Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  There was still an apparent lack of harmony in the conditions outside, when the omnibus came round to take the patients to the baths, for it seemed to be pelting with rain, and Mrs. Bliss consented to be driven down though she still said that she would much have enjoyed the walk. But her husband, for whose sake she was undergoing this quite unnecessary cure, would not have liked the thought that she was exposing herself to this odious weather (though the weather whatever it might be, could not hurt anybody) and with this loving thought of him in her mind, she consented to be well wrapped-up, and hoisted into the omnibus. As there was no chance of helping Miss Howard with her sketching things, Florence abandoned the contemplated revolt of refusing to go down to the baths with her father, and Mrs. Bliss lent her the manual of Mental Science, to read while she was waiting. She could give her father absent treatment, while he was being pickled.

  The joint exertions of Mrs. Bertram and the gardener had sent rivers of hot water roaring through the central-heating apparatus, and Colonel Chase, sitting in the smoking-room found himself reluctantly compelled to discard his cap, muffler and great coat. Any idea of breaking fresh records on his bicycle was out of the question on so stormy a morning, for the roads, even if the rain stopped, would be a mere muddy liquefaction, and the hours till lunch-time had to be passed indoors. On days like these, he always felt that Nature had fixed her malignant eye on him, and was vomiting from the skies these innumerable gallons of cold water with the sole and express purpose of making the roads impossible for his bicycle. A materialist might hold that she was pursuing the miserable logic of physical laws, but he knew that did not fully account for a wet morning. And then, too, just because it was wet, the paper contained nothing of interest: even the criminal classes seemed to have joined in the conspiracy against him, for there was no news of brutal murders or other interesting crimes which might while away the hours for him. As for the coal strike he was sick of it and despaired of the Government taking the line he had always maintained they should, and sending the miners back to the pits whether they liked it or not.

  He threw down the paper in disgust, and moved his chair a little further from the pyramid of logs which was roaring up the chimney, but this brought him closer to the hot water pipes which were now almost as fervent as the fire. But there was positively nowhere else to sit except in the smoking-room, for the lounge was draughty, and Miss Howard was making music — if you could call it music — in the drawing-room. Up and down the piano she went with trills and scales and shakes and roulades: Mrs. Oxney ought really to ask her not to play on a wet morning, when other people were house-bound, for there was no getting away from that irritating tinkle. How could a man read his paper with that going on? It was as distracting as when people insisted on talking while playing bridge. If he ever decided to offer some presentable middle-aged woman the chance of looking after him and sharing his name, it must be distinctly understood that she must not play the piano except in some remote room. He wondered whether there was some such withdrawn boudoir at Miss Howard’s little place in Kent near Tunbridge Wells.

  The thought of bridge suggested more disagreeable reflections. Last night’s game had been very expensive, and it had disclosed, he thought, a very ugly spirit. Several times Mrs. Holders had made a direct frontal attack on his most authoritative manœuvres. She had doubled when he had declared two hearts, openly saying that he had a very good reason for it, she had told him (him!) that he ought to say ‘no bid’ instead of ‘pass’: she had redoubled his double of her impossible declaration, and the damned woman had been right (if you could call it right,) every time. Certainly he would not ask her to play with him tonight: he would get Mrs. Bertram to take her place, though Mrs. Bertram had an agonising habit of at once leading out any ace she happened to hold, in order to make sure of it; or, if she was exhorted not to be so insanely prodigal, of refusing to play any ace till it was quite certain to be trumped. But no woman, so he often thought, had any head for cards; the finesse and subtlety of the game was beyond them, and Miss Howard was wise in refusing to play at all. He wished her refusal to play had extended to the use of the piano.

  A glint of watery sunlight gleamed on the hot water pipes; the rain had ceased, and though bicycling was impossible Colonel Chase resolved to go out for a good tramp with the pocket pedometer. The morning was a miserable time unless you were out of doors, for without strenuous exercise then, you could not rest properly after lunch, and as for reading in the morning, what was to be done with the hour after tea, if you had read all the morning? Only a bookworm could manage two spells of reading a day, and he thanked God he was not that. Besides that infernal tinkling from the piano was enough to put reading out of the question.

  He adjusted his pedometer to zero, and shouldering his mackintosh went briskly down the hill into the town. He turned into the waiting-room at the bath establishment, though he had no right there, since it was provided for patients waiting for their baths, and friends waiting for patients, but there was no chance of Colonel Chase being challenged by the attendants. Far more likely that they would appreciate the honour he did the management by looking at the notice-board which advertised current and coming diversions. Among these was the announcement of the entertainment in aid of the Children’s Hospital, and he observed with pain that Miss Howard had ‘kindly consented’ to give an improvisation on the piano. Miss Kemp was sitting near, waiting for her father and absorbed in some book, but Colonel Chase gave so loud a snort of indignation at this information that she looked up with a start.

  “Improvisation indeed!” he scornfully observed. “Why Miss Howard has been practising her improvisation, so as to get it by heart, ever since breakfast! Drove me out of the house! Kindly consented to! I wish she’d kindly consent to leave the piano alone. Humbug!”

  Florence put her finger on the line she was reading, and sprang to arms at this monstrous attack on her adored.

  “I think it’s wonderfully kind of her,” she said, “and I look forward to it as the greatest treat. And how on earth do you know that she’s going to play at the entertainment what she is practising now? That’s a pure invention.”

  Colonel Chase was considerably startled by this sudden fierceness.

  “Well it’s the same old tune that she’s been hammering at ever since I came to Wentworth,” he said.

  Florence felt that her indignation was not quite in tune with the spirit of mental science which she had been studying. Poor Colonel Chase had a false claim of malice which should be treated just like a false claim of pain. Neither malice nor pain had any real existence and must be denied. She began to smile like Mrs. Bliss.

  “Such lovely tunes,” she said. “So sweet and harmonious and refreshing.”

  But Colonel Chase was clearly out of harmony.

  “Make a sort of tinkling noise in my head if you mean that,” he said. “Well, I’m off for a tramp. No possibility of bicycling through this mud.”

  Florence continued to smile.

  “How you’ll enjoy your walk!” she said. “And the sun is coming out gloriously.”

  Colonel Chase had not been far wrong in his cynical reflections, for Miss Howard was busy over what might truly be called memorising her improvisation for next week. It would be nice to begin with a few slow minor chords, all her own, (or indeed anybody else’s) and an impressive pause, so that the audience would certainly think that something very tragic and funereal was to follow, and so would be pleasantly surprised when instead there came gay chromatic runs up to the very top of the piano and half-way down again, and a long butterfly shake which ushered in a few bars of a waltz by Chopin and a quantity more of her own composition. Never had her fingers been more agile and delicate, there was not a hitch or a stumble anywhere, and Mrs. Oxney, adding up the laundry book in her sitting-room next door felt sure that Miss Howard would get an encore if that was part of her improvisation. Then the waltz-rhythm ceased and something very swoony and mysterious succeeded: it was as if the dancers (so
Miss Howard thought to herself) had left the gay and brilliant ball-room and were walking about moonlit glades in miserable and melancholy reverie. She had to play this section of the improvisation several times over, for there came quite unexpected effects in it, which surprised her by their beauty, and she must make sure of these. The pensive mood became more solemn yet, and the dancers seemed to sing a sort of chorale in a minor key which Miss Howard had composed last summer when suffering from toothache. She could not quite remember the last line of it, but she had written it down, and could easily perfect herself in that. A pause again followed during which the final chord of the chorale was struck four times very softly and nobody could tell what would happen next, indeed Miss Howard wished she knew herself. A long shake however must be introduced rather high up on the piano while the left hand played arpeggios up from the very bottom, crossed the shake without disturbing it, and came down again, for that was one of her most remarkable effects. She could go on playing these for ever, but since they were clearly leading up to something, they must come to an end, and make way for what they were introducing. Then she remembered that she had not put in any of those passages of octaves yet, in which the butterfly’s place was taken by a powerful hammer, and she began playing octaves with both hands up and down, on black notes and white alike, with increasing speed and crescendo, and still she wondered what would happen next, and so did Mrs. Oxney who sat over the laundry book next door, open-mouthed at this surpassing vigour and brilliancy. Then Miss Howard suddenly saw her way clear and swooped back into the Chopin waltz. Then Bang, Whack, Bump: three enormous chords brought the improvisation to an end. Allowing for the repetition of the swoony section, it had lasted just ten minutes, which would do nicely.

  Miss Howard got up, and, hearing in her imagination rounds of enthusiastic applause, smiled and bowed to the delighted audience, just to see what it felt like. It seemed that they quite refused to be content with what she had played them and insisted on an encore. She sat down again, and pressed her fingers to her eyes (a gesture that she must remember) as if wondering what little morsel to give them next. They clearly wanted something more from the same mine, and she ran her hands delicately over the keys, still considering. Perhaps those little variations on ‘Tipperary’ which she had so often played would be suitable, but there was no need to practise them for she was absolutely note-perfect in this improvisation. She just ran through them for the pleasure of hearing them again.

  She went through the main improvisation four or five times more and then, putting on her rings, again went to the window. It was fine, though clearly too cold for sketching, but a short brisk walk would be pleasant after all this concentration, and she went down into the town with the intention of paying for the frame of ‘Evening Bells’, but with the real object of seeing if the advertisement of the entertainment was displayed yet. As she tripped along she hummed over the more vocal parts of her piece, and visualised her hands performing octaves and arpeggios. She must get them so familiar that she would not have the slightest apprehension of not being able to produce them unerringly.

  She paused opposite the bath establishment, and there was the notice prominently exhibited, and ‘Pianoforte Solo (improvisation) by Miss Alice Howard’ in very gratifying type came fourth on the programme. The church choir of St. Giles’s, was to open with some glees, then Mr. Graves, the amusing masseur, was down for ‘Stories’, then the Revd. H. Banks (vicar) was to sing, and her item followed. After that the choir sang again, and Dr. Dobbs did some conjuring tricks, and the Revd. H. Banks sang again, and Mrs. Banks played a violin solo (Salut d’Amour) and the Revd. H. Banks recited, ‘Curfew will not ring to-night’, and there was a performing dog and various other rich items followed by a collection and carriages at ten. Miss Howard read this through twice, pausing at the fourth item, and then her eye was caught by another advertisement. This was to say that the Green Salon at the baths, suitable for private parties or picture exhibitions, could be hired at a very reasonable sum by the evening or the week or longer periods.

  Miss Howard felt very like all the Muses rolled into one accomplished incarnation that morning, and she thought of the stacks of sketches blushing unseen in her portfolios. Her improvisation still rang in her ears. Just opposite her was the façade of the baths establishment, which she had depicted in her ‘Healing Springs’, and a textile company in which she had quite a number of shares had that morning announced a bonus distribution of unexpected size: thus she felt rich as well as artistic. Enquiries about the Green Salon she saw were to be made of Town Councillor Bowen, at whose shop ‘Evening Bells’ had been framed, and she determined, at the least, to make them, and, at the most, to take the Green Salon (suitable for picture exhibitions) for a fortnight. She knew the room: it was close to the office where patients purchased their tickets for the baths, and was thus very conveniently placed, for many of them surely would be tempted to look in while they were waiting for their baths. Moreover, it was not too large: forty or fifty water colours, which she could easily select from her store, would be sufficient, tastefully spaced, to decorate it and to display themselves to the highest advantage. The walls, which might be supposed to be green could equally well be described as grey, and would furnish a suitably neutral background.

  Town Councillor Bowen was attending to his municipal duties, and was not at home, but Mrs. Town Councillor was, and she beamed respectfully at Miss Howard as she paid a ten shilling note for the framing of ‘Evening Bells’ over the counter, and waited for change.

  “And I declare I oughtn’t to charge you anything at all, Miss Howard,” observed this most polite lady, “for it’s a pleasure to frame your beautiful pictures. Mr. Bowen was touching up the gilding himself with his own hands, and though he knew his dinner was ready he stood there a-looking and a-looking at the work of art till I called out ‘George, come along do, for your chop’s getting cold.’ ‘Evening Bells’! I wish everybody who’s fretting and worrying could have a good look at ‘Evening Bells’, for it would make them all feel peaceful again, I’m sure. And half a crown and a florin make ten.”

  This little speech seemed to Miss Howard to be nothing less than a ‘leading’. She was instantly led, after a modest cough or two.

  “I see the Green Salon can be hired by the week, Mrs. Bowen,” she said, “and that put it into my head that I might hold a little exhibition of my paintings. A few people, as you’re so kind to suggest, might perhaps care to glance at them.”

  Mrs. Bowen turned up her eyes to the ceiling as if in mute thanksgiving.

  “Well, that would be kind of you,” she said. “As I was saying to Mr. Bowen only the other day — but never mind that! What a treat for us all! I’m sure I shall be walking round the Green Salon morning, noon and night. And the terms are so moderate and nothing to pay for lighting, as the establishment closes at five, while there’s still sufficient daylight to see pictures. Let me see, what did Mr. Bowen say they asked? I declare I forget, but I know you’ll find it most moderate. As for the hanging of your works of art, I’ll be there with a hammer and nails myself, and think it a privilege. And when would you be meaning your exhibition to commence? Such a treat for everybody.”

  There was no reason why it should not open as soon as Mr. Bowen could frame the exhibits, and Miss Howard promised to select them at once. The Bolton Gazette of which Mr. Bowen was one of the proprietors, would advertise it on most reasonable terms, and unless Miss Howard wanted to put it in the London papers, so that her friends might run down, there would practically be no other expense beyond the wages of an attendant (and no doubt the bath-establishment would let Miss Howard employ one of the uniformed pages) and the charge of a catalogue, which could be typewritten for a song. Mrs. Bowen would see to that, and to the list of prices if Miss Howard was intending to let the public purchase her beautiful works of art. And of course, some small red stars, adhesive stars to affix to those which were sold and prevent disappointment. Such a run there would be on them, Mrs.
Bowen opined.

  There was no resisting such a rosy statement, and, this agreeable conversation over, Miss Howard hurried back to the baths, in order to catch the omnibus for Wentworth, and begin making her selection without wasting a moment. Another reason for haste was that the clearing of the weather seemed only temporary, and thick fat clouds promising an imminent deluge were blowing up. The omnibus was waiting, and just as Miss Howard arrived, Mrs. Bliss came out of the ladies corridor wreathed in smiles and supported on sticks.

  “Such a lovely bath, Miss Howard, so salt and refreshing and exhilarating. And how I look forward to my walk home on this breezy morning! Are you walking too? Mr. Kemp was thinking of it, but he is not quite sure. What a pleasant party we shall be if we all stroll up together.”

  The door of the waiting-room opened, and Mr. Kemp came out leaning on Florence’s arm.

  “Yes, my dear, I’ve been denying it as hard as ever I can,” he was saying. “But I know I should never be able to get up the hill. Ah, there’s Mrs. Bliss. What do you advise, Mrs. Bliss? Just now every step is agony, or, if it isn’t really agony, it is something so like, that nobody could tell the difference. All the same it isn’t quite so bad as it was yesterday, I’m sure of that. I walked all the way down the passage from my bath to the waiting-room without holding on to the wall. That’s something you know. It’s more than I’ve done for the last week.”

  Mrs. Bliss staggered towards him.

  “Don’t force it, dear Mr. Kemp,” she said. “If you feel like that, you had better go up in the bus, but keep on telling yourself that you could walk double the distance without a single twinge of pain. Hold on to Mind, and you won’t want to hold on to walls.”

  “Are you going to walk?” he asked.

  “Oh yes. I gave myself treatment all the time I was in my bath. It produced such a feeling of buoyancy, I’m sure I should have floated in the water, if my attendant had not put little wooden bars across me to keep me down.”