by Saki
THE STAKE
“Ronnie is a great trial to me,” said Mrs. Attray plaintively. “Onlyeighteen years old last February and already a confirmed gambler. I amsure I don’t know where he inherits it from; his father never touchedcards, and you know how little I play—a game of bridge on Wednesdayafternoons in the winter, for three-pence a hundred, and even that Ishouldn’t do if it wasn’t that Edith always wants a fourth and would becertain to ask that detestable Jenkinham woman if she couldn’t get me. Iwould much rather sit and talk any day than play bridge; cards are such awaste of time, I think. But as to Ronnie, bridge and baccarat andpoker-patience are positively all that he thinks about. Of course I’vedone my best to stop it; I’ve asked the Norridrums not to let him playcards when he’s over there, but you might as well ask the Atlantic Oceanto keep quiet for a crossing as expect them to bother about a mother’snatural anxieties.”
“Why do you let him go there?” asked Eleanor Saxelby.
“My dear,” said Mrs. Attray, “I don’t want to offend them. After all,they are my landlords and I have to look to them for anything I want doneabout the place; they were very accommodating about the new roof for theorchid house. And they lend me one of their cars when mine is out oforder; you know how often it gets out of order.”
“I don’t know how often,” said Eleanor, “but it must happen veryfrequently. Whenever I want you to take me anywhere in your car I amalways told that there is something wrong with it, or else that thechauffeur has got neuralgia and you don’t like to ask him to go out.”
“He suffers quite a lot from neuralgia,” said Mrs. Attray hastily.“Anyhow,” she continued, “you can understand that I don’t want to offendthe Norridrums. Their household is the most rackety one in the county,and I believe no one ever knows to an hour or two when any particularmeal will appear on the table or what it will consist of when it doesappear.”
Eleanor Saxelby shuddered. She liked her meals to be of regularoccurrence and assured proportions.
“Still,” pursued Mrs. Attray, “whatever their own home life may be, aslandlords and neighbours they are considerate and obliging, so I don’twant to quarrel with them. Besides, if Ronnie didn’t play cards therehe’d be playing somewhere else.”
“Not if you were firm with him,” said Eleanor “I believe in being firm.”
“Firm? I am firm,” exclaimed Mrs. Attray; “I am more than firm—I amfarseeing. I’ve done everything I can think of to prevent Ronnie fromplaying for money. I’ve stopped his allowance for the rest of the year,so he can’t even gamble on credit, and I’ve subscribed a lump sum to thechurch offertory in his name instead of giving him instalments of smallsilver to put in the bag on Sundays. I wouldn’t even let him have themoney to tip the hunt servants with, but sent it by postal order. He wasfuriously sulky about it, but I reminded him of what happened to the tenshillings that I gave him for the Young Men’s Endeavour League‘Self-Denial Week.’”
“What did happen to it?” asked Eleanor.
“Well, Ronnie did some preliminary endeavouring with it, on his ownaccount, in connection with the Grand National. If it had come off, ashe expressed it, he would have given the League twenty-five shillings andnetted a comfortable commission for himself; as it was, that tenshillings was one of the things the League had to deny itself. Sincethen I’ve been careful not to let him have a penny piece in his hands.”
“He’ll get round that in some way,” said Eleanor with quiet conviction;“he’ll sell things.”
“My dear, he’s done all that is to be done in that direction already.He’s got rid of his wrist-watch and his hunting flask and both hiscigarette cases, and I shouldn’t be surprised if he’s wearingimitation-gold sleeve links instead of those his Aunt Rhoda gave him onhis seventeenth birthday. He can’t sell his clothes, of course, excepthis winter overcoat, and I’ve locked that up in the camphor cupboard onthe pretext of preserving it from moth. I really don’t see what else hecan raise money on. I consider that I’ve been both firm and farseeing.”
“Has he been at the Norridrums lately?” asked Eleanor.
“He was there yesterday afternoon and stayed to dinner,” said Mrs.Attray. “I don’t quite know when he came home, but I fancy it was late.”
“Then depend on it he was gambling,” said Eleanor, with the assured airof one who has few ideas and makes the most of them. “Late hours in thecountry always mean gambling.”
“He can’t gamble if he has no money and no chance of getting any,” arguedMrs. Attray; “even if one plays for small stakes one must have a decentprospect of paying one’s losses.”
“He may have sold some of the Amherst pheasant chicks,” suggestedEleanor; “they would fetch about ten or twelve shillings each, Idaresay.”
“Ronnie wouldn’t do such a thing,” said Mrs. Attray; “and anyhow I wentand counted them this morning and they’re all there. No,” she continued,with the quiet satisfaction that comes from a sense of painstaking andmerited achievement, “I fancy that Ronnie had to content himself with therôle of onlooker last night, as far as the card-table was concerned.”
“Is that clock right?” asked Eleanor, whose eyes had been strayingrestlessly towards the mantel-piece for some little time; “lunch isusually so punctual in your establishment.”
“Three minutes past the half-hour,” exclaimed Mrs. Attray; “cook must bepreparing something unusually sumptuous in your honour. I am not in thesecret; I’ve been out all the morning, you know.”
Eleanor smiled forgivingly. A special effort by Mrs. Attray’s cook wasworth waiting a few minutes for.
As a matter of fact, the luncheon fare, when it made its tardyappearance, was distinctly unworthy of the reputation which thejustly-treasured cook had built up for herself. The soup alone wouldhave sufficed to cast a gloom over any meal that it had inaugurated, andit was not redeemed by anything that followed. Eleanor said little, butwhen she spoke there was a hint of tears in her voice that was far moreeloquent than outspoken denunciation would have been, and even theinsouciant Ronald showed traces of depression when he tasted the rognonsSaltikoff.
“Not quite the best luncheon I’ve enjoyed in your house,” said Eleanor atlast, when her final hope had flickered out with the savoury.
“My dear, it’s the worst meal I’ve sat down to for years,” said herhostess; “that last dish tasted principally of red pepper and wet toast.I’m awfully sorry. Is anything the matter in the kitchen, Pellin?” sheasked of the attendant maid.
“Well, ma’am, the new cook hadn’t hardly time to see to things properly,coming in so sudden—” commenced Pellin by way of explanation.
“The new cook!” screamed Mrs. Attray.
“Colonel Norridrum’s cook, ma’am,” said Pellin.
“What on earth do you mean? What is Colonel Norridrum’s cook doing in mykitchen—and where is my cook?”
“Perhaps I can explain better than Pellin can,” said Ronald hurriedly;“the fact is, I was dining at the Norridrums’ yesterday, and they werewishing they had a swell cook like yours, just for to-day and to-morrow,while they’ve got some gourmet staying with them: their own cook is noearthly good—well, you’ve seen what she turns out when she’s at allflurried. So I thought it would be rather sporting to play them atbaccarat for the loan of our cook against a money stake, and I lost,that’s all. I have had rotten luck at baccarat all this year.”
The remainder of his explanation, of how he had assured the cooks thatthe temporary transfer had his mother’s sanction, and had smuggled theone out and the other in during the maternal absence, was drowned in theoutcry of scandalised upbraiding.
“If I had sold the woman into slavery there couldn’t have been a biggerfuss about it,” he confided afterwards to Bertie Norridrum, “and EleanorSaxelby raged and ramped the louder of the two. I tell you what, I’llbet you two of the Amherst pheasants to five shillings that she refusesto have me as a partner at the croquet tournament. We’re drawn together,you kn
ow.”
This time he won his bet.