The Dinner Club Read online

  “And then he left the cricket and came to personalities.

  “‘Know anything about him, Dog-face?’ he asked. ‘Up at old Apson’s place he struck me as being a gentleman. Anyway, he’s a darned nice fellow. Wonder why he enlisted?’

  “‘Oh, Giles, for goodness’ sake, let’s try another topic?’ said his wife, suddenly. ‘We’ve had Sergeant Trevor since lunch began.’

  “Poor old Giles looked at her in startled surprise, and she gave him a quick smile which robbed her words of their irritability. But I could see she was on the rack, and though I didn’t know the real facts, it wasn’t hard to make a shrewd guess as to the cause.

  “It was just before we rose from the table, I remember, that she said to me under the cover of the general conversation: ‘My God! Dog-face – it’s not fair.’

  “‘Will you tell me?’ I answered. ‘I might help.’

  “‘Perhaps I will some day,’ she said, quietly. ‘But you can’t help; no one can do that. It was my fault all through, and the only thing that matters now is that Giles should never know.’

  “I don’t quite know why she suddenly confided in me, even to that extent. I suppose with her woman’s intuition she realised that I’d guessed something, and it helps to get a thing off one’s chest at times. Evidently it had been an unexpected meeting, and I cursed myself for having made him play. And yet how could one have foretold? It was just a continuation of the jigsaw started by that damned bit of orange peel. As she said, all that mattered was that Giles – dear old chap! – should never know.

  The Soldier smiled a little sadly. “So do the humans propose; but the God that moves the pieces frequently has different ideas. He did – that very afternoon. It was just as I was going that two white-faced nurses clutching two scared children appeared on the scene and babbled incoherently. And then the General’s groom hove in sight – badly cut across the face and shaky at the knees – and from him we got the story.

  “They’d started off in the General’s dogcart to go to some children’s party, and something had frightened the horse, which had promptly bolted. I knew the brute – a great raking black, though the groom, who was a first-class whip, generally had no difficulty in managing him. But on this occasion apparently he’d got clean away along the road into the town. He might have got the horse under control after a time, when, to his horror, he saw that the gates were closed at the railway crossing in front. And it was at that moment that a man – one of the sergeants from the barracks – had dashed out suddenly from the pavement and got to the horse’s head. He was trampled on badly, but he hung on – and the horse had ceased to bolt when they crashed into the gates. The shafts were smashed, but nothing more. And the horse wasn’t hurt. And they’d carried away the sergeant on an improvised stretcher. No; he hadn’t spoken. He was un-conscious.

  “‘Which sergeant was it?’ I asked, quietly – though I knew the answer before the groom gave it.

  “‘Sergeant Trevor, sir,’ he said. ‘B squadron.’

  “‘Is he – is he badly hurt?’ said the girl, and her face was ashen.

  “‘I dunno, mum,’ answered the groom. ‘They took ’im off to the ’orspital, and I was busy with the ’orse.’

  “‘I’ll ring up, if I may, General,’ I said, and he nodded.

  “I spoke to Purvis, the RAMC fellow, and his voice was very grave. They’d brought Trevor in still unconscious, and, though he wouldn’t swear to it at the moment, he was afraid his back was broken. But he couldn’t tell absolutely for certain until he came to. I hung up the receiver and found Mrs Giles standing behind me. She said nothing – but just waited for me to speak.

  “‘Purvis doesn’t know for certain,’ I said, taking both her hands in mine. ‘But there’s a possibility, my dear, that his back is broken.’

  “She was a thoroughbred, that girl. She didn’t make a fuss or cry out; she just looked me straight in the face and nodded her head once or twice.

  “‘I must go to him, of course,’ she said, gravely. ‘Will you arrange it for me, please?’

  “‘He’s unconscious still,’ I told her.

  “‘Then I must be beside him when he comes to,’ she answered. ‘Even if there was nothing else – he’s saved my baby’s life.’

  “‘I’ll take you in my car,’ I said, when I saw that she was absolutely determined. ‘Leave it all to me.’

  “‘I must see him alone, Dog-face.’ She paused by the door, with her handkerchief rolled into a tight little ball in her hand. ‘I want to know that he’s forgiven me.’

  “‘You shall see him alone if it’s humanly possible,’ I answered gravely, and at that she was gone.

  “I don’t quite know how I did it, but somehow or other I got her away from the General’s house without Giles knowing. Giles junior was quite unhurt, and disposed to regard the entire thing as an entertainment got up especially for his benefit. And when she’d made sure of that, and kissed him passionately to his intense disgust, she slipped away with me in the car.

  “‘You mustn’t be disappointed,’ I warned her as we drove along, ‘if you can’t see him alone. He may have been put into a ward with other men.’

  “‘Then they must put some screens round him,’ she whispered. ‘I must kiss him before – before–’ She didn’t complete the sentence; but it wasn’t necessary.

  “We didn’t speak again until I turned in at the gates of the hospital. And then I asked her a question which had been on the tip of my tongue a dozen times.

  “‘Who is he – really?’

  “‘Jimmy Dallas is his name,’ she answered, quietly. ‘We were engaged. And then his father lost all his money. He thought that was why – why I was beastly to him – but oh! Dog-face, it wasn’t at all. I thought he was fond of another girl – and it was all a mistake. I found it out too late. And then Jimmy had disappeared – and I’d married Giles. Up at that cricket match was the first time I’d seen him since my wedding.’

  “We drew up at the door, and I got out. It’s the little tragedies, the little misunderstandings, that are so pitiful, and in all conscience this was a case in point. A boy and a girl – each too proud to explain, or ask for an explanation; and now the big tragedy. God! it seemed so futile.

  “I left her sitting in the car, and went in search of Purvis. I found him with Trevor – I still thought of him under that name – and he was conscious again. The doctor looked up as I tiptoed in, and shook his head at me warningly. So I waited, and after a while Purvis left the bed and drew me out into the passage.

  “‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘He’s so infernally bruised and messed about. His left arm is broken in two places, and three ribs – and I’m afraid his back as well. He seems so numb. But I can’t be certain.’

  “‘Mrs Yeverley is here,’ I said. ‘The mother of one of the kids he saved. She wants to see him.’

  “‘Out of the question,’ snapped Purvis. ‘I absolutely forbid it.’

  “‘But you mustn’t forbid it, Doctor.’ We both swung round, to see the girl herself standing behind us. ‘I’ve got to see him. There are other reasons besides his having saved my baby’s life.’

  “‘They must wait, Mrs Yeverley,’ answered the Doctor. ‘In a case of this sort the only person I would allow to see him would be his wife.’

  “‘If I hadn’t been a fool,’ she said deliberately, ‘I should have been his wife,’ and Purvis’ jaw dropped.

  “Without another word she swept past him into the ward, and Purvis stood there gasping.

  “‘Well, I’m damned!’ he muttered, and I couldn’t help smiling. It was rather a startling statement to come from a woman stopping with the GOC about a sergeant in a cavalry regiment.

  “And then, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, came the final turn in the wheel. I was strolling up and down outside with Purvis, who was
a sahib as well as a Doctor and had asked no questions.

  “‘If his back is broken it can’t hurt him,’ he had remarked, ‘and if it isn’t it will do him good.’

  “At that we had left it, when suddenly, to my horror, I saw Giles himself going into the hospital.

  “‘Good Lord, Doc!’ I cried, sprinting after him, ‘that’s her husband. And he doesn’t know she’s here.’

  “But a lot can happen in a few seconds, and I was just a few seconds too late. As I got to the door I saw Giles in front of me – standing at the entrance to the ward as if he had been turned to stone. A big screen hid the bed from sight – but a screen is not soundproof. He looked at me as I came up, and involuntarily I stopped as I saw his face. And then quite clearly from the room beyond came his wife’s voice.

  “‘My darling, darling boy! – it’s you and only you for ever and ever!’

  “I don’t quite know how much Giles had guessed before. I think he knew about her previous engagement, but I’m quite sure he had never associated Trevor with it. A year or two later she told me that when she married him she had made no attempt to conceal the fact that she had loved another man – and loved him still.

  “And Giles had taken her on those terms. But at the time I didn’t know that: I only knew that a very dear friend’s world had crashed about his head with stunning suddenness. It was Giles who pulled himself together first – Giles, with a face grey and lined, who said in a loud voice to me: ‘Well, Dog-face, where is the invalid?’

  “And then he waited a moment or two before he went round the screen.

  “‘Ah! my dear,’ he said, quite steadily, as he saw his wife, ‘you here?’

  “He played his part for ten minutes, stiff-lipped and without a falter; then he went, and his wife went with him to continue the play in which they were billed for life. Trevor’s back was not broken – in a couple of months he was back at duty. And so it might have continued for the duration, but for Giles being drowned fishing in Ireland.”

  The Soldier stared thoughtfully at the fire.

  “He was a first-class fisherman and a wonderful swimmer, was Giles Yeverley, and sometimes – I wonder. They say he got caught in a bore – that perhaps he got cramp. But, as I say, sometimes – I wonder.

  “I saw them – Jimmy Dallas, sometime Sergeant Trevor, and his wife – at the Ritz two nights ago. They seemed wonderfully in love, though they’d been married ten years, and I stopped by their table.

  “‘Sit down, Dog-face,’ she ordered, ‘and have a liqueur.’

  “So I sat down and had a liqueur. And it was just as I was going that she looked at me with her wonderful smile, and said, very softly: ‘Thank God! dear old Giles never knew; and now, if he does, he’ll understand.’”

  The Soldier got up and stretched himself.

  “A big result for a bit of yellow peel.”

  Chapter 6

  The Writer’s Story, being the House at Appledore

  “I’m not certain, strictly speaking, that my story can be said to concern my trade,” began the Writer, after he had seen his guests were comfortable. “But it happened – this little adventure of mine – as the direct result of pursuing my trade, so I will interpret the rule accordingly.

  “My starting point is the Largest Pumpkin Ever Produced in Kent. It was the sort of pumpkin which gets a photograph all to itself in the illustrated papers – the type of atrocity which is utterly useless to any human being. And yet that large and unpleasant vegetable proved the starting point of the most exciting episode in my somewhat prosaic life. In fact, but for very distinct luck, that pumpkin would have been responsible for my equally prosaic funeral.” The Writer smiled reminiscently.

  “It was years ago, in the days before a misguided public began to read my books and supply me with the necessary wherewithal to keep the wolf from the door. But I was young and full of hope, and Fleet Street seemed a very wonderful place. From which you can infer that I was a journalist, and candour compels me to admit – a jolly bad one. Not that I realised it at the time. I regarded my editor’s complete lack of appreciation of my merits as being his misfortune, not my fault. However, I pottered around, doing odd jobs and having the felicity of seeing my carefully penned masterpieces completely obscured by blue pencil and reduced to two lines.

  “Then one morning I was sent for to the inner sanctuary. Now, although I had the very lowest opinion of the editor’s abilities, I knew sufficient of the office routine to realise that such a summons was unlikely to herald a rise of screw with parchment certificate of appreciation for services rendered. It was far more likely to herald the order of the boot – and the prospect was not very rosy. Even in those days Fleet Street was full of unemployed journalists who knew more than their editors.

  “The news editor was in the office when I walked in, and he was a kindly man, was old Andrews. He looked at me from under his great bushy eyebrows for a few moments without speaking; then he pointed to a chair.

  “‘Graham,’ he remarked in a deep bass voice, ‘are you aware that this paper has never yet possessed a man on its staff that writes such unutterable slush as you do?’

  “I remained discreetly silent; to dissent seemed tactless, to agree, unnecessary.

  “‘What do you propose to do about it?’ he continued after a while.

  “I told him that I hadn’t realised I was as bad as all that, but that I would do my best to improve my style and give satisfaction in the future.

  “‘It’s not so much your style,’ he conceded. ‘Years ago I knew a man whose style was worse. Only a little – but it was worse. But it’s your nose for news, my boy – that’s the worst thing that ever came into Fleet Street. Now, what were you doing yesterday?’

  “‘I was reporting that wedding at the Brompton Oratory, sir,’ I told him.

  “‘Just so,’ he answered. ‘And are you aware that in a back street not three hundred yards from the church a man died through eating a surfeit of winkles, as the result of a bet? Actually while you were there did that man die by the winkle-barrow – and you knew nothing about it. I’m not denying that your report on the wedding isn’t fair – but the public is entitled to know about the dangers of winkle-eating to excess. Not that the rights of the public matter in the least, but it’s the principle I want to impress on you – the necessity of keeping your eyes open for other things beside the actual job you’re on. That’s what makes the good journalist.’

  I assured him that I would do so in future, and he grunted non-committally. Then he began rummaging in a drawer, while I waited in trepidation.

  “‘We’ll give you a bit longer, Graham,’ he announced at length, and I breathed freely again. ‘But if there is no improve-ment you’ll have to go. And in the meantime I’ve got a job for you this afternoon. Some public-spirited benefactor has inaugurated an agricultural fête in Kent, somewhere near Ashford. From what I can gather, he seems partially wanting in intelligence, but it takes people all ways. He is giving prizes for the heaviest potato and the largest egg – though I am unable to see what the hen’s activity has to do with her owner. And I want you to go down and write it up. Half a column. Get your details right. I believe there is a treatise on soils and manures in the office somewhere. And put in a paragraph about the paramount importance of the Englishman getting back to the land. Not that it will have any effect, but it might help to clear Fleet Street.’

  “He was already engrossed in something else, and dismissed me with a wave of his hand. And it was just as I got to the door that he called after me to send Cresswill to him – Cresswill, the star of all the special men. His reception, I reflected a little bitterly as I went in search of him, would be somewhat different from mine. For he had got to the top of the tree, and was on a really big job at the time. He did all the criminal work – murder trials and so forth, and how we youngsters envied him! Perhaps
, in time, one might reach those dazzling heights, I reflected, as I sat in my third-class carriage on the way to Ashford. Not for him mammoth tubers and double-yolkers – but the things that really counted.

  “I got out at Ashford, where I had to change. My destination was Appledore, and the connection on was crowded with people obviously bound, like myself, for the agricultural fête. It was a part of Kent to which I had never been, and when I got out at Appledore station I found I was in the flat Romney Marsh country which stretches inland from Dungeness. Houses are few and far between, except in the actual villages themselves – the whole stretch of land, of course, must once have been below sea level – and the actual fête was being held in a large field on the outskirts of Appledore. It was about a mile from the station, and I proceeded to walk.

  “The day was warm, the road was dusty – and I, I am bound to admit, was bored. I felt I was destined for better things than reporting on bucolic flower shows, much though I loved flowers. But I like them in their proper place, growing – not arranged for show in a stuffy tent and surrounded by perspiring humanity. And so when I came to the gates of a biggish house and saw behind them a garden which was a perfect riot of colour, involuntarily I paused and looked over.

  “The house itself stood back about a hundred yards from the road – a charming old place covered with creepers, and the garden was lovely. A little neglected, perhaps – I could see a respectable number of weeds in a bed of irises close to the drive – but then it was quite a large garden. Probably belonged to some family that could not afford a big staff, I reflected, and that moment I saw a man staring at me from between some shrubs a few yards away.

  “There was no reason why he shouldn’t stare at me – he was inside the gate and presumably had more right to the garden than I had – but there was something about him that made me return the stare, in silence, for a few moments. Whether it was his silent approach over the grass and unexpected appearance, or whether it was that instinctively he struck me as an incongruous type of individual to find in such a sleepy locality, I can’t say. Or, perhaps, it was a sudden lightning impression of hostile suspicion on his part, as if he resented anyone daring to look over his gate.