Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “Why, if this doesn’t tickle me to death!” exclaimed Theodosia, “to receive you at your own house, Catherine! And how are you, Lord Thurso?”

  Thurso stifled a wish that something would tickle Theodosia to death, and she proceeded.

  “My! what a beautiful motor! Why, if it isn’t cunning! Silas and I got here just half an hour ago, and your servants brought us tea right away out on the lawn, and made us ever so much at home. But, as I’m for ever saying to everybody, ‘Catherine is just perfect, and everything she has is just perfect — her husband, her servants, her motor-car, and her crackers.’ You should have seen Silas tackle the crackers! Don’t I tell everybody so, Silas?”

  When Theodosia was present there was never any fear of awkward silences — awkward speeches were the only possibilities; but she covered up every awkward speech so quickly with another that none of them mattered much. She was usually talking when somebody else was talking, and always when nobody else was.

  “Don’t you tell everybody what, Theodosia?” inquired her husband.

  “Why, that Catherine is just perfect. But Englishmen are so perfect, too, that I guess it’s right for perfect American girls to marry them. Why, your ball the other night! I thought I knew something about balls, but Catherine’s ahead of me there, though we’ve had some bright evenings in New York. I guess you’re proud of your wife, Lord Thurso, and I guess she’s proud of you.”

  This was all very pleasant, and it was not only a salute-explosion of geniality on the part of Theodosia; she exploded all the time like a quick-firing gun. She was never sick or sorry, or tired or silent; she was always bright, and a contemplative mind might seriously wonder whether anything known to occur in this uncertain world would make her stop talking. She talked all the time that she was in a dentist’s chair, even though her speech was impeded by pads and gags and creosote; and she had once talked without intermission through a railway accident, not even stopping to scream. At intervals the voice of her husband said “Theodosia!” like a clock striking, but the ticking went on all the same.

  “And if that isn’t the cunningest yew-hedge I ever saw,” she said, “with a door cut right through the middle of it as if it was a wall; and there’s the river just beyond with the boats, like people on the side-walk. Lord Thurso, can you see the river from where you are sitting? Silas, change places with Lord Thurso, because I want him to see the river through the door in the yew-hedge. My! look at that bug — what do you call it? Oh yes, butterfly — sitting right here on the arm of my chair! Isn’t it tame! The bugs in America aren’t half so tame as that: they hustle more; but I think it’s English not to hustle so much. You eat your tea without hustling, too, Lord Thurso. I call that the true British tranquillity, and I just adore it. Don’t I, Silas?”

  Catherine, however, distinctly hustled over her tea, and got up. It was she who had asked Theodosia here, and she did not for a moment repent having done so; but she began to foresee that it would be necessary to provide Theodosia with relays of companions who should take her for a series of walks, and “rides” in the punt (as Theodosia would say), and other rides in motors, if she wanted to save her Saturday to Monday from utter shipwreck. She thanked Heaven Maud was coming, who handled loquacious people so serenely, and listened, or appeared to, to their impossible conversation with an interest that was quite marvellous. Clearly, also, it was by a direct dispensation of Providence that Alice Yardly was to be of this party, for Alice also asked for nothing more than to be allowed to talk without intermission. Theodosia talked of things she saw — the river, the road, the bug, the yew-hedge; her eyes supplied unfailing topics of conversation to her tongue. While Alice talked with the same incessantness of things you could not see — faith and healing, and false claims of mortal mind. Between them they would cover the whole ground. And both of them were perfectly happy sitting opposite anybody else who might talk simultaneously, as long as he asked no question which interrupted the flow of their volubility. Clearly, then, Providence intended that Alice and Theodosia should be paired, like blessed sirens, and keep up a perpetual flow of conversation to which nobody else need listen.

  But at present Maud had not arrived, so she took Theodosia down to the river, and “punted her around,” as that lady’s phrase went. Catherine punted around, so she felt, as she had never punted before; she would have punted to Oxford, if necessary, to keep this appreciative lady away from the house till Maud or Alice Yardly arrived, either of whom were capable of tackling her. Protective instincts governed those unusual physical activities. She was responsible for the advent of Theodosia; she was therefore responsible for keeping Theodosia away from Thurso.

  So it was not till seven had clanged from the church tower at Maidenhead that she turned the punt homewards, and found on arrival that everybody had come, and that everybody had gone to dress. She herself was a dresser of abnormal quickness, and found she had still nearly half an hour to spare after she had seen Theodosia safely to her room. So, instead of wasting it alone, she went to talk to Maud. The latter was betwixt and between, with a hovering maid, and a river of hair making Pactolus down her back. The highest geniality flowed on the other side.

  “Dearest Catherine,” she said, “I know it was too awful of me, but, of course, you didn’t wait. Everything has been late to-day — at least, I have — and I was late for lunch, and things were amusing, and as I had told my maid to take my traps, and other people were going down to Taplow, I came down with them, and was dropped here. Isn’t the country looking too divine! Of course, Thurso came with you. We broke down — you never heard such a bang — and serve me right. Do stop and talk to me for five minutes, because I know you dress like summer lightning. How many maids surround you? Three, is it? What fun it was all last week! You do give your relations and connections a good time. Please wear your smartest to-night — jewels and all. It is so chic to be smart in the country and shabby in London. And it’s an old-established custom for you to smoke a cigarette while I am dressing, before it’s time for you to dress. There’s half an hour yet.”

  Catherine lit a cigarette, and, catching Maud’s eye, nodded in the direction of her maid and spoke in French.

  “Send her away for a few minutes,” she said.

  Maud gave a giggle of laughter.

  “What a bad language to choose,” she said, “because Hortense is French — aren’t you, Hortense? Will you go away, please, and come back when her ladyship goes away?”

  Then Maud turned to her sister-in-law.

  “Now, Catherine, what is it?” she asked.

  “Well, first, do be very kind to me, Maud, and take Theodosia away on all possible occasions, so that she gets on Thurso’s nerves as little as may be.”

  Maud brought a long plait of hair round her shoulder and held it in her mouth for a moment.

  “Then I know what you want to talk about,” she said. “Theodosia first: I’m on; and afterwards?”

  “Of course you know. Thurso’s nerves. He was fearfully jumpy all the way down. He made efforts, but you don’t have to make efforts if you are well, do you? He was rather rude, too, which is so unlike him. He is not rude when he is well. You told me he had bad attacks of neuralgia up in Scotland.”

  “Yes, day after day,” said Maud.

  She paused a moment, wondering whether she had better say that which was on the tip of her tongue. Then she decided to do so. After all, it was her brother’s wife to whom she was talking, and the matter was one that clearly concerned her. Even more than that, she was talking to Catherine, to whose wisdom, above that of, perhaps, all others, she felt it natural to confide perplexity or trouble.

  “He had got to get through the day’s work,” she said, “and to enable him to do so, to get relief from this horrible pain, he took laudanum, which had been prescribed for him, rather freely. I allow that before the end I was more anxious about that than about his neuralgia. I think he ought to get the limits laid down by a doctor. It can’t be right for anybody to tak
e that sort of drug absolutely at his own discretion.”

  “Ah! but his headaches have ceased,” said Catherine. “He told me there had been no return of them since he came to town.”

  “I am very glad,” said Maud, “because — well, it can’t be a good thing to get in the habit of taking that stuff, though while he was up in Scotland and the neuralgia was so bad he had to get relief somehow. But if his headaches have ceased, I suppose one need not be anxious any more.”

  Catherine heard a certain hesitation in her voice, and saw the same in her face.

  “You are not telling me quite all,” she said. “I think you had better. You are afraid of something more. If your fears are groundless, there is no harm done; if they have foundation, it is best for me to know. Of course I guess what it is.”

  Maud put down her brush, and turned to her sister-in-law.

  “Yes; I expect you guess quite correctly. It is this: He has begun to take it for its own sake — for the sake of its effects. Coming up in the train he thought I was asleep, and I saw him — yes, I spied on him if you like — I saw him go to his bag, take out the bottle, and have a dose. He had no headache; he was never better. He wanted the effects of it. It was a big dose, too — double the ordinary one, I should say. He did not measure it. I think he did the same thing up in Scotland.”

  Catherine got up, and looked out of the window in silence for awhile.

  “You did perfectly right to tell me, Maud. Thank you,” she said. “But it is hell — damnation, you know. What do you advise?”

  “Get him to see a doctor.”

  “He won’t. I suggested it to-day. And one doesn’t want to lose any time; the pace accelerates so quickly on that awful road. Poor Thurso! Of course it is desirable that I should appear to find out what you have told me for myself — find out, that is to say, that he is taking this drug.”

  “You may say I told you, if necessary,” said Maud. “What are you going to do?”

  “I can’t make any plan yet. I must see.”

  Catherine left the room, and went down the passage to her own. Outside her husband’s dressing-room, next hers, was standing his valet, and a sudden thought occurred to her.

  “Is his lordship dressed, do you know?” she asked.

  “No, my lady. His lordship told me he would call me when he began,” said the man.

  She went to the door, tapped, and entered.

  “Flynn told me you were not dressing yet,” she said, “though both you and I will be late if we don’t begin.”

  “I waited till I heard you come to your room,” he said. “What is it?”

  “Only I am afraid you must take in Alice Yardly and have Theodosia next you. I am sorry: it is the upper and nether millstones. But we’ll change about to-morrow.”

  Thurso was lying on his sofa, doing nothing, and with no book or paper near him; nor did he look as if he had been sleeping. His eyes were bright and alert. He looked radiantly happy and cheerful; it was not the same man who had frowned and started all the way down in the car.

  “Why should we change about to-morrow?” he said. “I delight in Theodosia and I adore Alice. Her extraordinary silliness makes me feel wise in my own conceit, and conceited in my own wisdom. Is it really dressing-time? How tiresome! Don’t let us dine till nine to-morrow. It is absurd dining before in the summer. One oughtn’t to lose a minute of this heavenly twilight hour by doing anything in it.”

  Catherine had walked to the open window by which his sofa was drawn up; and was observing him closely. He stretched himself with the luxuriousness of some basking animal as he spoke, and she saw he had a cigarette in each hand, both of which were burning.

  “Is that a new plan?” she said, “smoking two cigarettes at once?”

  “Yes, so far as I am concerned; but it’s not original. Don’t you remember the Pirate King in ‘Peter Pan’ smokes two — or was it three? — cigars together, because he is such an astounding swell? My God! what a play! It put the clock back thirty years. The moral is that you can’t have too much of a good thing. You should lay your pleasures on thick, not thin; butter your cake on both sides, and put jam on the top. I am awfully happy to-night. It was an excellent idea of yours to come down here. How wonderful the light is! how good everything smells!”

  He was speaking with a sort of purr of sensuous enjoyment, though the words were clear and unblurred. She had seen him like this once before, when in the spring he had sought relief from an attack of pain with laudanum. She thought then that it was the mere cessation of it which caused that ecstasy; now she knew what it was, and her heart sank.

  His long, lazy stretch turned him a little on the sofa, so that he faced her as she stood by the window, with the rosy evening light flooding her face.

  “And, my God! how beautiful you are, Catherine!” he said. “You are made for worship and immortality. There never was a woman so wonderful as you.”

  Catherine pulled herself together, called up her courage. Something must be done.

  “Thurso, let us leave my charms for a moment,” she said. “Tell me, have you had any headache to-day? I hope not.”

  “Headache! No. I’ve forgotten what headaches are like.”

  “Then, why have you been taking that stuff — laudanum, opium, whatever it is? Oh, it’s so dangerous!”

  “I — I haven’t. What do you mean?” he said, stumbling over the words.

  She caught sight of a small medicine-glass on his washing-stand, and took it up and smelled it.

  “Where is the use of saying that?” she asked, holding it out to him.

  He got up quickly, ashamed for a moment of having lied to her, but more ashamed of his stupidity in not being more careful; but when she came in he was so uplifted and vivified by the drug that he had been off his guard. But his shame was infinitesimal compared to his anger with her. She had spoiled, smashed up all his happiness by her interference. Instead of that wonderful sense of well-being and complete physical and mental contentment, he felt now only furiously angry with her. What right had she to break in upon him like this, making him lie to her, which he hated, and making his lie instantly detected?

  “And where is the use of your interfering like this?” he cried. “You have spoiled it all now: you have robbed me of it, and it was mine! It would serve you right if I took another dose now, straight away, and did not come down. You know nothing at all about it. I was an absolute martyr to that neuralgia up in Scotland, and I began — yes, I did begin — to get into the habit of taking this. But I am breaking myself of it; you didn’t know that. Till this evening I had not taken any for two days, and after that I was not going to take any more for three days, and after that not for four. You seem to think.... I don’t know what you think.”

  She felt at that moment more tenderly towards him than she had felt for years. His weakness — his voluble, incoherent weakness — his childish excuses, touched her. There was something almost woundingly pathetic, too, in his graduated resolves, as if a habit could be cured that way. His anger roused no resentment in her, and she spoke appealingly, full of pity.

  “Oh, Thurso, you don’t know what a dangerous thing you are doing,” she said— “indeed, you don’t. The very fact that you do it makes you unable to see what you do. Be a man, and don’t think about two days, or three days, or four days, but stop it now at once. The longer it goes on, the more difficult it will be to break it. Give me the bottle, or whatever it is, like a good fellow, and let me throw it away. You will be glad you have done so every day of your life afterwards. Please, I entreat you.”

  His anger died out as she spoke, for the effect of the drug was still on him, enhancing his enjoyment of the light and the country fragrance, and enhancing the glory of her superb beauty as she pleaded with him. She had not resented the angry things he had said to her: that was fine of her, and fine she always was, and she was not contemptuous of the lie he had babbled and stuttered over. She seemed not to remember it, and that was generous. Above all, hi
s craving for the drug was satisfied for the moment, and, so he added somewhere very secretly, he could always get some more. Nor was his will yet entirely enslaved, and all his best self told him that she was right beyond any question or possibility of argument.

  He hesitated only a moment, then unlocked his despatch-box and took out a half-empty bottle. The sight of it made his desire flicker into flame again; but, after all, he had fully intended to take no more for three days. Then he swept that away also. His will for the time was set on breaking the habit now and at once. He held it out to her.

  “Yes; you are right,” he said. “Here it is. Don’t despise me if you can help it, Cathy.”

  The use of the shortened name touched her, too.

  “Oh, my dear, don’t talk of that,” she said; “and thank you most awfully, Thurso. You will never regret this.”

  She went to the window and poured the brown fluid out among the leaves of the creepers, with a little shudder at the stale, sickly smell of it. Then she flung the bottle into the shrubbery.

  “I ought to thank you,” he said; “and I do.”

  The evening was extraordinarily warm and windless, and though they had dinner in the open pavilion in the garden, Mr. Silas P. Morton only sent for the second thickest of his black-and-white plaids to put round his venerable shoulders as a precaution against chills, and after dinner a bridge-table was started for the occupation of the Americans and Jim and Ruby, while the others preferred for the present to wander about in the deepening dusk. The light still lingered in the west and beneath it the steely grey of the river smouldered with the reflected sunshine that the sky still retained. Moths hovered over the huddled fragrance of the dim garden-beds, emerging every now and then from the darkness into the bright light cast by the lamps in the pavilion where the little party had dined, and the veiled odours of night began to steal onto the air — the odours of tobacco-plant and night-stocks, of dewy foliage, ripe hayfields, and damp earth, which are so far more delicate and suggestive than the trumpet-blown fragrance of the day. Though crimson still lingered in the west, overhead the steel-blue of night was darkening fast, and minute stars were beginning to be lit. From the rest of the world the colour had already faded: it was an etching, a marvellous mezzotint of black-and-white.