by E. F. Benson
“I never heard about dolls and twilight sleep,” said Georgie, with an ill-used air.
“Oh, here’s Irene on her motor-bicycle, coming up from Malleson Street,” cried Diva. “I wonder if she saw where they went. What a row she makes! And so rash. I thought she must have run into Susan’s Royce, and what a mess there would have been.”
Irene, incessantly hooting, came thundering along the High Street, with foul fumes pouring from the open exhaust. She evidently intended to pull up and talk to them, but miscalculated her speed. To retard herself, she caught hold of Georgie’s shoulder, and he tittuped along, acting as a brake, till she came to a standstill.
“My life-preserver!” cried Irene fervently, as she dismounted. “Georgie, I adore your beard. Do you put it inside your bedclothes or outside? Let me come and see some night when you’ve gone to bed. Don’t be alarmed, dear lamb, your sex protects you from any frowardness on my part. I was on my way to see Lucia. There’s news. Give me a nice dry kiss and I’ll tell you.”
“I couldn’t think of it,” said Georgie. “What would everybody say?”
“Dear old grandpa,” said Irene. “They’d say you were a bold and brazen old man. That would be a horrid lie. You’re a darling old lady, and I love you. What were we talking about?”
“You were talking great nonsense,” said Georgie, pulling his cape back over his shoulder.
“Yes, but do you know why? I had a lovely idea. I thought how enlightening it would be to live a day backwards. So when I got up this morning, I began backwards as if it was the end of the day instead of the beginning. I had two pipes and a whisky and soda. Then I had dinner backwards, beginning with toasted cheese, and I’m slightly tipsy. When I get home I shall have tea, and go out for a walk and then have lunch, and shortly before going to bed I shall have breakfast and then some salts. Do you see the plan? It gives you a new view of life altogether; you see it all from a completely different angle. Oh, I was going to tell you the news. I saw the Mapp-Flints going into the house agent’s. She appeared not to see me. She hasn’t seen me since dinner-bell day. I hope you understand about living backwards. Let’s all do it: one and all.”
“My dear, it sounds too marvellous,” said Georgie, “but I’m sure it would upset me and I should only see it from the angle of being sick. . . . Diva, they were only going into Woolgar & Pipstow’s.”
Diva had trundled up to them.
“Not the doctor’s, then,” she said. “I’m disappointed. It would have made it more conclusive.”
“Made what more conclusive?” asked Irene.
“Well, it’s thought that Elizabeth’s expecting—” began Diva.
“You don’t say so!” said Irene. “Who’s the co-respondent? Georgie, you’re blushing below your beard. Roguey-poguey-Romeo! I saw you climbing up a rope-ladder into the garden-room when you were supposed to be ill. Juliet Mapp opened the window to you, and you locked her in a passionate embrace. I didn’t want to get you into trouble, so I didn’t say anything about it, and now you’ve gone and got her into trouble, you wicked old Romeo, hoots and begorra. I must be godmother, Georgie, and now I’m off to tell Lucia.”
Irene leapt on to her bicycle and disappeared in a cloud of mephitic vapour in the direction of Grebe.
With the restoration of the free circulation of news, it was no wonder that by the afternoon it was universally known that this most interesting addition to the population of Tilling was expected. Neither of the two people most closely concerned spoke of it directly, but indirectly their conduct soon proclaimed it from the house-roofs. Benjy went strutting about with his wife, carrying her market-basket, obviously with the conscious pride of approaching fatherhood, pretty to see; and when he went to play golf, leaving her to do her marketing alone, Elizabeth, wreathed in smiles, explained his absence in hints of which it was impossible to miss the significance.
“I positively drove my Benjy-boy out to the links to-day,” she said to Diva. “I insisted, though he was very loth to go. But where’s the use of his hanging about? Ah, there’s quaint Irene: foolish of me, but after her conduct at the elections, it agitates me a little to see her, though I’m sure I forgive her with all my heart. I’ll just pop into the grocer’s.”
Irene stormed by, and Elizabeth popped out again.
“And you may not have heard yet, dear,” she continued, “that we want to let our sweet Mallards for six months or a year. Not that I blame anybody but myself for that necessity. Lucia perhaps might have told me that Siriami would not be paying any dividends for a couple of years, but she didn’t. That’s all.”
“But you were determined to do the opposite of whatever she advised,” said Diva. “You told me so.”
“No, you’re wrong there,” said Elizabeth, with some vehemence. “I never said that.”
“But you did,” cried Diva. “You said that if she bought Siriami, you would sell and versy-visa.”
Instead of passionately denying this, Elizabeth gave a far-away smile like Lucia’s music smile over the slow movements of Sonatas.
“We won’t argue about it, dear,” she said. “Have it all your own way.”
This suavity was most uncharacteristic of Elizabeth: was it a small piece of corroborative evidence?
“Anyhow, I’m dreadfully sorry you’re in low water,” said Diva. “Hope you’ll get a good let. Wish I could take Mallards myself.”
“A little bigger than you’re accustomed to, dear,” said Elizabeth with a touch of the old Eve. “I don’t think you’d be very comfortable in it. If I can’t get a long let, I shall have to shut it up and store my furniture, to avoid those monstrous rates, and take a teeny-weeny house somewhere else. For myself I don’t seem to mind at all, I shall be happy anywhere, but what really grieves me is that my Benjy must give up his dear garden-room. But as long as we’re together, what does it matter, and he’s so brave and tender about it . . . Good morning, Mr. Georgie. I’ve news for you, which I hope you’ll think is bad news.”
Georgie had a momentary qualm that this was something sinister about Foljambe, who had been very cross lately: there was no pleasing her.
“I don’t know why you should hope I should think it bad news,” he said.
“I shall tease you,” said Elizabeth in a sprightly tone. “Guess! Somebody going away: that’s a hint.”
Georgie knew that if this meant Foljambe was going to leave, it was highly unlikely that she should have told Elizabeth and not him, but it gave him a fresh pang of apprehension.
“Oh, it’s so tarsome to be teased,” he said. “What is it?”
“You’re going to lose your neighbours. Benjy and I have got to let Mallards for a long, long time.”
Georgie repressed a sigh of relief.
“Oh, I am sorry: that is bad news,” he said cheerfully. “Where are you going?”
“Don’t know yet. Anywhere. A great wrench, but there’s so much to be thankful for. I must be getting home. My boyikins will scold me if I don’t rest before lunch.”
Somehow this combination of financial disaster and great expectations raised Elizabeth to a high position of respect and sympathy in the eyes of Tilling. Lucia, Evie and Diva were all childless, and though Susan Wyse had had a daughter by her first marriage, Isabel Poppit was now such a Yahoo, living permanently in an unplumbed shack among the sand-dunes, that she hardly counted as a human being at all. Even if she was one, she was born years before her mother had come to settle here, and thus was no Tillingite. In consequence Elizabeth became a perfect heroine; she was elderly (it was really remarkably appropriate that her name was Elizabeth) and now she was going to wipe the eye of all these childless ladies. Then again her financial straits roused commiseration: it was sad for her to turn out of the house she had lived in for so long and her Aunt Caroline before her. No doubt she had been very imprudent, and somehow the image presented itself of her and Benjy being caught like flies in the great web Lucia had been spinning, in the centre of which she sat, sucking gold ou
t of the spoils entangled there. The image was not accurate, for Lucia had tried to shoo them out of her web, but the general impression remained, and it manifested itself in little acts of homage to Elizabeth at Bridge-parties and social gatherings, in care being taken that she had a comfortable chair, that she was not sitting in draughts, in warm congratulations if she won her rubbers and in sympathy if she lost. She was helped first and largely at dinner, Susan Wyse constantly lent her the Royce for drives in the country, so that she could get plenty of fresh air without undue fatigue, and Evie Bartlett put a fat cushion in her place behind the choir at church. Already she had enjoyed precedence as a bride, but this new precedence quite outshone so conventional a piece of etiquette. Benjy partook of it too in a minor degree, for fatherhood was just as rare in the Tilling circle as motherhood. He could not look down on Georgie’s head, for Georgie was the taller, but he straddled before the fire with legs wide apart and looked down on the rest of him and on the entire persons of Mr. Wyse and the Padre. The former must have told his sister, the Contessa Faraglione, who from time to time visited him in Tilling, of the happy event impending, for she sent a message to Elizabeth of so delicate a nature, about her own first confinement, that Mr. Wyse had been totally unable to deliver it himself, and entrusted it to his wife. The Contessa also sent Elizabeth a large jar of Italian honey, notable for its nutritious qualities. As for the Padre, he remembered with shame that he had suggested that a certain sentence should be omitted from Elizabeth’s marriage service, which she had insisted should be read, and he made himself familiar with the form for the Churching of Women.
But there were still some who doubted. Quaint Irene was one, in spite of her lewd observations to Georgie, in her coarse way she offered to lay odds that she would have a baby before Elizabeth. Lucia was another. But one morning Georgie, coming out of Mallards Cottage, had seen Dr. Dobbie’s car standing at the door of Mallards, and he had positively run down to the High Street to disseminate this valuable piece of indirect evidence, and in particular to tell Lucia. But she was nowhere about, and, as it was a beautiful day, and he was less busy than usual, having finished his piece of petit point yesterday, he walked out to Grebe to confront her with it. Just now, being in the Office, she could not be disturbed, as Grosvenor decided that a casual morning call from an old friend could not rank as an urgency, and he sat down to wait for her in the drawing-room. It was impossible to play the piano, for the sound, even with the soft pedal down, would have penetrated into the Great Silence, but he found on the table a fat volume called Health in the Home, and saw at once that he could fill up his time very pleasantly with it. He read about shingles and decided that the author could never have come across as bad a case as his own: he was reassured that the slight cough which had troubled him lately was probably not incipient tuberculosis: he made a note of calomel, for he felt pretty sure the Foljambe’s moroseness was due to liver, and she might be induced to take a dose. Then he became entirely absorbed in a chapter about mothers. A woman, he read, often got mistaken ideas into her head: she would sometimes think that she was going to have a baby, but would refuse to see a doctor for fear of being told that she was not. Then, hearing Lucia’s step on the stairs, he hastily tried to replace the book on the table, but it slipped from his hand and lay open on the carpet, and there was not time to pick it up before Lucia entered. She said not a word, but sank down in a chair, closing her eyes.
“My dear, you’re not ill, are you?” said Georgie.
Lucia kept her eyes shut.
“What time is it?” she asked in a hollow voice.
“Getting on for eleven. You are all right, are you?”
Lucia spread out her arms as if measuring some large object.
“Perfectly. But columns of figures, Georgie, and terrific decisions to make, and now reaction has come. I’ve been telephoning to London. I may be called up any moment. Divert my mind, while I relax. Any news?”
“I came down on purpose to tell you,” said Georgie, “and perhaps even you will be convinced now. Dr. Dobbie’s car was waiting outside Mallards this morning.”
“No!” said Lucia, opening her eyes and becoming extremely brisk and judicial. “That does look more like business. But still I can’t say that I’m convinced. You see, finance makes one look at all possible sides of a situation. Consider. No doubt, it was the doctor’s car: I don’t dispute that. But Major Benjy may have had an upset. Elizabeth may have fallen downstairs, though I’m sure I hope she hasn’t. Her cook may have mumps. Lots of things. No, Georgie, if the putative baby was an industrial share — I put it badly — I wouldn’t touch it.”
She pointed at the book on the floor.
“I see what that book is,” she said, “and I feel sure you’ve been reading about it. So have I. A rather interesting chapter about the delusions and fancies of middle-aged women lately married. Sometimes, so it said, they do not even believe themselves, but are only acting a kind of charade. Elizabeth must have had great fun, supposing she has been merely acting, getting her Benjy-boy and you and others to believe her, and being made much of.”
Lucia cocked her head thinking she heard the telephone. But it was only a womanly fancy of her own.
“Poor dear,” she said. “I am afraid her desire to have a baby may have led her to deceive others and perhaps herself, and then of course she liked being petted and exalted and admired. You must all be very kind and oblivious when the day comes that she has to give it up. No more twilight sleep or wanting to buy dolls or having the old green skirt let out — Ah, there’s the telephone. Wait for me, will you, for I have something more to say.”
Lucia hurried out, and Georgie, after another glance at the medical book applied his mind to the psychological aspect of the situation. Lucia had doubtless written under the growing ascendency of Elizabeth. She knew about the Contessa’s honey, she had seen how Elizabeth was cossetted and helped first and listened to with deference, however abject her utterance, and she could not have liked the secondary place which the sentiment of Tilling assigned to herself. She was a widow of fifty, and Elizabeth in virtue of her approaching motherhood, had really become of the next generation, whose future lies before them. Everyone had let Lucia pass into eclipse. Elizabeth was the great figure, and was the more heroic because she was obliged to let the ancestral home of her Aunt. Then there was the late election: it must have been bitter to Lucia to be at the bottom of the poll and obtain just the same number of votes as Elizabeth. All this explained her incredulity . . . Then once more her step sounded on the stairs.
“All gone well?” asked Georgie.
“Molto bene. I convinced my broker that mine was the most likely view. Now about poor Elizabeth. You must all be kind to her, I was saying. There is, I am convinced, an awful anti-climax in front of her. We must help her past it. Then her monetary losses: I really am much distressed about them. But what can you expect when a woman with no financial experience goes wildly gambling in gold mines of which she knows nothing, and thinks she knows better than anybody? Asking for trouble. But I’ve made a plan, Georgie, which I think will pull her out of the dreadful hole in which she now finds herself. That house of hers, Mallards. Not a bad house. I am going to offer to take it off her hands altogether, to buy the freehold.”
“I think she only wants to let it furnished for a year if she can,” said Georgie, “otherwise she means to shut it up.”
“Well, listen.”
Lucia ticked off her points with a finger of one hand on the fingers of the other.
“Uno. Naturally I can’t lease it from her as it is, furnished with mangy tiger-skins, and hip baths for chairs and Polynesian aprons on the walls and a piano that belonged to her grandmother. Impossible.”
“Quite,” said Georgie.
“Due. The house wants a thorough doing up from top to bottom. I suspect dry rot. Mice and mildewed wallpaper and dingy paint, I know. And the drains must be overhauled. I don’t suppose they’ve been looked at for centuries. I sha
ll not dream of asking her to put it in order.”
“That sounds very generous so far,” said Georgie.
“That is what it is intended to be. Tre. I will take over from her the freehold of Mallards and hand to her the freehold of Grebe with a cheque for two thousand pounds, for I understand that is what she has sunk in her reckless speculations. If she accepts, she will step into this house all in apple-pie order and leave me with one which it will really cost a little fortune to make habitable. But I think I ought to do it, Georgie. The law of kindness. Che pensate?”
Georgie knew that it had long been the dream of Lucia’s life to get Mallards for her own, but the transaction, stated in this manner, wore the aspect of the most disinterested philanthropy. She was evidently persuaded that it was, for she was so touched by the recital of her own generosity that the black bird-like brightness of her eyes was dimmed with moisture.
“We are all here to help each other, Georgie,” she continued, “and I consider it a Providential privilege to be able to give Elizabeth a hand out of this trouble. There is other trouble in front of her, when she realizes how she has been deceiving others, and, as I say, perhaps herself, and it will make it easier for her if she has no longer this money worry and the prospect of living in some miserable little house. Irene burst into tears when I told her what I was going to do. So emotional.”
Georgie did not cry, for this Providential privilege of helping others, even at so great an expense, would give Lucia just what she wanted most. That consideration dried up, at its source, any real tendency to tears.
“Well, I think she ought to be very grateful to you,” he said.
“No, Georgie, I don’t expect that; Elizabeth may not appreciate the benevolence of my intentions, and I shall be the last to point them out. Now let us walk up to the town. The nature of Dr. Dobbie’s visit to Mallards will probably be known by now and I have finished with my Office till the arrival of the evening post. . . . Do you think she’ll take my offer?”