Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  But most of all Joyce loved to wander over the hot yellow sands of the desert, or go out alone if possible, and sit looking at the pyramids, or at the wonderful beast that lay looking earthwards with fathomless eyes of everlasting mystery, as if waiting patiently through the unnumbered centuries for the dawning of some ultimate day. Or else, ensconced in some wrinkles of the undulating ground, she would watch the hawks circling in the fathomless sky, or let her eyes wander over the peacock green of the springing crops to the city sparkling very small and bright on the edge of the Nile. A long avenue of carob trees, giving the value of Prussian blue against the turquoise of the sky and the vivid green of the rising maize and com led in a streak across the plain to it.

  She was not conscious of consecutive or orderly thought in these solitary vigils. But she knew that in some way, even as her mind and her eye were expanded by those new wonders of old time that waited alert and patient among the desert sands, so her soul also was growing in the stillness of its contemplation. She made no efforts to pry it open, so to speak, to unfold its compacted petals, for it basked in the sun and psychical air that was appropriate to it, expanding daily, silent, fragrant....

  Philip had not to wait long for his escorting Craddock. He mused gleefully over the news of floods in the Thames valley, he remembered it was New Year’s day to-morrow, he kept his eye on the pinkish donkey, and felt confidently daring. The pinkish donkey looked very quiet, except for the twitching ears; he hoped that Craddock would approve his choice and not want to mount him on the one that shook itself. Craddock had proposed this expedition himself, and for a minute or two Philip wondered whether he wanted to talk about anything special, Joyce for example. But he felt so well that he did not care just now what Craddock talked about, or what happened to anybody. He felt sure, too, that he would be hungry by lunch time. Really, it was insane to have let that Reynolds hang on the wall so many years and rot like blotting paper in the Thames valley. But then he had no notion that he could get five thousand pounds for it. He owed a great deal to Craddock, who at this moment came out of the hotel, large and fat and white, reassuring himself as to that point about a whisker.... Suddenly he struck Philip as being rather like a music-master on holiday at Margate who had ordered new smart riding-clothes in order to create an impression on the pier. But he looked rich.

  As usual he was very, very deferential and attentive, highly approved Philip’s penchant for the pinkish donkey, and selected for himself a small one that resembled in some essential manner a depressed and disappointed widow. His large legs almost touched the ground on either side of it, he could almost have progressed in the manner of the ancient velocipede. And Philip having made it quite clear that if his donkey attempted to exceed a foot’s pace, he should go straight home, and give no backshish at all, they made a start as smooth and imperceptible as the launching of a ship.

  Craddock had interesting communications to make regarding the monarchs of the fourth dynasty, but his information was neither given nor taken as if it was of absorbing importance. Philip, indeed, was entirely wrapped up in observation of his donkey’s movements, and the satisfaction he felt in not being in the Thames valley.

  “Indeed, so long ago as that,” he said. “How it takes one back! And even then the Nile floods came up here did they? Ah, by the way, the Thames is in flood. Probably my lawn is under water: I should have been a cripple with rheumatism if I had stopped there. Don’t make those clicking noises, Mohammed. We are going quite fast enough. Yes, and there were three dynasties before that! I don’t find the movement at all jerky or painful, my dear Craddock. I should not wonder if I rode again. Fancy my riding! I should not have believed it possible. As for you, you manage like a positive jockey. What do I say, Mohammed, if I should want to stop?”

  The positive jockey, whose positiveness apparently consisted in size and weight, decided to slide away from the fourth dynasty to times and persons who more immediately concerned him.

  “Indeed it is difficult to imagine such things as floods and rain,” he said, “when we bask in this amazing illumination. I can’t express to you my gratitude in allowing me to join your happy harmonious party.”

  Philip just waved his fly-whisk in the direction of the Sphinx, as if to acknowledge without making too much of its presence.

  “Dear Joyce!” he said. “I think it has been and will continue to be a happy time for her. It gave me a great deal of satisfaction to be able to bring her out, though of course it entailed a certain sacrifice. Alone, I should have been able to compass the journey, I think, on the interest of what the Reynolds picture brought me: with her I have had necessarily to part with capital. Still, of what use is money except to secure health and enjoyment for others? She is looking wonderfully well.”

  Craddock, who had till now been standing outside his topic, took a sudden header into the very depth of it, rather adroitly.

  “There is no money I would not spend on Miss Joyce’s health and enjoyment,” he said. “There is nothing nearer to my heart than that.”

  This sounded very pleasing and satisfactory, for the more Philip saw of Craddock, the more he liked him as a prospective son-in-law. But everything seemed slightly remote and unimportant to-day, in comparison with his own sense of comfort and wellbeing.

  “My dear friend, I renew my assurance of sympathy and good wishes,’’ he said. “Ah, I was afraid my donkey was going to stumble then. But I held it up: I held it up.”

  Craddock’s habit of attention to Philip found expression before he continued that which he had come out to say.

  “Anyone can see you are a rider,” he said rather mechanically. “Of course you must know that my pleasure in being out here with you consisted largely in the furthering of the hope that is nearest my heart. But since we have been here (I am coming to you for counsel) I have seen so little of Miss Joyce. Often, of course, she is engaged, and that I quite understand. But she has seemed to me rather to avoid me, to — to shun my presence. And hers, I may say, grows every day more dear and precious to me.”

  Craddock was really moved. Beneath his greed for money, his unscrupulousness in getting it, his absorption in his plundering of and battening on those less experienced than he, there was something that was capable of feeling, and into that something Joyce had certainly made her way. The depth of the feeling was not to be gauged by the fact, that, in its service, he would do a dishonourable thing, for that, it is to be feared, was a feat that presented no overwhelming natural difficulties to him. But his love for Joyce had grown from liking and admiration into a thing of fire, into a pure and luminous element. It did not come wholly from outside; it was not like some rainbow winged butterfly, settling for a moment on carrion. It was more like some celestial-hued flower growing, if you will, out of a dung-heap. It might, it is true, have been fed and nourished in a soil of corruption and dishonour, but by that divine alchemy that love possesses, none of this had passed into its colour and its fragrance. It was not dimmed or cankered by the nature of the soil from which it grew, it was splendid with its own nature. And every day, even as he had said, it became more dear and precious to him.

  “I don’t know if you have noticed any of this,”

  “I mean any of her avoidance of me.”

  Philip was able to console, quite truthfully. He hadn’t noticed anything at all, being far too much taken up in himself.

  “Indeed I have seen nothing of the kind,” he said, “and I do not think I am naturally very unobservant. Besides, Joyce, I think, guesses how warmly I should welcome you as a son-in-law. Ah, I held my donkey up again! He would have been down unless I had been on the alert. No, no, my dear Craddock, you are inventing trouble for yourself. Lovers habitually do that: they fancy their mistress is unkind. I recommend you to wait a little, be patient, until we get out of all this va-et-vient of Cairo. It is true Joyce is much taken up with my mother and her social excesses — I think I am not harsh in calling them excesses at her age. In the romance and poetry of —
of Luxor and all that — you will find my little Joyce a very tender-hearted girl, very affectionate, very grateful for affection. Not that I admit she has shunned or avoided you, not for a moment. Far from it. Don’t you remember how pleased she was when she knew you were coming with us? Mohammed, stop the donkey: I am out of breath.”

  Craddock reined in also: the depressed widow was not very unwilling to stop and he stepped off her, and stood by Philip.

  “This is not too much for you, I hope,” he said.

  “Not at all, not at all. I am enjoying my ride, and positively I have not had to use my fly-whisk at all. I was wondering how I should manage it as well as my reins. But there are no flies. No, my dear fellow, don’t be down-hearted. Joyce likes you very well.”

  “Then I shall tempt my fate without waiting any longer,” he said. “If I am fortunate, I shall be happiest of men, and, I may add, the cheerfulest of travelling companions. If otherwise, I think I shall go back to England at once. The situation would be intolerable.”

  Philip was perfectly aghast. For a moment he could say nothing whatever.

  “But that would be out of the question,” he said. “I do not see how we could get on without you. Who would make our arrangements, and settle the hundred little questions that arise when one is travelling. I could not do it: my health would completely break down. Perhaps, too, my mother will stay on in Cairo: if it suits her fancy, I am sure she will, and Joyce is utterly incapable of arranging for our comfort in the way in which you do. I should be left without a companion, for, as you see, Joyce has become totally independent of me. And your valet, who, at your direction, is so kind as to look after me, and pack for me, and see to my clothes, no doubt you would take him with you. It was understood, I thought, that you would make the entire journey with us: you can hardly mean what you have just said. It would spoil everything; it would break up our party altogether. Pray assure me that you do not mean what you say. The idea agitates me, and any agitation, as you know, is so bad for me. Besides, of course this is the root of the whole matter — that is why I state it to you last after those minor considerations — your best opportunity, your most favourable chance, is when we are alone and quiet up the Nile. We are living in a mere railway station here: none of us have a minute to ourselves.”

  Till he heard this rapid staccato speech, Craddock felt he had never really known what egotism meant. Here it was in excelsis: almost grand and awe-compelling in this gigantic and inspired exhibition of it....

  “I am very much agitated,” said Philip, haloing and crowning it “Do not leave my donkey, Mohammed.”

  In spite of the danger of prolonging this agitation Craddock was silent for a moment, and Philip had one more remark to make.

  “It would be very selfish,” he said, “and very unlike you. And I am sure it would not be wise.” Craddock hesitated no longer. He had received a certain assurance — though he could not estimate its value — that his interpretation of Joyce’s bearing towards him was mistaken; he had been recommended, a course which seemed sensible, to wait for the comparative quiet of Luxor, where the relations of their party would naturally be more intimate and familiar; he had also had ocular evidence that Philip was perfectly capable of having a fit, if he precipitated matters unsuccessfully, and returned home. All these considerations pointed one way.

  “Certainly I will continue your journey with you,” he said. “It is delightful to me to find how solidly you have been counting on me. And from my point of view — my own personal point of view — I think you have probably indicated to me the most promising course. I exceedingly regret the agitation I have caused you.”

  Philip mopped his forehead.

  “It is nothing,” he said. “I will make an effort, and become my own master again. But I do not think I feel up to continuing our ride. Let us turn. Perhaps to-morrow I shall feel more robust I should like to rest a little before lunch. And take heart of grace, my dear man: I felt just like you once, and how happily it turned out for me.”

  This was not true: Philip had never been in love with anybody. Joyce’s mother, however, had soon overcome his somewhat feeble resistance to her charms, and had led him a fine life for the few years that she was spared to him.

  Our party had designed to stay in Egypt two months altogether, and a month being now spent and Lady Crowborough being at length a little fatigued by her whirl of gaiety in Cairo, it was settled that day at lunch that they should proceed southwards up the Nile in a few days’ time, going by steamer all the way, in order to save Philip’s nerves the jar and jolting of the ill-laid line. Lady Crowborough’s flirts came in flocks to see her off, bringing bouquets and confectionery enough to fill both her cabin and Joyce’s, and she made a variety of astounding speeches in a brilliant monologue to them all, addressing first one and then another.

  “All you young men are trying to spoil me,” she said, “and it’s lucky I’ve got my grand-daughter with me to play chaperone and see you don’t go too far. And are these chocolates for me, too? Joyce, my dear, put them in my cabin, and lock them up; I shall have a good blow-out of them as soon as we start. As for you, Mr. Wortledge, I daren’t stop in Cairo a day longer because of you. You’d be coming round for me in a cab and driving me off to a mosque or a synagogue or some such heathen place of worship, to be married to you, under pretence of showing me the antiquities, and what would Mr. Stuart do then? I never saw such roses, Mr. Stuart. Joyce, my dear — oh, she’s gone with the chocolate. I shall wear a fresh one every day, that’s what I shall do, and make pot-pourri of the leaves, and put it among my clothes, if that’ll content you. And there’s a note attached to them, I see. I shan’t open that till I’m alone, so that no one shall see my blushes. And I’ll be bound you’ll all be flirting with some other old woman the moment my back’s turned, because I know your ways.”

  A shrill whistle warned her that this court de congé must draw to an end, and she began shaking hands with them all.

  “You’ve all made my stay in Cairo uncommonly pleasant,” she said, “and I thank you all with all my heart. You’re dear nice boys, all of you, and I’m really broken-hearted to say goodbye to you. Goodbye all of you.”

  And this charming old lady, with real tears in her eyes, put up all her veils, and kissed away handfuls of her delicious little white fingers, as the boat began to churn the green Nile water into foam. Then she went to her cabin, had a good blow-out of chocolate, and slept the greater part of the three days’ voyage up to Luxor with intervals for food, and a few expeditions to temples on donkey-back. She had bought ropes and ropes of ancient Egyptian beads in the bazaars, with which she adorned herself, and when a professor of antiquities (otherwise promising) hinted that they were modem and came from Manchester, she told him he knew nothing about it, and was dead cuts with him ever afterwards.

  Craddock, now that he was committed not to separate himself from the party, was in no hurry to put his fortune to the test. In spite of Philip’s assurance, he still fancied he had been right regarding Joyce’s avoidance of him, and until their stay was beginning to draw to an end and Philip had begun to fuss about having a sufficiency of warmer underclothing put in his steamer trunk, so that even when the weather grew colder as they sailed northwards again across the Mediterranean, he should be able to sit out on deck without risk of chill, devoted himself to restoring Joyce’s confidence in and ease of intercourse with him. Many times, it so happened, he was alone with her, going on some expedition that Philip declared himself not equal to, while Lady Crowborough’s appetite for antiquities had proved speedily satiated. Indeed, she announced when she had been at Luxor a week that the sight of any more temples would make her sick. Thus he was often Joyce’s only companion and, while waiting his time, made himself an admirable guide and comrade. He had studied the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties before, and with the air of a friendly tutor interested her in the history and monuments. He soon saw how apt she was to learn and appreciate, and by degrees re-established unemb
arrassing relations with her, winning her back to frank intercourse with him. With his knowledge and his power of vividly and lightly presenting it, he succeeded in weaving their true antique charm about the temples and silent tombs, and Joyce found herself taking the keenest enjoyment in their long sunny days together. To her immense relief, he seemed to have banished altogether his yearning for another relationship, and she told herself she must have been quite wrong in imagining that he would approach her again, and this time with fire. Yet she had been so convinced of it, and here he was with day-long opportunities at his disposal, plunging her to her infinite satisfaction in the heresies of Amenhotep, and the Elizabethan rule of Hatasoo. He unfolded the stories of the carven walls for her, with their hawk-faced gods or adoring kings. He traced for her the merchandise that the queen’s expedition to the Land of Plenty brought back with it, ivory and apes, as in the days of Solomon, and gold weighed in the balances by overseers. He told her of Sen-mut the architect of Deir-el-Bahari, to whom the queen shewed all her heart, and entrusted with the secrets of her will, and how Thothmes, on his mother’s death, erased from the inscriptions all mention of the low-born fellow.... Then day by golden day went on, and Joyce’s confidence increased, and her debt of pleasant hours to him grew heavier and was less felt by her. But never did she quite get out of her mind that it was he who had said, she knew not quite what, to her father, speaking evil of the boy who painted beside the weir. Could she have been wrong about that, too? If so, she had indeed wronged this large kindly man, who was never weary of his pleasant efforts to interest her. Her manner to him changed as her confidence returned, and with the changing of her manner, he drew nearer to confidence in himself.