The Second E. F. Benson Megapack

by E. F. Benson

  The day was rather windy, and as she drove up Park Lane she had her work cut out for her in the matter of management. The cobs had been newly clipped, and all their nerves appeared to be outside their skins. This Mildred thoroughly enjoyed; she was conscious of the mastery over brute strength which makes the fascination of dealing with horses, and she loved to know that Box longed to bolt and could not manage it, and that Cox wanted to shy at every carriage that passed but did not dare, for that his nerves were outside his skin, and he was aware who sat behind him with whip alert. “The heavenly devils!” thought Mildred to herself as they avoided a curbstone on the one hand by a hair-breadth and a bicycle on the other by half that distance.

  Like all fine whips, she infinitely preferred to drive in the streets than in the Park, but today they were horribly crowded, and she turned in through Stanhope Gate with the idea of letting the cobs have a good trot through the Park and come out at the Albert Gate. The day was so divine that she thought she would perhaps go out of town, and lunch at Richmond or somewhere, returning in the afternoon. She was dining out that night at Blanche Devereux’s, who had a Mexican band coming, which, according to her account, was so thrilling that you didn’t know whether you were standing on your head or your heels. This sounded quite promising; she liked a décolleté evening.

  So Box and Cox had their hearts’ desire, and flew down the road inside the Park parallel to Park Lane. Here a motor-car, performing in a gusty and throbbing manner, was a shock to their sense of decency, and they made a simultaneous dash for the railings, until recalled to their own sense of decency by a vivid cut across their close-shaven backs and a steady pull on their mouths to show them that the whip was punitive, not suggestive of faster progress. The progress, indeed, was fast enough to satisfy even Mildred, who, however, was enjoying herself immensely. Both cobs had their heads free (she, like the wise woman she was in matters of horseflesh, abominating bearing-reins even for the brougham horses, and knowing that for speed they are death and ruin), necks arched, and were stepping high and long. Then, as they came to the bend of the road of the Ladies’ Mile, she indicated the right-hand road, and found that they were a little beyond her control. Simultaneously a wayward gust picked up a piece of wandering newspaper and blew it right across Box’s blinkers; from there it slid gradually on to Cox’s. The same moment both heads were up, and, utterly beyond her control, they bolted straight for the gate at Hyde Park Corner. It is narrow; outside the double tide of traffic roared and jostled.

  By good luck or bad luck—it did not seem at the moment to matter in the least—they were straight for the opening. If they had not been they would have upset over the posts or against the arch, but as they were they would charge at racing speed into an omnibus. A policeman outside, Mildred could see, had observed what had happened, and with frantic gesticulations was attempting to stem the double tide of carriages and open a lane for her, and it was with a curious indifference that she knew he would be too late. Passers-by also had looked up and seen, and just as they charged through the arch she saw one rush out full into the roadway in the splendid and desperate attempt, no doubt, to avert the inevitable accident. “What a fool!” she thought. “I am done; why should he be done, too?” Then for the millionth part of a second their eyes met, and they recognised each other.

  * * * *

  Then, though she had been cool enough before, she utterly lost her head. She knew that she screamed, “Jack, for God’s sake get out of the way!” and simultaneously he had met the horses as a man meets an incoming breaker, struggling to reach some wreck on a rocky shore. With one hand he caught something, rein or blinker, God knows which, with the other the end of the pole. Thus, dragging and scraping and impotently resisting, he was borne off his feet, and they whirled into the mid-stream of traffic.

  There was a crash, a cry, the man was jerked off like a fly; one cob went down, and Mildred was thrown out on to the roadway. She still held the reins; she saw a horse pulled up on its haunches just above her, within a yard of her head, and the next moment she had picked herself up unhurt.

  On the other side of her wrecked phaeton, jammed against her fallen cob, was an omnibus. Under the centre of it lay the man who had saved her.

  Suddenly, to her ears, the loud street hushed into absolute silence. A crowd, springing up like ants on a disturbed hill, swarmed round her, but she knew nothing of them. The omnibus made a half-turn, and slowly drew clear of her own carriage and of that which lay beneath its wheels. And though she had recognised him before in that infinitesimal moment as she galloped through the arch, she might have looked for hours without recognising him now. Hoof and wheel had gone over his head, stamping it out of all semblance of humanity.

  EPILOGUE

  Lady Ardingly was sitting on the veranda of the New Hotel at Cairo, on a clear bright February afternoon of the year following. The coloured life of the East went jingling by, and she observed it with a critical indifference.

  “We could all have blue gaberdines if we chose,” she thought to herself; “but they are not becoming. Also it would be quite easy to put sepia on one’s face instead of rouge.”

  And having thus dismissed the gorgeous East, she turned to the Egyptian Gazette. There were telegrams to be found in it, anyhow, which came from more civilized parts. She had not played Bridge for twenty-four hours, and felt slightly depressed. But whenever a carriage stopped at the hotel she looked up; it appeared that she expected some one.

  At length the expected happened, and she rose from her seat and went to the top of the half-dozen steps that formed the entrance from the street.

  “Ah, my dear,” she said, “my dear Marie, I have sat here all afternoon! I did not know when you might come. You are not dusty? You do not want to wash? Let us have immediately the apology for tea which they give one here.”

  Marie put up her veil and kissed the face that was presented to her. It was fearful and marvellous, but she was extraordinarily glad to see it.

  “It was charming of you to wait for me,” she said. “The train was very late. I think my maid has lost it. There was a sort of Babel at Alexandria, and the last I saw of her was that she was apparently engaged in a personal struggle with a man with ‘Cook’ on his cap.”

  “Then, it will be all right if you give her time,” said Lady Ardingly. “But meantime you have no luggage, no clothes? It does not matter. I will lend you all you want. Ah, my dear, you may smile, but I have all kinds of things.”

  The apology for tea was brought, and both accepted it, talking of trivialities. Then Lady Ardingly sat in a lower chair.

  “And now talk to me, my dear,” she said. “Tell me what news there is. I have not seen you since July!”

  Marie paused a moment.

  “I hardly know what to tell you,” she said, “for I suppose you do not ask me for just the trivial news that I have, as last-comer from England.”

  “No, my dear; who cares? Anybody can tell me that. About yourself.”

  “Well, I saw Mildred,” said Marie. “I saw her the same day as it happened. We went together to Jack’s room. And we shook hands. I have not seen her since.”

  “Ah, she did her best to ruin him in life, and she succeeded in killing him,” said Lady Ardingly very dryly. “I do not want news of her. She is a cook.”

  Marie bit her lip.

  “I also do not want to talk of her,” she said. “She is very gay this winter, I believe. She says it would look so odd if she didn’t do things, just because of that awful accident. She thinks people would talk.”

  “She has a horror of that, I know,” said Lady Ardingly, “except when they are not talking about her. If they are not talking about her, she joins in it. Did she, in confidence, tell you—”

  “Yes, she told me in confidence that it was she who had started that silly story about me. She told me also that you knew it. So I am not violating her confidence.”

  Lady Ardingly made a noise in her throat which resembled gargling.
r />   “That is enough,” she said. “What else, dear Marie?”

  Marie smiled.

  “You mean Jim, I suppose?” she said.

  “Yes, Jim.”

  “Well, Jim is coming out here in a week or so. He cannot get away any sooner. I have seen him a good deal.”

  “And you will in the future see him even oftener,” suggested Lady Ardingly.

  “Much oftener. I shall see him every day.”

  “I am very glad of that,” she said; “I have a great respect for Mr. Spencer. I see constantly that he is attacking my poor Ardingly. And I respect you also, my dear. You are the nicest good woman I know. Ah! My dear, when you are old like me, you will have pleasant back-pages to turn over.”

  “And to whom shall I owe them?” asked Marie.

  “To your own good sense. My dear, I am not often sentimental. But I feel sentimental when I think of one morning in last July. You were a good woman always, Marie, I should imagine. That day you were a grand one, too—superb! I admired you, and it is seldom that I admire people.”

  There was a long silence. With the swiftness of sunset in the South, the colours were struck from the gay crowds, and where ten minutes before had been a riot of blues and reds, there was only a succession of various gray. But overhead the stars burned close and large, and the pale northern heavens were here supplanted by a velvet blue.

  “And I admired Jack,” said Lady Ardingly at length. “He was weak, if you like, and, if you choose, he was wicked. But there was, how shall I say it? the possibility of the big scale about him. That is the best thing; the next is to know that you are small. The worst is not to know that you are small.”

  Again Marie made no reply. Outside the patter of bare feet went right and left, donkeys jingled their chains, and the odour of the Southern night got more intense.

  “Ah! My dear, we are lepers,” said Lady Ardingly. “We are all wrong and bad, and we roll over each other in the gutter like these Arabs scrambling for backshish. We strive for one thing, which is wealth, and when we have got it we spend it on pleasure. You are not so, and the odd thing is that the pleasure we get does not please us. It is always something else we want. I sit and I say ‘What news?’ and when I am told I say ‘What else?’ and still ‘What else?’ and I am not satisfied. Younger folk than I do this, and they do that, and still, like me, they cry, ‘What else? what else?’ It means that we go after remedies for our ennui, for our leprosy, and there is no such remedy unless we become altogether different. Now, you are not so. Tell me your secret. Why are you different? Why can you sit still while we fidget? Why is it you can always keep clean in the middle of that muck-heap?”

  Marie was moved and strangely touched. Her companion’s face looked very haggard in the glare of the electric lamp overhead, and her eyes were weary and wistful.

  “Dear Lady Ardingly,” she said, “why do you say these things? I suppose my nature is not to fidget. I suppose, also, that the pleasures you refer to do not seem to me immensely attractive. I suppose I happen to be simple and not complex.”

  “Ah! that is not all,” said the other. “Those are only little accidents.”

  Marie let her eyes wander a moment, then looked straight at Lady Ardingly.

  “I believe in God,” she said.

  THE RUBICON (Part 1)

  CHAPTER I.

  The little red-roofed town of Hayes lies in a furrow of the broad-backed Wiltshire Downs; it was once an important posting station, and you may still see there an eighteenth century inn, much too large for the present requirements of the place, and telling of the days when, three times a week, the coach from London used to pull up at its hospitable door, and wait there half-an-hour while its passengers dined. The inn is called the Grampound Arms, and you will find that inside the church many marble Grampounds recline on their tombs, or raise hands of prayer, while outside in the churchyard, weeping cherubs, with reversed torches, record other pious and later memories of the same family.

  But almost opposite the Grampound Arms you will notice a much newer inn, where commercial gentlemen make merry, called the Aston Arms, and on reference to monumental evidence, you would also find that cherubs are shedding similar pious tears for a Sir James Aston, Bart., and his wife, and, thirty years later, for James Aston, first Lord Hayes, and his wife. But for the Astons, no marble knights keep watch on Gothic tombs.

  The river Kennet, in its green wanderings, has already passed, before it reaches Hayes, two houses, one close down by the river, the other rather higher up and on the opposite bank. The smaller and older of the two is the residence of Mr. Grampound, the larger and newer of Lord Hayes. These trifling facts, which almost all the inhabitants of Hayes could tell you, will sufficiently indicate the mutual position of the two families in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

  Grampound House was a pretty, ivy-grown old place, with a lawn stretching southwards almost to the bank of the river, and shaded by a great cedar tree, redolent of ancestors and as monumental in its way as the marble, sleeping figures in the church. It was useful, however, as well as being ancestral, and at this moment Mrs. Grampound and her brother were having tea under it.

  It was a still, hot day at the beginning of August, and through the broad, fan-like branches, stray sunbeams danced and twinkled, making little cores of light on the silver. Down one side of the lawn ran a terrace of grey stone, bordered by a broad gravel walk, and over the terrace pale monthly roses climbed and blossomed. Most of the windows in the house were darkened and eclipsed by Venetian blinds, to keep out the sun which still lingered on the face of it; and Mr. Martin, also—Mrs. Grampound’s brother—was in a state of eclipse for the time being, for he wore a broad-brimmed Panama hat, which concealed the upper part of his face, while a large harlequin tea-cup prevented any detailed examination of his mouth. Mrs. Grampound sat opposite him in a low, basket chair, and appeared to be thinking. It is a privilege peculiar to owners of very fine, dark grey eyes, to appear to be thinking whenever they are not talking.

  Mr. Martin finished his tea, and lit a cigarette.

  “They’ve begun cutting the corn,” he said; “it’s very early.”

  Mrs. Grampound did not answer, and her brother, considering that he had made his sacrifice on the altar of conversation, relapsed into silence again.

  Perhaps the obvious inference that the summer had been hot reminded her that the day was also hot, for in a minute or two she said—

  “Dear Eva! What a stifling journey she will have. She comes back tonight; she ought to be here by now.”

  “Where has she been staying?”

  “At the Brabizons. Lord Hayes was there. He comes home at the end of the week; his mother arrived yesterday.”

  “The old witch,” murmured Mr. Martin.

  “Yes, but very old,” said she, whose mind was apparently performing obligato variations on the theme of the conversation. “Haven’t you noticed—”

  She broke off, and presumably continued the obligato variations.

  Mr. Martin showed no indications of having noticed anything at all, and the faint sounds of the summer evening pursued their whisperings unchecked until the distant rumble of carriage wheels began to overscore the dim noises, and came to a long pause, after a big crescendo, before the front door.

  “That will be Eva,” said her mother, filling up the teapot; “they will tell her we are here.”

  A few minutes afterwards, the drawing-room window was opened from inside, and a girl began to descend the little flying staircase.

  Apparently she was in no hurry, for she stooped to stroke a kitten that was investigating the nature of blind cord with an almost fanatical enthusiasm. The kitten was quite as eager to investigate the nature of the human hand, and flew at Eva’s outstretched fingers, all teeth and claws.

  “You little brute!” she remarked, shaking it off. “Your claws want cutting. Oh! You are rather nice. Come, Kitty.”

  But the kitten was indignant, and bounced down the
stairs in front of her, sat down on the path at the bottom, and pretended to be unaware of her existence. Eva stopped to pluck a rose from a standard tree, and fastened it in her dress. Her foot was noiseless on the soft grass, and neither her uncle or mother heard her approaching.

  “The brute scratched me,” she repeated as she neared them; “its claws want cutting.”

  Mrs. Grampound was a little startled, and got up quickly.

  “Oh, Eva, I didn’t hear you coming. I was just saying it was time you were here. How are you, and have you had a nice time?”

  “Yes, quite nice; but the Brabizons are rather stupid people. Still, I enjoyed myself. I didn’t see you, Uncle Tom; anyhow, I can’t kiss you with that hat on.”

  She touched the top of his Panama hat lightly with the tips of her fingers, and sat down in her mother’s chair, who was pouring her out a cup of tea.

  “We had a tiresome journey,” she went on. “Why will people live in Lancashire? Is this your chair, mother?”

  Mr. Martin got up.

  “I’m going in,” he said; “you can have mine. At least, I’m going for a ride. Is the tea good, Eva?—it has been made for some time—or shall I tell them to send you out some more?”

  “It seems to me very bad,” said Eva, sipping it. “Yes, I should like some more. Are you going for a ride? Perhaps I’ll come.”