The Dinner Club Read online

  “Is he for sale?” asked the girl.

  Undoubtedly he was for sale; Desmond Brooke, though he was in no need of money, did not believe in running anything save on business lines. But now something that he did not stop to analyse made him hesitate. He felt a sudden inconsequent distaste against selling the puppy to her.

  “You’ve picked the best, I see,” he said quietly.

  “Of course,” she answered, with the faintest trace of hauteur. Insensibly she felt that this man was hostile to her.

  “I am afraid that that one is not for sale,” he continued. “You can have any of the others if you like.”

  Abruptly she restored the puppy to its mother.

  “Having chosen the best, Mr Brooke,” she said, looking him straight in the face, “I don’t care about taking anything second-rate.”

  For a second or two they stared at one another. Ada Laverton had wandered away and was talking shop to the gardener; the Hermit and Lady Cynthia were alone.

  “You surprise me,” said the Hermit, calmly.

  “That is gratuitously rude,” answered the girl quietly. “It is also extremely impertinent. And lastly it shows that you are a very bad judge of character.”

  The man bowed.

  “I sincerely hope that your ‘lastly’ is true. Am I to understand, then, that you do not care to buy one of the other puppies?”

  And suddenly the girl laughed half-angrily.

  “What do you mean by daring to say such a thing to me? Why, you haven’t known me for more than two minutes.”

  “That is not strictly true, Lady Cynthia. Anyone who is capable of reading and takes in the illustrated papers can claim your acquaintance weekly.”

  “I see,” she answered. “You disapprove of my poor features being reproduced.”

  “Personally not at all,” he replied. “I know enough of the world, and am sufficiently broadminded, I trust, to realise how completely unimportant the matter is. Lady Cynthia Stockdale at Ascot, at Goodwood, in her motorcar, out of her motorcar, by the fire, by the gas stove, in her boudoir, out of her boudoir, in the garden, not in the garden – and always in a different frock every time. It doesn’t matter to me, but there are some people who haven’t got enough money to pay for the doctor’s bill when their wives are dying. And it’s such a comfort to them to see you by the fire. To know that half the money you paid for your frock would save the life of the woman they love.”

  “You’re talking like a ranting tub-thumper,” she cried, furiously. “How dare you say such things to me? And, anyway, does breeding dogs in the wilderness help them with their doctors’ bills?”

  “Touché,” said the man, with a faint smile. “Perhaps I haven’t expressed myself very clearly. You can’t pay the bills, Lady Cynthia – I can’t. There are too many thousands to pay. But it’s the bitter contrast that hits them, and it’s all so petty.” For a while he paused, seeming to seek for his words. “Come with me, Lady Cynthia, and I’ll show you something.”

  Almost violently he swung round on his heel and strode off towards the house. For a moment she hesitated, then she followed him slowly. Anger and indignation were seething in her mind; the monstrous impertinence of this complete stranger was almost bewildering. She found him standing in his smoking room unlocking a drawer in a big writing desk.

  “Well,” she said uncompromisingly from the doorway.

  “I have something to show you,” he remarked quietly. “But before I show it to you, I want to tell you a very short story. Three years ago I was in the back of beyond in Brazil. I’d got a bad dose of fever, and the gassing I got in France wasn’t helping matters. It was touch and go whether I pulled through or not. And one day one of the fellows got a two-month-old Tatler. In that Tatler was a picture – a picture of the loveliest girl I have ever seen. I tore it out, and I propped it up at the foot of my bed. I think I worshipped it; I certainly fell in love with it. There is the picture.”

  He handed it to her, and she looked at it in silence. It was of herself, and after a moment or two she raised her eyes to his.

  “Go on,” she said gently.

  “A few months ago I came back to England. I found a seething cauldron of discontent; men out of work – strikes – talk of revolution. And this was the country for which a million of our best had died. I also found – week after week – my picture girl displayed in every paper, as if no such thing as trouble existed. She, in her motorcar, cared for none of these things.”

  “That is unjust,” said the girl, and her voice was low.

  “I knew it was unjust,” answered the man, “but I couldn’t help it. And if I couldn’t help it – I who loved her – what of these others? It seemed symbolical to me.”

  “Nero fiddling,” said the girl, with a faint smile. “You’re rather a strange person, Mr Brooke. Am I to understand that you’re in love with me?”

  “You are not. I’m in love with the you of that picture.”

  “I see. You have set up an image. And supposing that image is a true one.”

  “Need we discuss that?” said the man, with faint sarcasm.

  The girl shrugged her shoulders.

  “The supposition is at least as possible as that you are doing any vast amount of good for the seething cauldron of discontent, I think you called it, by breeding Aberdeens in the country. I’m afraid you’re a crank, Mr Brooke, and not a very consistent one at that. And a crank is to my mind synonymous with a bore.”

  The man replaced the picture in his desk.

  “Then perhaps we had better join Mrs Laverton,” he remarked. “I apologise for having wearied you.”

  In silence they went out into the garden, to find Ada Laverton wandering aimlessly round looking for them.

  “Where have you two been?” she demanded, as she saw them approaching.

  “Mr Brooke has been showing me a relic of his past,” said Lady Cynthia. “Most interesting and touching. Are you ready to go, Ada?”

  Mrs Laverton gave a quick glance at their two faces, and wondered what had happened. Not much, surely, in so short a time – and yet with Cynthia you never could tell. The Hermit’s face, usually so inscrutable, showed traces of suppressed feeling; Cynthia’s was rather too expressionless.

  “Are you coming to the ball tomorrow night, Hermit?” she asked.

  “I didn’t know there was one on, Mrs Laverton,” he answered.

  “The cricket ball, my good man,” she exclaimed. “It’s been advertised for the last month.”

  “But surely Mr Brooke doesn’t countenance anything so frivolous as dancing?” remarked Lady Cynthia. “After the lecture he has just given me on my personal deportment the idea is out of the question.”

  “Nevertheless I propose to come, Lady Cynthia,” said Brooke quietly. “You must forgive me if I have allowed my feelings to run away with me today. And perhaps tomorrow you will allow me to find out if the new image is correct – or a pose also.”

  “What do you mean?” asked the girl, puzzled.

  “‘Lady Cynthia Stockdale – possibly the best dancer in London,’ ” he quoted mockingly; “I forget which of the many papers I saw it in.”

  “Do you propose to pass judgment on my dancing?” she asked.

  “If you will be good enough to give me a dance.”

  For a moment words failed her. The cool, the sublime impertinence of this man literally choked her. Then she nodded briefly.

  “I’ll give you a dance if you’re there in time. And then you can test for yourself, if you’re capable of testing.”

  He bowed without a word, and stood watching them as they walked down the lane.

  “I think, Ada, that he’s the most detestable man I’ve ever met,” remarked Lady Cynthia furiously, as they turned into the main road.

  And Ada Lavert
on said nothing, but wondered the more.

  III

  She saw him as soon as she got into the ballroom. It was the last day but one of the local cricket week, and the room was crowded. A large number of the men she knew – men she had danced with in London who had come down to play – and within half a minute she was surrounded. It was a chance of getting a dance with her which was not to be missed; in London she generally danced with one or at the most two men for the whole evening – men who were absolutely perfect performers. For dancing was a part of Lady Cynthia’s life – and a big part.

  The humour of the situation had struck her that day. For this dog-breeding crank to presume to judge her powers of dancing seemed too sublimely funny for annoyance. But he deserved to be taught a very considerable lesson. And she proposed to teach him. After that she proposed to dismiss him completely from her mind.

  She gave him a cool nod as he came up, and frowned slightly as she noticed the faint glint of laughter in his eyes. Really Mr Desmond Brooke was a little above himself. So much the worse for him.

  “I don’t know whether you’ll find one or not,” she remarked carelessly, handing him her programme.

  He glanced at it without a word, and quietly erased someone’s name.

  “I’ve made special arrangements with the band for Number 9, Lady Cynthia,” he remarked coolly. “A lot of people will be in at supper then, so we ought to have the floor more to ourselves.”

  The next instant he had bowed and disappeared, leaving her staring speechlessly at her programme.

  “A breezy customer,” murmured a man beside her. “Who is he?”

  “A gentleman who is going to have the biggest lesson of his life,” she answered ominously, and the man laughed. He knew Lady Cynthia – and he knew Lady Cynthia’s temper when it was roused. But for once he was wrong in his diagnosis; the outward and visible were there all right – the inward and mental state of affairs in keeping with them was not. For the first time in her life Lady Cynthia felt at a loss. Her partners found her distraite and silent; as a matter of fact she was barely conscious of their existence. And the more she lashed at herself mentally, the more confused did she get.

  It was preposterous, impossible. Why should she cut Tubby Dawlish to dance with a crank who kept dogs? A crank, moreover, who openly avowed that his object was to see if she could dance. Every now and then she saw him lounging by the door watching her. She knew he was watching her, though she gave no sign of being aware of his existence. And all the while Number 9 grew inexorably nearer.

  Dance indeed! She would show him how she could dance. And as a result she fell into the deadly fault of trying. No perfect dancer ever tries to dance; they just dance. And Lady Cynthia knew that better than most people. Which made her fury rise still more against the man standing just outside the door smoking a cigarette. A thousand times – no; she would not cut Tubby.

  And then she realised that people were moving in to supper; that the 8 was being taken down from the band platform – that 9 was being put up. And she realised that Desmond Brooke the Hermit was crossing the room towards her; was standing by her side while Tubby – like an outraged terrier – was glaring at him across her.

  “This is mine, old thing,” spluttered Tubby. “Number 9.”

  “I think not,” said the Hermit quietly. “I fixed Number 9 especially with Lady Cynthia yesterday.”

  She hesitated – and was lost.

  “I’m sorry, Tubby,” she said a little weakly. “I forgot.”

  Not a trace of triumph showed on the Hermit’s face, as he gravely watched the indignant back of his rival retreating towards the door: not a trace of expression showed on his face as he turned to the girl.

  “You’ve been trying tonight, Lady Cynthia,” he said gravely. “Please don’t – this time. It’s a wonderful tune this – half waltz, half tango. It was lucky finding Lopez conducting: he has played for me before. And I want you just to forget everything except the smell of the passion flowers coming in through the open windows, and the thrumming of the guitars played by the natives under the palm trees.” His eyes were looking into hers, and suddenly she drew a deep breath. Things had got beyond her.

  It was marked as a foxtrot on the programme, and several of the more enthusiastic performers were waiting to get off on the stroke of time. But as the first haunting notes of the dance wailed out – they paused and hesitated. This was no foxtrot; this was – but what matter what it was? For after the first bar no one moved in the room: they stood motionless watching one couple – Lady Cynthia Stockdale and an unknown man.

  “Why, it’s the fellow who breeds dogs,” muttered someone to his partner, but there was no reply. She was too engrossed in watching.

  And as for Lady Cynthia, from the moment she felt Desmond Brooke’s arm round her, the world had become merely movement – such movement as she had never thought of before. To say that he was a perfect dancer would be idle: he was dancing itself. And the band, playing as men possessed, played for them and them only. Everything was forgotten: nothing in the world mattered save that they should go on and on and on – dancing. She was utterly unconscious of the crowd of onlookers: she didn’t know that people had left the supper room and were thronging in at the door: she knew nothing save that she had never danced before. Dimly she realised at last that the music had stopped: dimly she heard a great roar of applause – but only dimly. It seemed to come from far away – the shouts of “Encore” seemed hazy and dreamlike. They had left the ballroom, though she was hardly conscious of where he was taking her, and when he turned to her and said, “Get a wrap or something: I want to talk to you out in God’s fresh air,” she obeyed him without a word. He was waiting for her when she returned, standing motionless where she had left him. And still in silence he led the way to his car which had been left apart from all the others, almost as if he had expected to want it before the end. For a moment she hesitated, for Lady Cynthia, though utterly unconventional, was no fool.

  “Will you come with me?” he said gravely.

  “Where to?” she asked.

  “Up to the cliffs beyond my house. It will take ten minutes – and I want to talk to you with the sound of the sea below us.”

  “You had the car in readiness?” she said quietly.

  “For both of us – or for me alone,” he answered. “If you won’t come, then I go home. Will you come with me?” he repeated.

  “Yes; I will come.”

  He helped her into the car and wrapped a rug round her; then he climbed in beside her. And as they swung out of the little square, the strains of the next dance followed them from the open windows of the Town Hall.

  He drove as he danced – perfectly; and in the dim light the girl watched his clear-cut profile as he stared ahead into the glare of the headlights. Away to the right his farm flashed by, the last house before they reached the top of the cliffs. And gradually, above the thrumming of the engine, she heard the lazy boom of the big Atlantic swell on the rocks ahead. At last he stopped where the road ran parallel to the top of the cliff, and switched off the lights.

  “Well,” she said, a little mockingly, “is the new image correct or a pose?”

  “You dance divinely,” he answered gravely. “More divinely than any woman I have ever danced with, and I have danced with those who are reputed to be the show dancers of the world. But I didn’t ask you to come here to talk about dancing; I asked you to come here in order that I might first apologise, and then say goodbye.”

  The girl gave a little start, but said nothing.

  “I talked a good deal of rot to you yesterday,” he went on, after a moment. “You were justified in calling me a ranting tub-thumper. But I was angry with myself, and when one is angry with oneself one does foolish things. I know as well as you do just how little society photographs mean: that was only a peg to hang my inexcusable tira
de on. You see, when one has fallen in love with an ideal – as I fell in love with that picture of you, all in white in the garden at your father’s place – and you treasure that ideal for three years, it jolts one to find that the ideal is different to what you thought. I fell in love with a girl in white, and sometimes in the wilds I’ve seen visions and dreamed dreams. And then I found her a lovely being in Paquin’s most expensive frocks; a social celebrity: a household name. And then I met her, and knew my girl in white had gone. What matter that it was the inexorable rule of Nature that she must go: what matter that she had changed into an incredibly lovely woman? She had gone: my dream girl had vanished. In her place stood Lady Cynthia Stockdale – the well-known society beauty. Reality had come – and I was angry with you for having killed my dream – angry with myself for having to wake up.

  “Such is my apology,” he continued gravely. “Perhaps you will understand: I think you will understand. And just because I was angry with you, I made you dance with me tonight. I said to myself: ‘I will show Lady Cynthia Stockdale that the man who loved the girl in white can meet her successor on her own ground.’ That’s the idea I started with, but things went wrong halfway through the dance. The anger died; in its place there came something else. Even my love for the girl in white seemed to become a bit hazy; I found that the successor had supplanted her more completely than I realised. And since the successor has the world at her feet – why, the breeder of dogs will efface himself, for his own peace of mind. So, goodbye, Lady Cynthia – and the very best of luck. If it won’t bore you I may say that I’m not really a breeder of dogs by profession. This is just an interlude; a bit of rest spent with the most wonderful pals in the world. I’m getting back to harness soon: voluntary harness, I’m glad to say, as the shekels don’t matter. But anything one can do towards greasing the wheels, and helping those priceless fellows who gave everything without a murmur during the war, and who are up against it now – is worth doing.”