by E. F. Benson
Mrs. Altham paused a moment to eat her asparagus, which was getting cold.
“As a matter of fact, my dear, we do usually follow Mrs. Ames’ example,” he said. “She may be said to be the leader of our society here.”
“And if you gave me a hundred guesses why we do follow her example,” said Mrs. Altham rather excitedly, picking up a head of asparagus that had fallen on her napkin, “I am sure I could not give you one answer that you would think sensible. There are a dozen of our friends in Riseborough who are just as well born as she is, and as many more much better off; not that I say that money should have anything to do with position, though you know as well as I do that you could buy their house over their heads, Henry, and afford to keep it empty, while, all the time, I, for one, don’t believe that they have got three hundred a year between them over and above his pay. And as for breeding, if Mrs. Ames’ manners seem to you so worthy of copy, I can’t understand what it is you find to admire in them, except that she walks into a room as if it all belonged to her, and looks over everybody’s head, which is very ridiculous, as she can’t be more than two inches over five feet, and I doubt if she’s as much. I never have been able to see, and I do not suppose I ever shall be able to see, why none of us can do anything in Riseborough without asking Mrs. Ames’ leave. Perhaps it is my stupidity, though I do not know that I am more stupid than most.”
Henry Altham felt himself to blame for this agitated harangue. It was careless of him to have alluded to Mrs. Ames’ leadership, for if there was a subject in this world that produced a species of frenzy and a complete absence of full-stops in his wife, it was that. Desperately before now had she attempted to wrest the sceptre from Mrs. Ames’ podgy little hands, and to knock the crown off her noticeably small head. She had given parties that were positively Lucullan in their magnificence on her first coming to Riseborough; the regimental band (part of it, at least) had played under the elm-tree in her garden on the occasion of a mere afternoon-party, while at a dance she had given (a thing almost unknown in Riseborough) there had been a cotillion in which the presents cost up to five and sixpence each, to say nothing of the trouble. She had given a party for children at which there was not only a Christmas-tree, but a conjuror, and when a distinguished actor once stayed with her, she had, instead of keeping him to herself, which was Mrs. Ames’ plan when persons of eminence were her guests, asked practically the whole of Riseborough to lunch, tea and dinner. To all of these great parties she had bidden Mrs. Ames (with a view to her deposition), and on certainly one occasion — that of the cotillion — she had heard afterwards unimpeachable evidence to show that that lady had remarked that she saw no reason for such display. Therefore to this day she had occasional bursts of volcanic amazement at Mrs. Ames’ undoubted supremacy, and made occasional frantic attempts to deprive her of her throne. There was no method of attack which she had not employed; she had flattered and admired Mrs. Ames openly to her face, with a view to be permitted to share the throne; she had abused and vilified her with a view to pulling her off it; she had refrained from asking her to her own house for six months at a time, and for six months at a time she had refused to accept any of Mrs. Ames’ invitations. But it was all no use; the vilifications, so she had known for a fact, had been repeated to Mrs. Ames, who had not taken the slightest notice of them, nor abated one jot of her rather condescending cordiality, and in spite of Mrs. Altham’s refusing to come to her house, had continued to send her invitations at the usual rate of hospitality. Indeed, for the last year or two Mrs. Altham had really given up all thought of ever deposing her, and her husband, though on this occasion he felt himself to blame for this convulsion, felt also that he might reasonably have supposed the volcano to be extinct. Yet such is the disconcerting habit of these subliminal forces; they break forth with renewed energy exactly when persons of exactly average caution think that there is no longer any life in them.
He hastened to repair his error, and to calm the tempest, by fulsome agreement.
“Well, my dear,” he said, “certainly there is a great deal in what you say, for we have no reason to suppose that everybody will ask husband and wife singly, or that two of this new set of invitations will always come for the same night. Then, too, there is the question of carriage-hire, which, though it does not much matter to us, will be an important item to others. For, every time that husband and wife dine out, there will be two carriages needed instead of one. I wonder if Mrs. Ames had thought of that.”
“Not she,” said Mrs. Altham, whose indignation still oozed and spurted. “Why, as often as not, she comes on foot, with her great goloshes over her evening shoes. Ah, I have it!”
A brilliant idea struck her, which did much to restore her equanimity.
“You may depend upon it,” she said, “that Mrs. Ames means to ask just husband or wife, as the case may be, and make that count. That will save her half the cost of her dinners, and now I come to think of it, I am sure I should not be surprised to learn that they have lost money lately. Major Ames may have been speculating, for I saw the Financial News on the table last time I was there. I daresay that is it. That would account, too, for the very poor dinner we got. Salmon was in season, I remember, but we only had plaice or something common, and the ordinary winter desert, just oranges and apples. You noticed it, too, Henry. You told me that you had claret that couldn’t have cost more than eighteenpence a bottle, and but one glass of port afterwards. And the dinner before that, though there was champagne, I got little but foam. Poor thing! I declare I am sorry for her if that is the reason, and I am convinced it is.”
Mrs. Altham felt considerably restored by this explanation, and got briskly up.
“I think I will just run round to Mrs. Taverner’s,” she said, “to tell her there is no need for her to call on Mrs. Ames, since you have heard the same story at the club, so that we can rest assured that it is true. That will do famously; it will account for everything. And there is Pritchard’s cart at the gate. That will be the tongue. I wonder if he has told his man to take away the pale one. If not, as you say, it will serve for savouries.”
Summer had certainly come in earnest, and Mr. Altham, when he went out on to the shaded verandah to the east of the house, in order to smoke his cigar before going up to the golf-links, found that the thermometer registered eighty degrees in the shade. Consequently, before enjoying that interval of quiescence which succeeded his meals, and to which he felt he largely owed the serenity of his health, he went upstairs to change his cloth coat for the light alpaca jacket which he always wore when the weather was really hot. Last year, he remembered, he had not put it on at all until the end of July, except that on one occasion he wore it over his ordinary coat (for it was loosely made) taking a drive along an extremely dusty road. But the heat to-day certainly called for the alpaca jacket, and he settled himself in his chair (after tapping the barometer and observing with satisfaction that the concussion produced an upward tremor of the needle, which was at “Set Fair” already) feeling much more cool and comfortable.
Life in general was a very cool and comfortable affair to this contented gentleman. Even in youth he had not been of very exuberant vitality, and he had passed through his early years without giving a moment’s anxiety to himself or his parents. Like a good child who eats and digests what is given him, so Mr. Altham, even in his early manhood, had accepted life exactly as he found it, and had seldom wondered what it was all about, or what it was made of. His emotions had been stirred when he met his wife, and he had once tried to write a poem to her — soon desisting, owing to the obvious scarcity of rhymes in the English language, and since then his emotional record had been practically blank. If happiness implies the power to want and to aspire, that quality must be denied him, but his content was so profound that he need not be pitied for the lack of the more effervescent emotions. All that he cared about was abundantly his: there was the Times to be read after breakfast, news to be gleaned at the club before lunch, golf to be played
in the afternoon, and a little well-earned repose to be enjoyed before dinner, while at odd moments he looked at the thermometer and tapped the aneroid. He was distinctly kindly by nature, and would no doubt have cheerfully put himself to small inconveniences in order to lighten the troubles of others, but he hardly ever found it necessary to practise discomfort, since those with whom he associated were sunk in precisely the same lethargy of content as himself. Being almost completely devoid of imagination, no qualms or questionings as to the meaning of the dramas of life presented themselves to him, and his annual subscriptions to the local hospital and certain parish funds connoted no more to him than did the money he paid at the station for his railway ticket. He was, in fact, completely characteristic of the society of Riseborough, which largely consisted of men who had retired from their professions and spent their days, with unimportant variations, in precisely the same manner as he did. Necessarily they were not aware of the amazing emptiness of their lives, for if they had been, they would probably have found life very dull, and have tried to fill it with some sort of interest. As it was, golf, gardening, and gossip made the days pass so smoothly and quickly that it would really have been hazardous to attempt to infuse any life into them, for it might have produced upset and fermentation. But these chronicles would convey a very false impression if they made it seem as if life at Riseborough appeared dull or empty at Riseborough. The affairs of other people were so perennial a source of interest that it would only be a detached or sluggish mind that was not perpetually stimulated. And this stimulus was not of alcoholic character, nor was it succeeded by reaction and headache after undue indulgence. Mr. Altham woke each morning with a clean palate, so to speak, and an appetite and digestion quite unimpaired. As yet, he had not to seek to fill the hours of the day with gardening, like Major Ames, or with continuous rubbers of bridge in the card-room at the club; his days were full enough without those additional distractions, which he secretly rather despised as signs of senility, and wondered that Major Ames, who was still, he supposed, not much more than forty-five, should so soon have taken to a hobby that was better fitted for ladies and septuagenarians. It was not that he did not like flowers; he thought them pretty enough things in their place, and was pleased when he looked out of the bathroom window in the morning, and saw the neat row of red geraniums which ran along the border by the wall, between calceolarias and lobelias. Very likely when he was older, and other interests had faded, he might take to gardening, too; at present he preferred that the hired man should spend two days a week in superintending the operations of James. Certainly there would be some sense in looking after a vegetable garden, for there was an intelligible end in view there — namely, the production of early peas and giant asparagus for the table, but since the garden at Cambridge House was not of larger capacity than was occupied with a croquet lawn and a couple of flower borders, it was impossible to grow vegetables, and the production of a new red sweet-pea, about which Major Ames had really rendered himself tedious last summer, was quite devoid of interest to him, especially since there were plenty of other red flowers before.
His cigar was already half-smoked before he recalled himself from this pleasant vacancy of mind which had succeeded the summer resumal of his alpaca jacket, and for the ten minutes that still remained to him before the cab from the livery-stables which was to take him up the long hill to the golf-links would be announced, he roused himself to a greater activity of brain. It was natural that his game with Mr. Turner this afternoon should first occupy his thoughts. He felt sure he could beat him if only he paid a very strict attention to the game, and did not let his mind wander. A few days ago, Mr. Turner had won merely because he himself had been rather late in arriving at the club-house, and had started with the sense of hurry about him. But to-day he had ordered the cab at ten minutes to three, instead of at the hour. Thus he could both start from here and arrive there without this feeling of fuss. Their appointed hour was not till a quarter-past three, and it took a bare fifteen minutes to drive up. Also he had on his alpaca jacket; he would not, as on the last occasion of their encounter, be uncomfortably hot. As usual, he would play his adversary for the sum of half-a-crown; that should pay both for cab and caddie.
His thoughts took a wider range. Certainly it was a strange thing that Mrs. Ames should ask husbands without their wives, and wives without their husbands. Of course, to ask Mrs. Evans without the doctor was less remarkable than to ask General Fortescue without his wife, for it sometimes happened that Dr. Evans was sent for in the middle of dinner to attend on a patient, and once, when he was giving a party at his own house, he had received a note which led him to get up at once, and say to the lady on his right, “I am afraid I must go; maternity case,” which naturally had caused a very painful feeling of embarrassment, succeeded by a buzz of feverish and haphazard conversation. But to ask General Fortescue without his wife was a very different affair; it was not possible that Mrs. Fortescue should be sent for in the middle of dinner, and cause dislocation in the party. He felt that if any hostess except Mrs. Ames had attempted so startling an innovation, she would, even with her three-weeks’ notice, have received chilling refusals coupled with frankly incredible reasons for declining. Thus with growing radius of thought he found himself considering the case of Mrs. Ames’ undoubted supremacy in the Riseborough world.
Most of what his wife had said in her excited harangue had been perfectly well-founded. Mrs. Ames was not rich, and a marked parsimony often appeared to have presided over the ordering of her dinners; while, so far as birth was concerned, at least two other residents here were related to baronets just as much as she was; Mrs. Evans, for instance, was first cousin of the present Sir James Westbourne, whereas Mrs. Ames was more distant than that from the same fortunate gentleman by one remove. Her mother, that is to say, had been the eldest sister of the last baronet but one, and older than he, so that beyond any question whatever, if Mrs. Ames’ mother had been a boy, and she had been a boy also, she would now have been a baronet herself in place of the cheerful man who had been seen by Mrs. Altham driving his motor-car down the High Street that morning. As for General Fortescue, he was the actual brother of a baronet, and there was the end of the matter. But though Riseborough in general had a very proper appreciation of the deference due to birth, Mr. Altham felt that Mrs. Ames’ supremacy was not really based on so wholesale a rearrangement of parents and sexes. Nor, again, were her manners and breeding such as compelled homage; she seemed to take her position for granted, and very seldom thanked her hostess for “a very pleasant evening” when she went away. Nor was she remarkable for her good looks; indeed, she was more nearly remarkable for the absence of them. Yet, somehow, Mr. Altham could not, perhaps owing to his lack of imagination, see anybody else, not even his own wife, occupying Mrs. Ames’ position. There was some force about her that put her where she was. You felt her efficiency; you guessed that should situations arise Mrs. Ames could deal with them. She had a larger measure of reality than the majority of Mr. Altham’s acquaintances. She did not seem to exert herself in any way, or call attention to what she did, and yet when Mrs. Ames called on some slightly doubtful newcomer to Riseborough, it was certain that everybody else would call too. And one defect she had of the most glaring nature. She appeared to take the most tepid interest only in what every one said about everybody else. Once, not so long ago, Mrs. Altham had shown herself more than ready to question, on the best authority, the birth and upbringing of Mrs. Turner, the election of whose husband to the club had caused so many members to threaten resignation. But all Mrs. Ames had said, when it was clear that the shadiest antecedents were filed, so to speak, for her perusal, was, “I have always found her a very pleasant woman. She is dining with us on Tuesday.” Or again, when he himself was full of the praise of Mrs. Taverer, to whom Mrs. Ames was somewhat coldly disposed — (though that lady had called three times, and was perhaps calling again this afternoon, Mrs. Ames had never once asked her to lunch or dine, and was believ
ed to have left cards without even inquiring whether she was in) — Mrs. Ames had only answered his panegyrics by saying, “I am told she is a very good-natured sort of woman.”
Mr. Altham, hearing the stopping of a cab at his front-door, got up. It was still thirteen minutes to three, but he was ready to start. Indeed, he felt that motion and distraction would be very welcome, for there had stolen into his brain a strangely upsetting idea. It was very likely quite baseless and ill-founded, but it did occur to him that this defect on the part of Mrs. Ames as regards her incuriousness on the subject of the small affairs of other people was somehow connected with her ascendency. He had so often thought of it as a defect that it was quite a shock to find himself wondering whether it was a quality. In any case, it was a quality which he was glad to be without. The possession of it would have robbed him of quite nine points of the laws that governed his nature. He would have been obliged to cultivate a passion for gardening, like Major Ames. Of course, if you married a woman quite ten years your senior, you had to take to something, and it was lucky Major Ames had not taken to drink.
He felt quite cynical, and lost the first four holes. Later, but too late, he pulled himself together. But it was poor consolation to win the bye only.
CHAPTER II
Mrs. Ames put up her black and white sunshade as she stepped into the hot street outside Dr. Evans’ house, about half-past six on the evening of the twenty-eighth of June, and proceeded afoot past the half-dozen houses that lay between it and the High Street. In appearance she was like a small, good-looking toad in half-mourning; or, to state the comparison with greater precision, she was small for a woman, but good-looking for a toad. Her face had something of the sulky and satiated expression of that harmless reptile, and her mourning was for her brother, who had mercifully died of delirium tremens some six months before. This scarcely respectable mode of decease did not curtail his sister’s observance of the fact, and she was proposing to wear mourning for another three months.