65 Short Stories (126 page)

‘Well, Mr Chester,’ she said to him one day at lunch, ‘it’s the end of the month, your wife will be coming tomorrow. That’s something to look forward to.’

‘No, she’s not coming this month,’ he said quietly, looking down at his plate. ‘Oh, I am sorry. Why not? The children are all right, aren’t they?’ Dr Lennox thinks it’s better for me that she shouldn’t come.’

There was a silence. Ivy looked at him with troubled eyes.

‘That’s tough luck, old man,’ said Templeton in his hearty way. ‘Why didn’t you tell Lennox to go to hell?’

‘He must know best,’ said Chester.

Ivy gave him another look and began to talk of something else.

Looking back, Ashenden realized that she had at once suspected the truth. For next day he happened to walk with Chester.

‘I’m awfully sorry your wife isn’t coming,’ he said. ‘You’ll miss her visit dreadfully.’

‘Dreadfully’

He gave Ashenden a sidelong glance. Ashenden felt that he had something he wanted to say, but could not bring himself to say it. He gave his shoulders an angry shrug.

‘It’s my fault if she’s not coming. I asked Lennox to write and tell her not to. I couldn’t stick it any more. I spend the whole month looking forward to her coming and then when she’s here I hate her. You see, I resent so awfully having this filthy disease. She’s strong and well and full of beans. It maddens me when I see the pain in her eyes. What does it matter to her really? Who cares if you’re ill? They pretend to care, but they’re jolly glad it’s you and not them. I’m a swine, aren’t I?’

Ashenden remembered how Mrs Chester had sat on a stone by the side of the road and wept.

‘Aren’t you afraid you’ll make her very unhappy, not letting her come?’

‘She must put up with that. I’ve got enough with my own unhappiness without bothering with hers.’

Ashenden did not know what to say and they walked on in silence. Suddenly Chester broke out irritably.

‘It’s all very well for you to be disinterested and unselfish, you’re going to live. I’m going to die, and God damn it, I don’t want to die. Why should I? It’s not fair.’

Time passed. In a place like the sanatorium where there was little to occupy the mind it was inevitable that soon everyone should know that George Templeton was in love with Ivy Bishop. But it was not so easy to tell what her feelings were. It was plain that she liked his company, but she did not seek it, and indeed it looked as though she took pains not to be alone with him. One or two of the middle-aged ladies tried to trap her into some compromising admission, but ingenuous as she was, she was easily a match for them. She ignored their hints and met their straight questions with incredulous laughter. She succeeded in exasperating them.

‘She can’t be so stupid as not to see that he’s mad about her.’

‘She has no right to play with him like that.’

‘I believe she’s just as much in love with him as he is with her.’

Dr Lennox ought to tell her mother.’

No one was more incensed than McLeod.

‘Too ridiculous. After all, nothing can come of it. He’s riddled with T.B. and she’s not much better.’

Campbell on the other hand was sardonic and gross.

‘I’m all for their having a good time while they can. I bet there’s a bit of hanky-panky going on if one only knew, and I don’t blame ’em.’

‘You cad,’ said McLeod.

‘Oh, come off it. Templeton isn’t the sort of chap to play bumble-puppy bridge with a girl like that unless he’s getting something out of it, and she knows a thing or two, I bet.’

Ashenden, who saw most of them, knew them better than any of the others. Templeton at last had taken him into his confidence. He was rather amused at himself

Rum thing at my time of life, falling in love with a decent girl. Last thing I’d ever expected of myself. And it’s no good denying it, I’m in it up to the neck; if I were a well man I’d ask her to marry me tomorrow. I never knew a girl could be as nice as that. I’ve always thought girls, decent girls, I mean, damned bores. But she isn’t a bore, she’s as clever as she can stick. And pretty too. My God, what a skin! And that hair: but it isn’t any of that that’s bowled me over like a row of ninepins. D’you know what’s got me? Damned ridiculous when you come to think of it. An old rip like me. Virtue. Makes me laugh like a hyena. Last thing I’ve ever wanted in a woman, but there it is, no getting away from it, she’s good, and it makes me feel like a worm. Surprises you, I suppose?’

Not a bit,’ said Ashenden. ‘You’re not the first rake who’s fallen to innocence. It’s merely the sentimentality of middle age.’

‘Dirty dog,’ laughed Templeton.

‘What does she say to it?’

‘Good God, you don’t suppose I’ve told her. I’ve never said a word to her that I wouldn’t have said before anyone else. I may be dead in six months, and besides, what have I got to offer a girl like that?’

Ashenden by now was pretty sure that she was just as much in love with Templeton as he was with her. He had seen the flush that coloured her cheeks when Templeton came into the dining-room and he had noticed the soft glance she gave him now and then when he was not looking at her. There was a peculiar sweetness in her smile when she listened to him telling some of his old experiences. Ashenden had the impression that she basked comfortably in his love as the patients on the terrace, facing the snow, basked in the hot sunshine; but it might very well be that she was content to leave it at that, and it was certainly no business of his to tell Templeton what perhaps she had no wish that he should know

Then an incident occurred to disturb the monotony of life. Though McLeod and Campbell were always at odds they played bridge together because, till Templeton came, they were the best players in the sanatorium. They bickered incessantly, their post-mortems were endless, but after so many years each knew the other’s game perfectly and they took a keen delight in scoring off one another. As a rule Templeton refused to play with them; though a fine player he preferred to play with Ivy Bishop, and McLeod and Campbell were agreed on this, that she ruined the game. She was the kind of player who, having made a mistake that lost the rubber, would laugh and say: Well, it only made the difference of a trick. But one afternoon, since Ivy was staying in her room with a headache, Templeton consented to play with Campbell and McLeod. Ashenden was the fourth. Though it was the end of March there had been heavy snow for several days, and they played, in a veranda open on three sides to the wintry air, in fur coats and caps, with mittens on their hands. The stakes were too small for a gambler like Templeton to take the game seriously and his bidding was overbold, but he played so much better than the other three that he generally managed to make his contract or at least to come near it. But there was much doubling and redoubling. The cards ran high, so that an inordinate number of small slams were bid; it was a tempestuous game, and McLeod and Campbell lashed one another with their tongues. Half past five arrived and the last rubber was started, for at six the bell rang to send everyone to rest. It was a hard-fought rubber, with sets on both sides, for McLeod and Campbell were opponents and each was determined that the other should not win. At ten minutes to six it was game all and the last hand was dealt. Templeton was McLeod’s partner and Ashenden Campbell’s. The bidding started with two clubs from McLeod; Ashenden said nothing; Templeton showed that he had substantial help, and finally McLeod called a grand slam. Campbell doubled and McLeod redoubled. Hearing this, the players at other tables who had broken off gathered round and the hands were played in deadly silence to a little crowd of onlookers. McLeod’s face was white with excitement and there were beads of sweat on his brow. His hands trembled. Campbell was very grim. McLeod had to take two finesses and they both came off. He finished with a squeeze and got the last of the thirteen tricks. There was a burst of applause from the onlookers. McLeod, arrogant in victory, sprang to his feet. He shook his clenched fist at Campbell.

‘Play that off on your blasted fiddle,’ he shouted. ‘Grand slam doubled and redoubled. I’ve wanted to get it all my life and now I’ve got it. By God. By God.’ He gasped. He staggered forward and fell across the table. A stream of blood poured from his mouth. The doctor was sent for. Attendants came. He was dead.

He was buried two days later, early in the morning so that the patients should not be disturbed by the sight of a funeral. A relation in black came from Glasgow to attend it. No one had liked him. No one regretted him. At the end of a week so far as one could tell, he was forgotten. The Indian Civilian took his place at the principal table and Campbell moved into the room he had so long wanted.

‘Now we shall have peace,’ said Dr Lennox to Ashenden. ‘When you think that I’ve had to put up with the quarrels and complaints of those two men for years and years ... Believe me, one has to have patience to run a sanatorium. And to think that after all the trouble he’s given me he had to end up like that and scare all those people out of their wits.’

‘It was a bit of a shock, you know,’ said Ashenden.

‘He was a worthless fellow and yet some of the women have been quite upset about it. Poor little Miss Bishop cried her eyes out.’

‘I suspect that she was the only one who cried for him and not for herself.’ But presently it appeared that there was one person who had not forgotten him. Campbell went about like a lost dog. He wouldn’t play bridge. He wouldn’t talk. There was no doubt about it, he was moping for McLeod. For several days he remained in his room, having his meals brought to him, and then went to Dr Lennox and said he didn’t like it as well as his old one and wanted to be moved back. Dr Lennox lost his temper, which he rarely did, and told him he had been pestering him to give him that room for years and now he could stay there or get out of the sanatorium. He returned to it and sat gloomily brooding.

‘Why don’t you play your violin?’ the matron asked him at length. ‘I haven’t heard you play for a fortnight.’

‘I haven’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s no fun any more. I used to get a kick out of playing because I knew it maddened McLeod. But now nobody cares if I play or not. I shall never play again.’

Nor did he for all the rest of the time that Ashenden was at the sanatorium. It was strange, now that McLeod was dead, life had lost its savour for him. With no one to quarrel with, no one to infuriate, he had lost his incentive and it was plain that it would not be long before he followed his enemy to the grave.

But on Templeton McLeod’s death had another effect, and one which was soon to have unexpected consequences. He talked to Ashenden about it in his cool, detached way.

‘Grand, passing out like that in his moment of triumph. I can’t make out why everyone got in such a state about it. He’d been here for years, hadn’t he?’

‘Eighteen, I believe.’

‘I wonder if it’s worth it. I wonder if it’s not better to have one’s fling and take the consequences.’

‘I suppose it depends on how much you value life.’

‘But is this life?’

Ashenden had no answer. In a few months he could count on being well, but you only had to look at Templeton to know that he was not going to recover. The death-look was on his face.

D’you know what I’ve done?’ asked Templeton. ‘I’ve asked Ivy to marry me.’ Ashenden was startled.

‘What did she say?’

‘Bless her little heart, she said it was the most ridiculous idea she’d ever heard in her life and I was crazy to think of such a thing.’

‘You must admit she was right.’

‘Quite. But she’s going to marry me.’

‘It’s madness.’

‘I dare say it is; but anyhow, we’re going to see Lennox and ask him what he thinks about it.’

The winter had broken at last; there was still snow on the hills, but in the valleys it was melted and on the lower slopes the birch-trees were in bud all ready to burst into delicate leaf The enchantment of spring was in the air. The sun was hot. Everyone felt alert and some felt happy. The old stagers who came only for the winter were making their plans to go south. Templeton and Ivy went to see Dr Lennox together. They told him what they had in mind. He examined them; they were X-rayed and various tests were taken. Dr Lennox fixed a day when he would tell them the results and in the light of this discuss their proposal. Ashenden saw them just before they went to keep the appointment. They were anxious, but did their best to make a joke of it. Dr Lennox showed them the results of his examinations and explained to them in plain language what their condition was.

‘All that’s very fine and large,’ said Templeton then, ‘but what we want to know is whether we can get married.’

‘It would be highly imprudent.’

‘We know that, but does it matter?’

‘And criminal if you had a child.’

‘We weren’t thinking of having one,’ said Ivy.

‘Well, then I’ll tell you in very few words how the matter stands. Then you must decide for yourselves.’

Templeton gave Ivy a little smile and took her hand. The doctor went on.