Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “Open it and see what it is,” said Mollie to Dennis, “and don’t mind him.”

  Dennis tore it open.

  “Mr. Willis,” he said. “Coming down from London this night, and’ll be here at eight to-morrow morning. His rooms aren’t ready yet, Grannie; Mother and Nell were meaning to do them to-morrow.”

  “Heh, there’ll be no train that runs safe through o’ Sunday night,” said John. “The Lord shows me that He’ll bust it up, and all in it’ll go down quick into hell.”

  Out shot Mollie’s forefinger.

  “Now not a word more, John Pentreath,” she said, “or the Lord’ll show you something you won’t relish. You’ve had your fill: get you to bed.”

  “Eh, what’s that?” he said. “Just what your ears tell you. Finish your drink, and light your candle and go. I’ll come and talk to you presently.”

  “But the Lord—”

  “Ha’ done with the Lord!” she cried. “An’ don’t let me have to bid you twice.”

  “He shifted to his feet.

  “Well, Mollie, I didn’t go for to anger you,” he said.

  “Take care you don’t. Be off.”

  She waited in silence, not looking at him again till he had lurched out of the kitchen door.

  “You and Nell’ll have to get the room ready, Dennis,” she said, “for ’twould never do if Mr. Willis came and found everything mucky. I’d help you myself, but I’m terribly uneasy to-night in my innards, and your mother-well, there, ‘twill be no good to knock at her door. Be brisk, you two, and make all fresh and clean for him.”

  Dennis and Nell got to their work. There was the bedroom above the studio to be made ready, and first of all Dennis threw open the window, for it was stuffy and unventilated, and the night air drifting in would freshen it up before morning; then the room must be swept and set in order, and the bed must be made, for after that night of travel, Mr. Willis would be like to want a sleep. That was Nell’s business, and she took blankets and spread them, and brought sheets from the linen cupboard at the top of the stairs, and slips for his pillows. Water must be fetched for his jug and bottle, the drawers and cupboards be dusted out, paper be spread on the wooden shelves, the drugget be unrolled for the floor, and the sponging tin bath be dragged from under the bed.

  Dennis had bolted the baize door at the end of the passage which shut off the lodging and its staircase from the rest of the house, lest the grandfather should get some further sabbatarian scruples, and the sense grew on them both that they were there alone and together in the night of full moon. They had little to say to each other, for both were busy, working mostly apart at their jobs, but now Dennis had to heave up the end of the bed, while Nell pulled the drugget under the castors, and her shoulder was pressed against his knee. Soon all was finished here, and Nell stood holding a candle high, moving it this way and that to see that they had forgotten nothing. Their eyes met, blue and black, gleaming to each other.

  “That’s all done then,” she said.

  “Aye, and what next?”

  “Put the baize strip down on the stairs. It’s in the cupboard there with the rods. Pull it out.”

  Dennis tugged at the roll of baize, and all the rods fell down on the uncarpeted landing with a huge clatter, and they stood regarding each other with silent laughter.

  “Lord! ’Twas fit to waken the dead,” said she.

  They waited a moment.

  “I reckon there bain’t no dead about, then, for none’s awoke to all seeming,” said Dennis. “Come along.”

  He set the candle on the floor at the top of the stairs and, standing on the end of the drugget, tipped the roll over, so that it went bumping softly down the steps, unwinding itself. He fixed it against the wall with carpet pins, and then they went down step by step, pushing the rods into the eyelets, and moving the candle as they progressed. Their fingers touched sometimes over this, as one smoothed the carpet for the other to press the rod into place, or Nell’s loosely bound black hair brushed against his cheek. Not a word did they speak now, but the face of each was bright from the candle perched on the step above them.

  They finished with the stairs, and now there only remained the studio to set in order. There was the parqueted floor to be gone over with a damp cloth and the grate to be blacked; then the rugs must be unrolled, the dust sheets taken off the furniture, the chairs and table moved out from the walls, and the window flung wide to air the place. Now they lingered over each item of their work, for it was nearly done, and then all that remained was to go quietly back to their rooms and sleep or lie awake till morning, in the annihilation of solitude. Though they had said no word to each other yet, save about their occupation, their very silence was breeding fire, and every moment that passed piled fuel on to it. Yet for all their lingering the time came when all was done. Already the candle was nearly consumed, and even as Nell once more raised it over her head to look round, the wick drooped sideways in the socket; flared up, and then fell into the liquid tallow and was quenched. They stood there together close to the glass-panelled double door that led into the garden: each side of it had its separate curtain drawn across it. Nancy had not latched it when she went out that way after supper, and just then a breeze woke outside, and the two sides of the door began noiselessly to open. Nell, startled, came close to Dennis, and laid her hand on his arm.

  “Dennis, who is it?” she whispered. “Who is there?”

  A stronger current of air swept into the room from the open window and the doors swung wide. For a moment Dennis raged in his heart to think that this might be his mother returning, but there was no one there: the garden lay quiet and empty under the spell of the full moon and the night. It was that season of the year when the tide of life flows strongest, when the sap riots in the trees, and the accomplished springtime is merged in summer. For weeks that tide had been advancing on them: now with a moonlit foam-crested billow it poured over them.

  “Who is it?” he whispered. “Why, it’s just us, Nell, and the night.”

  For a little while they stood there in the grip of the absolute moment.

  “Shall we go out, then?” he said. “You were to come with me some night, you as good as promised, when there was moonshine and stillness. What say you, Nell?”

  The breath came quick through her parted lips, as if she had been running.

  “Yes; let’s be gone,” she said.

  Dennis had gone out to his work on the farm and Nell was busy with the Monday’s wash, when Mr. Willis arrived next day: neither of the two old folk was down yet, so Nancy saw to him. He would have a hot bath, please, to refresh himself first after his night journey, and when she knocked at his door to bring him his can, a funny little scream answered her.

  “Come in if you won’t be shocked,” he called out, and she was quite prepared to see the little man in shirt or trousers only, and would not have been shocked at all. Instead, there was a pretty capering ‘thing with a pink silk vest, and pink silk pants, wrappmg himself in a lovely blue dressing-gown. His feet were bare, and he tried the temperature of the water with his toe as she poured it out.

  “Delicious, delicious,” he said, “and now for my bath-salts, and I’ll soap and soap to wash off that horrid train, and you won’t know me again.”

  He had begun his unpacking, and already on his dressing-table gleamed studs and tie-pins and innumerable bottles.

  “And perhaps one more canful, Mrs. Pentreath,” he said, “if you’d be so good. But this time will you leave it outside the door for me? Don’t come in, whatever you do. And my breakfast down in the studio in half an hour. How I shall enjoy it!”

  “Silk, ’twas all silk, vest and pants and dressing-own,” said Nancy to Nell, as she drew another canful of hot water from the copper. “And putting sweet-smelling crystals into his bath. Such a sight of luggage, too, I never beheld. Bags and portmanteaux and hat-boxes and a bullfinch in a cage to twitter to him, and hop about much as he does himself. Well, we have got a sample!”
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  Nancy’s opinion was confirmed by the impressions of the family generally when Mr. Willis came and tapped at the house door of the kitchen, as dinnertime was approaching, and was bidden enter.

  “Just a little formal call,” he said, bowing right and left. “How-de-do, I think this must be Mr. Pentreath: how-de-do, I’m sure I’m speaking to the other Mrs. Pentreath — one I’ve met already. Just to say how charming and comfortable I find it all. Such a good breakfast: how I gobbled it up.”

  John Pentreath looked him slowly down from head to foot, his white hairless face, his silk shirt and tie with a pearl pinning it, his yellow flannel suit and high-heeled brown shoes.

  “Glad you’re finding yourself pleased,” he said. “You’ll take a glass of whisky with me?”

  “So kind, but I never touch it,” said Willis. “Can’t bear the smell of it; can’t bear the taste of it. But may I be allowed to smoke a cigarette? Will the ladies let me? Is smoking permitted? Ah, I see it is. I see Mr. Pentreath has a pipe.”

  “And you’ve come here for a bit of a rest?” asked Mollie, for so important a person as a lodger must be politely treated; otherwise she would have shooed such a doll from the kitchen.

  “No, I’ve come to work. Can’t paint in London, always too busy. Little runnings about, little lunches, little dinners. Isn’t it so, Mrs. Pentreath?”

  “Sure it is, if you tell me so,” said she. “I never went to London myself.”

  Mr. Willis clapped his hands. “Charming! Too charming,” he said. “You’ve never been in London. “How refreshing!”

  Nell came in from her washing for a fresh kettleful of water from the boiler, and this singular young man rose to his feet and bowed.

  “And Miss Pentreath?” he asked.

  “Nay, you’re out there,” said John. ’Tis Miss Robson.”

  “Just as fair by any other name,” said Willis neatly. “Beggin’ your pardon?” said Mollie.

  “Nothing; nothing. I must be going now. Lots of jobs and tidyings to do before dinner-time. Dinner now, isn’t it, and supper in the evening. Such kind hosts! Can I get round into the garden from the farmyard?

  “John got up to show him the way, but at that moment in came Dennis, and collided with Willis at the door.

  “I beg your pardon; I beg your pardon,” said Willis.

  “No need; you haven’t hurt him,” said John with a grin. “It’s my little grandson Dennis.”

  “So pleased,” said Willis. So will Dennis-it is Dennis, I think you said-will Dennis just show me the way through?”

  “Take him along, Dennis,” said John.

  Willis made a final bow.

  “So glad to be here, so very glad,” he said.

  Dennis took him across the yard, and through the gate into the garden. Willis was transported with the deliciousness of the lilies of the valley that grew in the shade by the ash tree.

  “Mustn’t steal, mustn’t steal,” he said, “but if you picked me one or two for my buttonhole, that wouldn’t be stealing, would it, Dennis?”

  “Sure, no,” said Dennis, amazed at this funny prattling little man, dressed up like the dude at the fair, who was married to the fat lady.

  “And put them in my buttonhole for me, will you?”

  “Aye, but they soon die when plucked,” said Dennis.

  “And will it be you who looks after me, and calls me in the morning, and brings me my meals?” asked Willis.

  “No,” said the boy. “That’ll be my mother or Nell.”

  “And is Nell Miss Robson, that very pretty girl who came in with a kettle?”

  “Shouldn’t wonder a bit if ’twas,” said Dennis. “And I’m sure you walk out with Nell,” said Willis.

  “I dessay I do sometimes, but not to mention.”

  Willis gave a little skip.

  “Trust me: I won’t mention it,” he said. “But I guessed, didn’t I?”

  “Couldn’t say what you’d been guessing,” said Dennis.

  “Ha, ha. Mum’s the word. Aren’t I a chatterbox, and me having seen you only two minutes ago? Here we are: that’s the door of my studio, isn’t it? Nell or your mother will be bringing me my dinner presently, I hope, and the sooner the better, for what a hungry place! Till then I shall be finishing my unpacking, and getting my paints and canvas ready to begin work.”

  “So you’re a painter chap, are you?” said Dennis. “We’ve got a sight of them down to St. Columb’s.”

  “Yes, and I’m longing to begin. And there’s something to begin on if you let me.”

  “You’ll be wanting to do a picture of Nell?” asked Dennis intelligently.

  “I’d like to do one of you, with your hair all untidy and your shirt open.”

  “Sakes alive!” said the astonished Dennis.

  Mr. Willis came in for a little searching comment presently as the family sat at dinner. Nancy had just returned from taking him his meal.

  “Well, I do call him a polite little gent,” she said. “Up he jumped when I came in, and hoped the tray wasn’t heavy. But, lor’, his jools and his silks! I never see such a missie!”

  “A pretty young fellow,” said Dennis, broadly grinning. “I gave him a sprig of lily for a nosegay in his coat. Aw, he was polite, and he wants to make a picture of me.”

  “If I’d caught yon fellow when I was gwain fishing,” said John, I’d ha’ put him back. I warrant his mammy didn’t know if she’d dropped a boy or a girl when she was brought to bed of him.”

  “An’ ’twould puzzle her to-day wi’ such a pintail,” remarked Mollie. “Mighty finickin.”

  “Well, pin-tail or no, he pays well, and maybe he’ll stay the summer through, so see that you all make him content and comfortable; mark that, Dennis.”

  “‘Iss sure: that’s business,” said Dennis. “Wonder what he’ll pay me for limning my putty face.”

  “Three bob an hour’s the regular thing,” said Nancy, rather incautiously. “Not but what some pays far handsomer than that.”

  “You may reckon your mother knows,” said Mrs. Pentreath cordially. Happen you’ll be making a fortune from your face, too, Dennis.”

  This pleasantry was not quite to Nancy’s taste: private affairs shouldn’t be talked about in public. But if personalities were floating about, she could take a grab at them as well as anybody.

  “Well, ’tis true enough that if some folk want a fortune, there’s no use for them to seek it in their looking-glass,” she observed.

  Mollie only laughed: she was in wonderful good-humour these days.

  “I reckon then I’ll go and seek my fortune in my chicken-house,” she said.

  She got up, and as she rose her face suddenly twisted with pain.

  “Touch of that stomach-trouble,” she said.

  CHAPTER X. MIDSUMMER EVE

  THE growth of the hay was fulfilling its earlier promise: the barometer kept high, and Mollie was certain sure that the fine hot weather would last till it was safely in. It was a treat to skirt along the edge of the meadows and feast the eye on the richness of it. Highest in that exuberant growth rose the feathery heads of the long oat-like grasses, already yellow-brown, for their tallness was baked all day by the sun, and nearly up to them in stature were the ox-eye daisies and the meadow-sweet, with spirals of bindweed climbing up the stems of them: these were the pinnacles in the temple of the fields. A little shorter than these were vetches and sorrel, ragged robin and pink and white campions, hard-headed knapweed and branching buttercups. But thickest and juiciest was the undergrowth: it was the very fur of the fruitful earth, and would need a sharp scythe and a close swinging stroke when the cutting came, for not an inch of that luxuriance must be lost. The shorter, sappier grasses would scarce allow the more lowly herbs to prick a way through them, but the frenzy of blossoming life had conquered, and the meadows were a diaper of flowers. There were purple clovers and pink centaury and stitchwort and starwort; and, lowlier yet, tawny-yellow trefoils and white clover, shepherd’s purse, bl
ue and red pimpernels, and hawksweed and daisy were thick among the grasses. All effervesced together in bubble and foam of flowering, struggling upwards to bask in the sun by day; and share the drench of the dew and the soft nourishing darkness at night. Before the month was out, the fields were ripe for the scythe, and soon they lay prone and drying, and were gathered into haycocks. Then to and fro creaked the laden wains, and high rose the new stacks standing on trestles outside the farmyard. Lucky indeed was it that John, earlier in the year, had refused to sell the crop forward and have no risk about it, but he had taken the risk, and now the yield would exceed by 25 per cent. the price that had been offered him.

  All this looked as if the luck were turning again after that disaster to the sheep, and there was another item to add to it, for the “girlie,” as Willis was now called, had engaged his lodging till the end of September, and that meant a profit of two pounds a week clear, for it was not much he ate, and there was no need to get a hired girl in to help: Nell and Nancy between them could cook and see to him easily. Never, at all the watering-places where he usually went for August and September, had he found a place which suited him so well. Nature no doubt had made a careless mistake when at his birth she had stamped him male, but in point of fact he was not so strongly of either sex as to be worth stamping at all: if anything, the female quality predominated. In addition to this error, she had given him no deeper vitality than that of gnats that dance over still water on summer evenings; just like theirs were his capers and his excited shrillnesses. Nothing could create robustness for him in himself; but vicinity to it, so that he could dabble and bask in it, was stimulus, and never had he come into touch with folk who so glowed and throbbed with force as those at this solitary farmhouse.