Thirteen Guests (9 page)

While she rattled on, John focused his eyes beyond her and watched the moving picture in the hall, framed by the limits of the doorway. Nadine had met Zena Wilding in the hall, and after a moment or two had vanished with her. Lord and Lady Aveling had passed immediately afterwards. Lord Aveling was saying, rather querulously, “Where's Anne? Earnshaw's out there—you know, my dear, I wish she'd—” A few seconds later the Rowes came and went, hastening like a line of hens at feeding-time.…And now, Anne and Harold Taverley—the former looking harder than ever, as though consciously tuning her mood to the callous necessities of the chase, the latter watching her with a kind of unassuming, almost secret, protectiveness. “I've forgotten something—my handkerchief!” exclaimed Anne, stopping suddenly. “Carry on, Harold. I'll follow.”

“Of course, different writers have different methods,” said Edyth Fermoy-Jones, with dreary zest. In subsequent retrospect, her voice became a fretful accompaniment to a dark melody. “Edgar Wallace used a dictaphone. He could write a novel in a week-end. Bret Harte spent a morning putting in a comma and then the afternoon taking it out again. I mean Oscar Wilde. Agatha Christie…”

Anne turned and vanished. Taverley turned also and looked after her.

“Now, my own method is
quite
different! Would you like to hear it? Before I start—before I even think of putting pen to paper—no typewriter for
me
!—I take long walks.…”

Chater entered the moving picture. His hand was just coming away from his hip pocket. “I thought I was going to be the last,” he said, “till I passed Anne on the stairs.”

“Anne?” murmured Taverley.

“Sorry, I forgot the Honourable,” replied Chater. “Seen the wife anywhere?” He passed on.

“You see, as I was telling you before, Mr. Foss, I
must
get to know my characters first. I must know how they will
react
. And then—”

She paused abruptly. Taverley had strolled to the door, and as he came John had a queer sensation that a figure he had been watching on a screen was shedding its two-dimensional condition, and acquiring solidarity. It was a blessed solidarity, for it also entered the consciousness of Edyth Fermoy-Jones and ended her soliloquy.

“Ah, Mr. Taverley!” she cried. “Shouldn't we be going?”

“I believe the motor party's about to leave,” replied Taverley, “so you had better hurry.”

“No, really? Why didn't some one tell me? I must fly, Mr. Foss; but we'll continue our interesting talk later.”

As she flew, John murmured:

“I hope you won't think me uncharitable, Taverley, but God bless you for your interruption!”

“Has she been telling you how to write a novel?” smiled Taverley. “It can be rather trying.”

“And God bless you, also, for not asking how I'm feeling!”

“Yes, that can be equally trying. How are you?”

“Dippy, you rotter!” grinned John.

Taverley glanced at his watch.

“Nearly half-past,” he muttered. “I ought to be going, too.”

“Are you waiting for Anne?” asked John. “Or should I, like Mr. Chater, say ‘Honourable'?”

Taverley raised his eyebrows, then laughed.

“You've got good eyes and ears! Well, the watcher sees most of the game.” He turned suddenly. “And here comes Anne—without the Honourable.”

For an instant John stared. This was not the Anne of a minute or two ago. Nor was it the Anne of the night before. It was a new Anne—nervously bright, boisterously merry, laughing at nothing.

“Come on, Harold, come on, Harold!” she cried. “What a day it's going to be! Huick-halloa!”

Taverley stared at her, too. But she seized his arm, and a moment later they had vanished.

John gazed after them. They had not thought to close the door. He felt horribly disturbed, and did not know why.

Some one passed through the hall as the clock struck the half-hour. He called, and Bessie appeared.

“Would you mind closing the door?” he asked.

He was not in a mood for Bultin or Pratt.

“Yes, sir,” answered Bessie.

She had a small tray in one hand, and as she closed the door John caught another glimpse of blue glass on the tray. Only this time it was broken.

Chapter XIII

The Meet

“Hang on to me, Harold!” murmured Anne. “Won't you?”

“O.K.” answered Taverley quietly, drawing his horse a few inches closer.

On Anne's other side was Sir James Earnshaw, portly and solid in his saddle. If his political party were dissolving, he gave no impression that he was dissolving with it. He had, in fact, no intention of dissolving. He was listening to Chater, but his eyes were on a distant wood, giving the impression that Chater was not really there. Chater looked less impressive on horseback. As he had ridden away from Bragley Court, Pratt had commented to Bultin, “If I were a horse with an inferiority complex, I'd get Chater on my back to regain my self-respect.” Chater's horse certainly looked the superior animal.

“Yes, that was a very interesting chat we had in your bedroom last night, Sir James,” said Chater. “What time did I leave? Two a.m., wasn't it?”

“Your memory is better than mine, Mr. Chater,” replied Earnshaw, still gazing towards the wood, “for I do not recall the conversation at all.”

“What, when it lasted a couple of hours?” said Chater, keeping his voice low. “And when you explained so fully your reasons for joining the Conservative Party? I understand them perfectly.”

“You understand so many things before other people do,” returned Earnshaw. “That I am going to join the Conservative Party, for instance.”

“I think other people understand that! I am sure Bultin does. I'll bet his column next week will mention a new Conservative recruit—and that Lord Aveling's daughter will shortly figure as one of the party's most popular hostesses. But not even Bultin will mention that Lord Aveling's daughter has had anything to do with it, or that the new recruit she has just become engaged to…well, just brush up your memory about our little chat last night. From midnight to two a.m.”

He turned his horse abruptly, and ambled towards another group.

“Odd crowd your father's collected this week, Anne,” said Taverley, watching Chater go.

“Horrible,” answered Anne. “I wonder how much longer we'll have to wait? I'm bursting to be off.”

“I heard the harbourer had marked the stag.”

“Yes, but they move sometimes, you know. The last one did from South Hill Wood. Poor Dick's face—I'll never forget it. If he lets the crowd down, I'm sure he goes on his knees and prays to God for forgiveness! Look! Is that anything?”

She also was staring towards the distant wood, where a stag would have prayed had it known how. Perfectly motionless among bracken and briar, it seemed to possess life only in its large round eyes, which were assuming a glassy alertness.

“Something stirring,” answered Taverley.

The field waited on a great sweep of brown-green stubble. The stubble rolled away in every direction, purpling towards the horizon, and broken in many places by shallow undulations and deep dips, and woods that looked small till you came to them. Only one road was visible. It dissected the moor whitely and blatantly. It was the intruder in country to which it did not belong. But its usefulness was indicated by the number of cars stationed upon it, and the pedestrians who lined it or splayed from it on to the stubble.

Edyth Fermoy-Jones and the Rowes were in one of the cars, their destinies in the hands of the capable chauffeur, Arthur. When the stag broke cover and the pack, now waiting with uncanny obedience round a red-coated huntsman, began to move away, Arthur would read the signs, let in his clutch and make for the spot from where mere motorists would have their best chance of “seeing something.”

“'Course, you can't count on it,” he had told his party, to arm them against disappointment, “but I'm generally lucky.”

“Bring us the luck, and you'll certainly be lucky this time!” winked Mr. Rowe, tapping his pocket, always the most important part of his clothing. “Don't forget that, my boy!”

“That Mrs. Leveridge looks very well on a horse, doesn't she?” said Mrs. Rowe.

“Damn smart,” agreed Mr. Rowe. “And so does her ladyship. I shouldn't have thought it.” His wife tried to tread on his foot, and missed. “Of course, the actress'd look well in anything. Or nothing. Ha, ha! What's the matter, dear? Mayn't one joke?”

“I wish I could ride,” exclaimed Ruth suddenly. “Can I have lessons?”

“Can she have lessons!” repeated Mr. Rowe. “She can have anything she likes! Books aren't the only things that pay, you know, Miss Jones.”

“I'm sure not,” smiled the authoress, secretly wincing at the absence of the Fermoy.

“Only you'll have to look a bit better on a horse, Ruth, than that other one—what's her name?—Chater? I always want to chop off the C. Well, I suppose she's enjoying herself.”

“I wish you wouldn't talk so much, Bob,” fretted Mrs. Rowe. “One can't follow what's happening.”

“Yes, but nothing's happening!” retorted her husband rather irritably. He turned to the chauffeur. “What happens when it does? Do they fire a gun, or something? And is there a chance the stag'll come in our direction? The wind's blowing this way.”

“Only foxes take note of the wind, sir,” replied Arthur, airing his knowledge.

Edyth Fermoy-Jones pricked up her ears. She never let a little bit of information go by. Her reputation for being knowledgeable was due to other people's conversation and her encyclopædia. Her next novel would probably contain a fox that took note of the wind and a stag that didn't.

“Well, what decides 'em?” inquired Mr. Rowe. “Besides what's behind 'em?”

“They've generally got another spot in their mind, sir, and make for it,” answered the chauffeur. “Of course, hinds run all over the place.”

“What's happening now?”

“The tufters are getting the stag away. Sometimes you can hear them giving tongue, even as far as this, when the wind's right like it is to-day.…There you are! Now!”

The field stirred. A red-coated huntsman spoke to the pack. The Master, bearing the touch of distinction that raised him to pre-eminence, galloped importantly from one spot to another.

“Well, why don't they start?” cried Mr. Rowe, as the field still seemed to hesitate. Yet, through the strange telegraphy of the hunt, even Mr. Rowe knew that the game had commenced, and that a stag in that distant patch of foliage towards which all eyes were directed was beginning its last race against Death.

“You have to give them a bit of law, sir,” replied Arthur.

“What's that mean?”

“Well, a start.”

“I see. Play cricket.”

The soothing idea was knocked on the head the next moment.

“See, you can't attack it before it's tired, or you'd lose some dogs.…Ah, there they go. We'll get round to Churleigh, and see what's happening.”

The pack came to life. The well-ordered mass moved forward at a useful but, as yet, not rapid pace. Each hound became intent on its own little instinct, while remaining obedient to the more potent instinct of man. Behind them moved the field, tingling with permitted blood-lust, as the “view-halloa” came to them across the moor, and was taken up.

“Are you dead keen to be in at the death?” Anne's voice sounded softly in Taverley's ear as they began to trot.

“Not particularly,” he answered.

“Good,” said Anne. “When I go mad, see you do!”

For a little while parties stuck more or less together. They wound down a long gentle slope, through a miniature valley, and up to the next brow. When the pack, well in advance, veered suddenly to the left, the riders farthest ahead wheeled round also, but those behind saved the big curve and preserved their breath and their horses'.

“Spinney Cross!” called Lord Aveling.

“Wonder if you're right?” Anne called back.

“For a certainty,” replied Lord Aveling.

Soon the pace increased. The dogs, noses well down, looked more like business. An excited horseman galloped out of a thicket, yelled something nobody could interpret, turned round, and galloped back again. Some followed him. Most did not.

“What did that signify?” inquired Sir James Earnshaw.

“A lunatic or a practical joker,” answered Lord Aveling. “Well, it's thinned the field out a little, so we won't complain. Are you enjoying it, Miss Wilding?”

“Too wonderful!” she cried.

“She won't last long!” murmured Anne. “I'll tell you who
will
be in at the death!”

“Who?” asked Taverley.

“Nadine.…I say, Harold.”

“What?”

“Is she going to make a fool of Mr. Foss? I hope not. I like him.”

“Yes, it would be a pity,” he answered. “I like her, too.”

“So do I—only
she
can face things. That's one reason I admire her. She can give hell, and go through hell, and always emerge with her chin out! Well, don't let's talk about them. Oh, damn—'ware Chater!”

They had been riding a little apart. Now Earnshaw separated himself from Lord Aveling and veered his horse in their direction. Chater was at his heels.

“Get ready for the escape!” muttered Anne.

The others drew up. Private conversation ceased. After a few fragmentary remarks, the quartette travelled in silence, Anne slightly ahead and steering an almost imperceptibly curved course. The curve took them farther and farther away from the main body of followers.

All at once Chater noticed it.

“Are we going right?” he asked.

“My father wouldn't think so,” called Anne. “He's making for Spinney Cross.”

“So are the rest,” Earnshaw pointed out.

“What's
your
hunch?” inquired Chater.

“A little place called Holm,” replied Anne. “Short cut, but rough going. If you don't like jumping, follow in father's footsteps!”

She put her horse at the gallop and made for a low hedge. A few moments after she was sailing over. Taverley followed her. The other two, after a little hesitation, detoured round to an open gap.

“You there?” asked Anne, without looking round.

“Always, when wanted,” replied Taverley, drawing up to her.

“You know, Harold, you're quite a brick,” she said. “Come on! Top gear!”

They flew on. Behind them, steadily losing ground, lumbered Earnshaw and Chater. Neither was a good rider.

“That girl's a fool!” grunted Chater.

Earnshaw made no reply.

“If ever there was one!” continued Chater. “I'd like to teach her a lesson!”

“Perhaps you need one?” suggested Earnshaw.

“Perhaps you do,” retorted Chater, with impudent rudeness. The nerves of both were frayed. “You'd think she was cock of the walk, but I'll bet she's got her vulnerable spot.”

“If she has, you'll find it!” snapped Earnshaw, losing his usual diplomatic composure. “Can't you keep quiet?”

Chater laughed unpleasantly.

“
You
ought to know I can!” he exclaimed derisively.

“Well, don't forget how to do it, or this'll be the last invitation you receive through me! Look, they're going over another hedge. Follow them, and break your neck!”

“Yes, you'd like it if I did, wouldn't you?…What's their damned idea? They're making for a wood!”

In the wood, Taverley put the same question, though less indignantly.

“Is this the way to Holm, Anne?” he asked.

“One way,” she laughed. “But we're not going to Holm!”

“I rather guessed that.”

“Thought you might.” A minute later, when the narrow tree-lined track through which they were threading their way divided, she pointed with her riding-crop to the right fork. “See that sign? It says ‘To Holm.' So we take the left.”

“Wasn't your uncle a general?”

“Yes. Why?”

“You inherit his strategy!”

“Let's pray that it works!”

By the time Earnshaw and Chater reached the spot, they had vanished. Chater swore.

“This is the last bloody hunt I'll ever attend!” he announced prophetically.