Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  Georgie glanced through the paper again.

  “I don’t think I should bother much,” he said. “The châtelaine of Mallards, you know, leader of exclusive circles, lovely hands, pianist and scholar: all very complimentary. What a rage Elizabeth will be in. She’ll burst.”

  “Very possibly,” said Lucia. “But don’t you see how this drags me down to her level? That’s so awful. We’ve all been despising her for deceiving us and trying to make us think she was to have a baby, and now here am I no better than her, trying to make you all think I had discovered a Roman temple. And I did believe it much more than she ever believed the other. I did indeed, Georgie, and now it’s all in print which makes it ever so much worse. Her baby was never in print.”

  Georgie had absently passed his fingers through his beard, to assist thought, and perceived a vivid walnut stain on them. He put his hand below the tablecloth.

  “I never thought of that,” he said. “It is rather a pity. But think how very soon we forgot about Elizabeth. Why it was almost the next day after she gave up going to be a mother and took in the old green skirt again that you got on to your discoveries, and nobody gave a single thought to her baby any more. Can’t we give them all something new to jabber about?”

  Georgie had got up from the table and with his walnut hand still concealed strayed to the open window and looked out.

  “If that isn’t Elizabeth at the door of Mallards!” he said. “She’s got a paper in her hand: Hastings Chronicle, I bet. Grosvenor’s opened the door, but not very wide. Elizabeth’s arguing—”

  “Georgie, she mustn’t get in,” cried the agonized Lucia. “She’ll pop out into the garden, and see there’s no excavation at all.”

  “She’s still arguing,” said Georgie in the manner of Brangaene warning Isolde. “She’s on the top step now . . . Oh, it’s all right. Grosvenor’s shut the door in her face. I could hear it, too. She’s standing on the top step, thinking. Oh, my God, she’s coming here, just as she did before, when she was canvassing. But there’ll be time to tell Foljambe not to let her in.”

  Georgie hurried away on this errand, and Lucia flattened herself against the wall so that she could not be seen from the street. Presently the door-bell tinkled, and Foljambe’s voice was heard firmly reiterating, “No, ma’am, he’s not at home . . . No ma’am, he’s not in . . . No, ma’am, he’s out, and I can’t say when he’ll be in. Out.”

  The door closed, and next moment Elizabeth’s fell face appeared at the open window. A suspiciously-minded person might have thought that she wanted to peep into Georgie’s sitting-room to verify (or disprove) Foljambe’s assertions, and Elizabeth, who could read suspicious minds like an open book, made haste to dispel so odious a supposition. She gave a slight scream at seeing him so close to her and in such an elegant costume.

  “Dear Mr. Georgie,” she said. “I beg your pardon, but your good Foljambe was so certain you were out, and I, seeing the window was open, I — I just meant to pop this copy of the Hastings Chronicle in. I knew how much you’d like to see it. Lovely things about sweet Lucia, châtelaine of Mallards and Queen of Tilling and such a wonderful archæologist. Full of surprises for us. How little one knows on the spot!”

  Georgie, returning from warning Foljambe, had left the door ajar, and in consequence Lucia, flattening herself like a shadow against the wall between it and the window, was in a strong draught. The swift and tingling approach of a sneeze darted through her nose and it crashed forth.

  “Thanks very much,” said Georgie in a loud voice to Elizabeth, hoping in a confused manner by talking loud to drown what had already resounded through the room. Instantly Elizabeth thrust her head a little further through the window and got a satisfactory glimpse of Lucia’s skirt. That was enough: Lucia was there and she withdrew her head from its strained position.

  “We’re all agog about her discoveries,” she said. “Such an excitement! You’ve seen them, of course.”

  “Rather!” said Georgie with enthusiasm. “Beautiful Roman tiles and glass and pottery. Exquisite!”

  Elizabeth’s face fell: she had hoped otherwise.

  “Must be trotting along,” she said. “We meet at dinner, don’t we, at Susan Wyse’s. Her Majesty is coming, I believe.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know she was in Tilling,” said Georgie. “Is she staying with you?”

  “Naughty! I only meant the Queen of Tilling.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Georgie. “Au reservoir.”

  Lucia came out of her very unsuccessful lair.

  “Do you think she saw me, Georgie?” she asked. “It might have been Foljambe as far as the sneeze went.”

  “Certainly she saw you. Not a doubt of it,” said Georgie rather pleased at this compromising rôle which had been provided for him. “And now Elizabeth will tell everybody that you and I were breakfasting in my dressing-gown — you see what I mean — and that you hid when she looked in. I don’t know what she mightn’t make of that.”

  Lucia considered this a moment, weighing her moral against her archæological reputation.

  “It’s all for the best,” she said decidedly. “It will divert her horrid mind from the excavations. And did you ever hear such acidity in a human voice as when she said ‘Queen of Tilling’? A dozen lemons, well squeezed, were saccharine compared to it. But, my dear, it was most clever and most loyal of you to say you had seen my exquisite Roman tiles and glass. I appreciate that immensely.”

  “I thought it was pretty good,” said he. “She didn’t like that.”

  “Caro, it was admirable, and you’ll stick to it, won’t you? Now the first thing I shall do is to go to the newsagents and buy up all their copies of the Hastings Chronicle. It may be useful to cut off her supplies . . . Oh, Georgie, your hand. Have you hurt it? Iodine?”

  “Just a little sprain,” said Georgie. “Nothing to bother about.”

  Lucia picked up her hat at Mallards, and hurried down to the High Street. It was rather a shock to see a news-board outside the paper-shop with

  “MRS. LUCAS’S ROMAN FINDS IN TILLING”

  prominent in the contents of the current number of the Hastings Chronicle, and a stronger shock to find that all the copies had been sold.

  “Went like hot cakes, ma’am,” said the proprietor, “on the news of your excavations, and I’ve just telephoned a repeat order.”

  “Most gratifying,” said Lucia, looking the reverse of gratified. . . . There was Diva haggling at the butcher’s as she passed, and Diva ran out, leaving Pat to guard her basket.

  “Morning,” she said. “Seen Elizabeth?”

  Lucia thought of replying “No, but she’s seen me,” but that would entail lengthy explanations, and it was better first to hear what Diva had to say, for evidently there was news.

  “No, dear,” she said. “I’ve only just come down from Mallards. Why?”

  Diva whistled to Pat, who, guarding her basket, was growling ferociously at anyone who came near it.

  “Mad with rage,” she said. “Hastings Chronicle. Seen it?”

  Lucia concentrated for a moment, in an effort of recollection.

  “Ah, that little paragraph about my excavations,” said she lightly. “I did glance at it. Rather exaggerated, rather decorated, but you know what journalists are.”

  “Not an idea,” said Diva, “but I know what Elizabeth is. She told me she was going to expose you. Said she was convinced you’d not found anything at all. Challenging you. Of course what really riled her was that bit about you being leader of social circles, etcetera. From me she went on to tell Irene, and then to call on you and ask you point-blank whether your digging wasn’t all a fake, and then she was going on to Georgie. . . . Oh, there’s Irene.”

  Diva called shrilly to her, and she pounded up to them on her bicycle on which was hung a paint-box, a stool and an immense canvas.

  “Beloved!” she said to Lucia. “Mapp’s been to see me. She told me she was quite sure you hadn’t found any Roman remains. S
o I told her she was a liar. Just like that. She went gabbling on, so I rang my dinner-bell close to her face until she could not bear it any more and fled. Nobody can bear a dinner-bell for long if it’s rung like that: all nerve specialists will tell you so. We had almost a row, in fact.”

  “Darling, you’re a true friend,” cried Lucia, much moved.

  “Of course I am. What else do you expect me to be? I shall bring my bell to the Wyses’ this evening, in case she begins again. Good-bye, adored. I’m going out to a farm on the marsh to paint a cow with its calf. If Mapp annoys you any more I shall give the cow her face, though it’s bad luck on the cow, and send it to our summer exhibition. It will pleasantly remind her of what never happened to her.”

  Diva looked after her approvingly as she snorted up the High Street.

  “That’s the right way to handle Elizabeth, when all’s said and done,” she remarked. “Quaint Irene understands her better than anybody. Think how kind we all were to her, especially you, when she was exposed. You just said ‘Wind-egg.’ Never mentioned it again. Most ungrateful of Elizabeth, I think. What are you going to do about it? Why not show her a few of your finds, just to prove what a liar she is?”

  Lucia thought desperately a moment, and then a warm, pitying smile dawned on her face.

  “My dear, it’s really beneath me,” she said, “to take any notice of what she told you and Irene and no doubt others as well. I’m only sorry for that unhappy jealous nature of hers. Incurable, I’m afraid: chronic, and I’m sure she suffers dreadfully from it in her better moments. As for my little excavations, I’m abandoning them for a time.”

  “That’s a pity!” said Diva. “Should have thought it was just the time to go on with them. Why?”

  “Too much publicity,” said Lucia earnestly. “You know how I hate that. They were only meant to be a modest little amateur effort, but what with all that réclame in the Hastings Chronicle, and the Central News this morning telling me that Professor Arbuthnot of the British Museum, who, I understand is the final authority on Roman archæology, longing to come down to see them—”

  “No! from the British Museum?” cried Diva. “I shall tell Elizabeth that. When is he coming?”

  “I’ve refused. Too much fuss. And then my arousing all this jealousy and ill-feeling in — well, in another quarter, is quite intolerable to me. Perhaps I shall continue my work later on, but very quietly. Georgie, by the way, has seen my little finds, such as they are, and thinks them exquisite. But I stifle in this atmosphere of envy and malice. Poor Elizabeth! Good-bye, dear, we meet this evening at the Wyses’, do we not?”

  Lucia walked pensively back to Mallards, not displeased with herself. Irene’s dinner-bell and her own lofty attitude would probably scotch Elizabeth for the present, and with Georgie as a deep-dyed accomplice and Diva as an ardent sympathiser, there was not much to fear from her. The Hastings Chronicle next week would no doubt announce that she had abandoned her excavations for the present, and Elizabeth might make exactly what she chose out of that. Breezy unconsciousness of any low libels and machinations was decidedly the right ticket.

  Lucia quickened her pace. There had flashed into her mind the memory of a basket of odds and ends which she had brought from Grebe, but which she had not yet unpacked. There was a box of Venetian beads among them, a small ebony elephant, a silver photograph frame or two, some polished agates, and surely she seemed to recollect some pieces of pottery. She had no very distinct remembrance of them, but when she got home she unearthed (more excavation) this basket of dubious treasures from a cupboard below the stairs, and found in her repository of objects suitable for a jumble sale, a broken bowl and a saucer (patera) of red stamped pottery. Her intensive study of Roman remains in Britain easily enabled her to recognise them as being of “Samian ware,” not uncommonly found on sites of Roman settlements in this island. Thoughtfully she dusted them, and carried them out to the garden-room. They were pretty, they looked attractive casually but prominently disposed on the top of the piano. Georgie must be reminded how much he had admired them when they were found . . .

  CHAPTER VIII.

  With social blood pressure so high, with such embryos of plots and counterplots darkly developing, with, generally, an atmosphere so charged with electricity, Susan Wyse’s party to-night was likely (to change the metaphor once more) to prove a scene of carnage. These stimulating expectations were amply fulfilled.

  The numbers to begin with were unpropitious. It must always remain uncertain whether Susan had asked the Padre and Evie to dine that night, for though she maintained ever afterwards that she had asked them for the day after, he was equally willing to swear in Scotch, Irish and English that it was for to-night. Everyone, therefore, when eight people were assembled, thought that the party was complete, and that two tables of Bridge would keep it safely occupied after dinner. Then when the door opened (it was to be hoped) for the announcement that dinner was ready, it proved to have been opened to admit these two further guests, and God knew what would happen about Bridge. Susan shook hands with them in a dismayed and distracted manner, and slipped out of the room, as anyone could guess, to hold an agitated conference with her cook and her butler, Figgis, who said he had done his best to convince them that they were not expected, but without success. Starvation corner therefore was likely to be a Lenten situation, served with drumsticks and not enough soup to cover the bottom of the plate. Very embarrassing for poor Susan, and there was a general feeling that nobody must be sarcastic at her wearing the cross of a Member of the British Empire, which she had unwisely pinned to the front of her ample bosom, or say they had never been told that Orders would be worn. In that ten minutes of waiting, several eggs of discord (would that they had only been wind-eggs!) had been laid and there seemed a very good chance of some of them hatching.

  In the main it was Elizabeth who was responsible for this clutch of eggs, for she set about laying them at once. She had a strong suspicion that the stain on Georgie’s fingers, which he had been unable to get rid of, was not iodine but hair-dye, and asked him how he had managed to sprain those fingers all together: such bad luck. Then she turned to Lucia and enquired anxiously how her cold was: she hoped she had been having no further sneezing fits, for prolonged sneezing was so exhausting. She saw Georgie and Lucia exchange a guilty glance and again turned to him: “We must make a plot, Mr. Georgie,” she said, “to compel our precious Lucia to take more care of herself. All that standing about in the wet and cold over her wonderful excavations.”

  By this time Irene had sensed that these apparent dew-drops were globules of corrosive acid, though she did not know their precise nature, and joined the group.

  “Such a lovely morning I spent, Mapp,” she said with an intonation that Elizabeth felt was very like her own. “I’ve been painting a cow with its dear little calf. Wasn’t it lovely for the cow to have a sweet baby like that?”

  During this wait for dinner Major Benjy, screened from his wife by the Padre and Diva managed to secure three glasses of sherry and two cocktails. Then Susan returned followed by Figgis, having told him not to hand either to her husband or her that oyster-savoury which she adored, since there were not enough oysters, and to be careful about helpings. But an abundance of wine must flow in order to drown any solid deficiencies, and she had substituted champagne for hock, and added brandy to go with the chestnut ice à la Capri. They went into dinner: Lucia sat on Mr. Wyse’s right and Elizabeth on his left in starvation corner. On her other side was Georgie, and Benjy sat next Susan Wyse on the same side of the table as his wife and entirely out of the range of her observation.

  Elizabeth, a little cowed by Irene’s artless story, found nothing to complain of in starvation corner, as far as soup went: indeed Figgis’s rationing had been so severe on earlier recipients that she got a positive lake of it. She was pleased at having a man on each side of her, her host on her right, and Georgie on her left, whereas Lucia had quaint Irene on her right. Turbot came next; about th
at Figgis was not to blame, for people helped themselves, and they were all so inconsiderate that, when it came to Elizabeth’s turn, there was little left but spine and a quantity of shining black mackintosh, and as for her first glass of champagne, it was merely foam. By this time, too, she was beginning to get uneasy about Benjy. He was talking in a fat contented voice, which she seldom heard at home, and neither by leaning back nor by leaning forward could she get any really informatory glimpse of him or his wine-glasses. She heard his gobbling laugh at the end of one of his own stories, and Susan said, “Oh fie, Major, I shall tell of you.” That was not reassuring.

  Elizabeth stifled her uneasiness and turned to her host.

  “Delicious turbot, Mr. Wyse,” she said. “So good. And did you see the Hastings Chronicle this morning about the great Roman discoveries of the châtelaine of Mallards. Made me feel quite a Dowager.”

  Mr. Wyse had clearly foreseen the deadly feelings that might be aroused by that article, and had made up his mind to be extremely polite to everybody, whatever they were to each other. He held up a deprecating hand.

  “You will not be able to persuade your friends of that,” he said. “I protest against your applying the word Dowager to yourself. It has the taint of age about it. The ladies of Tilling remain young for ever, as my sister Amelia so constantly writes to me.”

  Elizabeth tipped up her champagne-glass, so that he could scarcely help observing that there was really nothing in it.