by E. F. Benson
An objection loomed in sight. If there was any reality in the supposition that prompted her desire to seem young again - namely, a possible attraction of her husband towards Millie Evans, she would but be giving facility and encouragement to that by her absence. But then, immediately the wisdom of the course, stronger than the objection to it, presented itself. Infinitely the wiser plan for her was to act as if unconscious of any such danger, to disarm him by her obvious rejection of any armour of her own. She must either watch him minutely or not at all. Mr Pettit had alluded in his sermon that morning to the finer of the two attitudes when he reminded them that love thought no evil. It seemed to poor Mrs Ames that if by her conduct she appeared to think no evil, it came to the same thing.
Her behaviour towards Lyndhurst, when he should come back from Millie’s house, followed as a corollary. She would be completely genial: she would hope he had had a pleasant lunch, and, if he made any apology for his absence, assure him that it was quite unnecessary. Her charity would carry her even further than that: she would say that his absence had been deplored by her guests, but that she had been so glad that he had done as he felt inclined. She would hope that Millie was not tired with her party, and that she and her husband would come to dine with them again soon. It must be while Harry was at home, for he was immensely attracted by Millie. So good for a boy to think about a nice woman like that.
Mrs Ames carried out her programme with pathetic fidelity. Her husband did not get home till nearly teatime, and she welcomed him with a cordiality that would have been unusual even if he had not gone out to lunch at all. And to do him justice, it must be confessed that his wife’s scheme, as already recounted, was framed to meet a situation which at present had no real existence, except in the mind of a wife wedded to a younger husband. There were data for the situation, so to speak, rather than there was danger of it. He, on his side, was well aware of the irregularity of his conduct, and was prepared to accept, without retaliation, a modicum of blame for it. But no blame at all awaited him; instead of that a cordiality so genuine that, in spite of the fact that a particularly good dinner was provided him, the possible parallel of the prodigal son did not so much as suggest itself to his mind.
Harry had retired to his bedroom soon after dinner with a certain wildness of eye which portended poetry rather than repose, and after he had gone his father commented in the humorous spirit about this.
‘Poor old Harry!’ he said. ‘Case of lovely woman, eh, Amy? I was just the same at his age, until I met you, my dear.’
This topic of Harry’s admiration for Mrs Evans, which his mother had intended to allude to, had not yet been touched on, and she responded cordially.
‘You think Harry is very much attracted by Millie, do you mean?’ she said.
He chuckled.
‘Well, that’s not very difficult to see,’ he said. ‘Why, the rascal tore off a dozen of my best roses for her last night, though I hadn’t the heart to scold him for it. Not a bad thing for a young fellow to burn a bit of incense before a charming woman like that. Keeps him out of mischief, makes him see what a nice woman is like. As I said, I used to do just the same myself.’
‘Tell me about it,’ said she.
‘Well, there was the Colonel’s wife. God bless me, how I adored her. I must have been just about Harry’s age, for I had only lately joined, and she was a woman getting on for forty. Good thing, too, for me, as I say, for it kept me out of mischief. They used to say she encouraged me, but I don’t believe it. Every woman likes to know that she’s admired, eh? She doesn’t snub a boy who takes her out in the garden, and picks his father’s roses for her. But we mustn’t have Harry boring her with his attentions. That’ll never do.’
It seemed to Mrs Ames of singularly little consequence whether Harry bored Millie Evans or not. She would much have preferred to be assured that her husband did. But the subsequent conversation did not reassure her as to that.
‘Nice little woman, she is,’ he said. ‘Thoroughly nice little woman, and naturally enough, my dear, since she is your cousin, she likes being treated in neighbourly fashion. We had a great talk after lunch today, and I’m sorry for her, sorry for her. I think we ought to do all we can to make life pleasant for her. Drop in to tea, or drop in to lunch, as I did today. A doctor’s wife, you know. She told me that some days she scarcely set eyes on her husband, and when she did, he could think of nothing but microbes. And there’s really nobody in Riseborough, except you and me, with whom she feels - dear me, what’s that French word - yes, with whom she feels in her proper milieu. I should like us to be on such terms with her - you being her cousin - that we could always telephone to say we were dropping in, and that she would feel equally free to drop in. Dropping in, you know: that’s the real thing; not to be obliged to wait till you are asked, or to accept weeks ahead, as one has got to do for some formal dinner party. I should like to feel that we mightn’t be surprised to find her picking sweet peas in the garden, and that she wouldn’t be surprised to find you or me sitting under her mulberry tree, waiting for her to come in. After all, intimacy only begins when formality ceases. Shall I give you some soda water?’
Mrs Ames did not want soda water: she wanted to think. Her husband had completely expressed the attitude she meant to adopt, but her own adoption of it had presupposed a certain contrition on his part with regard to his unusual behaviour. But he gave her no time for thought, and proceeded to propose just the same sort of thing as she (in her magnanimity) had thought of suggesting.
‘Dinner, now,’ he said. ‘Up till last night we have always been a bit formal about dinner here in Riseborough. If you asked General Snookes, you asked Mrs Snookes; if you asked Admiral Jones, you asked Lady Jones. You led the way, my dear, about that, and what could have been pleasanter than our little party last night? Let us repeat it: let us be less formal. If you want to see Mr Altham, ask him to come. Mrs Altham, let us say, wants to ask me: let her ask me. Or if you meet Dr Evans in the street, and he says it is lunch time, go and have lunch with him, without bothering about me. I shall do very well at home. I’m told that in London it is quite a constant practice to invite like that. And it seems to me very sensible.’
All this had seemed very sensible to Mrs Ames, when she had thought of it herself. It seemed a little more hazardous now. She was well aware that this plan had caused a vast amount of talk in Riseborough, the knowledge of which she had much enjoyed, since it was of the nature of subjects commenting on the movements of their queen, without any danger to her of dethronement. But she was not so sure that she enjoyed her husband’s cordial endorsement of her innovation. Also, in his endorsement there was some little insincerity. He had taken as instance the chance of his wishing to dine without his wife at Mrs Altham’s, and they both knew how preposterous such a contingency would be. But did this only prepare the way for a further solitary excursion to Mrs Evans’? Had Mrs Evans asked him to dine there? She was immediately enlightened.
‘Of course, we talked over your delightful dinner party of last night,’ he said, ‘and agreed in the agreeableness of it. And she asked me to dine there, en garçon, on Tuesday next. Of course, I said I must consult you first; you might have asked other people here, or we might be dining out together. I should not dream of upsetting any existing arrangement. I told her so: she quite understood. But if there was nothing going on, I promised to dine there en garçon.’
That phrase had evidently taken Major Ames’ fancy; there was a ring of youth about it, and he repeated it with gusto. His wife, too, perfectly understood the secret smack of the lips with which he said it: she knew precisely how he felt. But she was wise enough to keep the consciousness of it completely out of her reply.
‘By all means,’ she said; ‘we have no engagement for that night. And I am thinking of proposing myself for a little visit to Mrs Bertram next week, Lyndhurst. I know she is at Overstrand now, and I think ten days on the east coast would do me good.’
He assented with a cordi
ality that equalled hers.
‘Very wise, I am sure, my dear,’ he said. ‘I have thought this last day or two that you looked a little run down.’
A sudden misgiving seized her at this, for she knew quite well she neither looked nor felt the least run down.
‘I thought perhaps you and Harry would take some little trip together while I was away,’ she said.
‘Oh, never mind us, never mind us,’ said he. ‘We’ll rub along, en garçon, you know. I daresay some of our friends will take pity on us, and ask us to drop in.’
This was not reassuring: nor would Mrs Ames have been reassured if she could have penetrated at that moment unseen into Mrs Altham’s drawing room. She and her husband had gone straight from Mrs Ames’ house that afternoon to call on Mrs Evans, and had been told she was not at home. But Mrs Altham of the eagle eye had seen through the opened front door an immense bowl of sweet peas on the hall table, and by it a straw hat with a riband of regimental colours round it. Circumstantial evidence could go no further, and now this indefatigable lady was looking out Major Ames in an old army list.
‘Ames, Lyndhurst Percy,’ she triumphantly read out. ‘Born 1860, and I daresay he is older than that, because if ever there was a man who wanted to be thought younger than his years, that’s the one. So in any case, Henry, he is over forty-seven. And there’s the front-door bell. It will be Mrs Brooks. She said she would drop in for a chat after dinner.’
There was plenty to chat about that evening.
MRS AMES might or might not have been run down when she left Riseborough the following week, but nothing can be more certain than that she was considerably braced up seven days after that. The delicious freshness of winds off the North Sea, tempering the heat of brilliant summer suns, may have had something to do with it, and she certainly had more colour in her face than was usual with her, which was the legitimate effect of the felicitous weather. There was more colour in her hair also, and though that, no doubt, was a perfectly legitimate effect too, being produced by purely natural means, as the label on the bottle stated, the sun and wind were not accountable for this embellishment.
She had spent an afternoon in London - chiefly in Bond Street - on her way here, and had gone to a couple of addresses which she had secretly snipped out of the daily press. The expenditure of a couple of pounds, which was already yielding her immense dividends in encouragement and hope, had put her into possession of a bottle with a brush, a machine that, when you turned a handle, quivered violently like a motorcar that is prepared to start, and a small jar of opaque glass, which contained the miraculous skin food. With these was being wrought the desired marvels; with these, as with a magician’s rod, she was conjuring, so she believed, the remote enchantments of youth back to her.
After quite a few days change became evident, and daily that change grew greater. As regards her hair, the cost, both of time and material, in this miracle working, was of the smallest possible account. Morning and evening, after brushing it, she rubbed in a mere teaspoonful of a thin yellow liquid, which, as the advertisement stated, was quite free from grease or obnoxious smell, and did not stain the pillow. This was so simple that it really required faith to embark upon the treatment, for from the time of Hebrew prophets, mankind have found it easier to do ‘some great thing’ than merely to wash in the Jordan. But Mrs Ames, luckily, had shown her faith, and by the end of a week the marvellous lotion had shown its works. Till now, though her hair could not be described as grey, there was a considerable quantity of grey in it: now she examined it with an eye that sought for instead of shutting itself to such blemish, and the reward of its search was of the most meagre sort. There was really no grey left in it: it might have been, as far as colour could be taken as a test of age, the hair of a young woman. It was not very abundant in quantity, but the lotion had held out no promises on that score; quality, not quantity, was the sum of its beckoning. The application of the skin food was more expensive: she had to use more and it took longer. Nightly she poured a can of very hot water into her basin, and with a towel over her head to concentrate the vapour, she steamed her face over it for some twenty minutes. Emerging red and hot and stifled, she wiped off the streams of moisture, and with fingertips dipped in this marvellous cream, tapped and dabbed at the less happy regions between her eyebrows, outside her eyes, across her forehead, at the corners of her mouth, and up and down her neck. Then came the use of the palpitating machine; it whirred and buzzed over her, tickling very much. For half an hour she would make a patient piano of her face, then gently remove such of the skin food as still stayed on the surface, and had not gone within to do its nurturing work. Certainly this was a somewhat laborious affair, but the results were highly prosperous. There was no doubt that to a perfectly candid and even sceptical eye, a week’s treatment had produced a change. The wrinkles were beginning to be softly erased: there was a perceptible plumpness observable in the leaner places. Between the bouts of tapping and dabbing she sipped the glass of milk which she brought up to bed with her, as the deviser of the skin food recommended. She drank another such glass in the middle of the morning, and digested them both perfectly.
As these external signs appeared and grew there went on within her an accompanying and corresponding rejuvenation of spirit. She felt very well, owing, no doubt, to the brisk air, the milk, the many hours spent out of doors, and in consequence she began to feel much younger. An unwonted activity and lightness pervaded her limbs: she took daily a walk of a couple of hours without fatigue, and was the life and soul of the dinner table, whose other occupants were her hosts, Mrs Bertram, a cold, grim woman with a moustache, and her husband, milder, with whiskers. Their only passion was for gardening, and they seldom left their grounds; thus Mrs Ames took her walks unaccompanied.
Miles of firm sands, when the tide was low, subtended the cliffs on which Mr Bertram’s house stood, and often Mrs Ames preferred to walk along the margin of the sea rather than pursue more inland routes, and today, after her large and wholesome lunch (the physical stimulus of the east coast, combined with this mental stimulus of her object in coming here, gave her an appetite of dimensions unknown at Riseborough) she took a maritime way. The tide was far out, and the lower sands, still shining and firm from the retained moisture of its retreat, made uncommonly pleasant walking. She had abandoned heeled footgear, and had bought at a shop in the village, where everything inexpensive, from wooden spades to stamps and sticking plaster, was sold, a pair of canvas coverings technically known as sandshoes. They laced up with a piece of white tape, and were juvenile, light, and easily removable. They, and the great sea, and the jetsam of stranded seaweed, and the general sense of youth and freshness, made most agreeable companions, and she felt, though neither Mr nor Mrs Bertram was with her, charmingly accompanied. Her small, toadlike face expressed a large degree of contentment, and piercing her pleasant surroundings as the smell of syringa pierces through the odour of all other flowers, was the sense of her brown hair and fast-fading wrinkles. That gave her an inward happiness which flushed with pleasure and interest all she saw. In the lines of pebbles left by the retreating tide was an orange-coloured cornelian, which she picked up, and put in her pocket. She could have bought the same, ready polished, for a shilling at the cheap and comprehensive shop, but to find it herself gave her a pleasure not to be estimated at all in terms of silver coinage. Further on there was an attractive-looking shell, which she also picked up, and was about to give as a companion to the cornelian, when a sudden scurry of claw-like legs about its aperture showed her that a hermit crab was domiciled within, and she dropped it with a little scream and a sense of danger escaped both by her and the hermit crab. There were attractive pieces of seaweed, which reminded her of years when she collected the finer sorts, and set them, with the aid of a pin, on cartridge paper, spreading out their delicate fronds and fern-like foliage. There were creamy ripples of the quiet sea, long-winged gulls that hovered fishing; above all there was the sense of her brown hair and smoo
thed face. She felt years younger, and she felt she looked years younger, which was scarcely less solid a satisfaction.
It pleased her, but not acutely or viciously, to think of Mrs Altham’s feelings when she made her rejuvenated appearance in Riseborough. It was quite certain that Mrs Altham would suspect that she had been ‘doing something to herself,’ and that Mrs Altham would burst with envy and curiosity to know what it was she had done. Although she felt very kindly towards all the world, she did not deceive herself to such an extent as to imagine that she would tell Mrs Altham what she had done. Mrs Altham was ingenious and would like guessing. But that lady occupied her mind but little. The main point was that in a week from now she would go home again, and that Lyndhurst would find her young. She might or might not have been right in fearing that Lyndhurst was becoming sentimentally interested in Millie Evans, and she was quite willing to grant that her grounds for that fear were of the slenderest. But all that might be dismissed now. She herself, in a week from now, would have recaptured that more youthful aspect which had been hers while he was still of loverlike inclination towards her. What might be called regular good looks had always been denied her, but she had once had her share of youth. Today she felt youthful still, and once again, she believed, looked as if she belonged to the enchanted epoch. She had no intention of using this recapture promiscuously: she scarcely desired general admiration: she only desired that her husband should find her attractive.