Thirteen Guests (3 page)

“The actress?”

“Yes. And Lionel Bultin. Bultin will write us all up in his gossip column. His method in print is rather like Pratt's on canvas. He says what he likes and what others don't. Who are the last two? Oh, the Chaters. Mr. and Mrs. I don't know anything about them. Well—that's the dozen.”

“And I make the thirteenth,” remarked John as Taverley rose.

“I hope that doesn't worry you?”

“Not superstitious.”

“That's fortunate, although, even if you were, you'd be clear. The bad luck would come, wouldn't it, to the thirteenth guest who passes in through that door?…Well, I must be moving. See you later.”

Before going up, Taverley waited while the pretty maid with the flushed cheeks—they were still a little flushed—came down. John turned his head to watch the Sussex cricketer depart. A sudden gasp from the maid brought his head round again.

She had vanished, but he was just in time to glimpse a form flashing by the window.

Chapter III

At the Black Stag

The brilliant amber of the day had gone. The sun had changed into a dull red disc and had dropped below the fringe of Greyshot Heath. Already the nip in the air had lost its pleasantness, and the sly old fox at Mile Bottom was opening its eyes in its earthy den to ponder on pheasants and mice and rabbits. One day the sly old fox would itself be hunted, and only for this reason had it escaped sharing the excommunication of the pole-cat. It was too good a runner to waste its agility in the north.

In a little wood half a mile from Bragley Court a cock pheasant fluttered heavily to his roosting place. He had no fear. Death, that odd, incomprehensible thing, came to others; but
he
had survived a dozen shoots, and he knew how to evade its shadow. If a stoat or a cat prowled too close, an old bird could easily raise the alarm and find some other retreat. Like all living things, the cock pheasant was immortal to himself, because he had not yet endured the experience of extinction. When extinction came, he would not know it.

The doctor's brass plate had ceased to glow. It was now merely a cold flatness surrounded by vines. The sentinel dog outside the Cricketers' Arms had risen, shaken itself, and gone inside. A lamp had appeared in the uncurtained window of the Black Stag overlooking Flensham station, and the gravelly railway station itself was a length of grey shadows broken by the occasional dim lights of platform lamps and of an inadequate waiting-room. Somewhere to the south loomed a large black hole that was a tunnel. You were conscious of the hole, but you could no longer see it, for its blackness had merged into the blackness of the hill through which it bored and of the sky above the hill.

A man sat at the uncurtained window of the Black Stag, staring with moody eyes at the deserted smudge of platform. He had arrived that morning on the 12.10. He had partaken of an unpalatable lunch, and had spent the early afternoon strolling about in a purposeless way, smoking incessantly, and almost as incessantly consulting his watch. He had returned to the inn at three o'clock, and had sat at the window till the 3.28 had drawn in. He had watched the two passengers alight, and had witnessed the accident. It had not interested him particularly, because his interest was centred in one thing, and one thing only; every event outside that one thing, every circumstance that bore no direct relation to it, was as unreal and shadowy as the platform at which he now stared. Had the man who had tumbled been seriously hurt? It did not matter. What was the lady doing? It did not matter. The scene was being enacted within a short distance of him, but for all the effect it produced upon his emotions it might have occurred in Siam. When it was over, and the train had gone, and the platform had become once more deserted, he had taken another purposeless stroll, again smoking incessantly, again incessantly consulting his watch. And now he was back again, and a large, heavily-breathing woman had brought in a lamp.

“You'll be wanting tea?” asked the woman.

He was a rum one, this one was, but even rum ones took tea.

“The next train's 5.56, isn't it?” replied the man.

She told him that it was. She had told him the same thing three times already. Then she repeated her question about tea.

“Eh? Yes, I'll have some tea,” he replied, without interest.

“What would you like with it? Just bread and butter? Or we've got some nice seed cake.”

“Anything. Yes. Whatever you've got.”

The woman evaporated, and appeared ten minutes later with a tray. She placed the tray on a sideboard, covered a stained table with a scarcely less stained cloth, and moved the tray to the table. The seed cake presided with dejected majesty on a tall, glass-pedestaled dish. Its mission appeared to be to make thick slices of bread and butter look appetising by comparison.

“Excuse me, sir,” said the woman, lingering. “But will you be staying the night?”

“What?” replied the man.

“Will you be staying the night?” repeated the woman. “If so, I could have your bag taken up—”

“Don't touch my bag!” cried the man, interested at last. (“You'd have thought some one had trod on his toe,” the woman recounted later.) Then the man added: “I'm not sure. Yes, perhaps. I'll let you know presently.”

The bag, a black one, was on a chair. When the woman had gone, the man went to it, opened it, looked inside, closed it, locked it, and moved it, for no reason that he could have explained, to another chair. Then he returned to the table and began his tea.

From the bar across the passage came suddenly the sound of raucous music. Some one had put a penny in a grotesque piece of machinery, and was receiving his money's worth. The man plugged his ears with his fingers and glared at his teacup while the music ground on. After a minute he removed his fingers, then hastily shoved them back again. His forehead throbbed. His head seemed on the point of bursting. A poor man's pleasure was filling his heart with hate.

“God above!” he shouted.

But nobody heard him. The music across the passage was even louder.

When at last the music ended, he found himself laughing. He did not remember beginning to laugh. He stopped abruptly.

“This won't do,” he muttered. “This won't do.”

He finished his tea quietly and returned to the window.

Chapter IV

Over the Yellow Cups

The teacups at the Black Stag were thick and white. At Bragley Court they were thin and yellow, and they began their clinking in the drawing-room, a long, lofty room of pink and cream, and then followed the guests to their various locations. If you disliked pink and cream and a preponderance of elderly feminine society, you stayed away from the official headquarters, confident that the yellow cups would find out where you were and come to you. Mohammed, at Bragley Court, would not have been put to the trouble of going to his mountain.

John's cup came to him at exactly five o'clock, on a brightly-polished mahogany tray. It was brought and deposited on a small, low table by the pretty maid, and John watched her with interest to discover whether she still bore any traces of her recent agitation. Outwardly, she was now quite calm again, and because of her pleasant friendly quality he hoped that her appearance reflected the truth.

“Is your foot better, sir?” she asked.

“I am sure this interest is unconstitutional,” thought John, “but it's nice.” So he did not discourage it. He told her that his foot was very much better. The lie did not impress itself on him at the moment.

A cushion had fallen to the ground. The maid picked it up and fixed it behind his head with a bright smile. Then she put another log on the crackling fire and departed.

It was a small, trivial incident, but later on, among a collection of incidents less trivial, John remembered it.

He was staring at the fire, watching the flames crackle upwards towards the chimney, when a voice said:

“Well, how are you getting along? Do you want some one to pour out your tea?”

He did not have to turn his head. Even if he had not recognised Nadine's voice he would have sensed her personality in the faint silky rustle of her approach and the less faint aroma of expensive perfume. She disturbed the air as she drew near, breaking it up into little emotional ripples.

“Hallo,” he answered. “I'm all right. And thank you.”

“I could have my tea here with you,” she suggested, having already made up her mind not to have it anywhere else. “Shall I?”

“I'd love it,” replied John. “Only I feel I'm upsetting things terribly. You ought to be with the other guests, oughtn't you?”

“Why? There are no oughts here. We do as we like. Haven't you noticed it?”

“I've noticed they don't worry you much.”

“Of course you have. The house is run on lines of the most highly-organised freedom. You may flirt desperately or read the
Encyclopædia Britannica
. Just follow your mood. No one will interfere with you, or display any vulgar curiosity. Even a man with a bad foot isn't pestered with attention. But you can be quite sure the name of Foss has been looked up in Debrett.” He laughed. “Is it to be found there?”

“I've an uncle who fills a dozen dry lines.”

“Lord Aveling won't find the lines dry!” smiled Nadine, sitting on the low stool lately occupied by Harold Taverley. For the first time he took in her rather daring tea-gown, with its provocative glimpses. It was a compliment that she should waste all this wealth of subtle femininity on him. Or was she wasting it? “Debrett and the old school tie will chain you here for the week-end, however your foot progresses! Lord Aveling can't run a country—though he wishes he could—but he can run a country house, and he lives for these house-parties, you know. The little thrill of them—the little notoriety of them—the little excitement of them—and the little things that happen in them. And, sometimes, quite big things.”

A desire swept through John to ask, “And what do
you
live for?” But he quelled the impulse, and asked instead:

“Are any big things going to happen this week-end?”

She regarded him quizzically for a few moments, then replied, “I shouldn't wonder.”

She turned and nodded to the pretty maid, who had reappeared with another highly-polished little tray gleaming with yellow china. The second tray was deposited beside the first tray. As the maid departed, Nadine's eyes followed her.

“Pretty, isn't she?” said Nadine.

“Very,” answered John.

Two people came down the staircase. Harold Taverley and Anne. The signs of the road were no longer upon them, and both had changed to indoor clothes, but John noticed that Anne still favoured green. She was wearing a rather severe, close-cut frock that indicated without exploiting her slim boyish figure. Her dark hair was neat and smooth, and slightly waved. John gained an odd impression as she ran forward to greet Nadine that, while conceding to the moment, her real spirit was elsewhere.

“Nice to see you again, Nadine,” she exclaimed. “Wasn't the last time Cannes?”

“Yes—drinking coffee at the Galerie Fleuries,” answered Nadine. “Did you have a good run?”

“Wonderful! You must try my new mare. She goes over everything.”

“I'd love to. But you'll want her to-morrow?”

“Please! You can have Jill, though. We've still got her, and you always liked her, didn't you?” She turned to John. “Do you ride? How's your foot? Or are you sick of being asked? I'd be!”

“It's the penalty of being a pampered invalid,” replied John; “and I don't mind it at all. My foot's fine, thank you. But I'm afraid it wouldn't be well enough to join you to-morrow.”

“Beastly shame,” said Anne. “Never mind, we'll fix you up with jig-saw puzzles. Let me know if I can do anything, won't you? See you later, Nadine. Come along, Harold.”

Taverley smiled at John.

“We'd stay, but you're being looked after,” he remarked. “Be good to him, Nadine.”

When they were alone again, Nadine frowned.

“Beastly man, that Mr. Taverley,” she observed. “He's so hatefully nice!”

“I like him, too,” replied John. “Is niceness a vice?”

“Yes—like water. You must have something with it.”

“I imagine he's got a lot with it.”

“Rather. All the virtues, and a perfect off-drive. And he hates
me
!”

“Oh, no, he doesn't!”

“How do you know that?”

John coloured at the quick question, and at his clumsiness. He decided not to retreat.

“We talked of you,” he said. “Do you mind?”

She glanced in his cup, noted it was empty, and filled it.

“Of course I don't mind,” she answered. “What else do people talk about but other people? But don't tell me what Mr. Taverley said about me. Whatever it was, I am quite sure he forgave me, and so I'd have to forgive him, the beast!”

An interruption occurred. A uniformed nurse—Bragley Court could even materialise that—appeared abruptly and insisted on an application of surgical spirit. Surgical spirit during tea! But the nurse explained apologetically that she had a few minutes now, and might not have later.

“Does she look after Mrs. Morris?” queried John, when the nurse had soaked his foot and gone.

“Yes,” answered Nadine. “Poor old lady. She ought to be dead.”

“You mean—the release?”

“Of course! What's the use? You shoot a horse or a dog when it's incurable, but God wants humans to go on suffering!” She shuddered, and for once in her life misinterpreted the expression of a man who was dwelling on the movement of her body. “Oh, don't think I can't face pain,” she added almost defiantly. “But I don't care for it. That's why I grasp life while it's here!”

She had spoken impulsively, almost as though thinking aloud. Her hand brushed his. She rose and walked to a window, drawing the long curtain slightly aside to look out into the gloaming. But all she saw was her own reflection and the provocative gown gleaming back at her through the glass.

John watched her, waiting for her to come back. Why was she so long about it? Why was he waiting with such an intense desire for her to turn? A sudden panic seized him.

“Nonsense!” he thought, aghast.

That morning, blind with grief and saturated with its egotism, he had flung some things into a bag and had fled from London. An unexpected letter had toppled his small world over. It had come with the surprising unexpectedness of a poisoned arrow. It had contained poison, too—poison that had polluted the very springs of his faith. And in the first pangs of his agony he had headed for a station—any station—and had taken a ticket to a distant place—any place—so that he might escape the grotesque irony of immediate obligations. Any place would do, so long as it was an unfamiliar place, a place without associations. Somebody ahead of him in the ticket office had said, “Flensham.” So he had said, “Flensham.”

And this was where the somebody had unconsciously led him—to her own reflection standing out vividly and tormentingly in the darkness of a window!

“Nonsense—nonsense!” he repeated in his thoughts. “I'm just in a mess. This is reaction. It doesn't mean anything. Reaction, and my foot. Lord, how it's hurting!”

He concentrated on the pain, trying to trick himself. He rejoiced in its re-discovery, and saddled it with responsibility for his condition. Pain played the deuce with any one. It temporarily distorted values, and gave fictitious significance to unimportant things. That was why patients in hospitals so often fell in love with their nurses.…

Nadine came back to him as abruptly as she had left him.

“What are you going to do?” she asked. “Stay here?” He stared at her. Her tone was almost harsh. “I mean—well, you've spoken so little about yourself, haven't you? Aren't you expected somewhere to-night?”

He shook his head.

“Where were you going when I met you at the station?”

“Didn't you ask that? Anywhere.”

“That sounds morbid!”

“Don't judge by the sound. I'm fond of roaming.”

“I see. And you roamed—here.”

“Yes.” He had a sense that they were going round and round in a circle, and he tried to smash his way out. “You know, I don't think my foot's half as bad as it seems.” Yet a moment ago he had been insisting on the pain of it. “I believe I could get away all right.”

“You think the foot could stand it?”

“I think so.”

“But the question still remains—where do you want to get away to?”

They were moving back into the circle again. He became exasperated.

“Yes, and that's
my
question,” he retorted.

“Sorry,” she said.

He was appalled at himself. He had not intended to betray his exasperation. He was not exasperated any longer. He did not understand how he ever had been.

“No,
I'm
sorry,” he muttered. “Really, you must forgive me. You've been terribly kind. I don't know what's the matter with me.”

Nadine knew. It was her knowledge that had sent her to the window, and that had produced her rather lame effort to readjust the trouble. Something had happened very suddenly. She had sensed the exact moment. It was not the first time the moment had occurred in her experience.

Well—could it be helped? And did it matter? She thought of old Mrs. Morris upstairs. One day
she
might be like that! She thought of the hunt on the morrow, and of the hunted creature doomed to die, as every one at Bragley Court was doomed to die! But at this moment the hunted creature was not conscious of its fate, nor was any one at Bragley Court, saving Nadine Leveridge herself. She was always conscious of it, and of life's demand for compensation.

“Don't apologise, Mr. Foss, and don't worry,” she said. “It will be all the same five hundred years hence. Meanwhile, since it's obvious you can't move, and would have nowhere particular to move to even if you could, remember that we are two very small dots in a very large universe, and finish your tea.”