Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “They would have, if there hadn’t been any,” she said.

  “How horrid you are,” said Georgie. “How—”

  His speech was cut off by several loud sneezes. However beautiful the sleeve-links, it wasn’t wise to stand without a coat after being in such a heat.

  “How what?” asked Mrs. Quantock, when the sneezing was over.

  “I’ve forgotten now. I shall get back to my rolling. A little chilly. I’ve done half the lawn.”

  A telephone-bell had been ringing for the last few seconds, and Mrs. Quantock localised it as being in his house, not hers. Georgie was rather deaf, however much he pretended not to be.

  “Your telephone bell’s ringing, Georgie,” she said.

  “I thought it was,” said Georgie, who had not heard it at all.

  “And come in presently for a cup of tea,” shouted Mrs. Quantock.

  “Should love to. But I must have a bath first.”

  Georgie hurried indoors, for a telephone call usually meant a little gossip with a friend. A very familiar voice, though a little husky and broken, asked if it was he.

  “Yes, it’s me, Lucia,” he said in soft firm tones of sympathy. “How are you?”

  Lucia sighed. It was a long, very audible, intentional sigh. Georgie could visualise her putting her mouth quite close to the telephone, so as to make sure it carried.

  “Quite well,” she said. “And so is my Pepino, thank heaven. Bearing up wonderfully. He’s just gone.”

  Georgie was on the point of asking where, but guessed in time.

  “I see,” he said. “And you didn’t go. I’m very glad. So wise.”

  “I felt I couldn’t,” she said, “and he urged me not. It’s to-morrow. He sleeps in London to-night—”

  (Again Georgie longed to say “where,” for it was impossible not to wonder if he would sleep in the house of unknown locality near Harrod’s.)

  “And he’ll be back to-morrow evening,” said Lucia without pause. “I wonder if you would take pity on me and come and dine. Just something to eat, you know: the house is so upset. Don’t dress.”

  “Delighted,” said Georgie, though he had ordered oysters. But they could be scolloped for to-morrow. . . . “Love to come.”

  “Eight o’clock then? Nobody else of course. If you care to bring our Mozart duet.”

  “Rather,” said Georgie. “Good for you to be occupied, Lucia. We’ll have a good go at it.”

  “Dear Georgie,” said Lucia faintly. He heard her sigh again, not quite so successfully, and replace the earpiece with a click.

  Georgie moved away from the telephone, feeling immensely busy: there was so much to think about and to do. The first thing was to speak about the oysters, and, his parlour-maid being out, he called down the kitchen-stairs. The absence of Foljambe made it necessary for him to get his bath ready himself, and he turned the hot water tap half on, so that he could run downstairs again and out into the garden (for there was not time to finish the lawn if he was to have a bath and change before tea) in order to put the roller back in the shed. Then he had to get his clothes out, and select something which would do for tea and also for dinner, as Lucia had told him not to dress. There was a new suit which he had not worn yet, rather daring, for the trousers, dark fawn, were distinctly of Oxford cut, and he felt quite boyish as he looked at them. He had ordered them in a moment of reckless sartorial courage, and a quiet tea with Daisy Quantock, followed by a quiet dinner with Lucia, was just the way to make a beginning with them, far better than wearing them for the first time at church on Sunday, when the whole of Riseholme simultaneously would see them. The coat and waistcoat were very dark blue: they would look blue at tea and black at dinner; and there were some grey silk socks, rather silvery, and a tie to match them. These took some time to find, and his search was interrupted by volumes of steam pouring into his bedroom from his bathroom; he ran in to find the bath full nearly to the brim of boiling water. It had been little more than lukewarm yesterday, and his cook had evidently taken to heart his too-sharp words after breakfast this morning. So he had to pull up the plug of his bath to let the boiling contents subside, and fill up with cold.

  He went back to his bedroom and began undressing. All this news about Lucia and Pepino, with Daisy Quantock’s penetrating comments, was intensely interesting. Old Miss Lucas had been in this nursing-home or private asylum for years, and Georgie didn’t suppose that the inclusive charges could be less than fifteen pounds a week, and fifteen times fifty-two was a large sum. That was income too, and say it was at five per cent., the capital it represented was considerable. Then there was that house in London. If it was freehold, that meant a great deal more capital: if it was on lease it meant a great deal more income. Then there were rates and taxes, and the wages of a caretaker, and no doubt a margin. And there were the pearls.

  Georgie took a half-sheet of paper from the drawer in a writing-table where he kept half-sheets and pieces of string untied from parcels, and began to calculate. There was necessarily a good deal of guesswork about it, and the pearls had to be omitted altogether, since nobody could say what “pearls” were worth without knowing their quantity or quality. But even omitting these, and putting quite a low figure on the possible rent of the house near Harrod’s, he was astounded at the capital which these annual outgoings appeared to represent.

  “I don’t put it at a penny less than fifty thousand pounds,” he said to himself, “and the income at two thousand six hundred.”

  He had got a little chilly as he sat at his figures, and with a luxurious foretaste of a beautiful hot bath, he hurried into his bathroom. The whole of the boiling water had run out.

  “How tarsome! Damn!” said Georgie, putting in the plug and turning on both taps simultaneously.

  His calculations, of course, had only been the materials on which his imagination built, and as he dressed it was hard at work, between glances at his trousers as reflected in the full-length mirror which stood in his window. What would Lucia and Pepino do with this vast increase of fortune? Lucia already had the biggest house in Riseholme and the most Elizabethan decor, and a motor, and as many new clothes as she chose. She did not spend much on them because her lofty mind despised clothes, but Georgie permitted himself to indulge cynical reflections that the pearls might make her dressier. Then she already entertained as much as she felt disposed; and more money would not make her wish to give more dinners. And she went up to London whenever there was anything in the way of pictures or plays or music which she felt held the seed of culture. Society (so-called) she despised as thoroughly as she despised clothes, and always said she came back to Riseholme feeling intellectually starved. Perhaps she would endow a permanent fund for holding May-day revels on the village green, for Lucia had said she meant to have May-day revels every year. They had been a great success last year, though fatiguing, for everybody dressed up in sixteenth century costume, and danced Morris dances till they all hobbled home dead lame at the merciful sunset. It had all been wonderfully Elizabethan, and Georgie’s jerkin had hurt him very much.

  Lucia was a wonderful character, thought Georgie, and she would find a way to spend two or three thousand a year more in an edifying and cultured manner. (Were Oxford trousers meant to turn up at the bottom? He thought not: and how small these voluminous folds made your feet look.) Georgie knew what he himself would do with two or three thousand a year more: indeed he had often considered whether he would not try to do it without. He wanted, ever so much, to have a little flat in London (or a couple of rooms would serve), just for a dip every now and then in the life which Lucia found so vapid. But he knew he wasn’t a strong, serious character like Lucia, whose only frivolities were artistic or Elizabethan.

  His eye fell on a large photograph on the table by his bedside in a silver frame, representing Brunnhilde. It was signed “Olga to beloved Georgie,” and his waistcoat felt quite tight as, drawing in a long breath, he recalled that wonderful six months when Olga Bracely, the prima don
na, had bought Old Place, and lived here, and had altered all the values of everything. Georgie believed himself to have been desperately in love with her, but it had been a very exciting time for more reasons than that. Old values had gone: she had thought Riseholme the most splendid joke that had ever been made; she loved them all and laughed at them all, and nobody minded a bit, but followed her whims as if she had been a Pied Piper. All but Lucia, that is to say, whose throne had, quite unintentionally on Olga’s part, been pulled smartly from under her, and her sceptre flew in one direction, and her crown in another. Then Olga had gone off for an operatic tour in America, and, after six triumphant months there, had gone on to Australia. But she would be back in England by now, for she was singing in London this season, and her house at Riseholme, so long closed, would be open again. . . . And the coat buttoned beautifully, just the last button, leaving the rest negligently wide and a little loose. Georgie put an amethyst tie-pin in his grey tie, which gave a pretty touch of colour, brushed his hair back from his forehead, so that the toupée was quite indistinguishable from his own hair, and hurried downstairs to go out to tea with Daisy Quantock.

  Daisy was seated at her writing-table when he entered, very busy with a pencil and piece of paper and counting something up on her fingers. Her gardening-fork lay in the grate with the fire-irons, on the carpet there were one or two little sausages of garden-mould, which no doubt had peeled off from her boots, and her gardening gloves were on the floor by her side. Georgie instantly registered the conclusion that something important must have occurred, and that she had come indoors in a great hurry, because the carpet was nearly new, and she always made a great fuss if the smallest atom of cigarette ash dropped on it.

  “Thirty-seven, forty-seven, fifty-two, and carry five,” she muttered, as Georgie stood in front of the fire, so that the entire new suit should be seen at once. “Wait a moment, Georgie — and seventeen and five’s twenty-three — no, twenty-two, and that’s put me out: I must begin again. That can’t be right. Help yourself, if de Vere has brought in tea, and if not ring — Oh, I left out the four, and altogether it’s two thousand five hundred pounds.”

  Georgie had thought at first that Daisy was merely doing some belated household accounts, but the moment she said two thousand five hundred pounds he guessed, and did not even go through the formality of asking what was two thousand five hundred pounds.

  “I made it two thousand six hundred,” he said. “But we’re pretty well agreed.”

  Naturally Daisy understood that he understood.

  “Perhaps you reckoned the pearls as capital,” she said, “and added the interest.”

  “No I didn’t,” he said. “How could I tell how much they were worth? I didn’t reckon them in at all.”

  “Well, it’s a lot of money,” said Daisy. “Let’s have tea. What will she do with it?”

  She seemed quite blind to the Oxford trousers, and Georgie wondered whether that was from mere feebleness of vision. Daisy was short-sighted, though she steadily refused to recognise that, and would never wear spectacles. In fact, Lucia had made an unkind little epigram about it at a time when there was a slight coolness between the two, and had said “Dear Daisy is too short-sighted to see how short-sighted she is.” Of course it was unkind, but very brilliant, and Georgie had read through “The Importance of Being Earnest” which Lucia had gone up to town to see, in the hopes of discovering it. . . . Or was Daisy’s unconsciousness of his trousers merely due to her preoccupation with Lucia’s probable income? . . . Or were the trousers, after all, not so daring as he had thought them?

  He sat down with one leg thrown carelessly over the arm of his chair, so that Daisy could hardly fail to see it. Then he took a piece of tea-cake.

  “Yes, do tell me what you think she will do with it?” he asked. “I’ve been puzzling over it too.”

  “I can’t imagine,” said Daisy. “She’s got everything she wants now. Perhaps they’ll just hoard it, in order that when Pepino dies we may all see how much richer he was than we ever imagined. That’s too posthumous for me. Give me what I want now, and a pauper’s funeral afterwards.”

  “Me too,” said Georgie, waving his leg. “But I don’t think Lucia will do that. It did occur to me—”

  “The house in London, you mean,” said Daisy, swiftly interrupting. “Of course if they kept both houses open, with a staff in each, so that they could run up and down as they chose, that would make a big hole in it. Lucia has always said that she couldn’t live in London, but she may manage it if she’s got a house there.”

  “I’m dining with her to-night,” said Georgie. “Perhaps she’ll say something.”

  Mrs. Quantock was very thirsty with her gardening, and the tea was very hot. She poured it into her saucer and blew on it.

  “Lucia would be wise not to waste any time,” she said, “if she intends to have any fun out of it, for, you know, Georgie, we’re beginning to get old. I’m fifty-two. How old are you?”

  Georgie disliked that barbarous sort of question. He had been the young man of Riseholme so long that the habit was ingrained, and he hardly believed that he was forty-eight.

  “Forty-three,” he said, “but what does it matter how old we are, as long as we’re busy and amused? And I’m sure Lucia has got all the energy and life she ever had. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if she made a start in London, and went in for all that. Then, of course, there’s Pepino, but he only cares for writing his poetry and looking through his telescope.”

  “I hate that telescope,” said Daisy. “He took me up on to the roof the other night and showed me what he said was Mars, and I’ll take my oath he said that the same one was Venus only a week before. But as I couldn’t see anything either time, it didn’t make much difference.”

  The door opened, and Mr. Quantock came in. Robert was like a little round brown sarcastic beetle. Georgie got up to greet him, and stood in the full blaze of the light. Robert certainly saw his trousers, for his eyes seemed unable to quit the spreading folds that lay round Georgie’s ankles: he looked at them as if he was Cortez and they some new planet. Then without a word he folded his arms and danced a few steps of what was clearly meant to be a sailor’s hornpipe.

  “Heave-ho, Georgie,” he said. “Belay there and avast.”

  “What is he talking about?” said Daisy.

  Georgie, quite apart from his general good-nature, always strove to propitiate Mr. Quantock. He was far the most sarcastic person in Riseholme and could say sharp things straight off, whereas Georgie had to think a long time before he got a nasty edge to any remark, and then his good-nature generally forbade him to slash with it.

  “He’s talking about my new clothes,” he said, “and he’s being very naughty. Any news?”

  “Any news?” was the general gambit of conversation in Riseholme. It could not have been bettered, for there always was news. And there was now.

  “Yes, Pepino’s gone to the station,” said Mr. Quantock. “Just like a large black crow. Waved a black hand. Bah! Why not call a release a release and have done with it? And if you don’t know — why, I’ll tell you. It’s because they’re rolling in riches. Why, I’ve calculated—”

  “Yes?” said Daisy and Georgie simultaneously.

  “So you’ve been calculating too?” said Mr. Quantock.

  “Might have a sweepstake for the one who gets nearest. I say three thousand a year.”

  “Not so much,” said Georgie and Daisy again simultaneously.

  “All right. But that’s no reason why I shouldn’t have a lump of sugar in my tea.”

  “Dear me, no,” said Daisy genially. “But how do you make it up to three thousand?”

  “By addition,” said this annoying man. “There’ll be every penny of that. I was at the lending library after lunch, and those who could add made it all that.”

  Daisy turned to Georgie.

  “You’ll be alone with Lucia then to-night,” she said.

  “Oh, I knew that,”
said Georgie. “She told me Pepino had gone. I expect he’s sleeping in that house to-night.”

  Mr. Quantock produced his calculations, and the argument waxed hot. It was still raging when Georgie left in order to get a little rest before going on to dinner, and to practise the Mozart duet. He and Lucia hadn’t tried it before, so it was as well to practise both parts, and let her choose which she liked. Foljambe had come back from her afternoon out, and told him that there had been a trunk call for him while he was at tea, but she could make nothing of it.

  “Somebody in a great hurry, sir,” she said, “and kept asking if I was — excuse me, sir, if I was Georgie — I kept saying I wasn’t, but I’d fetch you. That wouldn’t do, and she said she’d telegraph.”

  “But who was it?” asked Georgie.

  “Couldn’t say, sir. She never gave a name, but only kept asking.”

  “She?” asked Georgie.

  “Sounded like one!” said Foljambe.

  “Most mysterious,” said Georgie. It couldn’t be either of his sisters, for they sounded not like a she but a he. So he lay down on his sofa to rest a little before he took a turn at the Mozart.

  The evening had turned chilly, and he put on his blue cape with the velvet collar to trot across to Lucia’s house. The parlour-maid received him with a faint haggard smile of recognition, and then grew funereal again, and preceding him, not at her usual brisk pace, but sadly and slowly, opened the door of the music-room and pronounced his name in a mournful whisper. It was a gay cheerful room, in the ordinary way; now only one light was burning, and from the deepest of the shadows, there came a rustling, and Lucia rose to meet him.

  “Georgie, dear,” she said. “Good of you.”

  Georgie held her hand a moment longer than was usual, and gave it a little extra pressure for the conveyance of sympathy. Lucia, to acknowledge that, pressed a little more, and Georgie tightened his grip again to show that he understood, until their respective finger-nails grew white with the conveyance and reception of sympathy. It was rather agonising, because a bit of skin on his little finger had got caught between two of the rings on his third finger, and he was glad when they quite understood each other.