The Importance of Being Earnest (Smedley, Humphrey)

ET, gray mist lay over a November landscape, and a stillness more magical than that of a summer noon, because more mysterious, held in cold fingers the bare, brown trees and hedges, the road that wound wetly among them, and the pearl-gray country that stretched beneath a brooding sky. The voices and laughter of a merry party of riders supplied the human note. Nelly, riding ahead with a young subaltern, was in the highest spirits. It was the first house-party she had stayed at alone, and she youthfully regarded the absence of Mrs. Martin's ægis as a removal of a barrier rather than the withdrawal of a protection. She had arrived only that morning, and had immediately proclaimed her freedom from restraint by rooting her habit out of her trunk, leaving everything else in the trays, and coming out for a ride when she should undoubtedly have been resting after an early start.

To this pleasant emancipation was now added the joy of a subject on which she held views which she felt to be sensible and worthy of discussion. This was bridge, a game on which the subaltern happened to be rather keen; but he was listening to the pretty iconoclast with much interest and some amusement. Nelly, who had not arrived at the stage fever of even a tolerable player, was not deterred by this fact from delivering herself as one who speaks with authority.

“It is bridge, bridge, bridge!” she said, “and the cry is as irritating as when 'with Ida, Ida, Ida, rang the woods.' They're probably playing it now, and they'll go on all the evening, and the same to-morrow. Conversation is a dead art; music in the house is dying; dancing is neglected.”

“Oh, well,” interpolated the subaltern, “bridge is better than gossip.”

Nelly cast a somewhat stricken thought over the conversation anent mutual friends with which she and the subaltern had beguiled the earlier part of the ride.

“Gossip is very enlightening,” she remarked, driven to defend it by a pricking conscience. “How is one to gain experience if not by talking?”

The subaltern grinned widely, being too young himself to feel merciful toward her extreme youth.

“Some women manage to,” he answered. “Just the same, there are several advantages about a game like bridge. It's like Freemasonry or the Diplomatic; it has a secret language, and it brings people together, or separates them,” he added, in a parenthesis. “But it gives you a certain position, you know, if you can talk about the new Queen call, and that kind of thing, when the ordinary bridge-player has never heard of it.”

“All that may be very true,” observed Nelly, “but people do take it so fearfully seriously. There's no fun where they are all bridge-ites. After all, a game is but a game.”

“I should like to hear you tell that to old Lady Faljohnson,” rejoined the subaltern.

“Why not?” said Nelly. “I will, if you like.”

As they rode on, the idea matured in her mind. They laughed and talked of all the possibilities of free speech till they reached home, and left the ghostly twilight outside. The gaiety of freedom was on her, and she was so radiant through dinner that she laid for herself the foundation-stone of a very pleasant popularity. When they rose, and went into the card-room, which they did as a matter of course, Nelly observed Lady Faljohnson, Mrs. Kex, her hostess, and Major Dalsey, consulting as to whom they should invite for their fourth, vice a very fine player, departed. Nelly, who had watched the manners and customs of the devotees, knew exactly how much eagerness and how much self-confidence to put into her expression. She reflected that no one there knew how she played, and the alertness of her face caught Mrs. Kex's eye. She strolled over to the trio.

“Do you play the new Queen call?” asked Nelly, with a careless smile, whereupon they said: “Oh, yes,” in delighted tones, and unanimously invited her to join them. As she sat down with the three best players in the county, her heart sank a little, but the subaltern, passing in through the billiard-room door, threw her a smile which cheered her again.

She fell to the major as partner, and he had the declare. He left it to Nelly, who gaily declared no trumps. Some surprise appeared upon the major's face, but as the play went on, a thunderous silence descended on the group. When the score had been recorded, he turned to Nelly. “May I ask why you declared no trumps?” he asked, with arctic politeness.

“Why,” responded Nelly, “I had no suit to make trumps, and nothing higher than a queen in my hand.”

“Couldn't you have declared spades?” demanded the major.

“I had only three little ones, and spades are so dull,” was his partner's rejoinder. These reasons, given in her clear, young voice, fell upon so utter a silence that the subaltern heard them in the billiard-room, whence he immediately strolled, bearing the Pink 'Un.

In the second hand the situation became even tenser; the only sounds in the room besides the flip of the cards being Nelly's bright prattle, and the excited whispers of the spectators, who had been attracted by her convincing reason for declaring no trumps because her hand was so bad.

At last the livid major leaped into speech, immediately on Nelly's gay, “I double.”

“Do you know what you're doing?”

“Oh, yes,” answered Nelly. “But don't look so concerned. After all, it's only a game of chance, and you can't tell how the cards will go.”

“Then you ought to, madam!” retorted the major, in a voice the subaltern had often heard.

“Hard lines, major!” murmured a sympathetic voice.

Nelly looked up. “But it's only a game of pleasure,” she said. “It isn't as if it's a serious business, that mattered at all to any one. What is bridge but a game?”

“Please don't talk,” detonated Lady Faljohnson.

The subaltern telegraphed encouragement. The major and Nelly were now losing consistently and thoroughly, and the atmosphere was distinctly electric.

“Is it true,” said Nelly, with genuine thoughtlessness, and, indeed, with the object of starting an interesting subject which might dispel the somewhat constrained silence, “that girls are lured by experienced players to join them, and then are fleeced? One hears such ridiculous stories about hostesses not letting girls know what stakes they are playing for.”

This remark was addressed to Lady Faljohnson, who had laid down her cards with the expression of one who has abandoned hope. Before she could reply, Nelly, quite unintentionally, pointed her malapropos remark to the most pronounced degree by adding: “By the way, how much are we playing for? Half-crown points?”

“Five pounds,” said the major, with exceeding brevity.

“Oh, good gracious!” exclaimed Nelly. “May I look at the score?” Her face fell as she scanned it, and every one began to feel even more uncomfortable than cross. “Now I must really begin to attend to my cards,” she said, and picked them up somewhat concernedly.

[t was her call, and the hand resulted in a grand slam in diamonds for their opponents. Nelly seemed to take more comfort than the major in the fact that she had doubled only twice.

“This shall be the last hand,” said Mrs. Kex, in veiled consolation to the major. As the cards were dealt, Nelly excelled all previous faux pas.

“I don't know what Mrs. Martin will say when she is asked to pay all this to you,” she said, in perfect good nature, and, indeed, seeing the subject in quite a humorous light. She would have expected an answer, only that she was cut short by a call of hearts, which she promptly doubled. It was redoubled, and she followed suit. This pastime continued till the limit was reached, by which time the major was entirely overcome.

By the fortune of war, however, and the extraordinary distribution of the cards, Nelly held nothing in her hand but hearts and some good spades, and not even her own bad play could prevent her and the major from romping in with five to the good. This, totaled up, just evened the score, and fanned into intense dislike the brooding resentment of Lady Faljohnson and Mrs. Kex. Nelly's ingenuous triumph was as oil on the flame.

“So jolly it being the last hand! It is so much more comfortable to leave off even,” she said gaily. “Taking money is so horrid. If one is the hostess, it is like making the guests pay for their board and lodging; and if one is the guest, it is like plundering the hostess. I suppose the nicest way is to play for the fun of the game. I wish those people who talk about bridge being a strain on the temper, could see us! People say bridge-players are never able to leave off. Why, it's only half-past ten now.”

“I am sure it is time for such young girls to go to bed,” said Mrs. Kex, with hard-won kindness.

Nelly took this hint in some astonishment, and said good night. The subaltern opened the door for her, and came out into the hall, where he allowed his cumulated merriment to double him against the wall.

“You have a nerve!” he gasped, in answer to Nelly's expression,

“What do you mean?” she said, honestly surprised. “The major was rather cross at first, but you see we won in the end. I must say I'm amazed I've got out of it so well!”

“Yes, that was the climax! How long are you staying? Because I should advise you to write home and ask to be telegraphed for.”

“Why?” demanded Nelly, in absolute stupefaction.

“Well, after your remarks about fleecing!” He saw her blank face. “Do you mean to say you don't know about the scandal at Lady Faljohnson's last year? She hasn't been to court since. Nina Perritt was practically ruined by her ladyship, who insisted on the money; the poor girl's father was a half-pay officer and hadn't got a shilling, and she went off with Jabez Marks, the only man who would get her out of it. Then every one knows that Major Dalsey lives by bridge, and Mrs. Kex for it (that's why Lady F.'s here); so you've been rubbing it in all round. You won't be asked here again in a hurry.”

The subaltern subsided against the wall, and shrieked again.

Nelly turned suddenly and ran up-stairs with a sick feeling at her heart. Lady Faljohnson's looks, the major's wrath, her hostess' polite hint of bed-time; she understood them all now. As she subsided into bed, with bitter penitence, she realized a useful lesson—the importance of being earnest when your hostess is.