The Unbearable Bassington, Hector Hugh Munro (Saki) [english novels for students TXT] 📗

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