XXII
"The strain of this terrible time," remarked Mrs. Hammond, "is almost too much. We must have a little recreation sometimes to take our mind off—all the horrors." Her small hand fluttered vaguely, brushing aside the horrors like a swarm of flies.
On the table before her the cards made bright little flower-beds on a green baize lawn. She touched their shining smoothness delicately, reassuring herself that her room was all right, and her guests, and the tall vases filled with daffodils and expensive branches of white lilac. Empires might crash and gay youth march to dark destruction, but the ace of trumps was still the ace of trumps, and Mrs. Hammond had taken her place in Marshington.
"Hearts," announced Mrs. Parker. "Connie home on leave, I see."
"Two diamonds. Yes. She's home for ten days. So nice to have her back," murmured Mrs. Hammond, hoping that Mrs. Parker had not seen the vision of Connie in her breeches. "The girls have gone to Kingsport to the Pictures."
"She looks well."
"Yes. The country life suits her splendidly. She always was fond of animals and things. Oh, what a nasty hand you have given me, Mrs. Cartwright! I'd never have let you be dummy if I'd known. Of course the work is hard, but so many girls are working so hard now. The Setons of Edenthorpe, both Gladys and Hilda, you know, are helping on the stud farm at Darlidd."
The Setons, thought Mrs. Hammond, gave a flavour of respectability to Connie's doubtful profession. Again, since Connie had gone, she had been forced to build a victory on the foundations of defeat. It was lonely, tiring work, though the bright room helped a little, and the flowering chintzes, and the sight of Mrs. Parker's sensible face across the table. But all the time, at the back of her mind, a memory haunted her of Mrs. Neale's gaunt face, and of Muriel saying, "Have you heard the news?"
"So nice," she murmured above her cards, "to know that at last Connie has quite found her vocation."
She smiled gently, as she gathered up the odd trick with the gesture of innocent surprise that explained why Marshington never realized that Mrs. Hammond always won her games.
Mrs. Parker raised her bushy eyebrows.
"Vocation? Girls have no business with vocations. Their vocation is to get married, as I told Daisy when she wanted to study art. Art! Have you seen the great child lately?"
Mrs. Cartwright made the appropriate observations upon the charm of Mrs. Parker's grandchild, and then asked her hostess, "You mentioned the Seton girls just now. Wasn't it Gladys that Godfrey Neale used to flirt with so?"
"Gladys? Well, people talked of course, but we knew that there was nothing in it. All the time since he met her at our house when she was almost a schoolgirl he has been in love with Clare Duquesne. He and Muriel are such good friends, you know. He used to confide everything in her."
If only Muriel would give her a little help! The girl had been so secretive and queer lately. Mrs. Hammond knew that she used to adore her. But she had been so silly, always so cold and stand-offish even with Godfrey. She never gave him half a chance.
"No trumps," she declared vigorously, and settled down to enjoy a sporting hand.
But she was to be allowed no peace.
"Have you met Lady Grainger yet?" asked Mrs. Parker.
"Er—no, not yet. Dummy's lead, I think."
"Of course they are bound to be rather exclusive. People in their position. I naturally had to call, because my husband is to be her doctor. Lady Grainger is quite charming."
Mrs. Hammond rearranged her cards, stately queens, complacent kings, cherubic knaves. The hearts were chubby and gracious, but pointed too, like herself, the diamonds slim and elegant, like Mrs. Waring. If only people could be arranged as easily as cards! Here was a shy spade queen, and here the king of hearts, magnificently stiff and spectacular. Put them together, Muriel and Godfrey. Here was Connie, a jolly little diamond queen. One could couple her with this club knave, and so be spared from the menace of any failure there. And Arthur, he was this diamond king, blandly helpless, staring at her face upwards from the cloth. She could lead off with him, seeing that she held the ace in her own hand (she would always do that, she thought) and then gather him, safely, safely, into the pile of tricks before her. There need be no more nights of waiting, no heart-breaking humiliation when she held her head high before Marshington, knowing that Arthur down at the Kingsport Arms was making love to the fat barmaid. Of course he was drunk. He had once told her that no husband of hers would make love to another woman while in his sober senses. But since he had taken to playing billiards with that Ted Hobson, there were too many occasions upon which his sober senses forsook him. Ah, if only she could gather him safely in among the decent people. If only, for instance, a man like Colonel Grainger, horsy, genial, yet to be trusted, so they said, would take him up! Arthur responded so to his environment.
"I have done my best. I have done my best," she told herself. But she knew that there were new heights to scale. Besides, now, the stakes were doubled. She felt that Arthur's future depended upon her success with the Graingers. If the new Commandant at Kepplethorpe Camp opened the doors of his Mess to Arthur, then Mrs. Hammond might sleep at nights again. Besides, in spite of everything, she loved him.
She marked her score in firm old-fashioned figures, beautifully formed. It was from her that Muriel had inherited her pretty writing. Her jewelled fingers hovered above the tablet. She knew what she must do. As though she had hitherto been too much absorbed in the game to mention it, she said, "I haven't called on Lady Grainger yet, but Mrs. Neale has promised to take me up with her one day."
As she shuffled the cards, the rings on her white fingers twinkled above the green baize table, but though she drew satisfaction from her lovely, polished nails, she sighed a little.