The Second E. F. Benson Megapack

by E. F. Benson

  “Yes, dear Mr. Anthony,” Mildred had said. “You received my note, did you not? And I am delighted you could come here today! Of course, it is a dreadful thing to me to think that my little girl will be taken away so soon. But that is what every mother has to go through. Dear me! It seems only yesterday that she came into my room, a little toddling mite, to announce that when she was grown up she was going to marry the groom, because then she could always live among horses.”

  “Oh, that’ll be all right,” said Anthony. “She can have plenty of them.”

  “How generous of you to say that! You have not—ah—spoken to her yet?”

  “No. I’ve been trying to all the afternoon, but I couldn’t get an opportunity.”

  “Dear Maud! She is—how shall I say it? But, anyhow, it is so characteristic of her.”

  “She seemed to want to avoid me,” said Anthony with a bluntness that rather distressed Mrs. Brereton.

  “Yes, it would seem like it,” said she; “but indeed— What I wanted to say to you was this: You must be patient with her, and I expect you will need a little perseverance. It is a rare thing, you know, to come and see and conquer, like Julius Cæsar, or whoever it was. Dear Maud perhaps scarcely knows her own mind. I am sure I do not know it. You see, she is young, very young, and I do not think that hers is a nature that expands very early.”

  The young man’s rather heavy, commonplace face flushed; for the moment it was lit up, as it were, by a flame from within.

  “Oh, I’m not going to be impatient,” he said. “And as for perseverance, why, there’s nothing I would not do, nor any number of years I would not wait, to get her.”

  Mrs. Brereton looked at him critically for a half-moment. “Why, he’s in love!” she said to herself. Then aloud, “Dear Mr. Anthony! I am convinced of it,” she said. “And bear that in mind when you speak to Maud. Also bear in mind that there is no marriage which either her father or I so much desire. Ah, there is the Duchess of Bolton just come! I must go and speak to her.”

  His interview with Lady Ardingly had been briefer, but, he felt, more to the point.

  “She will probably refuse you,” said that lady. “In that case you had better wait a month and ask her again. You have everything on your side and everybody—except, perhaps, the girl. But eventually she will do what is good for her. Here is a fourth. Let us play Bridge immediately.”

  This particular game of Bridge had rather taken it out of Anthony, for he had been Lady Ardingly’s partner, and had had the misfortune to revoke in playing a sans-à-tout hand. Her remarks to him were direct.

  “You might just as well pick my pocket of twenty pounds,” she said to him, “as do that. Do you not see it so? By your gross carelessness you have lost us the rubber, a mistake which one intelligent glance at your hand would have avoided. Come, there are other pursuits, are there not, in which you wish to be engaged? You will, perhaps, follow them with better attention.”

  Then, seeing the young man’s discomfiture, her admirable good-nature returned. “Croquet, for instance,” she added. “I hear you are a great player. Ah! there is Lord Alston. No doubt he will make our fourth.”

  Maud, it is true, had spent the hours since lunch in flying before her admirer, but her reasons, it must be confessed, were not those which one would be disposed to think natural on the part of a young girl. There was not, in fact, one atom of shyness or shirking about her; she had not the least objection to hear impassioned speeches or blunt declarations, whichever mode Anthony should choose to adopt, nor did the thought of him in any way fill her with horror. She had listened very attentively to her mother’s advice when they drove down to Windsor earlier in the week; she had also listened with the same consideration to Lady Ardingly’s far more convincing and sensible remarks when she had lunched with her on Friday, and her only reason for refusing Anthony an opportunity all the afternoon was that she really had not the slightest idea whether she should say yes or no. She did not, as she had told her mother, love him; she did not, either, dislike him. He was merely quite indifferent to her, as, indeed, all men were. Men, in fact, as far as she thought about them at all, seemed to her to be unattractive people; she could not conceive what a girl should want with one permanently in the house. They were for ever either putting tobacco or brandy into their mouths or letting inane remarks out, and they stared at her in an uncomfortable and incomprehensible manner. On the other hand, she knew perfectly well that it was the natural thing for girls to marry; every one always did it, and they were probably right. She supposed that she also would ultimately marry, but was this—this utter absence of any emotion—the correct thing? She was aware that tremblings and raptures were in the world of printed things supposed to be the orthodox signals flown by the parties engaged; she should be a creature of averted eyes and deep blushes. But she did not feel the least inclined to either; there was nothing in Anthony that would make her wish to avert her eyes, nor, as far as she knew, did he ever say things which would make her blush. He was simply indifferent to her, but so, for that matter, were all men. Was she, then, to be a spinster? That was equally unthinkable.

  There were other things as well. A great friend of hers, with whom she had been accustomed to spend long days in the saddle, or in the company of dogs in endless walks over moors, had been married only a month ago, for no other reason, as far as Maud or Kitty Danefield herself knew, but the one that every girl married if possible, that it was the natural thing to do. Maud had seen her again only two days ago for the first time since her marriage, and had found quite a different person. Kitty had become a woman, radiantly happy, with an absorbing interest in life which seemed quite to have eclipsed the loves of earlier days. She still liked horses, dogs, great open country, Maud herself; but all these things which had been the first ingredients of existence had gone into a secondary place, and the one thing that made life now was her husband. To Maud this was all perfectly incomprehensible—would Anthony, if she accepted him, ever fill existence like that? She could not help feeling that existence would be a much narrower thing if he did. Kitty, in fact, had just arrived, and had rushed at Maud.

  “Darling, I am so pleased to see you!” she said, “and we’ll have a nice long talk. Where’s Arthur! Arthur is really too tiresome; he asked Tom Liscombe to come down with us when I had counted on a nice quiet empty carriage all to ourselves. He didn’t want him, nor did I; but that is so like Arthur, to do good-natured things from a sort of vague weakness. He saw Tom, and asked him without thinking what he was doing. You look rather careworn, Maud. What is it now?”

  “Oh, come for a stroll, Kitty,” said the other; “I want to talk.”

  “Very well; I must say good-bye to Arthur.”

  Maud laughed.

  “Oh, you ridiculous person,” she said; “you will be away ten minutes. Would you like to make your will, too?”

  “Well, if it’s only ten minutes—oh, he’s looking. There!” and she waved a tiny morsel of a handkerchief to him.

  Maud looked at her with grave attention.

  “Now, I cannot understand that,” she said.

  “No, dear, of course not. You’re not married. I should have thought it as ridiculous as you before. By the way, Maud—oh, that’s why you look careworn. Is it true you are going to marry Anthony Maxwell? Darling, how nice, and simply rolling!”

  “You think that is important?” asked Maud.

  “Why, of course. It’s the only crumpled rose-leaf Arthur and I have. It makes us quite miserable; there’s always that little ghost in the corner. Can we afford this? Can we spare the money for that? But you haven’t answered me. Is it true?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Maud.

  Kitty laughed.

  “You absurd creature!” she said; “you must know. Has he proposed to you?”

  “No, but he has told mother he wants to. And he has been stalking me all the afternoon.”

  Kitty turned quickly back.

  “He shall stalk
you no longer,” she said. “Really, Maud, you are behaving very unfairly to him. If you are going to marry him, say so; if not—well, if not, you will be a very foolish person, but still say so. He has a mother, I know that, but really his mother matters very much less than the man himself. He’s all right, isn’t he? Behaves nicely—I mean, hasn’t a vice about him—looks decent?”

  “Moderately,” said Maud.

  “Oh, my dear, what do you want? Every one can’t be an Adonis, and, as the copybooks used to say, human nature is limited. I dare say he’s not a genius; well, no more are you. As for beauty, you’ve got enough for two, and he’s got money enough for three—baby, as well, do you see? Oh yes, I am indelicate, I know, but it’s far better than being delicate. Being delicate never pays; on the other hand, you have to pay for it, and I haven’t got enough money for it. You are lucky, Maud.”

  “Why? I want to talk to you about it.”

  “My dear girl, there is nothing to say. You will be a fool if you don’t marry him, as I told you. There is simply nothing else to talk about. I was in a state of blank indifference about Arthur before I married him. My mother—and I bless her for it—absolutely obliged me to accept him. So will yours do if she has any sense, and I am certain she has heaps. Unless you are a visionary or a fanatic of some kind, you will be glad to be married. Glad? Good gracious! It is much more than that.”

  She turned sharply on her heel, Maud following.

  “Then, why are there so many unhappy marriages?” asked the latter.

  “Ah, in books, only. They are there because the author does not know what else to say. ‘You can’t write about happy marriages,’ so an author assured me. ‘They are so dull. Happy people have no history.’”

  Maud was silent a moment.

  “You have changed very much, Kitty,” she said at length.

  “Thank goodness, I have! Oh, Maud, I don’t mean to be nasty to you. Those old days were really dear days. But one can’t always remain a girl, Maud. It is mercifully ordained that girls become women. And the door by which they enter is marriage.”

  “It means all that?”

  “All. More—”

  Maud found herself struggling for utterance. The blush and the downcast eye which she had thought Anthony could never have produced in her were hers now.

  “You mean a man—the fact of a man?” she said stammeringly.

  Kitty laughed the laugh of a newly-married woman, which is as old as Eve.

  “Put it that way if you like,” she said. “But there is another—the fact of a woman.”

  “But I am content,” she said almost piteously. “Why does everybody—you, mother—want me to marry?”

  “You have left out Anthony,” remarked Kitty rigorously. “I and your mother, because we are women; he, because he is a man.”

  They had come to the populated lawn again, and further intimate conversation would next moment be impossible. Kitty turned to her hurriedly.

  “Oh, my dear, it is like having a tooth out,” she said. “No doubt it is a shock. But it no longer aches. There is Mr. Anthony; let him ask you, anyhow. That is bare justice; and remember what I have said.”

  “I shall not forget it,” said Maud.

  Under no circumstances would Kitty have bitten out her tongue, so it would be a mere figure of speech to say that she would have even been inclined to had she known precisely what effect her volubility would have had on her friend. But it is certain that she would sooner have bitten it very hard—so that it hurt, in fact—could she have foreseen in how opposite a direction to that intended her words had inclined her. As it was, she left the two together in a small solitude encompassed by company, and went to join her husband with a light heart and an approving conscience—a delicious and rare combination. Anthony, at any rate, was primed and ready.

  “Do take me to see the rose-garden,” he said to Maud, with a banalité that seemed to him unavoidable. He was quite aware of it, and regretted the necessity, for, to do him justice, he had tried many other lures that afternoon. “I hear it is quite beautiful,” he went on; “and Mrs. Brereton promised me you should show it me after tea. And it is after tea,” he added.

  Maud was slightly taller than he, and had the right to drop her eyelids a little as she looked at him. Of the adventitious advantage she took more than her justifiable measure, and beheld the back of his collar-stud.

  “By all means,” she said. “A promise is a promise, whoever gave it.”

  “You are rather hard on me,” observed Anthony.

  “Hard? Surely not.”

  “Well, on your mother, then.”

  Maud thought a moment.

  “It is natural for you to think so,” she said, “since she agrees with you.”

  They had left the lawn behind them, and threaded a dusky lane set in rhododendrons. Anthony stopped.

  “She agrees with me,” he said. “In one thing, anyhow, she agrees with me—we both love you.”

  In spite of herself Maud gave him a round of internal applause. She was still so indifferent that she could easily judge him, as if he had been an actor on a stage. Outwardly, with the tongue she could say nothing, and stood, having walked on a pace or two, with her back to him. His voice made her turn round.

  “Maud, Maud!” he said. “Maud, they were crying and calling.”

  “Ah!” she said, with a sudden interest, “you learned that.”

  He shook his head.

  “I read it three months ago,” he said. “It has stuck in my memory. Because everything cries ‘Maud, Maud!’ to me.”

  The blush and the averted eye were hers. Quite unconsciously she began to know what Lady Ardingly had meant—what Kitty had meant.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I ought never to have come here with you. I thought I should laugh at you merely. I do not laugh; I would sooner cry.”

  “Thank you for that,” said he. “I understand that you do not accept my devotion. What I do not understand is whether you definitely refuse it. Do you refuse it?”

  “Do not press me to answer you,” she said.

  “You postpone your answer!”

  “Please.”

  * * * *

  Meantime dusk had begun to fall, the sounds of rejoicing Cockneys came more faintly from the river, the glow in the western sky faded into saffron, and overhead the vault of velvet blue grew infinitely more infinite. Birds chuckled and scurried through the bushes, bats extended angled wings for the preliminary trials of their nameless ghoulish errands, a nightingale bubbled suddenly, and a large yellow star swung into sight over the dim edge of the earth. But the lawn itself, save for a fine carpet of dew, that was spread without hands on the close-napped turf, reflected none of the evening influences. Servants hurried noiselessly about lighting the lamps that hung in the trees, and soon the tents where dinner was laid began to shimmer with white linen and gleam with silver. Jack was back from his golf, and Mrs. Brereton from an extremely short walk (for she had been recommended plenty of exercise), a few people had left to dine in town, but more people arrived from town to dine here, and Andrew Brereton, having succeeded in wresting four shillings and sixpence from the reluctant Mr. Maxwell, felt that he had earned his dinner. And as night became deeper, the animation of the party grew louder and their laughter more frequent; the moon and the stars everlastingly set in heaven were to them but the whitewash of the ceiling of the rooms where they dined, the trees and infinite soft spaces of the dusk but the paper on the walls of their restaurant, the miracle of the dewy lawn a carpet for unheeding feet. Wine and food concerned them perhaps most, but in a place hardly inferior must have been put the charms of screaming and scandalous conversation. Dinner, in fact, was a great success. By midnight all the guests for the day who were not staying over the Sunday had left, and the stables, which had been a packed mass of broughams, victorias, dogcarts, motor-cars, and bicycles, were once more empty; and Lady Ardingly, whose rubber had most unjustifiably been interrupted by Mrs. Brereton’s adi
eus to her guests, picked up her hand again with some acidity.

  “Now, perhaps, we shall get on with our Bridge,” she said. “I have declared no trumps. Nobody doubles! That is a very masterly inactivity on our adversaries’ part.”

  The four consisted of the two Breretons, Lady Ardingly, and Jack Alston; at another table were four more, who, however, abandoned their game at about half-past one, again interrupting Lady Ardingly with their superfluous good-nights, for she was having a very good night indeed. Marie and Maud Brereton had long ago gone to bed, but the other four still played on, in silence for the most part. Occasionally the dummy rose, and refreshed his inner self with something from a side-table, and from time to time the note of a cigarette would sound crisply, as it were, on the soft air of the night. At last a strange change began to pass over the sky, from which the moon had now long set, hardly visible there at first, but making the faces of the players look suddenly white and wan. Then the miracle grew; the dark blue of the sky brightened into dove colour, the stars grew pale, and a little wind stirred in the trees.

  “You played that abominably, dear Mildred,” said Lady Ardingly. “We should have saved it if you had had any sense. What does that make?”