by E. F. Benson
“But you would have done that in any case,” said obstinate Flo. “That’s not punishment as I mean it, I want something extra. He must be brought to feel that he’s not lost you only, for he never would have got you, but all the wonderful things of yours he would have got, if he had got you.”
This seemed a very refined and complicated sort of punishment, but as they proceeded with their packings in the gradually fading light of the November day, the shape of it outlined itself to Florence’s vindictive imagination. She disliked men, as such, to begin with, she adored her Alice, and what she wanted (as she whittled her idea to a sharp point) was to humble Colonel Chase and exalt her well-beloved by one fell stroke. She had for years suffered dumbly under the yoke of paternal tyranny, and, now, emancipated, she longed in the manner of a suffragette to damage a man. Her emotional awakening had quickened her keenness for the combats of life in which she used mutely to surrender, and the design, yet vague, was that Alice should not only win, but in the hour of victory humiliate her adversary. Florence’s chivalry only existed for her own sex, men, as typified by the Colonel, had to be beaten, and then rubbed in the dirt. Simultaneously Alice, though she had told Florence that they must behave like ladies, was following up the same train of thought. Vengeance was surely compatible, if she could only see how, with perfect gentility. But for the life of her she could not see how. She was startled from her gentle vindictive reverie by a hoarse crowing sound from her friend. Only extreme exaltation, she had already learned, made Florence crow like that.
“I’ve got it,” she cried. “Oh, darling, it’s too lovely! He wants to know about your little place, so tell him no end of lies about it. Make it bigger and grander and splendider and magnificenter. A lake: a lot of box hedges: a moat. Oh, don’t you see? Make it a palace with a family vault and a village of tenants and no entail. And then he’ll propose to you, and you’ll say no, and he’ll be in hell because of what he has lost.”
Now it might have been supposed that Miss Howard’s own uneasiness about the grandeurs of her ancestral home would have made her recoil in horror from such a suggestion. So for the first moment it did, and she only just checked the exclamation of disdain that rose to her lips. But immediately she saw like the gleam of a lighthouse over stormy seas, a beam that heralded salvation. If she continued, now voluntarily, to ply the mercenary Colonel with visions of splendour and sumptuousness, she could save her face with regard to Florence. All her previous hints about the magnificence of ‘The Croft’ which had been causing her such serious agitation, would be merged with all future lies as having been punishment for him. Florence no doubt, at this moment, shared Colonel Chase’s illusions about her little place, but it would be much easier to muddle her up about them, if now, at her suggestion, Alice deliberately magnified its splendours. “Darling, that would serve him right,” she said thoughtfully. “But it wouldn’t be truthful. ‘The Croft’ is really quite a modest little place.”
“You must do it,” said Florence. “He must be punished, and I’m sure there’s no better way of degrading him. How lucky he hasn’t proposed to you already when he only knows the truth about ‘The Croft’!”
Any impulse that Alice ever had to confess to her friend that the truth about ‘The Croft’ was not known to anyone at Wentworth except herself, vanished. The far better chance was to adopt Florence’s suggestion and go on making ‘The Croft’ more and more manorial, until as might happen, it was necessary to demolish the exquisite old home, and reveal it to her in its true character as a semi-detached villa. Florence would be confused by that time: she would not know what magnificence, lawn or lake or park, ante-dated the Colonel’s punishment which she had suggested. But there was Mrs. Oxney to think about as well, for she was one of the greediest imbibers of ancestral grandeur.
“And how about Mrs. Oxney?” she asked. “She will hear it too, and get such a false idea about my little home. And if she goes to Tunbridge Wells as she threatened — I mean, as she thought she might be doing soon — she would be very much perplexed.”
“Then wait till you get the Colonel alone,” said Florence brilliantly. “You and me and the Colonel I mean, for I’m in the plot, and of course I shan’t believe a word you say. I shall egg you on. I shall make you tell lies.”
“It will make me very uncomfortable having to exaggerate so,” said Alice with a sigh. But she had been very uncomfortable as it was.
Wentworth was emptying, as was usual in late November, but there were fresh paying guests coming in next week, and Mrs. Oxney, though she saw no prospect of getting to Tunbridge Wells yet awhile, observed with strong satisfaction that Balmoral and Blenheim and Belvoir were already closed for the winter. Mrs. Bliss having finished the cure she had undertaken for the love she bore her husband, and miraculously better in spite of it, owing to her persistent denial that anything had ever been wrong with her joints, since all was Harmony, left on the day the Green Salon was closed, in the happy belief that Mind and not Mrs. Holders and Tim had started purchasers. So full of Harmony was she on the morning of her departure that she refused to go to the station in the bus, but set off to walk there (leaving plenty of time in order to enjoy the sweet air) while her luggage was to follow in a hand-cart. It was well that it did so, for Harmony most unaccountably became Discord in the middle of this pedestrian effort, and produced so realistic a similitude of shooting pains in her hip that she was quite unable to proceed, but stood like a statue, though still smiling, by the side of the road waiting for deliverance. The hand-cart overtook her, and she was with difficulty hoisted on to it. Precariously balanced on the edge of it, and holding on to her dress-basket, she was trundled into the station, protesting that she had never enjoyed herself more. A comfortable seat in the train and rest soon brought Harmony back again.
Discussion over her and her gospel raged at Wentworth after she had gone: pro, there was the Colonel’s cold, the success of his ghost story, her own improvement (or was that brine?) and the miraculous sale of pictures; contra, her failure to walk to the station, and the fact that Mr. Kemp had not really improved at all: it was thought that his walking to the window had been a flash in the mental pan. The affair of the pedometer was not mentioned at all, because it always excited Colonel Chase. Tim Bullingdon, supported by Mrs. Holders, said that the whole thing was utter rubbish, and that he would sooner be completely crippled than cured by such charlatanry, and Mrs. Oxney ever pleasant, said, well, what an interesting talk they had all enjoyed.
An even more interesting talk, more stupendous, more imaginative, was held in the lounge that day after tea. Mrs. Holders and Tim had engagements with masseurs, Mrs. Oxney and her sister retired to their sitting-room, where their joint efforts over the cross-word puzzle were to compete with the solitary genius of Colonel Chase, who had consented for once to try his hand, and in consequence the three conversationalists were the two devoted friends and he. He had settled down with the paper and a sharp pencil in order to sit Florence out, and proposed to occupy the interval with the defeat of Mrs. Oxney and Mrs. Bertram. ‘Small Scotch farmers’ (undoubtedly beginning with c) was puzzling and Florence’s account of the letter she had just received from her father distracted him.
“He’s ever so much pleased, darling, with Nurse Babbit,” she said to Alice. “Such bright conversation and so much interested in his case. She feels sure that within a week he will get the good effect of Bolton, but she doesn’t think anything of Mind, and says that massage is far more reliable. A most comfortable journey, and quite a good lunch. He thinks he has left the small tin that held his night rusks behind, but there are rusks in Bournemouth. . . .”
Colonel Chase made an impatient movement in his chair. Who could concentrate on small Scotch farmers beginning with c, with such imbecile drivel going on? She ought to have gone with her father . . .
Florence was silent a moment.
“Now do tell me more about the garden at ‘The Croft’,” she said. “I’m beginning to picture it.”
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Colonel Chase rapidly pencilled in the required word.
“Ha, I’ve got you to thank for that, Miss Kemp,” he said, with unusual amiability. “Your saying the word ‘croft’ put ‘crofters’ into my mind. A remarkable coincidence.”
“Quite extraordinary,” said Florence.
“We don’t disturb you by our chatter?” asked Alice.
“Indeed no. Charming conversation, I’m sure,” said he, laying down his pencil.
“My dear little house!” said Alice. “I insist on your coming down to see it, Flo, when we are in London next week, for indeed I cannot do it justice. The dining-room windows open on to the lawn, or rather on to a raised terrace wall that runs the length of the house. Then you turn round the corner to the right, and there’s the shrubbery with the winding walk through it. All beautiful flowering shrubs, some rare, I believe, but I’m so ignorant. It wants thinning out, my gardeners tell me.”
“It sounds delicious,” said Florence.
“Charming,” said Colonel Chase. “Not half enough flowering shrubs in most old English gardens. Pardon for interrupting you, Miss Howard, pray go on.”
“Then you come into the bit of the garden which I love most,” said Alice. “Another lawn with a little marble fountain and basin in the middle of it. The sweet cool drip of water on a hot day! What a naughty little girl I must have been, for I bathed in it once. Papa only laughed, but Mamma sent me to bed. . . . On each side are the two long borders, very deep you know, as borders ought to be, with hollyhocks and sunflowers at the back. But sad ravage from the hollyhock disease this summer, I hear. I’m afraid it must be replanted. Then at the end the steps leading down into the rose-garden with the box hedges round it. Clumps cut into fantastic shapes, peacocks, and things like that.”
“And are there any real peacocks?” asked Florence.
Alice felt she could not manage peacocks.
“Ah, don’t talk of them,” she said, “for I’ve no peacocks now. How lovely they used to look sitting on the terrace wall. But they do make such a dreadful screaming, and they used to wake Mamma up in the early summer dawn, and she couldn’t go to sleep again. They damage the flowers terribly too, so disappointing for the gardeners. And one day Papa said to me, ‘Alice, do you vote for peacocks or gardens?’ I felt like a murderer, though we gave them to friends and they got quite happy homes.”
Florence cast a reproachful eye on her friend, for not saying that there were flocks of peacocks. But Alice’s elaborate explanation almost made amends.
“I’m picturing it all,” Florence said. “I am beginning to see it as if I was there. Take me behind the box hedges; isn’t the kitchen garden there?”
“Yes: nice, old red-brick walls, and the glasshouses at the end.”
“How many?” asked Florence.
Alice sighed.
“Papa was always very particular about the glass,” she said. “He liked to eat his own grapes, for then he knew they hadn’t been covered with dust in a shop, and picked by goodness knows whom. . . . Let me see. There was the peach-house with the pots of strawberries for forcing; we always had strawberries on Easter Day. Then there was the grape-house, black Hamburgs and Muscats, and a third for flowers. Bougainvillia and plumbago climbing up the walls and regiments of carnations.”
Colonel Chase, greedily listening, began to wonder whether all this would not be beyond their joint means. The cross-word puzzle had long lain unregarded on his knee.
“Terribly expensive, was it not?” he asked. “The garden must have cost a fortune to keep up.”
Both the conspirators were at once on their guard against discouraging the Colonel: there was really no need for Florence to break in.
“Oh no,” she said. “You told me, dearest Alice, that the gardens were self-supporting.”
“Papa used always to say so,” said Alice, “for after the house was supplied with flowers, the carnations used to be sent up to Covent Garden in great boxes, and they fetched an immense price. Grapes too and peaches. Papa used to say he should have been a fruit and flower merchant.”
Colonel Chase was visibly relieved.
“Now take us inside the house,” said greedy Florence. “I can’t hear enough of it. Oh, it’s cruel that you don’t live there.”
“No use making a fuss,” said Alice, “and the same thing has happened to so many of us. Perhaps if I save up for a year, or two more, I might be able to live in a corner of it. But for the present it’s let and I don’t think about it at all bitterly. Indoors, did you say, Flo? Is there a little summer shower which drives us indoors? Let’s come in then at the door opening into the rose-garden from the library. That will be the nearest way.”
This voluptuous improvisation was as brilliant as anything that Alice could have executed with a great deal of practice on the piano, but it must be remembered that she had already practised diligently on her little place in Kent. The effect on Colonel Chase was admirable: the evening paper had fallen to the ground, and it was evident that if Miss Howard went on much longer Mrs. Oxney and her sister would easily win the cross-word race, for he had as yet got no further than ‘Crofters’ and one other word along the top. It had also, as the astute Alice had anticipated a curiously confusing effect on Florence: Florence was already beginning to mix up what she thought was true about ‘The Croft’ with what she knew was imaginary. Had Alice said there was a rose-garden before to-day, or told her about the shrubbery of flowering rarities? ‘Glass’ had certainly been mentioned before but without specification: there was only the impression of glass.
“Yes, come indoors quick, darling,” said Florence, playing up admirably, “or you’ll get wet, and I shall be obstinate and make you change before you show me round.”
Colonel Chase said ‘pshaw’ under his breath: he hated this silly playfulness and wanted to get to work indoors.
“Take care you don’t slip on the parquet floor in the library,” said Alice, pursuing these pretty fancies. “But just glance at it: cedar-wood parquet, and smells so good. That was Grandpapa Howard’s addition: so stravvy of him! But he loved his little library: not large, you see, but such a pleasant room. The chimney-piece looks empty now, but my tenants wouldn’t take the responsibility of having the Chelsea figures out. Beauties they were—”
“Quite right of them,” said the Colonel. “Fine Chelsea is irreplaceable. I should put them in a cupboard myself. How many, Miss Howard?”
“Only four,” said Alice. “Poor little shepherds and shepherdesses all in the dark in the strong room at the Bank! But they’ve got the Queen Anne silver and a few little odds and ends to keep them company and talk over the dear old times. And then we go out across the hall, a pretty staircase, Flo; there is nothing like it at the Victoria and Albert Museum (this was absolutely true) and into the drawing-room. Rather long, rather narrow, like a gallery.”
This was just what Colonel Chase had imagined: telepathic almost.
“And I seem to see Queen Anne furniture again,” he interpolated.
“Just a few choice little pieces. But such a ragged carpet, is it not, though it was once a good Aubusson. But Papa would have it used. At the far end is the door into the smoking-room.”
Mrs. Oxney and her sister came hurrying out of their room at this rich moment.
“We’ve finished it all but the top right-hand corner, Colonel,” she said. “How far have you got? Don’t say you’ve done it.”
Had not four ladies been present, Colonel Chase would certainly have damned two of them for their interruption. He wanted terribly to hear about the smoking-room which would probably be his ‘den’.
“What can the small Scotch farmers be?” asked Mrs. Bertram. “That would give us the clue to the difficult corner.”
“Aha!” said he. “I’m not going to tell you that. And the time limit for our competition was dinner. I’ve been lazy, listening to Miss Howard telling us about her charming little place. Now I shall go up to my room, and have a spell at the puzzl
e.”
He picked up Mrs. Oxney’s paper which she had carelessly laid down on the table, and saw a word or two which might be useful as starting-points. He put it down again hurriedly.
“God bless me,” he said. “I thought that was my paper. Lucky I didn’t see any of your words. And may I remind you, Miss Howard, that I put you on your honour not to betray the small Scotch farmers.”
It was no use stopping any longer in the lounge, for the ladies would certainly sit chatting and chattering till the dressing-bell sounded, and there would be no chance of getting Miss Howard alone, but he took upstairs with him besides the evening paper, the fixed determination to propose to and be accepted by her, on the first possible opportunity. He had once harboured doubts about the size and quality of the little place in Kent, but it was evident now that instead of its being less imposing than he had cynically supposed, it was far more splendid than he had hitherto allowed himself to imagine. In her talk just now with that podgy masculine friend of hers, it was impossible that Miss Howard should have exaggerated its charms, for she was intending to take her down to see it and, as she had said, she could not do it justice in description; and he was sure it would suit Squire Chase admirably. But he did not care for this friendship which had blazed into such flaming intimacy, and when he was married he would have to make it clear to his wife, firmly and if she was reasonable, kindly, that though ‘Kemp’ (so he thought of her) had apparently renounced all girlish duties to her father for Alice’s sake, there must be no question at all of her living with them or of paying more than brief and occasional visits. A man — the husband’s friend — making long visits to the house was a different matter, for men effaced themselves all day on the golf links, and hobnobbed together in the host’s ‘den’ in the evening: besides a man required a little society of his own sex.