Тринадцать гостей / Thirteen Guests

“So I have!”

“What makes you think Lord Aveling won’t kick against having a stranger lumped upon him, even temporarily?”

“Three things, my dear man. Is that too familiar? One, Lord Aveling. Conservatives with ambition are splendid hosts. Two, myself. I’ve an instinct—and Lord Aveling likes me, and knows I’d never let him down. Three—isn’t that an old school tie?”

This time he laughed.

“Satisfied?” she laughed back.

“Sounds pretty good,” he admitted.

“Thank God for that,” sighed Nadine. “Because here we are, and there’s no turning back now. By the way, what’s your name?”

Chapter II. Inventory

Half an hour later John Foss, bandaged and stretched out on a rose-coloured settee, reviewed his position.

He had been received at Bragley Court with the utmost ease and courtesy. Indeed, when he realised the vastness of the space in which Lord and Lady Aveling moved, he became a little less anxious over the dislocation he would cause. His advent at the Black Stag or the Cricketers’ Arms might have created a flutter, but Bragley Court gave no outward sign of vulgar emotion. The indoor and outdoor staff numbered twenty-six, and each member had been trained to meet any situation or emergency with smoothness and efficiency. Emotionally there was no difference between passing a toast-rack and conveying a stranger with a crocked ankle from a car to a couch.

Nevertheless, he was conscious that something more important than efficient service had dealt with his arrival and had sanctioned it. He might have been treated courteously as a necessary evil—his sensitive mind would quickly have fathomed that—but instead Lord Aveling had appeared in person while the doctor did unpleasant things to his leg, and had even half-humorously held the end of a bandage for the doctor, thereby proving (as Nadine pointed out later) that he, also, could be influenced by an old school tie.

Then, when the doctor had concluded his task, and had impressed on an elderly woman hovering in the background the necessity of frequent applications of surgical spirit, Lord Aveling had insisted that it would be wise for him to remain on the settee a while longer.

“You won’t be in the way here,” he said. “We can move you to your room later.”

“He will have to be moved very carefully,” commented the doctor.

“Why move him at all?” suggested Nadine. “Why not move the couch? When I missed my fence two years ago, I was rolled for the night into the ante-room.”

“Excellent idea,” agreed Lord Aveling. “Some time after tea.”

“Yes, when the poor man gets tired of being looked at,” smiled Nadine.

Lord Aveling had departed amiably. “The right sort,” ran his thoughts. “Good family, obviously. Interesting. Not many youngsters this week-end. Bultin coming down by next train. Make good paragraph. Yes, Bultin will use it. Another example of Aveling hospitality. Followed by list of guests. Wonder if this was the right week-end for Zena Wilding? And the Chaters? Still, of course, I had to have the Chaters.... Pity this young chap makes the thirteenth....”

But welcome alone did not reign in the spacious lounge-hall that glowed in the late afternoon sunshine and flickered in the light of an enormous log-fire. Something brooded as well. The shadows seemed to contain uneasy secrets, and none of the people John had so far met reflected complete mental ease. Lady Aveling, when she had momentarily deserted a card-table in the drawing-room for a kindly peep at the casualty, had appeared nervously anxious to get back again. Two guests—a thin, angular, cynical man in a black velvet coat and large artist’s tie, and a short, stout, grey-haired man of the retired-pork-butcher-and-made-a-damn-lot-out-of-it type (he had made a cool hundred thousand out of it, which alone explained his presence here)—struck a vaguely jarring note when they passed through the hall together. The elderly woman deputed to apply surgical spirit at intervals had been grim. A pretty maid on her way up the carved staircase with a tray had been flushed. A butler had followed her to the stairs, and then turned round and vanished.

“Something’s wrong,” reflected John. “What is it?”

He wondered whether the two new people who were just entering the hall would continue the impression.

They were a man and a girl in riding kit, and they bore the dust and atmosphere of hard going. The girl’s cheeks were tingling from her ride, and she instinctively brushed her hand across her forehead as she entered, as though to sweep away the sudden fuggy warmth of the blazing logs. She was beautiful, in a slim boyish way, and although she looked well in her dark green riding habit, a stranger longed instinctively to see her in more definitely feminine attire. It was odd that a certain hardness around her mouth, a hardness held there by the set of her lips, did not detract from her beauty. Possibly because one could not quite believe it.

The man, large and well-built, reminded you pleasantly of cricket, which in fact he played.

“Half-past four,” said the girl, glancing at a clock on her way to the wide staircase.

“Does that mean tea in your room?” inquired the man, pausing to light a cigarette.

“No, I’ll be down,” she replied. “But the bath comes first. These things are sticking to me.”

The settee on which John lay was fitted into a shadowed angle of the wall. The sun was slipping down behind a distant wood, preluding quick gloaming, and a servant entered the lounge-hall and switched on lights. The girl at the foot of the staircase turned her head and saw the patient.

John endured an awkward moment. It occurred to him that perhaps, after all, the routine of Bragley Court had its little flaws. It should have protected him against the necessity of explaining himself. Yet it was unreasonable to expect some one to be in perpetual attendance on him, and even Lord Aveling’s generously-planned staff did not run to a Cook’s guide. So, after enduring the girl’s curious scrutiny for a moment or two, he remarked bluntly:

“I’ve had an accident, and Lord Aveling’s been good enough to give me temporary shelter.”

“Bad luck,” said the man. “Not riding, was it?”

“No—a prosaic train. I jumped out while it was moving, and it tried to take my foot on to the next station.”

The man smiled, and held out his case.

“Have one?” he invited. “We smoke anywhere. Reassure him, Anne.”

The girl advanced with a little nod.

“Of course—quite in order,” she said. “I am Lord Aveling’s daughter. And this is Mr. Harold Taverley.”

“Thanks awfully,” answered John. The momentary awkwardness created by these two had vanished very quickly. “It does help knowing! Mine’s John Foss. And my whole object in life just now is not to be a confounded nuisance. Please don’t delay that bath.”

Anne laughed. Her mouth lost its hardness. She turned and ran upstairs. But her companion lingered.

“Don’t you feel sticky?” asked John.

“Oh, I’ve got a few minutes,” replied Taverley. He had a clear, full voice, but rarely raised it. The retired Pork King could only make his carry when he shouted. “I suppose there’s nothing I can do?”

“Well—yes, there is,” said John impulsively. This was the kind of fellow you could talk to. “I’d like to know something about the people here. One feels such a fool, you know. Rather like a monkey in a zoo.”

“I know,” smiled Taverley. “That is, if monkeys really do feel like that.” He squatted on a stool. “I suppose you’ll be staying a bit?”

“There’s been some talk of rolling me into an ante-room for the night. Everybody’s frightfully decent.”

“The ante-room? That’s where—” He paused. “Well, let’s run over the inventory. Who’ve you seen so far?”

“Lord Aveling.”

“He’s easy. Fifth baron. Hopes to be first marquis or earl. Conservative. I hope politics don’t make you feel suicidal?”

“One has to bear them; but I’m not particularly interested.”

“Just as well. You’ll be able to keep out of arguments. Have you seen Lady Aveling?” John nodded. “She needn’t worry you. She follows her husband’s lead. The daughter you’ve just met. The Honourable Anne. Keen on horses. Hunting people here, you know. And golfing. Private course. Anne can drive two hundred.”

“I like her,” said John.

“She’s O.K.” Taverley paused for an instant, then added: “She liked you.”

“You made up your mind quickly!”