Читать книгу The Yellow Dove - George Gibbs - Страница 4

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Lady Betty Heathcote had a reputation in which she took pride for giving successful dinners in a neighborhood where successful dinners were a rule rather than an exception. Her prescription was simple and consisted solely in compounding her social elements by strenuous mixing. She had a faculty for discovering cubs with incipient manes and saw them safely grown without mishap. At her house in Park Lane, politics, art, literature, and science rubbed elbows. Here pictures had been born, plays had had their real premières, novels had been devised, and poems without number, not a few of which were indited to My Lady Betty’s eyebrow, here first saw the light of day.

For all her dynamic energy in a variety of causes, most of them wise, all of them altruistic, Lady Betty had the rare faculty of knowing when to be restful. Tired Cabinet ministers, overworked lords of the Admiralty, leaders in all parties, knew that in Park Lane there would be no questions asked which it would not be possible to answer, that there was always an excellent dinner to be had without frills, a lounge in a quiet room, or, indeed, a pair of pyjamas and a bed if necessary.

But since the desperate character of the war with Germany had been driven home into the hearts of the people of London, a change had taken place in the complexion of many private entertainments and the same serious air which was to be noted in the mien of well-informed people of all classes upon the street was reflected in the faces of her guests. Her scientists were engrossed with utilitarian problems. Her literary men were sending vivid word-pictures of ruined Rheims and Louvain to their brothers across the Atlantic, and her Cabinet ministers conversed less than usual, addressing themselves with a greater particularity to her roasts or her spare bedrooms. Torn between many duties, as patroness to bazaars, as head of a variety of sewing guilds, as president of the new association for the training and equipment of nurses, Lady Heathcote herself showed signs of the wear and tear of an extraordinary situation, but she managed to meet it squarely by using every ounce of her abundant energy and every faculty of her resourceful mind.

Many secrets were hers, both political and departmental, but she kept them nobly, aware that she lived in parlous times, when an unconsidered word might do a damage irreparable. Agents of the enemy, she knew, had been discovered in every walk of life, and while she lived in London’s innermost circle, she knew that even her own house might not have been immune from visitors whose secret motives were open to question. It was, therefore, with the desire to reassure herself as to the unadulterated loyalty of her intimates that she had carefully scrutinized her dinner lists, eliminating all uncertain quantities through whom or by whom the unreserved character of the conversation across her board might in any way be jeopardized. So it was that tonight’s dinner-table had something of the complexion of a family party, in which John Rizzio, the bright particular star in London’s firmament of Art, was to lend his effulgence. John Rizzio, dean of collectors, whose wonderful house in Berkeley Square rivaled the British Museum and the Wallace Collection combined, an Italian by birth, an Englishman by adoption, who because of his public benefactions had been offered a knighthood and had refused it; John Rizzio, who had been an intimate of King Edward, a friend of Cabinet ministers, who knew as much about the inner workings of the Government as majesty itself. Long a member of Lady Heathcote’s circle, it had been her custom to give him a dinner on the anniversary of the day of the acquisition of the most famous picture in his collection, “The Conningsby Venus,” which had, before the death of the old Earl, been the aim of collectors throughout the world.

As usual the selection of her guests had been left to Rizzio, whose variety of taste in friendships could have been no better shown than in the company which now graced Lady Heathcote’s table. The Earl and Countess of Kipshaven, the one artistic, the other literary; their daughter the Honorable Jacqueline Morley; Captain Byfield, a retired cavalry officer now on special duty at the War Office; Lady Joyliffe, who had lost her Earl at Mons, an interesting widow, the bud of whose new affections was already emerging from her weeds; John Sandys, under-secretary for foreign affairs, the object of those affections; Miss Doris Mather, daughter of the American cotton king, who was known for doing unusual things, not the least of which was her recent refusal of the hand of John Rizzio, one of London’s catches, and the acceptance of that of the Honorable Cyril Hammersley, the last to be mentioned member of this distinguished company, gentleman sportsman and man about town, who as everybody knew would never set the world afire.

No one knew how this miracle had happened, for Doris Mather’s brains were above the ordinary; she had a discriminating taste in books and a knowledge of pictures, and just before dinner, upstairs in a burst of confidence she had given her surprised hostess an idea of what a man should be.

“He should be clever, Betty,” she sighed, “a worker, a dreamer of great dreams, a firebrand in every good cause, a patriot willing to fight to the last drop of his blood——”

Lady Betty’s laughter disconcerted her and she paused.

“And that is why you chose the Honorable Cyril?”

Miss Mather compressed her lips and frowned at her image in the mirror.

“Don’t be nasty, Betty. I couldn’t marry a man as old as John Rizzio.”

Lady Betty only laughed again.

“Forgive me, dear, but it really is most curious. I wouldn’t laugh if you hadn’t been so careful to describe to me all the virtues that Cyril—hasn’t.”

Doris powdered the end of her nose thoughtfully.

“I suppose they’re all a myth—men like that. They simply don’t exist—that’s all.”

Lady Betty pinned a final jewel on her bodice.

“I’m sure John Rizzio is flattered at your choice. Cyril is an old dear. But to marry! I’d as soon take the automatic chess player. Why are you going to marry Cyril, Doris?” she asked.

A long pause and more powder.

“I’m not sure that I am. I don’t even know why I thought him possible. I think it’s the feeling of the potter for his clay. Something might be made of him. He seems so helpless somehow. Men of his sort always are. I’d like to mother him. Besides”—and she flashed around on her hostess brightly—“he does sit a horse like a centaur.”

“He’s also an excellent shot, a good chauffeur, a tolerable dancer and the best bat in England, all agreeable talents in a gentleman of fashion but—er—hardly——” Lady Betty burst into laughter. “Good Lord, Doris! Cyril a firebrand!”

Doris Mather eyed her hostess reproachfully and moved toward the door into the hallway.

“Come, Betty,” she said with some dignity, “are you ready to go down?”

All of which goes to show that matches are not made in Heaven and that the motives of young women in making important decisions are actuated by the most unimportant details. Hammersley’s good fortune was still a secret except to Miss Mather’s most intimate friends, but the conviction was slowly growing in the mind of the girl that unless Cyril stopped sitting around in tweeds when everybody else was getting into khaki, the engagement would never be announced. As the foreign situation had grown more serious she had seen other men who weighed less than Cyril throw off the boredom of their London habits and go soldiering into France. But the desperate need of his country for able-bodied men had apparently made no impression upon the placid mind of the Honorable Cyril. It was as unruffled as a highland lake in mid-August. He had contributed liberally from his large means to Lady Heathcote’s Ambulance Fund, but his manner had become, if anything, more bored than ever.

Miss Mather entered the drawing-room thoughtfully with the helpless feeling of one who, having made a mistake, pauses between the alternatives of tenacity and recantation. And yet as soon as she saw him a little tremor of pleasure passed over her. In spite of his drooping pose, his vacant stare, his obvious inadequacy she was sure there was something about Cyril Hammersley that made him beyond doubt the most distinguished-looking person in the room—not even excepting Rizzio.

He came over to her at once, the monocle dropping from his eye.

“Aw’fly glad. Jolly good to see you, m’dear. Handsome no end.”

He took her hand and bent over her fingers. Such a broad back he had, such a finely shaped head, such shoulders, such strong hands that were capable of so much but had achieved so little. And were these all that she could have seen in him? Reason told her that it was her mind that demanded a mate. Could it be that she was in love with a beautiful body?

There was something pathetic in the way he looked at her. She felt very sorry for him, but Betty Heathcote’s laughter was still ringing in her ears.

“Thanks, Cyril,” she said coolly. “I’ve wanted to see you—tonight—to tell you that at last I’ve volunteered with the Red Cross.”

Hammersley peered at her blankly and then with a contortion set his eyeglass.

“Red Cross—you! Oh, I say now, Doris, that’s goin’ it rather thick on a chap——”

“It’s true. Father’s fitting out an ambulance corps and has promised to let me go.”

John Rizzio, tall, urbane, dark and cynical, who had joined them, heard her last words and broke into a shrug.

“It’s the khaki, Hammersley. The women will follow it to the ends of the earth. Broadcloth and tweeds are not the fashion.” He ran his arm through Hammersley’s. “There’s nothing for you and me but to volunteer.”

The Honorable Cyril only stared at him blankly.

“Haw!” he said, which, as Lady Betty once expressed it, was half the note of a jackass.

Here the Kipshavens arrived and their hostess signaled the advance upon the dinner-table.

One of the secrets of the success of Lady Heathcote’s dinners was the size and shape of her table, which seated no more than ten and was round. Her centerpieces were flat and her candelabra low so that any person at the table could see and converse with anyone else. It was thus possible delicately to remind those who insisted on completely appropriating their dinner partners that private matters could be much more safely discussed in the many corners of the house designed for the purpose. Doris sat between Rizzio and Byfield, Hammersley with Lady Joyliffe just opposite, and when Rizzio announced the American girl’s decision to go to France as soon as her training was completed she became the immediate center of interest.

“That’s neutrality of the right sort,” said Kipshaven heartily. “I wish all of your countrymen felt as you do.”

“I think most of them do,” replied Doris, smiling slowly, “but you know, you haven’t always been nice to us. There have been many times when we felt that as an older brother you treated us rather shabbily. I’m heaping coals of fire, you see.”

“Touché!” said Rizzio, with a laugh.

“I bare my head,” said the Earl.

“Ashes to ashes,” from Lady Joyliffe.

Kipshaven smiled. “Once in England gray hairs were venerated, even among the frivolous. Now,” he sighed, “they are only a reproach. Peccavi. Forgive me. I wish I could set the clock back.”

“You’d go?” asked Doris.

“Tomorrow,” said the old Earl with enthusiasm.

Miss Mather glanced at Hammersley who was enjoying his soup, a purée he liked particularly.

“But isn’t there something you could do?”

“Yes. Write, for America—for Italy—for Sweden and Holland—for Spain. It’s something, but it isn’t enough. My fingers are itching for a sword.”

The Honorable Cyril looked up.

“Pen mightier than sword,” he quoted vacuously, and went on with his soup.

“You don’t really mean that, Hammersley,” said Kipshaven amid smiles.

“Well rather,” drawled the other. “All silly rot—fightin’. What’s the use. Spoiled my boar-shootin’ in Hesse-Nassau—no season at Carlsbad—no season anywhere—everything the same—winter—summer——”

“You wouldn’t think so if you were in the trenches, my boy,” laughed Byfield.

“Beastly happy I’m not,” said Hammersley. “Don’t mind shootin’ pheasant or boar. Bad form—shootin’ men—not the sportin’ thing, you know—pottin’ a bird on the ground—‘specially Germans.”

“Boches!” said Lady Betty contemptuously. She was inclined to be intolerant. For her Algy had already been mentioned in dispatches. “I don’t understand you, Cyril.”

Hammersley regarded her gravely while Constance Joyliffe took up his cudgels.

“You forget Cyril’s four years at Heidelberg.”

“No I don’t,” said their hostess warmly, “and I could almost believe Cyril had German sympathies.”

“I have, you know,” said Hammersley calmly, sniffing at the rim of his wineglass.

“This is hardly the time to confess it,” said Kipshaven dryly.

Doris sat silent, aware of a deep humiliation which seemed to envelop them both.

Rizzio laughed and produced a clipping from Punch. “Hammersley is merely stoically peaceful. Listen.” And he read:

“I was playing golf one day when the Germans landed

All our troops had run away and all our ships were stranded

And the thought of England’s shame nearly put me off my game.”

Amid the laughter the Honorable Cyril straightened.

“Silly stuff, that,” he said quite seriously, “to put a fellow off his game.” And turning to Lady Joyliffe: “Punch a bit brackish lately. What?”

“Cyril, you’re insular,” from Lady Heathcote.

“No, insulated,” said Doris with a flash of the eyes.

Rizzio laughed. “Highly potential but—er—not dangerous. Why should he be? He’s your typical Briton—sport-loving, calm and nerveless in the most exacting situations—I was at Lords, you know, when Hammersley made that winning run for Marylebone—two minutes to play. Every bowler they put up——”

“It’s hardly a time for bats,” put in Kipshaven dryly. “What we need is fast bowlers—with rifles.”

The object of these remarks sat serenely, smiling blandly around the table, but made no reply. In the pause that followed Sandys was heard in a half whisper to Byfield.

“What’s this I hear of a leak at the War Office?”

Captain Byfield glanced down the table. “Have you heard that?”

“Yes. At the club.”

Captain Byfield touched the rim of his glass to his lips.

“I’ve heard nothing of it.”

“What?” from a chorus.

“Information is getting out somewhere. I violate no confidences in telling you. The War Office is perturbed.”

“How terrible!” said Lady Joyliffe. “And don’t they suspect?”

“That’s the worst of it. The Germans got wind of some of Lord Kitchener’s plans and some of the Admiralty’s—which nobody knew but those very near the men at the top.”

“A spy in that circle—unbelievable,” said Kipshaven.

“My authority is a man of importance. Fortunately no damage has been done. The story goes that we’re issuing false statements in certain channels to mislead the enemy and find the culprit.”

“But how does the news reach the Germans?” asked Rizzio.

“No one knows. By courier to the coast and then by fast motor-boat perhaps; or by aëroplane. It’s very mysterious. A huge Taube, yellow in color, flying over the North Sea between England and the continent has been sighted and reported by English vessels again and again and each flight has coincided with some unexpected move on the part of the enemy. Once it was seen just before the raid at Falmouth, again before the Zeppelin visit to Sandringham.”

“A yellow dove!” said Lady Kipshaven. “A bird of ill omen, surely.”

“But how could such an aëroplane leave the shores of England without being remarked?” asked Kipshaven.

“Oh,” laughed Sandys, “answer me that and we have the solution of the problem. A strict watch is being kept on the coasts, and the government employees—the postmen, police, secret-service men of every town and village from here to the Shetlands are on the lookout—but not a glimpse have they had of him, not a sign of his arrival or departure, but only last week he was reported by a destroyer flying toward the English coast.”

“Most extraordinary!” from Lady Kipshaven.

“It’s a large machine?” asked Rizzio.

“Larger than any aëroplane ever built in Europe. They say Curtis, the American, was building a thousand horsepower machine at Hammondsport—in the States. This one must be at least as large as that.”

“But surely such a machine could not be hidden in England for any length of time without discovery.”

“It would seem so—but there you are. The main point is that he hasn’t been discovered and that its pilot is here in England—ready to fly across the sea with our military secrets when he gets them.”

“D—n him!” growled Kipshaven quite audibly, a sentiment which echoed so truly in the hearts of those present that it passed without comment.

“The captain of a merchant steamer who saw it quite plainly reported that the power of the machine was simply amazing—that it flew at about six thousand feet and was lost to sight in an incredibly brief time. In short, my friends, the Yellow Dove is one of the miracles of the day—and its pilot one of its mysteries.”

“But our aviation men—can they do nothing?”

“What? Chase rainbows? Where shall their voyage begin and where end? He’s over the North Sea one minute and in Belgium the next. Our troops in the trenches think he’s a phantom. They say even the bombs he drops are phantoms. They are heard to explode but nobody has ever been hit by them.”

“What will the War Office do?”

Sandys shrugged expressively. “What would you do?”

“Shoot the beggar,” said the Honorable Cyril impassively.

“Shoot the moon, sir,” roared the Earl angrily. “It’s no time for idiotic remarks. If this story is true, a danger hangs over England. No wholesome Briton,” here he glanced again at Hammersley, “ought to go to sleep until this menace is discovered and destroyed.”

“The Yellow Dove is occult,” said Sandys, “like a witch on a broomstick.”

“A Flying Dutchman,” returned Lady Joyliffe.

“There seems to be no joke about that,” said the Earl.