Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  For a while, however, all this sank out of sight in her mind, as if she had dropped treasure into a well. It was there safe, and when she dredged for it she would find it again, but for the present, as they wound upwards on the narrow road, the magic of the way enchained her. Barer and more precipitous rose the barren hill-sides of neutral native territory, between which wound the narrow riband of the English road. All the way along it, within communicable distance from each other, the sentries of the Khyber Rifles guarded the pass, to give safe conduct to the caravan that came with carpets and dried fruits and incense from the unknown country beyond, and to that which, with the products of civilization, oil and sheet iron and calico, passed from the plain into the mountains of Afghanistan. They overtook and passed the caravan that had rested last night at the entrance to the pass, going westwards; six hundred camels, bearded and with soft, padding steps, carried the amorphous mass of merchandise. Some were gentle beasts, mild-eyed and depressed, others were muzzled with rope and foamed at the mouth. Myriad were the types of those who drove them; there were pale-faced boys with flaxen hair; there were hawk-nosed eager Pathans of the type so familiar to Elizabeth in the parades of her father’s regiment, snub-nosed Mongolians, Thibetans, with their high cheek-bones and wide-lipped mouths, and of them all there was not one in whose face this morning Elizabeth did not see signs of some secret quest, some unconjecturable search. One perhaps desired money, one an end to this mounting road; one was hungry, another thirsty, but behind all these superficial needs she read into each face a desire, a quest. Often, as if in answer to her eager glance, she received a questioning stare, as if the gazer sought from her some signal that he was waiting for. All nature that morning had a question on its lips for Elizabeth, and an answer if she could but interpret it. The grey climbing hill-sides already aquiver in the hot sun seemed ready to tell her why they stood there broad-flanked and menacing. The brook that came cool and bubbling from below a rock by the wayside, fringing its course with cresses and feathery grass, had learned in the darkness of the earth, in the sub-terrestrial caves from which it sprang, the reason of its going. Scattered by the roadside here and there were Afghan villages, and at the mouths of excavated dwellings in the hill-side stood the wild-eyed native folk who were born and lived and loved and fought and murdered, maybe, all in obedience to some law of being that caused the aloe to shoot up in erect strong stem and blossom, and that lit the fires of victory in the eyes of the dying Brahmin. All seemed ready to tell her the answer could she but frame her question.

  Like an obsession this sense of revelation ready to show itself to her, could she but put herself on the plane of thought where it lay, besieged her all day, and as they returned to the caravanserai at the foot of the pass as the sun, declining behind the western hills, turned them for a moment into glowing amber, it seemed to elude her but by a hair’s-breadth. There all was ready for the reception of the caravan that had marched through the pass into India that day; the sellers of bread were pulling out of their circular ovens excavated in the ground the flat cakes of unleavened bread, the brass samovars hissed at the booths of the tea-sellers, and cauldrons of hot soup boiled and bubbled. Already the van of the wayfarers was entering the guarded gates that were pierced in the mud walls, and the camels, weary with the long stage, bent their unwieldy joints and lay down for their drivers to strip off their load. Some were too tired to eat, and, resting their queer prehistoric heads on their bended forelegs, closed their long-lashed eyes and slept. Others, hungry and restless, foamed and lathered and snapped greedily at the mounds of dried fodder that their drivers placed before them. Tired men got their bowls of soup or tea from the stalls, and, leaning against the sides of their beasts, ate their supper, and wrapping their heads in their dusty gay-coloured shawls, slept by their sleeping animals. Others, inclined for a chat, collected round the shops of the provision-sellers against the wall of the serai, and smoked and talked when their supper was done; others, three or four clubbing together, lit fires of the brushwood they had gathered during the day, and cooked their own food at cheaper rate than obtained in the stores. Ponies nickered and twitched at their heel-ropes, the sharp, pungent smell of the wood fires and the wreaths of aromatic smoke drifted slowly along the sluggish currents of the almost windless air, and gradually the empty space of the serai became a mosaic of sleeping men and beasts. The hills that the sunset had turned into molten tawny gold grew dark again with the gathering night, and in the depth of the velvet vault above the wheeling stars grew large.

  And behind all the various forms of life, behind the molten hills, behind the sky, behind the limbs of the bearded camels, behind the chatter and smoke of the provision booths, there lurked, so it seemed to Elizabeth, one impulse, one energy common to all. In her head lay some remembered melody of Schumann, that seemed to beat to the same indwelling rhythms to which the stars pulsated.

  Her father was standing alone beside her; a little way off the genial Commander-in-Chief was tasting the soup that bubbled in the tin-plated cauldrons, pronouncing it excellent, and bidding his aide-de-camp, a slim young, weary Englishman, translate his verdict of it to the gratified booth-keeper. Some word of the identity of this great boisterous hedonist had been passed about the serai, but the tired drovers of the caravan paid little heed. And yet, here incarnate, was the figure-head of the English power that guaranteed their safe journey through the turbulent lands of the frontier, and that would avenge with wicked little spitting guns and a troop of khaki-clad soldiers any raid that the ungoverned tribe might make. But Sir Henry, in spite of this, roused but little attention; the tired drovers slept; those who were more alert were but employed with jokes and snatches of song round the samovars and soup-cauldrons. The hills and the stars attended as little; everything and everybody was intent on his own inward calls, just as last night the Brahmin who lay by the wayside had no need of food, and but thought of the finding of that for which all his years had searched.

  And then Elizabeth’s questing soul suddenly gave up the pursuit of a hidden cause, and felt content with the obvious explanation. She took her father’s arm.

  “Oh, daddy, I’ve had such a lovely day!” she said. “What heaps of different things there are in the world, and what heaps of different businesses. And it all makes such a jumbled incoherent whole! In half an hour we shall be back home again, and it will be time to dress, and mamma will tell us all she has done to-day. After dinner I will play the piano to you till you snore, and as soon as you snore I shall wake you up again and make you write to Aunt Julia to say when I shall arrive at Heathmoor.”

  He pressed her hand as it lay in the crook of his arm.

  “It is a less tragic view than that of last night,” he said.

  “I know. At this moment I don’t mind the least about going to England. I’m — I’m going to take things as they come.”

  Elizabeth paused a moment, as with the vividness of ocular hallucination the Brahmin’s face once more swam before her eyes.

  “But that doesn’t mean I am not going to be serious,” she said. “I want ‘richly to enjoy.’ Doesn’t that come in the Bible somewhere? I expect there are many routes that arrive at the same place.”

  To anybody unacquainted with the sum of Elizabeth’s musings that day, this was necessarily a cryptic speech. It grew more cryptic yet.

  “Perhaps drink leads the drunkard there,” she said, “and music the musician. Doesn’t one develop, daddy, through one’s passions, and not through one’s renunciations? I can’t see how starving your desires can possibly help one.”

  “My dear, there are desires and desires,” he said.

  “And where do they all come from? Surely from the search.”

  He was silent a moment, and at that moment anything short of enthusiastic acceptance of her illumination was a coldness, a hand of ice to Elizabeth.

  “Daddy, you don’t understand,” she said. “As long as we want, it doesn’t much matter what we want. Isn’t it half the battle to be
eager?”

  He shook his head.

  “Again I should talk nonsense if I agreed with you,” he said. “Eagerness is a sword, my dear; but it is not armour.”

  “I don’t want armour,” she said quickly. “I am not afraid of being hurt.”

  “Ah, don’t get hurt, my darling!” he said.

  “Not I. And if I do get hurt, daddy, I shall come crying to you, and you will have to comfort me. Oh, oh — look at all those tired men, with no beds to lie on, and no pillows and no tooth powder or sponges! Don’t you envy them? They will wake up in the morning, and find themselves there, and, after all, nothing else can matter. I don’t want to be bothered with possessions. I want to be — —” Elizabeth suddenly broke off, interrupting her speech and thought alike.

  “Daddy, that darling Sir Henry has had soup, and now he is eating unleavened cakes, and a peculiarly murderous-looking Pathan is tempting him with a pomegranate. Do stop him; he is dining with us in an hour’s time, and mamma will be so vexed if he doesn’t eat the most enormous dinner.”

  Colonel Fanshawe, with Elizabeth still on his arm, stepped over a couple of sleeping prostrate forms.

  “Yes, we will go to him,” he said, “and you shall tell me more about the simple life afterwards. It is getting late.”

  Sir Henry had just cracked a pomegranate in his enormous beefy hands.

  “God bless me!” he was saying. “I never saw anything look so good. Fanshawe, be kind enough to tell this man in your best Pushtoo, that there’s a fortune in pomegranates. Why, it’s quite delicious; never tasted such a fine fruit.”

  Colonel Fanshawe made some amiable equivalent of all this in Pushtoo, and spoke to Sir Henry again.

  “He says that his trees will bear in greater abundance than ever now, sir. But it is rather late. I think we ought to be getting home. You won’t have more than time to eat your dinner in comfort before the train — —”

  Sir Henry rejected a mass of seeds.

  “Yes, yes; we’ll go,” he said. “Why, here’s my Miss Elizabeth come to insist. I always obey the ladies, Colonel; you obey the ladies always, and you’ll have a confoundedly pleasant time. Now, Miss Elizabeth, quick march, is it?”

  A sleepless day following on a dancing night, had produced in Mrs. Fanshawe that uncertainty of temper which, when it exhibits itself in children, is called fractiousness. The Commander-in-Chief, who dined with them en famille, had been obliged to leave in order to catch his train before dinner was over, and in consequence the very expensive strawberries which she had designed to form an exceptional dessert were eaten by herself and Elizabeth, while the Colonel went to the station to speed his parting chief. The chief also during dinner had paid, according to her estimate of what was proper, insufficient attention to his hostess, and more than sufficient to Elizabeth, on whom he rained showers of robust gallantries. In addition, some vague story of a dead man found in the garden had agitated her, while not a single soul from the rest of the station had called to tell her how complete was the eclipse that all other women suffered at the ball last night in consequence of her effulgence. This was enough to start a promising crop of grievances and gloomy forebodings in Mrs. Fanshawe’s mind, which she served up, so to speak, young, succulent, and tender like mustard and cress. The crop was of extremely varied growth — a perfect macedoine of mixed and bitter vegetables, among which her habitual helplessness and childlike manner had been completely volatilized.

  “I think it is no wonder,” she said, “that the military future of India gives politicians grave anxiety at home, when there is such a doddering old goose at the head of affairs.”

  “Oh, mamma, it’s rather a telling sort of doddering!” said Elizabeth. “They gave him a tremendous reception at Jamrud.”

  “And laughed at him behind his back, I know,” said Mrs. Fanshawe, with decision. “And his conduct at dinner, too, with his absurd jokes. I had hoped, Elizabeth, that your good sense would have enabled you to see through them, and for my part, the most charitable explanation I can think of is that he had had too much wine, which I am sure I hope he will sleep off before he makes another laughing-stock of himself at Lahore. Stuffing himself with soup and pomegranates, too, like a school-boy at a confectioner’s!”

  Elizabeth forebore to suggest that a school confectioner who sold soup and pomegranates would be a unique species of tradesman, and proceeded to eat strawberries one by one from the dish. Her stepmother did not often spout with vinegar, when she did the wisest thing was not to attempt to staunch the flow, but merely wait till it ran dry. But it appeared that her silence acted as spur sufficient.

  “And as you have nothing to tell me about the pleasures of your expedition,” observed Mrs. Fanshawe, “I must be content with picturing it to myself, as, indeed, I have been doing all day, thinking that now you had got to Landi Kotal, and now to the other place, the name of which I forget.”

  “We started at eight,” began Elizabeth.

  “I am quite aware of that, dear,” said Mrs. Fanshawe. “I had lain awake till then after the ball, and was just beginning to think I should get to sleep, when I heard you laughing and calling so merrily. I only thought, ‘Now my dear ones are starting on their expedition,’ nothing more at all. Except to look out of my window, though the light hurt my eyes, to see if you were likely to have a fine day. But, since you have nothing to tell me — —”

  “Indeed, mamma, we all talked about our day at dinner,” said Elizabeth. “I should have thought you had heard enough of it.”

  Mrs. Fanshawe closed her eyes until Elizabeth ceased speaking, and then went on exactly where she had left off.

  “What you have been doing,” she said. “I must try to entertain you with what happened last night. The room was very hot and full, and indeed, with Sir Henry bouncing about, there was little space for anybody else to dance at all. Such an elephant I have never yet seen outside a menagerie or at the Durbar, and I should not wonder if when he retired next year, as I am told he does, Barnum offered something handsome for him. But it would be a risky purchase; he might burst any day and cover the place with pomegranate seeds.”

  Elizabeth gave a little inward gurgle of laughter at this picturesque phrasing. A peculiarity of Mrs. Fanshawe, and one which she shared with many of the human race, was that, when vexed, her sense of humour entirely deserted her, though her humour itself indulged in admirable touches. There was, for instance, humour in her swift thumbnail sketch of an exploding warrior in a menagerie, but her perception of her own felicity failed to recognize it. Under these circumstances it was not diplomatic for others to greet it; their amusement was not wanted. Mrs. Fanshawe proceeded in her inimitable way, in a rather faint voice.

  “Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,” she said. “I hope, Elizabeth, you will be able to let me see a little of you before you bury yourself in your trunks. I hope, too, you will keep a hand on your natural exuberance during your voyage. You must not be carried away by such foolish sallies and witticisms as seemed to amuse you during dinner, and make undesirable acquaintances. There is sure to be a number of skylarking young men on board going home, who will want to romp with any girl handy. And be careful to dress very plainly and quietly. You will earn in respect what you will lose in being stared at. Of course you will chiefly sit in the ladies’ saloon, especially after dark, and not play any of those foolish games with buckets and bits of rope, which occasion so much silly shouting and giggling, unless there are one or two elderly women playing!”

  She observed, with a shaded glance, that Elizabeth had finished the strawberries.

  “Perhaps you would pass me the strawberries, dear,” she said. “They are quite excellent.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry!” began Elizabeth.

  “Ah, you have eaten them all, have you? It is not of the slightest consequence. I only wanted one or two, and no doubt I am quite as well without them. Indeed, I am only glad that you have enjoyed them so much, and wish for your sake there were more. Ah, here is your fath
er back from seeing poor Sir Henry off. Take the dish off the table, darling, so that he shall not see we have had strawberries, for they are his favourite fruit.”

  The goaded Elizabeth turned.

  “Daddy,” she said, “I have eaten all the strawberries, so that there are none for you and mamma.”

  Mrs. Fanshawe gave her a reproachful glance.

  “Really, Elizabeth!” she said. “So you are back, Bob. Did you see the poor old man into his train? I was saying to Elizabeth that I hoped it was only wine, but I am afraid his brain must be going. I should not wonder if he became quite childish.”

  Colonel Fanshawe lifted his eyebrows in mild surprise.

  “Sir Henry?” he said. “I hope neither conjecture is true, my dear. By the way, he sent his warmest thanks to you and hoped so much that when you went up to Simla you would stay with him a week or two. He will be there all next month. But of course if you are afraid of his being sent for to go to the asylum — —”

  Mrs. Fanshawe did not waste time over her transitions; she did not modulate from key to key, but, without sequence of transitional chords, put her finger firmly down on the notes she intended to play.

  “My darling, how literally you take my little joke!” she said. “Dear Sir Henry! He is like a great boy, is he not, with his jokes and high spirits! I declare he made me feel a hundred years old. I must say that it is very civil of him, and of course I shall go. I regard the invitations of the Commander-in-Chief as a royal command, when one is in India.”