellew, with shocked gravity, "is not whist."
"Well," said Gwen, "I can _not_ see why one shouldn't say how many
cards one has of any suit. Everyone knows, so it must be fair. Everyone
sees Dummy's hand."
"I see your point. But it's not whist."
"Am I to play, or not?" said Aunt Constance. She looked across at her
partner, as a serious player rather amused at the childish behaviour of
their opponents. A sympathetic bond was thereby established--solid
seriousness against frivolity.
"Fire away!" said Gwen. "Second player plays lowest." Miss Dickenson
played the Queen. "_That's_ not whist, aunty," said Gwen triumphantly.
Her partner played the King. "There now, you see!" said Gwen. She
belonged to the class of players who rejoice aloud, or show depression,
after success or failure.
This time her exultation was premature. Mr. Pellew, without emotion,
pushed the turn-up card, a two, into the trick, saying to his
partner:--"Your Queen was all right. Quite correct!" The story does not
vouch for this. It may have been wrong.
"Do you _mean_ to _say_, Cousin Percy"--thus Gwen, with indignant
emphasis--"that you've not got a club in your hand, at the very first
round. You _cannot_ expect us to believe _that_!" Mr. Pellew pointed out
that if he revoked he would lose three tricks. "Very well," said Gwen.
"I shall keep a very sharp look out." But no revoke came, and she had to
console herself as a loser with the reflection that it was only the odd
trick, after all--one by cards and honours divided.
This is a fair sample of the way this game went on establishing a
position of moral superiority for Mr. Pellew and his partner, who looked
down on the irregularities of their opponents from a pinnacle of True
Whist. Their position as superior beings tended towards mutual
understandings. A transition state from their relations in that
easy-going life at the Towers to the more sober obligations of the
metropolis was at least acceptable; and this isolation by a better
understanding of tricks and trumps, a higher and holier view of ruffing
and finessing, appeared to provide such a state. There was partnership
of souls in it, over and above mere vulgar scoring.
Nothing of interest occurred until, in the course of the second rubber,
Gwen made a misdeal. Probably she did so because she was trying at the
same time to prove that having four by honours was absurd in itself--an
affront to natural laws. It was the merest accident, she maintained,
when all the court-cards were dealt to one side--no merit at all of the
players. Her objection to whist was that it was a mixture of skill and
chance. She was inclined to favour games that were either quite the one
or quite the other. Roulette was a good game. So was chess. But whist
was neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring.... Misdeal! The
analysis of games stopped with a jerk, the dealer being left without a
turn-up card.
"But what a shame!" said Gwen. "Is it fair I should lose my deal when
the last card's an ace? How would any of you like it?" The appeal was
too touching to resist, though Mr. Pellew again said this wasn't whist.
A count of the hands showed that Aunt Constance held one card too few
and Gwen one too many. A question arose. If a card were drawn from the
dealer's hand, was the trump to remain on the table? Controversy ensued.
Why should not the drawer have her choice of thirteen cards, as in every
analogous case? On the other hand, said Gwen, that ace of hearts was
indisputably the last card in the pack; and therefore the trump-card, by
predestination.
Mr. Pellew pointed out that it mattered less than Miss Dickenson
thought, as if she pitched on this very ace to make up her own thirteen,
its teeth would be drawn. It would be no longer a turn-up card, and some
new choice of trumps would have to be made, somehow; by _sortes
Virgilianae_, or what not. Better have another deal. Gwen gave up the
point, under protest, and Miss Dickenson dealt. Spades were trumps, this
time.
It chanced that Gwen, in this deal, held the Knave and Queen of hearts.
She led the Knave, and only waiting for the next card, to be sure that
it was a low one, said deliberately to her partner:--"Don't play your
King, Cousin Clo; Percy's got the ace," in defiance of all rule and
order.
"Can't help it," said Cousin Clo. "Got nothing else!" Out came the King,
and down came the ace upon it, naturally.
"There now, see what I've done," said Gwen. "Got your King squashed!"
But she was consoled when Mr. Pellew pointed out that if Miss Grahame
had played a small card her King would almost certainly have fallen to a
trump later. "It was quite the right play," said he, "because now your
Queen makes. You couldn't have made with both."
"I believe you've been cheating, and looking at my hand," said Gwen.
"How do you know I've got the Queen?"
"How did you know I had got the ace?" said Mr. Pellew. And really this
was a reasonable question.
"By the mark on the back. I noticed it when I turned it up, when hearts
were trumps, last deal. I don't consider that cheating. All the same, I
enjoy cheating, and always cheat whenever I can. Card games are so very
dull, when there's no cheating."
"But, Gwen dear, I don't see any mark." This was Miss Grahame, examining
the last trick. She put the ace, face down, before this capricious
whist-player, who, however, adhered to her statement, saying
incorrigibly:--"Well, look at it!"
"I only see a shadow," said Mr. Pellew. But it wasn't a shadow. A shadow
moves.
Explanation came, on revision of the ace's antecedents. It had lain in
that drawer five-and-twenty years at least, with another card
half-covering it. In the noiseless air-tight darkness where it lay,
saying perhaps to itself:--"Shall I ever take a trick again?" there was
still dust, dust of thought-baffling fineness! And it had fallen, fallen
steadily, with immeasurable slowness and absolute impartiality, on all
the card above had left unsheltered. There was the top-card's
silhouette, quite recognisable as soon as the shadow was disestablished.
"It will come out with India-rubber," said Miss Grahame.
"I shouldn't mess it about, if I were you," said Gwen. "I know
India-rubber. It grimes everything in, and makes black streaks." Which
was true enough in those days. The material called bottle-rubber was
notable for its power of defiling clean paper, and the sophisticated
sort for becoming indurated if not cherished in one's trouser-pockets.
The present epoch in the World's history can rub out quite clean for a
penny, but then its _dramatis personae_ have to spend their lives dodging
motor-cars and biplanes, and holding their ears for fear of gramophones.
Still, it's _something_!
Mr. Pellew suggested that the best way to deal with the soiled card
would be for whoever got it to exhibit it, as one does sometimes when a
card's face is seen for a moment, to make sure everyone knows. We were
certainly not playing very strictly. This was accepted _nem. con._
But the chance that had left that card half-covered was to have its
influence on things, still. Who can say events would have run in the
same grooves had it not directed the conversation to dust, and caused
Mr. Pellew to recollect a story told by one of those Archaeological
fillahs, at the Towers three days ago? It was that of the tomb which,
being opened, showed a forgotten monarch of some prehistoric race,
robed, crowned, and sceptred as of old; a little shrunk, perhaps, a bit
discoloured, but still to be seen by his own ghost, if earth-bound and
at all interested. Still to be seen, even by Cook's tourists, had he but
had a little more staying-power. But he was never seen, as a matter of
fact, by any man but the desecrator of his tomb. For one whiff of fresh
air brought him down, a crumbling heap of dust with a few imperishable
ornaments buried in it. His own ghost would not have known him again;
and, in less time than it takes to tell, the wind blew him about, and he
had to take his chance with the dust of the desert.
"I suppose it isn't true," said Gwen incredulously. "Things of that sort
are generally fibs."
"Don't know about this one," said Mr. Pellew, sorting his cards. "Funny
coincidence! It was in the _Quarterly Review_--very first thing I opened
at--Egyptian Researches.... That's our trick, isn't it?"
"Yes--my ten. I'll lead.... Yes!--I think I'll lead a diamond. I always
envy you men your Clubs. It must be so nice to have all the newspapers
and reviews...." Aunt Constance said this, of course.
"It wasn't at the Club. Man left it at my chambers three
months ago--readin' it by accident yesterday evening--funny
coincidence--talkin' about it same morning! Knave takes. No--you can't
trump. You haven't got a trump."
"Now, however did you know that?" said Gwen.
"Very simple. All the trumps are out but two, and I've got them here in
my hand. See?"
"Yes, I see. But I prefer real cheating, to taking advantages of things,
like that.... What are you putting your cards down for, Cousin Percy?"
"Because that's game. Game and the rubber. We only want two by cards,
and there they are!"
When rubbers end at past ten o'clock at night, well-bred people wait for
their host to suggest beginning another. Ill-bred ones, that don't want
one, say suddenly that it must be getting late--as if Time had slapped
them--and get at their watches. Those that do, say that that clock is
fast. In the present case no disposition existed, after a good deal of
travelling, to play cards till midnight. But there was no occasion to
hustle the visitor downstairs.
Said Miss Dickenson, to concede a short breathing pause:--"Pray, Mr.
Pellew, when a gentleman accidentally leaves a book at your rooms, do
you make no effort to return it to him?"
"Well!" said Mr. Pellew, tacitly admitting the implied impeachment. "It
_is_ rather a jolly shame, when you come to think of it. I'll take it
round to him to-morrow. Gloucester Place, is it--or York Place--end of
Baker Street?... Can't remember the fillah's name to save my life.
Married a Miss Bergstein--rich bankers. Got his card at home, I expect.
However, that's where he lives--York Place. He's a Sir Somebody
Something.... What were you going to say?"
"Oh--nothing.... Only that it would have been very interesting to read
that account. However, Sir Somebody Something must be wanting his
_Quarterly Review_.... Never mind!"
Gwen said:--"What nonsense! He's bought another copy by this time. He
can afford it, if he's married a Miss Bergstein. Bring it round
to-morrow, Percy, to keep Aunt Constance quiet. We shan't take her with
us to see Clo's little boy. We should make too many." Then, in order to
minimise his visit next day, Mr. Pellew sketched a brief halt in
Cavendish Square at half-past three precisely to-morrow afternoon, when
Miss Dickenson could "run her eye" through the disintegration of that
Egyptian King, without interfering materially with its subsequent
delivery at Sir Somebody Something's. It was an elaborate piece of
humbug, welcomed with perfect gravity as the solution of a perplexing
and difficult problem. Which being so happily solved, Mr. Pellew could
take his leave, and did so.
"Didn't I do that capitally, Clo?"
"Do which, dear?"
"Why--making her stop here to see him. Or giving her leave to stop; it's
the same thing, only she would rather do it against her will. I mean
saying we should make too many at Scraps Court, or whatever it is."
"Oh yes--quite a stroke of genius! Gwen dear, what an inveterate
matchmaker you are!"
"Nonsense, Clo! I never...." Here Gwen hung fire for a moment,
confronted by an intractability of language. She took the position by
storm, _more suo_:--"I never _mutchmoke_ in my life.... What?--Well, you
may laugh, Clo, but I never _did_! Only when two fools irritate one by
not flying into each other's arms, and wanting to all the time.... Oh,
it's exasperating, and I've no patience!"
"You are quite sure they do ... want to?"
"Oh yes--I think so. At least, I'm quite sure Percy does."
"Why not Aunt Constance?"
"Because I can't imagine anyone wanting to rush into any of my cousins'
arms--my he-cousins. It's a peculiarity of cousins, I suppose. If any of
mine had been palatable, he would have caught on, and it would have come
off. Because they all want _me_, always."
"That's an old story, Gwen dear." The two ladies looked ruefully at one
another, with a slight shoulder-shrug apiece over a hopeless case. Then
Miss Grahame said:--"Then you consider Constance Dickenson is still
palatable?" She laughed on the word a little--a sort of protest. "At
nearly forty?"
"Oh dear, yes! Not that she's forty, nor anything like it. She's
thirty-six. Besides, it has nothing to do with age. Or very little.
Why--how old is that dear old lady at Chorlton that was jealous of your
little boy's old woman in London?"
"Old Goody Marrable? Over eighty. But the other old lady is older still,
and Dave speaks well of her, anyhow! We shall see her to-morrow. We must
insist on that."
"Well--I could kiss old Goody Marrable. I should be sorry for her bones,
of course. But they're not her fault, after all! She's quite an old
darling. I hope Aunt Connie and Percy will manage a little common sense
to-morrow. They'll have the house to themselves, anyhow. Ta bye-bye,
Chloe dear!"
* * * * *
Miss Grahame looked in on her way to her own room to see that Miss
Dickenson had been provided with all the accessories of a good night--a
margin of pillows and blankets _a choix_, and so on. Hot-water-bottle
time had scarcely come yet, but hospitality might refer to it. There
was, however, a word to say touching the evening just ended. What did
Miss Grahame think of Gwen? Aunt Constance's _parti pris_ in life was a
benevolent interest in the affairs of everybody else.
Miss Grahame thought Gwen was all right. The amount of nonsense she had
talked to-night showed she was a little excited. A sort of ostentatious
absurdity, like a spoiled child! Well--she has been a spoiled child. But
she--the speaker--always had believed, did still believe, that Gwen was
a fine character underneath, and that all her nonsense was on the
surface.
"Will she hold to it, do you think?"
"How can I tell? I should say yes. But one never knows. She's writing
him a long letter now. She's in the next room to me, and I heard her
scratching five minutes after she said good-night. I hope she won't
scribble all night and keep me awake. My belief is she would be better
for some counter-excitement. A small earthquake! Anything of that sort.
Good-night! It's very late." But it came out next day that Gwen's pen
was still scratching when this lady got to sleep an hour after.