Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “I know. I thought it was not quite consistent of him. And he has gone to the station in the Rolls-Royce of which I have robbed him and others. But after all, why be consistent? Gracie is consistent, but I can’t think of anybody else who is.”

  Lady Massingberd stirred gently in her chair.

  “Is that a testimonial or an accusation?” she asked. “I think it’s an accusation. It’s inconsistent to be consistent, if you see what I mean.”

  “I think I should perhaps see better if you explained.” Helen Grote considered a moment, half closing her eyes as if to focus her ideas.

  “What I mean is this,” she said. “That we are each of us such a bundle of opposite and contradictory tendencies and desires, the results of heredity, if you will, or of environment, that unless we continually did a large quantity of contradictory things, we shouldn’t be consistent with ourselves, or express ourselves. Mr. Stoughton, for instance, expresses himself beautifully: he is a Socialist and says that we have no right to possess anything nice, or to money which we didn’t earn: we are thieves and receivers of stolen goods. I am sure he is sincere in his outrageous belief. But on the other hand, he is clearly very fond of large quantities of food and wine, and likes going to the station in an expensive and stolen motor-car. That again is quite sincere, and he is right to eat and drink the stuff I have stolen. He wouldn’t be consistent with himself if he was not inconsistent. I really believe that means something.”

  “Let us go on talking about me,” said Lady Massingberd. “We seem to have strayed from the subject.”

  “Not far. I was coming back to you. You are consistent. You are completely convinced that nothing in the world matters two straws, and that the sole object of life is to extract from it all the enjoyment you can.”

  “And there you are!” remarked Lord Thorley, shielding his eyes against the glare.

  “I don’t think I’m there at all. You make me out not only completely selfish, but also utterly shallow.”

  “No, not shallow,” said Lady Grote. “No one with convictions is shallow. You don’t drift in the least, you go steaming away in a well-defined line, with a wake of foam and waves behind you. And occasional corpses which you have thrown overboard,” she added, to complete the picture.

  “Thank you, darling. And do explain also why I’m not selfish. It would make me feel more comfortable.”

  “Certainly I can explain that: it is quite easy. You do quantities of kind and unselfish things. It gives you enjoyment to do them.”

  “It would be very kind of you, for instance, to pass me those matches,” remarked Henry Thorley. “I’m sure you would enjoy it. Thanks.”

  Lady Massingberd sat stiffly up in her chair. She looked rather like a smart young guardsman who had chosen to dress in a tailor-made gown.

  “That is just like you, Helen,” she said. “You always impute low motives to people. You are good enough — I don’t know about your sincerity — to say I do kind things, but only because it amuses me.”

  “No, I never said that. I said you enjoyed it,” said Helen. “I don’t think that anything amuses you.”

  “Worse and worse. I have no sense of humour, then.”

  “In that sense you haven’t. Things don’t tickle you, as Americans say, as they tickle me. You didn’t see the humour of Mr. Stoughton, for instance. You took him quite seriously: I had to point out to you the humour of his inconsistencies. I don’t say for a moment that you can’t see a funny joke, but you don’t see a serious joke like Mr. Stoughton.”

  “No, it is true I didn’t see the joke in Mr. Stoughton, if there was one. I thought him merely very rude and ill-mannered and altogether without breeding.”

  “I don’t know where he would have got his breeding from,” said Lord Thorley. “That would have been stolen, if he had any.”

  “He hadn’t: he had appropriated nothing in that line. I can’t understand you, Helen. You like seeing the weirdest sorts of people. Do you remember when you found you had asked a black bishop, a lion-tamer and a suffragette to dine with you?”

  Lady Grote leaned laughing back in her chair.

  “Do I remember?” she said. “And do I not remember that Grote came up to town unexpectedly that night? He arrived in the middle of dinner, gave one glance at us and fled to his club. I didn’t see him again for six months. Poor Grote!”

  “Poor Grote indeed! But we are going to see him to-day, aren’t we?”

  “Yes: he comes this evening. You see, Robin is coming too, and he adores Robin.”

  “But tell me why you like suffragettes and lion-tamers and black bishops?” asked Lady Massingberd. “You are — it’s a terrible word — but you’re aristocratic to your finger-tips, and yet I really think you like riff-raff of that sort more than anybody. Anyhow it amuses you most. But then, of course you’ve got a sense of humour,” she added bitingly.

  “Darling, I never said you hadn’t: I explained that away beautifully. But the real difference between us is that I like people: I like the human race, and you don’t like the human race. You like what they call ‘a few friends,’ which is far more genteel.”

  “Oh, I’m genteel, too, am I?” asked Lady Massingberd in a voice that would have frozen molten pitch.

  “Yes, you are genteel: it is very, very nice to be genteel. You like a few friends, as I said, and they are all of the class which you allowed yourself to call aristocratic. My dear, I believe that you think that when Moses came down from Sinai he brought with him not the tables of the law but the original edition of Burke’s Peerage. The Dukes of Edom: that’s what you like.”

  Lady Massingberd began counting on her brown, strong fingers.

  “One selfish: two shallow: three without sense of humour: four genteel: five snob,” she said. “There’s a nice handful of qualities.”

  Lady Grote laughed again: she had the laugh of a child, open mouthed and abandoned.

  “You won’t listen to my explanation,” she said. “I’ve explained away everything but genteel, which I can’t do, and now I’ll explain away snob. You aren’t in the least a snob in the ordinary sense: you don’t like princes better than dukes and dukes than marquises, like Mr. Boyton who is coming down here this evening, but you like a certain quality which you call breeding. If a prince hasn’t got it you don’t like him. Lots of them haven’t. But you like a certain quality which usually goes with generations of living comfortably in castles. Now I don’t, at least I don’t like that to the exclusion of those who haven’t got it. I can make friends with those who haven’t got a trace of it. Indeed, I think I must have had some great-great-grandmother who came from the music-halls, if they had them in those days, and heredity makes me want to go back there.”

  “I can’t think why people are down on snobs,” remarked Lord Thorley, in his slow, suave voice. “Snobs are so pleasant if one happens to be an earl or something. But the carl-variety of snob is unfortunately becoming rather scarce. They ought to create snobs instead of peers. With a pension.”

  “Henry so often appears to be talking nonsense when he is really talking sense,” remarked Lady Grote. “He hasn’t had the opportunity to talk much at present owing to Gracie and me. Shall we let him talk for a little?”

  “If he’s got anything to say,” remarked Lady Massingberd austerely.

  “He has. I always know when Henry has something to say, because when he has something to say he is rather silent; when he has nothing to say, he talks.”

  “You’re the biggest snob I know, Helen,” said Henry gently.

  “That sounds like having something to say. Do say it.”

  “Well, the good old crusted snob who likes earls as such is about extinct, except for your friend Mr. Boyton. But another sort of snob has sprung up, of which you are a perfect specimen. You are snobbish about success. You don’t like the rank and file of the Socialists, you like their leader, Mr. Stoughton. You don’t like singers, but you like the finest singer in the world. You like the finest artist,
the richest man—”

  “Oh, that’s not being a snob,” said Helen.

  “Yes, it is: it is being the up-to-date snob. In old days there was the snobbism with regard to birth, because prince and duke and so on were representative of the most successful class. They had seats in the House of Lords, and controlled the seats in the House of Commons. They were richer than anybody else, they mattered most. Nowadays other people are much richer, Germans and Jews and such-like. Nowadays other people matter more, because the opera and the Russian ballet and such-like interest us more than marquises. We care less about territorial possessions and more about being amused. I don’t say you are the worse for being a snob: I only remark that you are one.”

  “Go on: I love being talked about,” said Lady Grote.

  “You have led a very happy life then, darling,” said Lady Massingberd, looking at her fingers, each of which connoted some odious quality.

  “Oh, shut up, Gracie!” said Lady Grote. “Go on, Henry.”

  “Well, you’re a snob, and what’s the harm of that? I think it’s very sensible of you. The efficient people of the world are naturally more interesting than others. They have won success, and to have won success implies gifts: it implies character. They have got their hallmark: the world has recognized them: they have shown strength and determination. So far, so good.”

  “Then tell me about the bad part. Whenever anyone says ‘So far, so good.’ it means there’s something awful coming.”

  “You don’t think it awful, so you won’t mind. But it is a fact that a quantity of your successful people are bounders. That’s one of the penalties of success: it so often makes you a bounder. To be successful in the rough and tumble of a profession blunts your gentler qualities. Competition has been your business, and the habit of competition makes a very disagreeable by-product. It makes you inconsiderate of other people: it makes you square your shoulders and elbow people in the face.”

  “That’s right,” said Lady Massingberd, almost smacking her lips. “Give it her hot: she told me I was genteel and selfish and — and what was my third finger?”

  “Marriage-ring finger, dear,” said Helen wildly, completely forgetting for the moment that Gracie had divorced her husband only six months ago. Then suddenly she remembered, and gave a shriek of laughter.

  “Oh, I wish I could say that sort of thing when I wanted to,” she exclaimed. “I only make awful gaffes by accident. It must be lovely to make them on purpose. But there’s more to follow, Henry. You got to where I liked people who elbowed others in the face.”

  “Yes, I stick to that. You don’t like them because they elbow other people in the face, mind: you only like them though they do these elbowings. And there’s much more to follow.”

  “Out with it,” said Lady Massingberd. “My third finger is for my marriage ring. Never shall I forget that.”

  “Go on, Henry,” said Helen.

  “I am going on. You make a profound mistake. You think you are being democratic: I have known you even think you were socialistic. But you are only being snobbish. The opera bores you very much—”

  “She doesn’t know one note from another,” interjected Lady Massingberd.

  “But you go in order to pay homage to that immense Kuhlmann, about whom everyone is talking.”

  “He is coming down here this afternoon,” murmured Lady Grote.

  “I felt sure of it. So probably is that man who wrote the play which the Lord Chamberlain refused to license. You don’t care for plays.”

  “Mr. Hedgekick is perfectly charming,” said Helen, sticking up for her friends.

  “Hedgekick?” asked Lady Massingberd in an awestruck voice.

  “Yes, darling: Hedgekick. Why not? Talbot is just as funny, so is anything beginning with Fitz. I wish you wouldn’t interrupt when Henry is talking about me.”

  “And the worst of all the miserable business,” said Lord Thorley, “is that you think you are being democratic and open-minded, and are among those who say, ‘One man is as good as another,’ and ‘God made us all.’ You don’t really think anything of the sort. A few men are much better than the others, and the others can go hang. You worship success. Could there be anything narrower or less democratic?”

  “Anyhow, I had a suffragette to dinner,” remarked Lady Grote. “She was a criminal, too: she had scragged some picture in the Royal Academy and was sent to prison.”

  “That was precisely why you asked her to dinner. She was in the world’s eye.”

  “Like a cinder from the engine,” said Lady Massingberd.

  “Exactly. And if a notorious murderer was allowed to go out to dinner, you would certainly ask him the night before he was hanged.”

  Lady Grote did not attempt to defend herself.

  “Yes, that’s all quite true as far as it goes,” she said. “But it doesn’t go far enough.”

  “It goes a great deal too far,” said Lady Massingberd. “I never knew how dreadful you were.”

  “May the prisoner at the bar speak?” said Helen. “She’s going to, anyhow. It’s just this. I’m human.” She pointed her finger suddenly at Lady Massingberd. “Gracie, don’t say I’m much too human,” she said, “because that’s cheap. And you get into humanity most surely and quickly by going blind for the people who have succeeded in their own lines. I adore them. I don’t particularly care what they do, so long as they do it better than anybody else. If that is being a snob — well, I am one. I like people about whom the world is talking. They are concentrated people. They may be colossally rich, and that’s interesting, because they smoulder with power. They may sing, they may tell me, like Mr. Stoughton, that I’m a thief: they may dance. I like the grit that makes success. It’s what they are that interests me, not what they do.”

  “In the case of the dancer, it’s what his legs do,” said Gracie succinctly.

  “My dear, your great fault is that you can’t forgive,” said Helen. “You are pricking me with pins because I said you were genteel. That’s small of you. Now whatever I am, I’m not small. I’m not bound like you by any restriction of class: I’m much more a woman than a lady, if that makes it clearer to you. I don’t care whether the person who interests me comes from a slum, or South Kensington, or a palace: it doesn’t seem to me to matter. Therein I’m much bigger also than people like Mr. Stoughton, and those novelists, for whom, as someone said, the sun always rises in the East End. They think that if you dress for dinner you can’t be interesting. That’s a shallow view, if you like.”

  Lord Thorley, with a wrinkling movement of his nose, displaced the pince-nez which he habitually wore. This gave him a lost sort of look.

  “I don’t know where we’ve got to,” he remarked.

  “We’ve got to the fact that I am more human than either of you, and therefore bigger. I know perfectly well how to be grande dame and how to be gamin. I know it from the inside too: I am both. Grote used to say that he never knew which of me was coming down in the morning. But whichever it was, it always adored people.”

  Lord Thorley gave a long, abstracted sigh.

  “That is so amazing of you,” he said. “I can’t understand your being so completely taken up with people, as individuals, as you are. Collectively I agree with you: when people form masses and parties, you can deal with the principles that are evolved.”

  “In fact, you prefer the abstract to the concrete,” said Lady Massingberd.

  He gave them a charming smile.

  “Apart from the people I am privileged to call my friends, I certainly do,” said he. “It is delightful to sit here and discuss Helen’s snobbishness, because she’s a friend. But I have not the slightest desire to discuss Mr. Stoughton’s inconsistency. It doesn’t seem to me to matter whether he is inconsistent or not. All Socialists, I am aware, are very muddle-headed, and, indeed, have no constructive scheme to propose. Mr. Stoughton seems to me a very ordinary representative of the class without any clear ideas to lay before us, beyond the notion that we a
re thieves. I think that possibly we are, but he could tell us no more than that our goods ought to belong to the State. He hadn’t the slightest notion of how the State would dispose of them. He didn’t see that if A., for instance, is industrious and frugal, he will, though all property is equally distributed to-day, be richer at the end of the year than B., who is idle and spendthrift. Eventually he admitted that, but when I asked him if he proposed to have further distributions of property annually, he had nothing better to say than that this was a detail which could be worked out. It isn’t a detail: it lies at the root of the whole affair. The clever, the frugal and the industrious will always amass property, and periodical distributions of wealth would only put a premium on idleness and extravagance. How far the fact that our great-grandfathers were hard-working justifies our being rich to-day is, of course, a totally different question.”

  He sat there gently tapping the knuckles of one hand with the pince-nez he held in the other, looking dreamily out over the sunny lawn. Then suddenly he seemed to recollect himself, and glanced from one to the other of his companions.

  “Dear me, I have been bringing principles into this very charming discussion on personalities,” he said. “Naturally, I grant you that to arrive at principles, you must study persons. They must be analysed and dissected: all principles are the spirit distilled from persons. But I am more concerned really with the result of that distillation than with the individual grapes that have gone to it.”

  “But, then, why did you adopt politics as your profession?” asked Lady Massingberd. “I always wanted to know that. Surely in a political career you are entirely concerned with persons as individuals.”

  “Not in my view of it. Indeed, I should say precisely the opposite. Anyone who attempts to be a constructive politician deals entirely with forces and tendencies, with the evolution of the nation’s collective mind. Of course, there are tub-thumpers and rhetoricians of the new order who attack individuals, and tell us what they have seen in one particular Staffordshire potter’s house, and contrast it with the deer-park and the Vandykes of somebody else. Mr. Stoughton — was that his name? — was of that class. But the man whose ideas deal with big movements does not concern himself with isolated and probably misleading phenomena. He does not have to see a thing for himself and tell everybody what he has seen. You need not go to Australia, in fact, in order to learn to think imperially. Who coined that phrase, by the way?”