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?"