Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “Yes, I said ‘Come in,’” said Austell. “Mayn’t I come and talk to you and my mother? I thought my dressing — bath wrapper was rather smart.”

  It was rather, being of blue silk, new and unpaid for, and with Mrs. Osborne’s permission he joined them. It had given her quite a turn for a moment to find that she had intruded on an earl in his dressing gown, but she rapidly recovered.

  “Why, it’s beautiful,” she said, “and such a figure as Mr. O. is in his old green padded wrapper as hardly comes to his knees! It was the thought of that that gave me such a turn at finding a gentleman in his dressing gown. But I’m sure I needn’t have minded. And what will you be thinking of doing, Lord Austell? It’s Liberty Hall, as Mr. O. and I always tell our guests, and the more they say what they like to do, the better we’re pleased.”

  Lady Austell had lit a cigarette just before Mrs. Osborne’s entrance, and, still looking at her, with her usual bereaved, regretful smile, was making efforts to pass it to Jim behind the shelter of the table. He observed this, and with a stealthy movement took it from her, for though they exposed each other in private, they were firm allies in the presence of others.

  “I’ve been having such a scolding from my mother,” he said, “for smoking in here, but I told her you were far too good-natured to mind. Have I done very wrong?” Mrs. Osborne beamed.

  “And me just saying that the more our guests pleased themselves the better we were pleased!” she exclaimed. “Well, what is it to be, Lady Austell? A drive to Pevensey, with Sir Thomas and Mrs. Percy, and I’m sure there’ll be no difficulty about getting another gentleman when it’s known as you are going, or a stroll or what-not, and a bit of lunch quietly at home, and maybe a drive afterward. Give it a name, Lady Austell, and it’s settled.”

  Lady Austell turned one glance of gratitude at her son, and continued to smile at her hostess.

  “You are too kind,” she said, “but as I’ve just been telling Austell, what I should really like to do best would be to spend the morning quietly by myself, going over the dear old place again. And then may we see how the afternoon turns out?”

  This pathetic mention of the “dear old place,” though “dilapidated old barrack” would have been a far more accurate description of Grote as it was, made Mrs. Osborne feel quite apologetic. She spoke to her husband about it afterwards. “I assure you, my dear,” she said, “to see her sitting there with that sad smile it was quite touching, as if it ought to have been she who asked me what I would fancy doing. Well, it’s one up and another down in this world, and after all we’ve done something in taking the place off their hands, and putting a stick or two of furniture in it, and keeping the rain out. And the white boudoir suite, it looks beautiful; I hadn’t seen it since they put it in.”

  “Well, I’m sure the oftener Lady A. favours us with her visits, the more we shall be pleased,” said Mr. Osborne. “And we give them a rattling good rent for it, my dear, when all’s said and done. Why, there’s the motor coming round now, and the clock striking twelve already. Sir Thomas would like a glass of sherry, I’ll be bound, before his long drive.”

  “And I must see cook,” said Mrs. Osborne, “and half the morning gone already. Have you any fancy for dinner, to-night, my dear?”

  Mr. Osborne thought for a moment.

  “No, peace and plenty, my dear,” he said, “such as we’ve always had, Maria. I shall be in for lunch, too. Thank God, old Claude doesn’t want any music to-night. We was hurried away from table last night, and I think Sir Thomas felt he hadn’t done justice to my port:’40, Maria, and needs a lot of justice. But to-night he shall have his skin full.”

  “Well, but Claude has said as how pleased Dora was with the music,” said Mrs. Osborne, “and we’re going to have a second go this evening. You can’t deny them their music, Mr. O.”

  Mr. Osborne paused on his way to the door.

  “Nor I don’t want to,” he said, “though myself, I hate that scratching sound. But last night, Mrs. O., I don’t mind telling you, what with young — young Franklin lighting up before we’d got into the wine at all, and Claude and he leaving the room to join the ladies, and I’m sure I don’t wonder, the dining room was a sort of Clapham Junction. And you telling me not to stop too long there and all. To-night give us time to sit and think, and if Claude wants his concert, God bless the boy, let him have it. But let it be made clear that those who want their wine and a talk, sit and have it, and don’t feel they’re expected. It’s little I drink myself, as well you know, but there’s Sir Thomas, who’s a fish for his liquor, and little harm it seems to do him. I like my guests to have what they want, Maria, and there’s no reason why some of us shouldn’t stay quiet and pass the bottle, while others listen to them fiddles. That’s the way we’ve got on, old lady, by giving everybody what they want, and of the best quality. Well, let’s do so still. Those that care to leave the table this evening, let them leave, but don’t let there be any pressure on such as like to remain. Lord, if there’s Mrs. Per not coming out already with all her fallals on! I must go and get Sir Thomas his glass of sherry.”

  Mr. Osborne was in every way the most hospitable of men, and he would have felt it as a personal disgrace if (as never happened) any guest of his had not all the wine he wanted, even as he would have felt it a personal disgrace if any guest was not met at the station, or did not have sufficient breakfast. But wine to his mind was something of quite a different class to all other hospitalities, and was under his personal control, so that if Sir Thomas liked his drop of sherry in the middle of the morning, Mr. Osborne, if the sherry decanter, as proved to be the case this morning, was empty, had personally to go down to the cellar, followed by Thoresby with a taper, and fish out from the bin the bottle he wanted. Moreover, as the motoring party had finished breakfast nearly two hours ago, and would not get their lunch for nearly two hours after, Mrs. Osborne had ordered a tray of the more sustaining sorts of sandwiches, a cold ham, and a dish or two of fruit to be put ready in the dining-room to fortify them for their drive; for when they did have lunch it would only be a cold picnic kind of lunch which they carried with them in a huge wicker basket like a coffin, which two of the resplendent footmen were even now staggering under, and bearing out to the motor. For the sake of good fellowship several of the party who were not going on this prodigious expedition joined the travellers in this collation, for, as Mr. Osborne said, with a large plate of ham in front of him, “It made a bit of a break in the morning to have a mouthful of sherry and a dry biscuit. Help yourself, Per, my boy, for you’re the guard of this personally conducted tour, and you’ll need a bite of something before you get your lunch.”

  Jim Austell meantime had gone back to his room, from which he ejected two flurried housemaids who were emptying things into each other, and dressed in a leisurely manner. He found a letter or two on his dressing table, and among them a note from Mr. Osborne’s secretary containing an extremely satisfactory cheque for the first quarter’s rent of Grote, and with great promptitude he despatched it to his bank. Then, coming downstairs and out on to the terrace, he found Claude rather impatiently waiting for the return of Dora, who had strayed off after breakfast with May Thurston, and challenged him to a game of croquet, in which the two were still engaged when the girls came back from their walk. They refused to join, and May went into the house while Dora drew a chair to the edge of the ground and watched. Jim, wallowing in the remembrance of his cheque, had proposed a sovereign on the game and Claude had accepted. The game, therefore, since money was concerned, was serious, but Dora, not knowing this, was not. She had a great deal to say.

  “I think Englishmen are perfect butchers,” she said. “The whole of the long glade is simply one mass of the most heavenly young pheasants, who ran to us in flocks to be fed. Then comes October, and when they run to be fed you shoot them in the eye.”

  “There you’re wrong, Dora,” said Jim, calmly taking aim, “you shoot at running rabbits, but not—”

  �
�Oh well, you know what I mean, and you call it sport. There, that serves you right, Jim, now it’s Claude’s turn and he’s got you. Oh, Claude, what a beautiful shot! Wasn’t it lucky it hit the wire first? If it hadn’t it would have missed blue altogether.”

  Claude did not reply: even though it was Dora who was talking, the fact that at the present moment he was playing a game overrode all other considerations. He would have much preferred to stop playing the game, and talk to her instead, but since that was impossible he continued to be entirely absorbed in what he was doing. The balls (after the beautiful shot) were well placed for a break, but a little consideration was necessary. Then a somewhat lengthy and faultless exhibition followed. At the end he came and sat down on the grass by Dora.

  “Not a bad break,” he said, “I shall have a cigarette.”

  “What are we going to do after lunch?” asked she gently, as Jim walked off to the far end of the ground.

  “Just exactly whatever you like so long as we do it by ourselves. I haven’t seen you all morning.”

  “I know; it’s been beastly,” said she, “but May’s a dear, you know, and she wanted to talk about Harry, and I rather wanted to talk about you, so we both talked together, and I can’t remember a word she said.”

  Claude was lying face downward on the grass, nursing his match, and Dora was looking at the short hair on the back of his neck. Then quickly and suddenly she looked up.

  “Oh, Jim, you cheated,” she cried. “I saw you move that ball with your foot. What a brute he is! He always cheats at croquet, and is always found out. I don’t cheat: I only lose my temper. Claude, dear, keep an eye on him. Or perhaps you cheat too, do you? Oh, what a heavenly day. Do let’s go on the lake after you’ve finished your game. You shall row and steer, and I shall encourage you.”

  Dora passed over the fact of Jim’s cheating as she passed over the other numerous topics of her conversation, things to be alluded to and left behind, and Claude, sitting up again when he had got a light, made no comment whatever to it. Jim continued to play calmly and correctly, and at the end of his break came toward them, leaving an unpromising position.

  “You talk more rot in a short space of time than anyone I ever saw,” he remarked. “What with shooting at running pheasants and saying I cheat, you make my head whirl.”

  “Oh, but you did, I saw you,” said Dora calmly. “Why not grant it?”

  She paused a moment as Claude aimed, and then continued:

  “Oh, Claude, what bad luck! Or did it hit it? I almost thought I saw it tremble, and in a minute I shall be sure of it.”

  “I thought it hit,” said Jim.

  “No, I’m sure it didn’t,” said Claude. “Full inch between them.”

  The game was over in a couple of turns after this, but Dora, finding it hot on her grassy bank, had gone down to sit in the boat and wait for Claude. At the conclusion of the game he produced a sovereign and handed it to Jim.

  “You gave me a good thrashing,” he said, “couldn’t get in but that once.”

  “Thanks. Yes, you had bad luck all through. I say... You’re satisfied that Dora was talking nonsense?”

  “About what?”

  “When she said I cheated. Of course I did nothing of the kind.”

  “Why, of course I’m satisfied if you tell me so,” said Claude. “Are you coming down to the lake?”

  “Not I. Dora would hurl me overboard.”

  Claude strolled away and Jim walked aimlessly about, taking shots across the lawn with various balls. He knew perfectly well that he had cheated, but it was the worst luck in the world that Dora had looked up that moment. There had been a ball quite close to his, but as far off as if it had been in a better world by reason of the fact that it was lying neatly and inaccessibly behind the stump. He had just moved it with his foot as he went by, without, so he told himself, more than half meaning to. That was quite characteristic of him; he but rarely fully meant that sort of thing; something external to himself seemed to suggest a paltry little manoeuvre of this kind, and he yielded to it in an absent-minded sort of way, without any particular intention. Had the game, in fact, gone on without attention being called to it, he would probably have nearly forgotten about it by now.

  But Claude’s remark, though innocent and even cordial (considering what he himself privately knew), irritated him a good deal. He had said that of course he was satisfied since Jim had told him so. That looked as if he would not have been satisfied if he had not been told, an utterly unjustifiable attitude, since he had never given Claude, so far as he knew, the very smallest grounds for supposing that he himself was capable of cheating at croquet or anything else. Perhaps in Sheffield it was the right thing to cheat, and at the end of the game everyone who had not cheated told his opponent so, who then kindly accepted his word. Claude would find, however, that among the sort of people he now moved, it wasn’t correct to cheat; in fact, it was distinctly advisable not to. Indeed, in a very few minutes, Jim felt rather as if Claude had cheated, and he was himself kind but a little troubled about it.

  Then — he felt almost ashamed of himself for dwelling so long on so small an incident — he looked at the matter afresh. He had cheated, and pocketed a sovereign probably in consequence. That was a very small sum of money to cheat for, but he distinctly wished that it had not occurred. And then he threw down again the mallet he had taken up.

  “Fact is, I’m a rotten chap,” he said to himself, and there was no dissentient voice in his brain.

  Claude meantime had gone down to the lake after Dora. If he had been obliged to give his thoughts the definiteness of words, he would certainly have said that he thought the whole thing rather odd, but then, being of an extremely loyal, unsuspicious nature, he would have endorsed his remark to Jim, that his word was quite sufficient, and have turned his thoughts resolutely elsewhere. He did not want to think about such very nasty little things as cheating at croquet, whether there was a penny or a sovereign or nothing at all on the game, and he did not wish to examine a certain doubt that lurked in the bottom of his mind as to whether Dora had seen correctly or not. It was in the shade anyhow, and he let it lie there. But if anyone had told him (or Jim either) that the incident was a trifling and microscopic one, both would have been quite right to deny that. It was true that a game only and a sovereign were concerned, but the “directing” power no less important a personage than Honour. It really makes a great difference in the daily journey through life if that charioteer is at his post or not.

  “Sorry for keeping you, darling,” he said to Dora, “but we had to finish the game. It didn’t take long, did it? I got my head knocked off.”

  Dora had already established herself, and he pushed out through the shallow water, where the weeds trailed whispering fingers against the bottom of the boat, to deeper water.

  “How clever of you to screw it on again so quick,” said she. “Yes, it’s quite straight. Oh, Claude, I’ve been thinking such a lot since I left you. How funny it is how little tiny things, like Jim’s cheating just now, suggest such a lot of other ones not at all tiny.”

  Claude gave a little short uncomfortable laugh.

  “I say, darling, do you know,” he said, “if I were you I shouldn’t say that sort of thing even to me. He didn’t cheat: he told me so. So you must have been mistaken, and it’s an awful pity to let things like that ever be talked about. But let’s go on to the big things which it (though it didn’t happen) suggested.”

  Dora paid no attention whatever to these excellent moral reflections, but merely waited with her mouth open till he had finished in order to speak again.

  “Oh, but he did, he did,” she cried. “I saw him with both eyes. We never could play together because he always cheated and I always lost my temper. How funny of him not to confess.”

  Claude did not reply for the moment: it was all rather uncomfortable.

  “Well, now for the big things,” he said.

  “Oh, bother the big things,” said
Dora. “I know you think I am wrong, and I’m not. I’m never wrong. I’m perfectly certain.”

  She stopped suddenly and leaned over the side of the boat, dabbling her hand in the water. She saw some unuttered trouble in Claude’s face, and a rather dreadful conjecture occurred to her.

  “Claude, you weren’t playing for money, were you?” she asked in a low voice.

  He made up his mind in a moment and acted with promptitude.

  “Good gracious, me,” he said. “What will you be suggesting next?”

  But Dora was still grave.

  “Oh, I am glad,” she said, with relief. “And do let’s talk about something else. I daresay I was quite wrong about Jim moving that ball. Oh, I know I wasn’t,” she cried. “It was only a game, you see, and there was nothing on it, and oh, poor Jim, you see he always used to cheat. It was just the same at billiards; if the balls were touching he used to go on before he really looked to see if they were. And that leads on to the big things.”

  He had stopped rowing, and with the impetus which the boat had acquired in those vigorous strokes he made to get clear of the weeds, they were drifting toward the little island in the centre of the lake, where the swans made their nests. It was rimmed about with soft-branched willows that trailed yielding boughs toward the water, and the boat glided in under their drooping fingers, and ran on to a soft sandy promontory, where it beached its bows, while the enfolding willow gave shade. —

  “Yes, the big things,” said Dora. “It’s just this, darling. You’ve got heaps of attractions, but I’m not sure that one of your nicest things isn’t that you are so safe. It is such fun being able to trust a person quite completely and entirely and know one was right in doing so. I don’t believe you ever scheme or make plans. Mother does, and Jim does, and people get so keen on their plan that other things get rather out of focus. They go — oh, it’s like hounds when they are really running well: they don’t look at the scenery, you know. They put their dear noses down and follow, follow. And it’s all because of money — no, not the hounds, don’t be so foolish — but it is an advantage not to want to bother about money. I do like to know that I needn’t bother any more at all, and that if I want to take a cab I can. Somebody — Pierre Loti, I think —— said it must be exquisite to be poor. Well, it isn’t. It’s far more exquisite to be rich. Of course I had great fun about trimming a hat for twopence, and making it look as if it came from May’s shop — Biondonetti, isn’t it, but really I should much prefer to order hats direct. Wouldn’t you?”