The Bertrams Part 46

He turned to Miss Todd, who was now seated near enough to the door to do honour to any late arriving guest, but near enough also to the table to help herself easily to cake. His soul burned within him to utter one anathema against the things that he saw. Miss Todd was still not playing. He might opine that she objected to the practice.

Sir Lionel was still at her back; he also might be a brand that had been rescued from the burning. At a little distance sat Miss Baker; he knew that she at any rate was not violently attached to cards.

Could he not say something? Could he not lift up his voice, if only for a moment, and speak forth as he so loved to do, as was his wont in the meetings of the saints, his brethren?

He looked at Miss Todd, and he raised his eyes, and he raised his hands, but the courage was not in him to speak. There was about Miss Todd as she stood, or as she sat, a firmness which showed itself even in her rotundity, a vigour in the very rubicundity of her cheek which was apt to quell the spirit of those who would fain have interfered with her. So Mr. O'Callaghan, having raised his eyes considerably, and having raised his hands a little, said nothing.

"I fear you do not approve of cards?" said Miss Todd.

"Approve! oh no, how can I approve of them, Miss Todd?"

"Well, I do with all my heart. What are old women like us to do? We haven't eyes to read at night, even if we had minds fit for it. We can't always be saying our prayers. We have nothing to talk about except scandal. It's better than drinking; and we should come to that if we hadn't cards."

"Oh, Miss Todd!"

"You see you have your excitement in preaching, Mr. O'Callaghan.

These card-tables are our pulpits; we have got none other. We haven't children, and we haven't husbands. That is, the most of us. And we should be in a lunatic asylum in six weeks if you took away our cards. Now, will you tell me, Mr. O'Callaghan, what would you expect Miss Ruff to do if you persuaded her to give up whist?"

"She has the poor with her always, Miss Todd."

"Yes, she has; the woman that goes about with a clean ap.r.o.n and four borrowed children; and the dumb man with a bit of chalk and no legs, and the very red nose. She has these, to be sure, and a lot more.

But suppose she looks after them all the day, she can't be looking after them all the night too. The mind must be unbent sometimes, Mr.

O'Callaghan."

"But to play for money, Miss Todd! Is not that gambling?"

"Well, I don't know. I can't say what gambling is. But do you sit down and play for love, Mr. O'Callaghan, and see how soon you'll go to sleep. Come, shall we try? I can have a little private bet, just to keep myself awake, with Sir Lionel, here."

But Mr. O'Callaghan declined the experiment. So he had another cup of tea and another m.u.f.fin, and then went his way; regretting sorely in his heart that he could not get up into a high pulpit and preach at them all. However, he consoled himself by "improving" the occasion on the following Sunday.

For the next fifteen minutes Sir Lionel stood his ground, saying soft nothings to Miss Todd, and then he also became absorbed among the rubbers. He found that Miss Todd was not good at having love made to her in public. She was very willing to be confidential, very willing to receive flattery, attentions, hand-pressings, and the like. But she would make her confidences in her usual joyous, loud voice; and when told that she was looking remarkably well, she would reply that she always did look well at Littlebath, in a tone that could not fail to attract the attention of the whole room. Now Sir Lionel would fain have been a little more quiet in his proceedings, and was forced to put off somewhat of what he had to say till he could find Miss Todd alone on the top of a mountain. 'Twas thus at least that he expressed his thoughts to himself in his chagrin, as he took his place opposite to Mrs. Shortpointz at the seventh and last establishment now formed in the rooms.

The only idlers present were Miss Baker and Miss Todd. Miss Baker was not quite happy in her mind. It was not only that she was depressed about Caroline: her firm belief in the grammatical axiom before alluded to lessened her grief on that score. But the conduct of Sir Lionel made her uncomfortable; and she began to find, without at all understanding why, that she did not like Miss Todd as well as she used to do at Jerusalem. Her heart took Mr. O'Callaghan's side in that little debate about the cards; and though Sir Lionel, in leaving Miss Todd, did not come to her, nevertheless the movement was agreeable to her. She was not therefore in her very highest spirits when Miss Todd came and sat close to her on the sofa.

"I am so sorry you should be out," said Miss Todd. "But you see, I've had so much to do at the door there, that I couldn't see who was sitting down with who."

"I'd rather be out," said Miss Baker. "I am not quite sure that Mr.

O'Callaghan is not right." This was her revenge.

"No; he's not a bit right, my dear. He does--just what the man says in the rhymes--what is it? you know--makes up for his own little peccadilloes by d.a.m.ning yours and mine. I forget how it goes. But there'll be more in by-and-by, and then we'll have another table.

Those who come late will be more in your line; not so ready to peck your eyes out if you happen to forget a card. That Miss Ruff is dreadful." Here an awful note was heard, for the Lady Ruth had just put her thirteenth trump on Miss Ruff's thirteenth heart. What Littlebathian female soul could stand that unmoved?

"Oh, dear! that poor old woman!" continued Miss Todd. "You know one lives in constant fear of her having a fit. Miss Ruff is horrible.

She has a way of looking with that fixed eye of hers that is almost worse than her voice." The fact was, that Miss Ruff had one gla.s.s eye. "I know she'll be the death of that poor old creature some of these days. Lady Ruth will play, and she hardly knows one card from another. And then Miss Ruff, she will scold. Good heavens! do you hear that?"

"It's just seven minutes since I turned the last trick of the last hand," Miss Ruff had said, scornfully. "We shall have finished the two rubbers about six in the morning, I take it."

"Will your ladyship allow me to deal for you?" said Mr. Fuzzybell, meaning to be civil.

"I'll allow you to do no such thing," croaked out Lady Ruth. "I can deal very well myself; at any rate as well as Miss Ruff. And I'm not the least in a hurry;" and she went on s...o...b..ring out the cards, and counting them over and over again, almost as each card fell.

"That's a double and a treble against a single," said Lady Longspade, cheerfully, from another table; "six points, and five--the other rubber--makes eleven; and the two half-crowns is sixteen, and seven odd tricks is nineteen and six. Here's sixpence, Mrs. Fuzzybell; and now we'll cut again."

This was dreadful to Miss Ruff. Here had her rival played two rubbers, won them both, pocketed all but a sovereign, and was again at work; while she, she was still painfully toiling through her second game, the first having been scored against her by her partner's fatuity in having trumped her long heart. Was this to be borne with patience? "Lady Ruth," she said, emitting fire out of her one eye, "do you ever mean to have done dealing those cards?"

Lady Ruth did not condescend to make any answer, but recommenced her leisurely counting; and then Miss Ruff uttered that terrific screech which had peculiarly excited Miss Todd's attention.

"I declare I don't like it at all," said the tender-hearted Miss Baker. "I think Mr. O'Callaghan was quite right."

"No, my dear, he was quite wrong, for he blamed the use of cards, not the abuse. And after all, what harm comes of it? I don't suppose Miss Ruff will actually kill her. I dare say if we were playing ourselves we shouldn't notice it. Do you play cribbage? Shall we have a little cribbage?" But Miss Baker did not play cribbage; or, at any rate, she said that she did not.

"And do tell me something about dear Caroline," continued Miss Todd.

"I am so anxious to see her. But it has been a very long engagement, hasn't it? and there ought to be lots of money, oughtn't there? But I suppose it's all right. You know I was very much in love with young Bertram myself; and made all manner of overtures to him, but quite in vain; ha! ha! ha! I always thought him a very fine fellow, and I think her a very lucky girl. And when is it to be? And, do tell me, is she over head and ears in love with him?"

What was Miss Baker to say to this? She had not the slightest intention of making Miss Todd a confidante in the matter: certainly not now, as that lady was inclined to behave so very improperly with Sir Lionel; and yet she did not know how to answer it.

"I hope it won't be put off much longer," continued Miss Todd. "Is any day fixed yet?"

"No; no day is fixed yet," replied Miss Baker, blushing.

Miss Todd's ear was very quick. "There is nothing the matter, I trust. Well, I won't ask any questions, nor say a word to anybody.

Come, there is a table vacant, and we will cut in." And then she determined that she would get it all out from Sir Lionel.

The parties at some of the tables were now changed, and Miss Baker and Miss Todd found themselves playing together. Miss Baker, too, loved a gentle little rubber, if she could enjoy it quietly, without fear of being gobbled up by any Ruff or any Longspade; and with Miss Todd she was in this matter quite safe. She might behave as badly as had the Lady Ruth, and Miss Todd would do no worse than laugh at her.

Miss Todd did not care about her points, and at her own house would as soon lose as win; so that Miss Baker would have been happy had she not still continued to sigh over her friend's very improper flirtation with Sir Lionel.

And thus things went on for an hour or so. Every now and again a savage yell was heard from some ill-used angry lady, and low growls, prolonged sometimes through a whole game, came from different parts of the room; but n.o.body took any notice of them; 'twas the manner at Littlebath: and, though a stranger to the place might have thought, on looking at those perturbed faces, and hearing those uncourteous sounds, that there would be a flow of blood--such a flow as angry nails may produce--the denizens of the place knew better. So the rubbers went on with the amount of harmony customary to the place.

But the scene would have been an odd one for a non-playing stranger, had a non-playing stranger been there to watch it. Every person in the room was engaged at whist except Mrs. Flounce, who still remained quiescent behind her tea and cakes. It did not happen that the party was made up of a number of exact fours. There were two over; two middle-aged ladies, a maiden and a widow: and they, perhaps more happy than any of the others, certainly more silent for neither of them had a partner to scold, were hard at work at double-dummy in a corner.

It was a sight for a stranger! It is generally thought that a sad _ennui_ pervades the life of most of those old ladies in England to whom fate has denied the usual cares and burdens of the world, or whose cares and burdens are done and gone. But there was no _ennui_ here. No stockjobber on 'Change could go about his exciting work with more animating eagerness. There were those who scolded, and those who were scolded. Those who sat silent, being great of mind, and those who, being weak, could not restrain their notes of triumph or their notes of woe; but they were all of them as animated and intense as a tiger springing at its prey. Watch the gleam of joy that lights up the half-dead, sallow countenance of old Mrs. Shortpointz as she finds the ace of trumps at the back of her hand, the very last card.

Happy, happy Mrs. Shortpointz! Watch the triumph which illumines even the painted cheeks and half-hidden wrinkles of Lady Longspade as she brings in at the end of the hand three winning little clubs, and sees kings and queens fall impotent at their call. Triumphant, successful Lady Longspade! Was Napoleon more triumphant, did a brighter glow of self-satisfied inward power cross his features, when at Ulm he succeeded in separating poor Mack from all his friends?

Play on ladies. Let us not begrudge you your amus.e.m.e.nts. We do not hold with pious Mr. O'Callaghan, that the interchange of a few sixpences is a grievous sin. At other hours ye are still soft, charitable, and tender-hearted; tender-hearted as English old ladies are, and should be. But, dear ladies, would it not be well to remember the amenities of life--even at the whist-table?

So things went on for an hour or so, and then Miss Baker and Sir Lionel again found themselves separated from the card-tables, a lonely pair. It had been Sir Lionel's cue this evening to select Miss Todd for his special attentions; but he had found Miss Todd at the present moment to be too much a public character for his purposes.

She had a sort of way of speaking to all her guests at once, which had doubtless on the whole an extremely hilarious effect, but which was not flattering to the _amour propre_ of a special admirer. So, _faute de mieux_, Sir Lionel was content to sit down in a corner with Miss Baker. Miss Baker was also content; but she was rather uneasy as to how she should treat the subject of Caroline's quarrel with her lover.

"Of course you saw George to-day?" she began.

"Yes, I did see him; but that was all. He seemed to be in a tremendous hurry, and said he must be back in town to-night. He's not staying, is he?"

"No; he's not staying."

"I didn't know: when I saw that dear Caroline was not with you, I thought she might perhaps have better company at home."

"She was not very well. George went back to London before dinner."

"Nothing wrong, I hope?"

"Well, no; I hope not. That is--you haven't heard anything about it, have you, Sir Lionel?"