Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  She had fully intended to go to Tristan first, and then call for him at the stage-door, but when he suggested that, suddenly her whole mind veered round. She felt she could not bear to see him share the love-potion with another, even though that other was the huge, misshapen Borinski; she wanted to have no warnings from Brangaene in her tower: she wanted no lime-lit forest of stage-trees, no theatrical representation, even though the most wonderful love-music in the world, and that superb and passionate voice interpreted it. Above all, she did not want to see the tragedy and bitterness of love, but rather to know the triumph of its sweetness.... All this went through her mind with the vividness and speed of some scene suddenly illuminated in the darkness by a flash of lightning.

  “No; I shan’t come to the opera,” she said. “I will just call for you afterwards, and we will drive down.”

  There was a moment’s pause.

  “All things shall be as you will, gracious and adored lady,” he said.

  “Till to-morrow, then,” said she.

  Well, that was settled, and instantly she plunged into the myriad engagements and employments that awaited her. She wanted to take her mind completely away from to-morrow, to occupy and distract all her conscious self, to employ all her conscious energies, and let that which she had determined on, seethe quietly in the shut darkness of her inmost self. She wanted to imagine nothing, to anticipate nothing, lest by reflecting, she should dull the keenness of her force when it should come into play. She was to be a mouse no longer, a toy no longer, but a queen who dominated, not a slave who served. All day and all the next that storage of force went on, while like a separate entity, she went from house to house, to a luncheon party here, to an hour of an afternoon concert afterwards, coming home, as arranged, to have tea with Robin before he went to Cambridge. She entertained people at dinner that night, and went to a drawing-room afterwards, with half herself, and that the essential and really living part, shut up in the darkness of her inmost soul.

  Sometimes if she let her interest in the pageants round her flag for a moment, she could hear something tapping at the door behind which she had locked her real self in, but she refused to listen, above all, she refused to hold communication with her prisoner. Tomorrow night, London would be left behind, and the prisoner should come out and enter into her kingdom....

  On Saturday afternoon she sent such servants as would be needed down to Grote, with instructions that she and Mr. Kuhlmann would come down that night, and two more guests would join them next morning. There must be supper ready for them: for they would not be down till somewhere about one in the morning. There was no need to open any of the big rooms... and suddenly the unreality of all those great parties struck her. What did they all come to? Had they been anything more than a rather gorgeous and expensive way of passing the time until something real came along? How many of those who composed that brilliant crowd mattered at all to her? Perhaps there were half a dozen at one party whom she cared for, and who, perhaps, cared for her, but all the rest were hardly more than pretty dresses that moved and talked on topics as evanescent as gossamer on a dewy morning.

  She dined on Saturday night at a restaurant with three friends, Mrs. Lockwater, Geoffrey Bellingham, and the ubiquitous Mr. Boyton, who was their host. Next them was a larger gathering, all known to her, all visitors, when she cared to ask them, to Grote, all part of the usual pageant of life. There were topics abroad that should have been interesting, the threat, scarcely veiled, of Austria to Serbia, a race-meeting at which the wealthiest and most miserly commoner in England had won a hundred thousand pounds, trouble in Ireland, the marvellous party at Lady Gurtner’s two nights ago, all the froth and bubble which the world makes as it spins through space on its hazardous and unconjecturable journey. There was nothing of an arresting quality in any of these; it was all the kind of thing that London has perennially “on tap.” Geoffrey Bellingham was inclined to be involved and allusive about Serbia, but he might equally well have chosen as his topic the race-meeting and arrived at no less a pitch of picturesque obscurity.

  “It is,” he said, “as I figure it to myself, as if a big boy, some athletic creature like our dear Robin, though without the chivalrous sense that size should give, had a small boy gripped by the ear in an inexorable forefinger and relentless thumb, while the menacing boot is poised before its painful application. But our interesting international group is not complete yet: for to my probably pessimistic eye, another big boy, cousin and chivalrous cousin to the scarcely adolescent menaced, says, in fact, ‘Hands off!’ And is there, or is there not, some even more completely equipped youth standing behind the boot that menaces and the hand that grips? Are, in fact, those who watch by the Rhine — in short, is Germany drinking beer or brewing trouble? What, to borrow our metaphor from the financial transactions which to-day have made a perfect Danae, in point not, I may say, of motherhood, but of gold, of our friend who has now another hundred thousand pounds to devote to schemes of stinginess — what is the betting on Germany being behind all this?”

  Mr. Boyton had been smoothing his honey-coloured hair with a slight air of impatience. He had not yet been able to get a word in, though it was his own party, so substantial were the periods with which Bellingham had been regaling them. It was true that his resonant, booming voice made everybody in the room look in his direction, where they could behold Boyton entertaining the two most beautiful women in London, but as host he wanted to talk too, and plunged into the very rapids of Bellingham’s eloquence.

  “The best grounds for betting against Germany being, as you say, behind all this,” he said, “was a delightful party given two days ago, at which I had the felicity to meet my dear neighbour on my right. Our timorous friend, Lady Grote, should have been there, should he not, and have seen the cordiality between certain of our fellow-guests? His absence marred the perfection of the evening.”

  Lady Grote had to think a moment before she could remember what party her host alluded to. There had been such lots of parties, all just the same sort of thing. Two nights ago? What a long time ago that must have been! She could remember that Robin had been out till four in the morning, but... what else had happened? Then she remembered.

  “Yes, yes,” she said. “We were an Anglo-Germanic society, weren’t we? I loved that symphonic poem by Saalfeld, and then Nijinski as Endymion; really, I looked round to be sure that Robin was not there. I should not have been able to face him afterwards.”

  She paused a moment.

  “And I thought Mr. Kuhlmann sang so well,” she added, feeling suddenly real again. “He is singing in Tristan to-night. If I was not here, Mr. Boyton, I should like to be there.”

  Dear lady,” thundered Mr. Bellingham, “one, at least, and I see I speak for two others, are enraptured at the fact that you prefer this for me delicious rendezvous to that of the ship that continued, I may say, interminably not coming. It continues, does it not, not to come far longer than any belated liner yet known to the wife of the expectant mariner, or, as it so curiously happened in this case, to the husband, in the sight of God, of the marineering wife. In fact, I thought that that ship would never cease not coming, and that my departure from Covent Garden would be delayed till the Day of Judgment, unless I made my inconspicuous exit before it came. And to the best of my recollection, an equally interminable herdsman continued to pipe on an interminable flute of the reediest order, during the whole period of its non-arrival. Tristan, so I faintly remember, accompanied the meanderings of the flute with writhings in a species of brown dressing-gown, indigenous, I suppose, to some sparsely-inhabited district of Cornwall, and so correct, but unlikely to enhance his chances in the eyes of his long-tarrying mistress. Had some hint, so I put it to myself, subaqueously or telepathieally reached that abandoned Princess of the unbecoming dishabille of her, what I must call, husband, or did she eventually arrive in order to put an end, once for all, we must hope, to the pipings of the flute-player? But she came, did she not? I seem to see a corps
e of amazingly muscular build but already moribund, disappearing under a landslide, an avalanche of buxom charms, a soprano mountain, may we call it? — a mountain of the most vocal kind. The mountain came to Mohammed, in fact, and I understood that the opera was over. Someone, probably an evangelist, for his name was Mark, said a sort of grace over the perfidious couple!” Lady Grote gave a great explosion of laughter. All her conscious self delighted in this ludicrous travesty of Tristan as it appeared to the unbaptized. But from the imprisoned self within there came no answering merriment; it sat quite still in its darkness, tolerating, but no more, this chattering of an ape, who spoke in a language scarcely human, but made an obscene kind of gabble that yet somehow amused her enormously. But the amused part of her was the actor on this stage of an unreal restaurant, and it had its part to play. The rest of the actors, or the audience (it did not matter which), were amused, too; they gabbled and chuckled, and it all meant nothing. There they continued sitting round their table, while other parties broke up and went away: Bellingham was being amusing, and Boyton was getting his share of the talk, and Mrs. Lockwater was listening, and she herself was merely waiting till it was time to go down to Covent Garden.

  The opera would be over by half-past eleven, and she had told her friends that she was going to drive down to Grote that night, and had ordered her ear for eleven or thereabouts.

  The time did not go slowly, and she was rather surprised when the porter came in, and said that her car had come for her. After that she sat for another ten minutes, and then in a mixture of feverish impatience and regret that nothing now lay between her and her desire, she went out of the revolving doors, and Boyton, loquacious and important, took her to her motor. She saw the last of him, a compact, tame little man, standing on the edge of the pavement, and already greeting a friend who succeeded her in the revolving cage.

  The car slid eastwards; there was but little traffic going in her direction, for all the theatres were pouring out westwards, and she hummed along past one continuous queue of carriages. Arc lights and incandescent gas brightly illuminated the crowded pavements, and she never had felt a closer kinship with the seekers of pleasure and the couples who had found it. Here and there only was a solitary figure, some man pursuing his puritanical way, or some woman, a little old perhaps to rank herself still among the daughters of joy, fluttering anxiously and uneasily on the edge of the pavement, in search of any who appreciated the charms of maturity. But for the most part there was little anxiety in evidence; it was a singularly gay assemblage that strolled and lounged, and clustered like bees round the islands in the street and to the steps of crowded buses. In the Circus some news was being called, and papers were selling rapidly; the news-boards announced the result of a cricket match.

  After leaving Leicester Square the streets lost something of their illumination and their crowds, and as her motor passed up Long Acre she went, so to speak, key in hand to the locked door in her mind, where since yesterday she had imprisoned the thoughts that were concerned with to-night. They clamoured and rapped within, but she did not let them out till on approaching the opera house she called an order to her chauffeur to turn down the street in which lay the entrance to the Royal box and the stage-door. Several Royal carriages were standing in the road, the third of them being opposite the stage-door. She went past them, turned and came back again to the end of the short queue and stopped. Her footman got down and stood on the pavement close to the stage-door, a few yards in front of her motor.

  She turned the key and out poured the exulting crowd of imprisoned thought. She could just see her servant standing by the stage-door, and knew that before many minutes were over she would see him touch his hat and come back with the man she was waiting for. He would open the motor door, and she would turn back the light rug that covered her knees. There would be a word of formal greeting, and he would get in. She would not need to tell the footman where to go, and presently they would move off. Beneath the rug she would feel his hand grasp hers, and that purring voice would say something. There would be miles of gas-lit streets to traverse, and after that the long, grey riband of the road lying straight between its dusky hedges. There would be silent villages lying along the valley of the river, and presently the climb up the downs, to where the woods of Grote met over the road, forming a tunnel of greenery. The lodge gate would open and close behind them, and presently they would stop beneath the Ionic pillars of the portico. They would sup together, and she would tell the servants that no one need sit up....

  Somehow her mind reproduced no other pictures than these concerned with material minutiae. What would they talk about as they drove? She had no idea; among all the liberated prisoners there was not one who had imagined that. Perhaps, who knew, they would not talk at all; perhaps he would sing, below his breath, little phrases of the love-duet. No doubt at supper, when the servants were there, they would talk; she would ask him how the opera went, whether Borinski was more ponderous than usual; perhaps she would give Geoffrey Bellingham’s impression of the last act. Then supper would be over, and they would be alone again....

  She had no idea how time was going, but presently her chauffeur, who had stopped his engines, started them again, and they moved up to opposite the stage-door, and she saw that the Royal carriages had gone. The opera was therefore over, and soon the dark, narrow street became flooded with the audience from the upper part of the house, and she heard fragments of their conversation as they passed her open window.

  One said: “I didn’t think much of Tristan; not a patch on Kuhlmann, was he?” That made her smile, since it was Kuhlmann that the discontented listener had just been hearing. Borinski came in for eulogy; the orchestra was admirable, but once again Tristan seemed not to have given satisfaction. Perhaps he had not sung as magnificently as usual; he had told her before now that even singing in Tristan did not absorb him, if his mind was busy with something else. The explanation thrilled her....

  Gradually the crowd drained off again, and left the street empty once more. Several other motors had come up behind her, and before long she saw Borinski come out talking voluble German to her maid, who carried a bag. They got into some motor behind and drove off. Then the stage-door grew populous; a group of men came out together, also talking German; probably they were the chorus of sailors. Then came others, and, finally, there came Brangaene, whom Lady Grote knew, but did not care about knowing at this particular moment, and so, to escape recognition, she leant back in the darkness of her motor.

  She applauded Kuhlmann for his discretion in letting the others get away first; certainly it was a thing better to be avoided that he should be seen getting into her motor at the stage-door. It was kind and thoughtful of him. But there was no longer any reason that he should delay his exit. She turned up the light for a moment and saw that her clock pointed to half-past twelve.

  From inside the lit passage there came quick steps, and the light was put out. Next moment some theatre official, in uniform, appeared at the entrance, and proceeded to shut the door. She called her footman.

  “Ask him if Mr. Kuhlmann is still in the theatre?” she said.

  The man was busy putting a padlock on a bar of the door, and in a moment her servant returned to her.

  “He says Mr. Kuhlmann has not been singing tonight, my lady,” he said.

  “Ask him to speak to me a moment,” she said.

  The man left the half-barred door and came to her carriage.

  “Mr. Kuhlmann surely has been singing in Tristan to-night,” she said.

  “No, ma’am. There was an understudy singing to-night. Mr. Kuhlmann was here yesterday afternoon, and cancelled his engagements for the rest of the season. There’s been a great to-do at the box-office, for a lot of ladies and gentlemen wanted their money returned.”

  “And where is he? What has happened? Is he ill?”

  “Couldn’t say, ma’am.”

  The man paused a moment.

  “I beg your pardon, ma’am,” he said.
“But are you Lady Grote, or some such name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then Mr. Kuhlmann left a note for you. It’s on the rack, I think, for I noticed the name, seeing as Lady Grote wasn’t one of our ladies. I remember his putting it there to be called for. If you are wanting it tonight, my lady, I could step down and fetch it you!”

  “I should be very much obliged to you,” said she.

  She hustled all the lately released prisoners of her mind back into their dungeon again. She refused to allow herself to think till she knew more. As she herded them in, they chattered together, one saying, “Perhaps he is ill”; another: “He would have told her if he was ill.” Another wildly, amazingly suggested: “He knew he wouldn’t be able to sing tonight. Perhaps he has gone down to Grote already; perhaps she will find him there.” Another said: “It is all a mistake; he will come out in one moment, and we will all go down to Grote together.” But she swept them all into confinement again, and just waited for the note to be brought. In that interval she did not do more than notice trivial things; her chauffeur had got a white smudge on his collar; her footman was about the same height as Robin, and had the same low, straight shoulders; she found her purse, and took out of it five shillings to give the porter. Then she heard his steps coming up the stone stairs; he stumbled, and came out into the street, dusting his knees, with a note in his hand.

  “I am very much obliged to you,” she said, and gave him his tip.

  The footman came to the door.

  “To Grote, my lady?” he asked.

  “Shut the door and get up.” she said. “I will tell you in a moment.”

  She turned on the light again, opened the note and read it.

  “GRACIOUS LADY, “This will reach you at the stage-door of the opera, and by then I shall be away on the sea, on my return to Germany.