Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

“Yes; he didn’t mind.”

  “Oh, Maud — oh, Maud! An American, too! He will probably telegraph an account of it to the New York press, and it will come out all over the States with enormous headlines!”

  “Oh, I think not,” said she. “I’m sure he wouldn’t do it.”

  Thurso recollected his own meeting with Cochrane.

  “No, I don’t think he would,” he said. “Because I met him in the village yesterday evening, and I agree he doesn’t look like that. Go on.”

  “Isn’t that enough?” she asked. “Afterwards we sat and talked as if I hadn’t been caught poaching at all. He begged me to go on fishing, too, and he did it, somehow, so simply and naturally that I thanked him and did go on. I caught six sea-trout, too, and we’re just going to have some of them. He really made it easy for me to say ‘Yes.’ In fact, it would have been absurd to say ‘No.’”

  Thurso laughed again.

  “That almost beats everything,” he said. “You are absolutely brazen.”

  “Not in the least. When you see Mr. Cochrane you will understand how simple it was.”

  “I have seen him, as I told you. It occurred to me then that we might ask him to dinner. It was that I began to suggest last night, but you were so curious to know what I was going to say that I stopped.”

  Maud looked at him reproachfully.

  “Oh, Thurso, if you had gone on you would have saved me from all this!” she said. “But don’t you understand how it was possible for me to accept?”

  Thurso considered.

  “Yes, even though I did not speak to him, I think perhaps I do. He did look to be the sort of man whose sea-trout you might catch after he had caught you poaching his salmon. That is rather a high compliment. It is a great gift to be able to make people not ashamed of themselves. I should have absolutely sunk into the earth.”

  “And Mr. Cochrane would very kindly have pulled you out,” said Maud. “At least, he pulled me out.”

  There was a short pause, during which Maud occupied her mouth with sea-trout and her mind with the question as to whether she should tell Thurso that Mr. Cochrane was a Christian Scientist. But his remark that it was not his plan to proselytise decided her against doing so. Then Thurso spoke again.

  “Do you know, to-day is the first on which I haven’t felt absolutely swamped and water-logged with depression and anxiety?” he said. “There has been no fresh case since morning, and Duncan’s wife, who, like Sandie, was almost despaired of, has taken a sudden inexplicable turn for the better. She was dying of sheer exhaustion from fever, and now all day she has been gaining strength — gaining it quickly, too, though you would have said there was no strength left. I saw Duncan this evening. He — really, I wondered whether he had been drinking.”

  “Drinking?” asked Maud. “Why, he is a tee-totaller!”

  “The worst sort of drunkard,” remarked Thurso rather cynically.

  “Oh, don’t be cheap!”

  Thurso looked up at her, and then nodded.

  “Quite right,” he said; “it’s a pity. Sorry.”

  “You old darling! But Duncan’s as sober as I am. Soberer. Go on. It interests me.”

  “Well, it all leads back to Mr. Cochrane again,” he said. “Don’t interrupt. I looked in to-night, as I told you, and there was Duncan sitting by his wife’s bedside, nursing the baby, who was, with extraordinary gurgles, trying to swarm up his beard. And his wife lay there, different, changed, with life instead of death in her face. But fancy bringing a baby into a room where there is typhoid! So I got Duncan and the child out, and cursed him, and told him that his wife was really on the mend, as the nurse had just told me. I thought he would like to know that, but apparently he had known it all day. Our Mr. Cochrane had told him this morning that his wife was getting better all the time.”

  “Yes, I heard him tell him,” said Maud.

  “Well, but how did he know?” asked Thurso. “Twelve hours ago they thought she couldn’t live through the day. And what the deuce has our Mr. Cochrane got to do with it? Who is he? What is he? How did he know?”

  Maud had no reply to this at once; “our Mr. Cochrane” had repudiated preaching on his own account — clearly, then, it was not her business to state his views.

  “Well, he hasn’t done any harm, anyhow,” she said.

  “Of course not; but it’s an odd coincidence. Mr. Cochrane tells Duncan that his wife is getting better, and Duncan has only got to walk home, and finds it is so. Oh, and another thing: Dr. Symes called there this afternoon, and Duncan kindly but quite firmly refused to let him in at all unless he promised not to give her any more medicine. So he promised, because when he saw her last she was absolutely past all hope; also, he doesn’t much believe in medicines, though you needn’t mention it. He saw, of course, the enormous improvement, and wanted to take her temperature, but Duncan again firmly, and with beaming smiles, would not allow it. I suppose he considered a thermometer a sort of modified medicine.”

  “Well?”

  “Dr. Symes insisted, and eventually Duncan, with great respect, threw the thermometer out of the window. That is why I supposed he was drunk.”

  “No, I’m sure he wasn’t drunk,” said Maud. “Go on, dear.”

  They had finished dinner, and Thurso rose to get a cigarette.

  “That’s the end,” he said. “Dr. Symes tells me he has seen that sort of recovery before, but what is odd is that our Mr. Cochrane should have foreseen it. Is he a crank, do you think, or a spiritualist, or some sort of innocent lunatic?”

  Again Maud mentally reviewed her decision not to do Mr. Cochrane’s preaching (which he would not do for himself) for him, and again endorsed her policy.

  “How do you expect me to know?” she asked. “I talked to him for ten minutes. But he’s coming to dine to-morrow, and you can judge for yourself. And how have you been? No headache?”

  He glanced at her sharply and sideways a moment, with a movement of vague suspicion.

  “Headache?” he said; “I haven’t seemed much like headache this evening, have I? Why?”

  “Only Dr. Symes told me he was afraid you were in pain. I am delighted he was mistaken.”

  Thurso shrugged his shoulders.

  “Lord, what bad guesses a skilful doctor makes!” he said. “He half wants people to be ill, so that he may have the pleasure of curing them.”

  Maud naturally asked no further question, and told herself that Dr. Symes had simply made what Thurso called a “bad guess.” But, knowing them both, it seemed to her odd that he should have thought that Thurso had been suffering if he had not. For it was only when he was in the extremes of pain that anyone could guess that he was on the rack, for it had to be strongly screwed before he visibly winced. For one moment it flashed through her mind that he had been in pain, had perhaps taken laudanum to stop it, and had — well, not chosen to tell her so. Yet his answer, though as a matter of fact it was slightly evasive in form, clearly bore the construction that he had been free from pain all day. So she dismissed that at once, telling herself that it was scandalous of her, though involuntarily only and momentarily, to suspect Thurso of insincerity. Thus, the pause only lasted a moment before she spoke of something else. But in that moment he had said to himself, “Shall I tell her?”

  The two sat up rather late that night, for Maud disliked going to bed nearly as much as she disliked getting up, and it was usually Thurso who moved the adjournment. But to-night he was extraordinarily alert; as he had said, to-day had been the first on which there had been any break in the tempest of illness which was devastating the village, and his spirits seemed to have risen in sympathy, enabling him to think and speak of other things than the immediate preoccupations which surrounded them. And chief among these was London and the reopening of Thurso House. His father, the late Earl, had died just a year ago, and next week the house was to celebrate its re-entry into London life with an adequately magnificent ball. His wife, who had stopped in town, was seeing to all arrangeme
nts, and when Catherine undertook to see to a thing, it was unnecessary for anyone else, however closely concerned, to feel any anxiety as to the completeness with which it would be seen to.

  “I heard from Catherine this morning,” he said— “at least, I heard from her typewriter. She did not even sign it. She is up to the eyes in a million affairs, and hopes I am well. Really it seems to me that most of the festivities, as well as all the charities of London would collapse unless she saw to them. And there’s the ball next week. I shall go up for the night, though whether I stop depends on how things go on here. Of course, you’ll come.”

  Maud looked at him in mild surprise; it was as if he had said, “Of course, you’ll have breakfast to-morrow.”

  “It is not improbable,” she said. “Or did you really suppose that your house was going to make its debut again, and me not there?”

  “Oh, well, I didn’t know,” he said.

  “You do now. What fun it will be! It will be crammed with kings and queens like ‘Alice in Wonderland.’ Thurso, what a good thing Catherine is so smart! I hate the word, but she is: she is magnificent. She said the other day that there are only two sorts of entertaining possible — the one where you have a great party, with kings and queens, and everybody in orders and tiaras; and the other where it is just tea-gowns and two or three real friends. I don’t believe she has ever had a party at which there were more than eight people and less than forty.”

  “It’s usually not less than forty,” remarked Thurso.

  “Oh no; it’s often less than eight. Of course I shall come. Do have a special all the way to town; it will be so expensive! Catherine — I must quote her again — says, ‘Either have a special or go third.’”

  “With a preference for specials?”

  “Not at all. She doesn’t care which it is. She often goes third, and talks to the people. And on the tops of omnibuses. But she doesn’t go in cabs: she says they are middling, like parties of twenty to meet a Serene Transparency. If she can’t have the twenty-five million horse-power motor, up she gets on the omnibus. She never stops it, either, because of the horses. She runs after it, and jumps quite beautifully. I do admire her so.”

  Thurso laughed.

  “So do I. And it’s something to admire your wife when you have been married twelve years!”

  Maud made a little sideways movement in her chair, as if her position had become suddenly uncomfortable. Her brother continued.

  “I don’t believe a woman ever existed who was so obviously admirable,” he said. “We went to the opera together the night before I came up here, and as she was going on to some large ball afterwards, she was — well, suitably dressed.”

  Maud felt, as she always felt when Thurso talked like this, as if a file had been drawn across her teeth. She tried to turn, not the conversation, but its tone.

  “Oh, how?” she asked, with deep and genuine interest; for, like all sensible girls, she loved beautiful clothes, especially when beautiful people wore them. “She always makes everybody else look dowdy or overdressed. That must be such fun.”

  “Well, she had the diamond palisade, as she calls it, in her hair, and what she calls the ruby plaster all, all down her.”

  “Yes, but her dress?” said Maud. “I know the plaster.”

  “Her dress? Goodness knows what it was made of, but it looked — you know what whipped cream looks like compared to cream — it looked like whipped gold. Sort of froth of gold: not yellow, but gold. Melba was in the middle of the jewel-song when we came in, but at the end of it nobody was paying the slightest attention to her. Every glass in the house was turned on Catherine.”

  He got up and threw his cigarette-end away.

  “And she’s my wife,” he added; and the four words carried tons of irony.

  Maud got up also. She hated this: it was the process of the file again. She knew that Thurso talked to no one but her like that, but she deplored that he felt like that.

  “Oh, it is such a pity, dear,” she said.

  “That she’s my wife?”

  “Oh, Thurso, don’t! All the worst of you spoke then. No, a pity that you feel like that. You are both such splendid people, really. And — —”

  “And I bore her, and she gets on my nerves,” he remarked.

  Maud gave a little frown and gesture of disapproval.

  “You should never say such things,” she said. “It is a mistake to say them just because they are — well, partly true. If they were untrue it would not matter. But to let yourself say a true thing, when that thing is a pity, only makes it more real. Speech confirms everything. Good gracious! if people would only hold their tongues on unpleasant topics, how the things themselves would improve! Oh, I am a philosopher.”

  He looked at her with great tenderness and affection.

  “Are you?” he said. “I like you, anyhow. Go on.”

  Maud gave a long sigh.

  “You don’t do her justice,” she said, “any more than she does you justice. You don’t allow for each other. And — Thurso, I don’t believe she is happy any more than you are.”

  “Why do you think that? She carves forty-eight hours out of every day, and fills them all, while the world looks on in envious admiration. That is her ideal, and she always attains it. And even her husband claps his hands.”

  Maud took him by the shoulders and shook him gently.

  “Idiot!” she said— “dreadful idiot! Shut up! I am going to bed. Thank me for catching so many beautiful fish.”

  “I am not sure that I thank you for asking Mr. Cochrane to dinner to-morrow,” he said. “I love these quiet evenings with you.”

  “Thanks, dear. I get on tolerably, too. Good night. What a nice day it has been, and what nice things we’ve got to think about to send us to sleep! No fresh case of typhoid to-day for the people, and no headache for you, and a salmon for me. I am so sleepy that I don’t mind going to bed.”

  “Maud,” he began, then stopped.

  No, he could not tell her. In himself he was ashamed of having taken laudanum, and was ashamed, also, of having deceived her, for he saw he had done that. Since, then, he was ashamed of it, there was no need that she should know.

  “Well?”

  “No, it’s nothing.”

  “Thurso, your manners are atrocious!” she said. “Both yesterday and to-day you have begun to say something, and then stopped. I shall keep doing that all to-morrow, and you will see how maddening it is.”

  He laughed again.

  “Good night, dear old boy,” said she.

  The next day was wholly given up to the installation of the typhoid patients. Carpets, rugs, and curtains had been rolled up, unnecessary furniture removed, and beds brought up and down from the basement and the higher floors, so that the utmost accommodation might be provided in the big rooms on the first-floor. Dr. Symes, in consultation with the other doctors, had settled that it was better to run a little risk, and move even bad cases up here, since the day was dry and warm, for the sake of the more immediate attention and greater abundance of fresh air than was possible when patients were scattered about in tiny cottage-rooms, and the ambulance, going backwards and forwards all day, brought grave burdens. But by five in the afternoon the work of transportation was done, and the house was full. Afterwards the doctors went the round of the whole house, and found the results satisfactory. Not one, apparently, had suffered from the move, and now, instead of the patients being in small, ill-ventilated rooms, they were airily housed, with every facility for constant supervision from the nurses. Most, too, were going on well; but there was one case, that of Sandie the gillie, which was as serious as it could be. As often when the strong are ill, it seemed as if the fever, vampire-like, sucked out his strength and itself thrived and grew strong on it; and Dr. Symes, before he left, had given orders that he should be sent for at once if any further unfavourable symptoms occurred. Duncan’s wife, it is true, had been through a passage no less perilous that very morning, but, with every
wish to be hopeful, it was unlikely that two should be snatched from the very snap of the jaws of death.

  Thurso had been in the house all day, and when the move was finished he went down into the room where he and Maud lived, feeling desperately tired, and intending to get an hour’s sleep before dinner. But to have an intention, however strong, laudable, and innocent, does not imply that the very best efforts are able to put it into effect; and instead, in this instance, he had no sooner composed himself to sleep than he felt that, though the surface of his brain was drowsy and tired beyond all words, something below was broadly and staringly awake.

  He had lain down on the sofa with his face averted from the light and his eyes shut, so as to give the utmost welcome to sleep, but it was not sleep that came, but a series of vivid though unreal images, born of memory. First an interminable series of stretchers, each with its swathed, fever-stricken burden, came up the stairs, and just when he was beginning to feel that this monotonous procession was the precursor of sleep, another image twitched him and claimed his attention. Maud had gone fishing, poaching, yesterday, and had enjoyed good sport; thus the procession of stretchers gave way to the vision of her landing fish after fish, all dead-beat, all silver-sided, till it seemed that this iteration, too, must end in unconsciousness. But something jarred it, and, instead, Catherine stood at the head of the stairs in Thurso House, dressed in rubies, with a sort of “love-in-the-mist” of gold round her, receiving kings and queens, and queens and kings, all in crowns. But that, again, ended, not in slumber, but in something very antagonistic to it. There was just a little stab — it was hardly pain — inside his head, as remote as the sound of an electric bell in the basement. Then it was repeated, but this time louder and more insistently, as if the ringer, on the one hand, was impatient, and as if the bell was beginning to come up the back-stairs. Then — it was right to call it pain now — the sound grew louder, and the finger pressed the bell more firmly, while the bell itself came closer. He was quite wide awake now, surface of brain and secret cells alike, and he opened his eyes. Then he said out loud: