It was towards the middle of the second week of his visit that Eve,
coming into the drawing-room before dinner, found Peter standing in
front of the fire. They had not been alone together for several days.
"Well?" said he.
Eve went to the fire and warmed her hands.
"Well?" she said, dispiritedly.
She was feeling nervous and ill. Mrs. Rastall-Retford had been in one
of her more truculent moods all day, and for the first time Eve had the
sensation of being thoroughly beaten. She dreaded the long hours to
bedtime. The thought that there might be bridge after dinner made her
feel physically ill. She felt she could not struggle through a bridge
night.
On the occasions when she was in one of her dangerous moods, Mrs.
Rastall-Retford sometimes chose rest as a cure, sometimes relaxation.
Rest meant that she retired to her room immediately after dinner, and
expended her venom on her maid; relaxation meant bridge, and bridge
seemed to bring out all her worst points. They played the game for
counters at her house, and there had been occasions in Eve's experience
when the loss of a hundred or so of these useful little adjuncts to Fun
in the Home had lashed her almost into a frenzy. She was one of those
bridge players who keep up a running quarrel with Fate during the game,
and when she was not abusing Fate she was generally reproaching her
partner. Eve was always her partner; and to-night she devoutly hoped
that her employer would elect to rest. She always played badly with
Mrs. Rastall-Retford, through sheer nervousness. Once she had revoked,
and there had been a terrible moment and much subsequent recrimination.
Peter looked at her curiously.
"You're pale to-night," he said.
"I have a headache."
"H'm! How is our hostess? Fair? Or stormy?"
"As I was passing her door I heard her bullying her maid, so I suppose
stormy."
"That means a bad time for you?" he said, sympathetically.
"I suppose so. If we play bridge. But she may go to bed directly after
dinner."
She tried to keep her voice level, but he detected the break.
"Eve," he said, quickly, "won't you let me take you away from here?
You've no business in this sort of game. You're not tough enough.
You've got to be loved and made a fuss of and----"
She laughed shakily.
"Perhaps you can give me the address of some lady who wants a companion
to love and make a fuss of?"
"I can give you the address of a man."
She rested an arm on the mantelpiece and stood looking into the blaze,
without replying.
Before he could speak again there was a step outside the door, and Mrs.
Rastall-Retford rustled into the room.
Eve had not misread the storm-signals. Her employer's mood was still as
it had been earlier in the day. Dinner passed in almost complete
silence. Mrs. Rastall-Retford sat brooding dumbly. Her eye was cold and
menacing, and Peter, working his way through his vegetables, shuddered
for Eve. He had understood her allusion to bridge, having been
privileged several times during his stay to see his hostess play that
game, and he hoped that there would be no bridge to-night.
And this was unselfish of him, for bridge meant sandwiches. Punctually
at nine o'clock on bridge nights the butler would deposit on a
side-table a plate of chicken sandwiches and (in deference to Peter's
vegetarian views) a smaller plate of cheese sandwiches. At the close of
play Mrs. Rastall-Retford would take one sandwich from each plate,
drink a thimbleful of weak whisky and water, and retire.
Peter could always do with a sandwich or two these days. But he was
prepared to abandon them joyfully if his hostess would waive bridge for
this particular evening.
It was not to be. In the drawing-room Mrs. Rastall-Retford came out of
her trance and called imperiously for the cards. Peter, when he saw his
hand after the first deal, had a presentiment that if all his hands
were to be as good as this, the evening was going to be a trying one.
On the other occasions when they had played he had found it an
extremely difficult task, even with moderate cards, to bring it about
that his hostess should always win the odd rubber, for he was an
excellent player, and, like most good players, had an artistic
conscience which made it painful to him to play a deliberately bad
game, even from the best motives. If all his hands were going to be as
strong as this first one he saw that there was disaster ahead. He could
not help winning.
Mrs. Rastall-Retford, who had dealt the first hand, made a most
improper diamond declaration. Her son unfilially doubled, and, Eve
having chicane--a tragedy which her partner evidently seemed to
consider could have been avoided by the exercise of ordinary common
sense--Peter and his partner, despite Peter's best efforts, won the
game handsomely.
The son of the house dealt the next hand. Eve sorted her cards
listlessly. She was feeling curiously tired. Her brain seemed dulled.
This hand, as the first had done, went all in favour of the two men.
Mr. Rastall-Retford won five tricks in succession, and, judging from
the glitter in his mild eye, was evidently going to win as many more as
he possibly could. Mrs. Rastall-Retford glowered silently. There was
electricity in the air.
The son of the house led a club. Eve played a card mechanically.
"Have you no clubs, Miss Hendrie?"
Eve started, and looked at her hand.
"No," she said.
Mrs. Rastall-Retford grunted suspiciously.
Not long ago, in Westport, Connecticut, U.S.A., a young man named
Harold Sperry, a telephone worker, was boring a hole in the wall of a
house with a view to passing a wire through it. He whistled joyously as
he worked. He did not know that he had selected for purposes of
perforation the exact spot where there lay, nestling in the brickwork,
a large leaden water-pipe. The first intimation he had of that fact was
when a jet of water suddenly knocked him fifteen feet into a rosebush.
As Harold felt then, so did Eve now, when, examining her hand once more
to make certain that she had no clubs, she discovered the ace of that
ilk peeping coyly out from behind the seven of spades.
Her face turned quite white. It is never pleasant to revoke at bridge,
but to Eve just then it seemed a disaster beyond words. She looked
across at her partner. Her imagination pictured the scene there would
be ere long, unless----
It happens every now and then that the human brain shows in a crisis an
unwonted flash of speed. Eve's did at this juncture. To her in her
trouble there came a sudden idea.
She looked round the table. Mr. Rastall-Retford, having taken the last
trick, had gathered it up in the introspective manner of one planning
big _coups_, and was brooding tensely, with knit brows. His mother
was frowning over her cards. She was unobserved.
She seized the opportunity. She rose from her seat, moved quickly to
the side-table, and, turning her back, slipped the fatal card
dexterously into the interior of a cheese sandwich.
Mrs. Rastall-Retford, absorbed, did not notice for an instant. Then she
gave tongue.
"What are you doing, Miss Hendrie?"
Eve was breathing quickly.
"I--I thought that Mr. Rayner might like a sandwich."
She was at his elbow with the plate. It trembled in her hand.
"A sandwich! Kindly do not be so officious, Miss Hendrie. The idea--in
the middle of a hand----" Her voice died away in a resentful mumble.
Peter started. He had been allowing his thoughts to wander. He looked
from the sandwich to Eve and then at the sandwich again. He was
puzzled. This had the aspect of being an olive-branch--could it be?
Could she be meaning----? Or was it a subtle insult? Who could say? At
any rate it was a sandwich, and he seized it, without prejudice.
"I hope at least you have had the sense to remember that Mr. Rayner is
a vegetarian, Miss Hendrie," said Mrs. Rastall-Retford. "That is not a
chicken sandwich?"
"No," said Eve; "it is not a chicken sandwich."
Peter beamed gratefully. He raised the olive-branch, and bit into it
with the energy of a starving man. And as he did so he caught Eve's
eye.
"Miss Hendrie!" cried Mrs. Rastall-Retford.
Eve started violently.
"Miss Hendrie, will you be good enough to play? The king of clubs to
beat. I can't think what's the matter with you to-night."
"I'm very sorry," said Eve, and put down the nine of spades.
Mrs. Rastall-Retford glared.
"This is absurd," she cried. "You _must_ have the ace of clubs. If
you have not got it, who has? Look through your hand again. Is it
there?"
"No."
"Then where can it be?"
"Where can it be?" echoed Peter, taking another bite.
"Why--why," said Eve, crimson, "I--I--have only five cards. I ought to
have six."
"Five?" said Mrs. Rastall-Retford "Nonsense! Count again. Have you
dropped it on the floor?"
Mr. Rastall-Retford stooped and looked under the table.
"It is not on the floor," he said. "I suppose it must have been missing
from the pack before I dealt."
Mrs. Rastall-Retford threw down her cards and rose ponderously. It
offended her vaguely that there seemed to be nobody to blame. "I shall
go to bed," she said.
* * * * *
Peter stood before the fire and surveyed Eve as she sat on the sofa.
They were alone in the room, Mr. Rastall-Retford having drifted
silently away in the wake of his mother. Suddenly Eve began to laugh
helplessly.
He shook his head at her.
"This is considerably sharper than a serpent's tooth," he said. "You
should be fawning gratefully upon me, not laughing. Do you suppose King
Charles laughed at my ancestor when he ate the despatches? However, for
the first time since I have been in this house I feel as if I had had a
square meal."
Eve became suddenly serious. The smile left her face.
"Mr. Rayner, please don't think I'm ungrateful. I couldn't help
laughing, but I can't tell you how grateful I am. You don't know what
it would have been like if she had found out that I had revoked. I did
it once before, and she kept on about it for days and days. It was
awful." She shivered. "I think you must be right, and my nerves
_are_ going."
He nodded.
"So are you--to-morrow, by the first train. I wonder how soon we can
get married. Do you know anything about special licenses?"
She looked at him curiously.
"You're very obstinate," she said.
"Firm," he corrected. "Firm. Could you pack to-night, do you think, and
be ready for that ten-fifty to-morrow morning?"
She began to trace an intricate pattern on the floor with the point of
her shoe.
"I can't imagine why you are fond of me!" she said. "I've been very
horrid to you."
"Nonsense. You've been all that's sweet and womanly."
"And I want to tell you why," she went on. "Your--your sister----"
"Ah, I thought as much!"
"She--she saw that you seemed to be getting fond of me, and she----"
"She would!"
"Said some rather horrid things that--hurt," said Eve, in a low voice.
Peter crossed over to where she sat and took her hand.
"Don't you worry about her," he said. "She's not a bad sort really, but
about once every six months she needs a brotherly talking-to, or she
gets above herself. One is about due during the next few days."
He stroke her hand.
"Fasting," he said, thoughtfully, "clears and stimulates the brain. I
fancy I shall be able to think out some rather special things to say to
her this time."
