Courts of Idleness (6 page)

At seven o’clock that evening four large chairs stood in a row on the cobbled drive, close to the main entrance to the hotel. The Brokes and Betty saw them, as they came in to dress. They had all been at the Casino.

Their annoyance to notice that the chairs were all of the same size was intense. They were theirs, too; the labels showed that.

Disappointedly they passed into the hotel.

Five minutes later Fairie appeared in the company of the King’s Counsel.

“Are these your chairs?” said the latter.

“They’re not the ones I paid for,” said Bill uneasily. Then he examined the labels.

“Well?” said the man of law.

Fairie sighed.

“Your prayers,” he said, “are desired for the fool who sent these chairs. He has not long to live.”

They had nearly finished dinner, when: “I see the chairs have come,” said Fairie carelessly.

“Yes,” said his wife. “Aren’t you grateful to us for—”

“What d’you mean?” said Fairie. “If it hadn’t been for my providence—”

“Yours?” cried Fay. “Why, you forgot all about them.”

Fairie put down his glass and looked at her.

“If selecting, ordering, and paying for no less than four slumber-suggesting—”

“But we ordered them, too,” said Robin.

“Then those are yours outside,” said Fairie.

“We – er – thought, perhaps, they were yours,” stammered Robin.

“No,” said Fairie. “Mine were different. I mean—”

“So were ours,” said Betty. “Those aren’t the chairs we ordered.”

For a moment they stared at one another. Then:

“Come along,” said her husband. “We’re about the last, as usual. We can thrash this out on the verandah.”

With one consent they rose and passed out of the room, threading their way between the tables in single file.

In what was, perhaps, the most prominent place upon the great verandah stood four baby chairs, conspicuously and respectively labelled “Mrs Fairie,” “Miss Broke,” “R Broke,” and “W Fairie.” Immediately opposite them, his back to the balustrade, lolled the King’s Counsel, beaming over a long cigar and patently contemplating the ridiculous quartette with immense gratification. In the shadow of a tall pillar the lady of the mongrel was shaking with suppressed merriment. The dictates of good taste forbade steady and undisguised observation on the part of the other visitors, but there was on all sides an air of expectation and ‘awaiting results,’ and as the Brokes and the Fairies, all unsuspecting, emerged from the lounge, the interested smiles broadened and here and there the conversation died down. Discerning the long form of the lawyer twenty odd paces away, Betty, naturally enough, started towards him, and, that nothing might be wanting to fill their cup of confusion to the full – “Anyway,” Fay was saying, “we may as well have the chairs put here, even if—”

A stifled cry from Betty made her look up, and the sentence died on her lips. She caught at her brother’s arm.

“What’s the matter?” said Robin. “Good heavens!”

The last to perceive the chairs was Fairie. For an instant his face lighted. The ones he had ordered, after all! The next moment he saw there were four. He recoiled literally.

With an elaborate wave of his cigar, The White Hope indicated the row, the smile of smiles upon his legal face.

“The seats of the mighty,” he drawled. “Won’t you sit down?”

Their sense of humour asserting itself, Betty and Fay began to laugh helplessly. Bill pulled himself together.

“I prefer to stand,” he said simply. “Besides, I never take the chair.”

“It is a mistake to confine yourself to biscuits,” observed the lawyer. “Believe me, you would more than fill the position.”

“The truth is,” said Fairie, “I’m afraid it would cramp my style.”

“I hope you’re not awfully good,” said Miss Fettering, “because I’m—”

“But we are,” said Fairie. “Our moral rectitude is almost staggering. When I tell you that our record includes four highest awards—”

“Oh, I know. I guessed that from your haloes. I meant, good at tennis.”

“I see,” said Fairie. “Of course, that’s rather different. All the same, no champion has beaten me yet.”

“Perhaps that’s because you’ve never played one.”

“Possibly. But a cousin of mine used to live at Wimbledon. For the others – Broke plays too much with the wood, while my wife’s game is beneath contempt.”

Miss Fettering threw back her head and laughed merrily.

“What’s he saying about me?”

Robin Broke, walking ahead with Betty, flung the question over his shoulder.

“It’s all right, brother,” Fairie assured him. “I was only describing that wonderful racket shot of yours from the back line. The one that always finds the court, if the net’s not too high.”

His cousin sighed. Then:

“I feel in form today,” he said. “Does your Accident policy cover you out of England?”

Light-heartedly the four were making their way down through the garden, voices and the rustle of the two skirts alone marking their progress. There was no sound of footsteps, their rubber soles meeting the polished paths in silence. Fay Broke had insisted that she must write letters, a habit she had formed as a girl at school, and one of which the others, counting it vicious, had vainly endeavoured to break her time and again.

Among women the writing of letters is something akin to intemperance. Some go about it privily, in the seclusion of their apartment, and the silence of night. Others, more shameless, openly succumb to temptation, and, making no secret of the failing, indulge it brazenly. For such, temporarily, company and its calls may go by the board. When the fit is upon them, considerations of time and place weigh with them not at all. There and then the epistolary lust must be gratified at any price. After some hours they arise from the debauch dazedly, overdone, fatigued for the rest of the day. Reaction is bound to set in. The after effects must be slept off.

Fay, then, being engaged with her correspondence, Miss Fettering, Fairie’s acquaintance and cousin of Dorothy Lair, had readily consented to make up the four. The girl seemed frankly glad of her new-found friends. Except for a ‘companion,’ who only appeared at meals, she was staying alone in the hotel.

They play much tennis in the island of Rih, and most of the courts are situate amid surroundings of great beauty. That for which the four were making was no exception to the rule.

Sunk deep in the heart of a fair flower-garden, a smooth, white-lined sheet of asphalt stretched evenly from side to side, its spruce net dividing it half-way. The low grey walls that fenced the place about – netting like a faint gauze rising above them – were hung with living arras, ragged, maybe, but in fresh, gorgeous colouring beyond measure rich. Full thirty feet the flaming orange of a bignonia rioted over the stonework, scrambling to meet and mingle with the deep magenta of a mighty bougainvillea, whose blossoms stand for Royalty among the flowers of Rih. Far on the other side showed the pale purple of wisteria, looking like some soft silken drapery fallen from a goddess’ tiring-room, which, floating slowly downward, had come to rest elegantly over a corner of the tennis court – tattered a little, for, as it fell, odd boughs of over-leaning trees seemed to have caught its edges. Little wonder that the delicate fabric could not bear the strain, but tore and ripped noiselessly as it settled down, leaving dainty trails to swing and droop gracefully from the branches above. A little of the court was shadowed by the tall trees standing about it, but for the most part it lay open to the hot sun.

Not much of a place for tennis, you will be saying. Perhaps. It would not do at Wimbledon. But then there are times when the game of tennis, like that of Life, need not be taken too seriously, when we can forgive the loss of a dropping ball against an improper background for the sake of the rare loveliness of which that same background is so irregularly made up.

“Of course,” said Bill Fairie, “there are courts and courts. This is one of the latter.”

“It makes me think of Omar Khayyám,” said Betty dreamily.

“Yes,” said Robin. “‘They say the Lion and the Lizard keep The Courts where Jamsh´yd gloried and drank deep.’ The very place. Only they’re wrong about the lion.” He turned to Miss Fettering. “Jamsh´yd used to glory over by that side line, you know.”

“Not really?”

Broke nodded.

“A brass plate is to be let in there this autumn. Not that they want anything to remember him by, for the nets on this court are always tight. Here,” he added suddenly, “when you’ve quite finished with my racket…”

Fairie stopped whirling it to scrutinize the gut. It might have been tauter, certainly. After a moment:

“You must forgive me,” he said. “I thought it was a landing-net.”

“You needn’t swank,” said Robin, pointing to the scarf about his cousin’s waist. “You’re not the only member of the Cyclists’ Touring Club.”

“Wrong again,” said Bill. “These are the colours of the Post Office Telephone Subscribers Protection Society. Arms: A conversation couped, between an oath imbrued issuant, az. and a blasted trunk charged on the nail, or. Crest: A line engaged proper. Motto: Fair Exchange is No Robbery.”

He stopped. Miss Fettering was laughing helplessly. With difficulty stifling a desire to join in her merriment, Betty and Broke exchanged significant glances.

“Thinks he’s back at the Poplar Empire,” said Broke. “Let’s pretend not to notice it.”

A slim brown boy, perhaps eleven years old, slid shyly out of the bushes and stepped down on to the asphalt. Barefoot, he stood leaning against the creepered wall, one finger to his white teeth. For an instant he looked at the four, making ready to play; then he dropped his dark eyes, smiling a little. It was his naïve way of offering his services.

“Aha,” said Fairie, “a gatherer of balls errant. A seeker of lost spheres. Almost an astronomer. ’Tis well. Consider yourself engaged, my lad. The play, I may say, will he fast, possibly furious. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“How shall we play?” said Betty. “I think Miss Fettering and you’d better take on Robin and me.”

“Every time, m’dear,” replied her husband. “And now – Hullo!” He stopped to wave with his racket in the direction of a large size in German Jews, who had strolled on to the court, and was standing apparently wrapped in proud contemplation of his own faculty of perspiration. “To one side, O Israel. What’s the German for ‘Get out or get under’?”

“Try
achtung
,” said Miss Fettering.

Bill tried it with some success. With a grunt the trespasser retired ponderously. A moment later the game had begun.

By the time that Fay Broke had written her letters it was getting on for noon. She strolled down into the garden, but the others had apparently had their fill of tennis, for they were nowhere to be seen. The court itself was occupied by two people. One was a lady visitor, who might well have been taken for thirty-five, had she not been behaving as if she were fifteen; the other, a young man, who, because he had struck a bad opponent, seemed to think himself rather good, but was endeavouring politely to look as if he were having the game of his life. It occurred to Fay that, allowing for his Oxford manner, it was a rather creditable attempt. On a long stone seat four players waited amusedly for the conclusion of the set.

Thoughtfully Fay strolled back to the hotel. Inquiry at the office showed that the Fairies had sent for a taxi, and, with the Fettering girl and Robin, had gone down town; so she fetched a novel and once more descended into the garden. Five minutes later she was lying easily in somebody else’s chair – her own was up on the verandah – on a tiny retired terrace, little more than a ledge set upon the edge of the cliff. It was so hidden that you might pass the path that led to it – and no further – a score of times, nor even dream that, if you followed it, your curiosity would be so well repaid.

The novel was not very interesting, but the air was warm and gentle, while the sea was making a lazy noise a long way below. Moreover, remember, Fay had been writing letters. On the whole, it would have been almost surprising if she had not fallen asleep.

A quarter of an hour later she opened her eyes. The first thing they rested upon was a good-looking man of about thirty summers, clean-shaven and very brown, clad in a plain white flannel suit. His grey hat lay on the curving seat beside him, and there was an unlighted cigarette between his lips. He sat with an arm on the parapet, gazing over the sea. The next second he turned to look at her.

“She’s awake,” he said, with an easy smile, that came into his strong face so naturally that Fay found herself wondering if he could ever look hard or cold-hearted. “And now” – for a moment he hesitated – “excuse me, but you don’t happen to be my sister, do you?”

For a moment Fay stared at him. Then:

“Not that I know of,” she said.

The man regarded her with an air of amused disappointment. Then:

“I am sorry,” he said. “I suppose you’re quite sure about it.”

“Absolutely. But I oughtn’t to have to tell you that, ought I? Don’t you know your own sister when you see her?”

Her companion shook his head.

“That’s the trouble,” he said. “I know she’s in Rih, and staying at ‘The Bristol,’ but that’s all, I’ve been looking for her ever since I landed, nearly an hour ago. I made sure you were her,” he added musingly, “directly I saw you. To tell you the truth, I very nearly kissed you, I felt so certain about it.”

“Did you though?”

“Fact,” said the other coolly. “Only it seemed a shame to wake you. That’s why I didn’t strike a match. May I smoke, please?”

“I don’t suppose the manager will mind.”

“I don’t care if he does. Do you?”

“It doesn’t matter about me,” said Fay. “I’m going.”

With that she picked up her novel.

The other was on his feet in an instant.

“Don’t dream of moving,” he said. “For one thing, you look so lovely like that. Besides, I’m just going to leave you, only I’d rather like to explain first. That is if you’ll let me.”

Fay regarded him steadily. Then she laid down the book.

“Well?” she said.

It was all simple enough.

He had not set eyes upon his sister for seven years. And she had been barely fourteen, and young for her age, when he had been sent straight from Oxford to enter the Indian house of a great English firm.

“My uncle’s, you see. The idea was, I was to come home after two years. And I would have, too, only the head of the Indian house died a week before I was to have sailed. I had to take control – at twenty-five. There was no one else… I loved it, but it meant another five years. I nearly came home once, but there was trouble in the air, and – I didn’t.”

He paused, meditatively regarding his cigarette. “Well?” said Fay, this time a note of interest in her voice.

“Well, now the old chap’s retiring, and I’m home to manage the English house. His sons, my cousins, have taken on my job. They’ve been out there under me for the last three years. And I’ve come a month earlier than I was going to. They never knew at home till I was well on my way, and in Paris I got a letter saying the child was at Rih, so I cleared out to Lisbon right away and took the first boat across. We’ve no people, you know, she and I.”

“I see,” said Fay gently.

“When I landed I came straight to the hotel and asked for her. They said she was here all right, and, they thought, in the garden. So I’m just looking.”

“And making shots?”

“That’s it. Of course, I ought to have sent her a cable. She’ll have changed, naturally. When I saw her last, she had her hair down. Let’s see, fourteen and seven’s twenty-one. You must be just about her age.”

“Twenty-three.”

“Grey-eyed, too,” he added musingly, “and the same lovely hair. Oh, I am sorry you’re not her. I’m afraid she won’t be half as beautiful. I only wish—”

“What?” said Fay, smiling.

“I wish I hadn’t been so particular. About not waking you, I mean.”

“That’ll do,” said Fay. “As a matter of fact, I rather think your sister’s gone into Starra, but she’ll be back for lunch.”

Surrey Fettering opened his mouth suddenly. Then:

“You know her?” he said. “But how—”

“Of course, I may be wrong,” said Fay dreamily, gazing with half-closed eyes over the dazzling sea.

“Which means, you know you’re not,” said the other. “When a woman admits she may be wrong, it means she knows she’s right.”

A faint smile crept into Fay Broke’s face. Also she raised her eyebrows a little. But she still looked ahead and away over the dancing sea. The man regarded her pleasedly. Then:

“Yes,” he said, “my name is Fettering.” The smile deepened and the brows went a shade higher. “Of course, you had something to go on, and your instinct made you sure. Wonderful thing, instinct,” he added musingly. “Will you have a cigarette?”

Instinct. Of that strange subtle sense, which only women have, we are wont to speak over-lightly. It is no mean asset, if you please, this ability to peer, perhaps unconsciously, into a man’s brain. In a war of wits the man knows what he is going to say. Often enough not so the woman. But, what is much more important, she, too, knows what the man is going to say. To tell the truth, he might as well lay his cards upon the table. Nearly always she knows what they are. If they be good ones, steady, relentless play may wear her down, may… And he need not be too sure about his victory even then. As often as not it is a defeat which she has tricked up, till he is deceived altogether. The battle is not always to the strong hand.

In a silence that was big with laughter, Fay Broke accepted a cigarette. After lighting it for her, Fettering resumed his seat on the low slab built into the curling wall.

“But don’t you think you ought to begin looking again?” said Fay. “For your sister, I mean.”

Fettering shook his head.