Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “’Tis your Willie, you know. Lord, how the lad loves you, Dennis! Neither girl nor woman, nor boy neither, in St. Columb’s, would have come to bide at the farm, for the sake of me, as he does for you. An’ sleeping next your grandfather and all, in Aunt Mollie’s room. I’d be proud to have a friend like that.”

  “And it’s proud I am,” said Dennis.

  “Can’t you thank him?” asked Nell. “Can’t you tell him we know what he’s doing for us?”

  “God, no,” said Dennis. “He’d think me mazed. Willie and I don’t manage like that. He knows and I know; that’s sufficient. Don’t you try to understand, Nell, for sure I couldn’t explain, except by just telling you it’s like that between us. So it’s always been and will be.”

  “Well, some folks talk by keeping mum,” said Nell.

  “And what does your mother say from London?” she asked, after a pause. “You got a letter from her, didn’t you, this morning, just before you set out?”

  “Bothered if I didn’t put it in my pocket and forget about it,” he said, reaching out for his coat.

  He opened the letter, sniffing at the voluminous sheets as he unfolded them.

  “’Tisn’t that old musk scent any more,” he said. “Mother’s got hold O’ something new. Wallflowerlike.”

  He knitted his forehead into wrinkles over Nancy’s sprawling scrawl.

  “Lord above!” he exclaimed. “Why, that’s a bit o’ news, sure enough, and to think that it lay in my pocket waiting for me to read it. Ye’ll never guess.”

  “She’s been and married,” said Nell, as certain as a lord-judge passing sentence.

  “Eh, you’ve been reading over my shoulder,” said Dennis, “and spelling it out quicker nor me. Else how could you know?”

  “’Twas easy enough: I reckoned she wasn’t dead, or she could never ‘a’ written to you, and what else could it be as made you cry out like that? Is it to the painter feller?”

  “Well, o’ course, and there’s her signing at the end Nancy Giles.”

  “But what does she say?” cried Nell, bursting with curiosity to hear it all. “Why don’t ye read it out, ye unclad image, ‘stead of enjoying it all to yourself?”

  “Well, here ’tis then,” said he, “and leggo my hair... .” He read.

  “‘If I ain’t got a bit of news for you this morning, Dennis darling, for I was married yesterday ‘ ’tisn’t me talking, Nell, but my mother ‘I was married yesterday, and you’ll never guess to whom.’”

  “Of course ye did, for ye looked at the end,” said Nell.

  “Don’t interrupt, woman,” said Dennis. “’Tis task enough to read her fist without your clacking. Sure she got in a fine mix-up with the inkpot, and it’s as if a spider was hitched on to her pen. Where was I at?”

  “Never guess to whom,” prompted Nell.

  “Aye.’Never guess to whom, and I declare I had no idea of his thinking of that till one night, it might have been Thursday last week, he says to me, “There’s not a woman. I’ve seen this many years what suits me as you do, Nancy, and never shall I see one neither.” “Lor’, Harry,” said I, for I was bringing him in his dinner, and it was a dinner that nourished him proper, instead of such the old moke used to serve him with, always sniffing, with a bit of burned skin and bone as she called a chicken, or red and raw, and a morsel of soup, and a drop of cold jam in a mess of hard-boiled egg for an omelet, with the bills three times the price as I did better for him on ...’”

  Dennis broke off.

  “Where the hell ‘ve we got to?” he asked.

  “Just get along,” said Nell. “It’s a bit zig-zag, as was always your mother’s way, but it’ll all straighten out in the end.”

  “Let’s hope that,” said Dennis, picking up the last words.

  “... as I did better for him on, and little to show but a stomach-ache in the morning, and I had to put down the dish I was bringing in, for you might have knocked me down with one of my own cheese-straws, light as they were. Well, theft he said that if I was half as ‘willing as he, ‘we’d get married and have done with it, and married we were at a registry office yesterday. And he’s taken the house he had last year at the entry of Kenrith Lane, where we met first, you may say, and we’ll be down there before June’s out for a couple of months, and lor’, what a change! But you mustn’t think, dearie, that I’ll be stuck up with you, nor Nell either, for you’re of my blood, and a good boy you’ve been to me, and me and Harry will always treat you. as one of the family ...’”

  Dennis slapped the page.

  “Well, there’s a piece of impertinence, to talk of the Pentreaths like that!” he cried.

  “Never you mind that,” said Nell, “she’s not gwainter be stuck up with you, the condescendin’ woman. Go on!”

  Dennis continued.

  “‘And your grandfather, too, he’ll always be welcome to come and have a cup of tea in my parlour, anti would you believe it, there’s the picture Harry made of me last summer in the Royal Academy, and he told me nothing about it when he took me to what they call the private view of it, which only the tip tops of society come to, and such a fuss they made of it, and me standing close by it for half an hour, I should say, to listen to all the remarks they passed on it. They admired the figure of me terrible. I blushed all aver, dear, though I wouldn’t have missed what they said for anything, and to make it stranger yet, there was the picture the girlie did of you, though not in the grand room where I was, only I wish you’d brushed your hair a bit and put on something better than that sailed shirt. So when I’d heard them talk about me I went and listened to what they said about you, and they considered you a handsome boy indeed, and that you are, so you and me is famous now.

  “‘Here’s a long letter, and so me and Harry will be down before long, travelling first class, and glad I’ll be to see the old place again, a1ld if there’s a bit of money you and Nell want for the little one, and money’s scarce as I warrant it is, why, you know where to come for it, for there’s one as will pour out her purse for you dearie, and that’s your laving mother, Nancy Giles.

  “‘Send me a bit of news, Dennis, and tell me how’s the old matt.’”

  There was a pause.

  “’Tis a warm, foolish heart,” said Nell.

  “Aye, kind and silly she always was. But, God, the airs of her, and her pride as she ain’t proud! ’Twould be as good as a play to see her giving Grandfather a cup of tea in her parlour, but I warrant there won’t be much tea served in her parlour for him. And he’ll ‘stonish her, he will, wi’ some pretty compliments if she sets up to be over-kind to’m.”

  Dennis thrust the letter into his coat pocket, and lay back on the sand.

  “’Tis mellowing to lie here,” he said. “The sun gets through my skin, and goes purring in my blood. It’s as good as a running at night, but of another sort. And about my mother’s letter now, when she asks how th’ old man is. Much as ever, I suppose I’ll be saying.”

  “Do ‘ee think that?” said Nell. “For my part I don’t. I’ve watched him often, though I’ve not spoke of it to you. He’s changing, Dennis; there’s a fear and a horror gaining on him, and I doubt it’ll drive him crazy ere long. His drink used to make him fierce, or maybe it made him gay, but now there’s fear in his glass.”

  “Aye: I’ve noticed that, too,” he said.

  “I reckon we both know it well enough, so let’s out with it. I reckon it’s Aunt Mollie he’s afraid of, lest she’d come back and visit him. Why else did he spend twenty pounds, as might have been more’n a hundred bottles of his mucky spirits. in plumes and black horses for her funeral, but for that? ’Twas to make her kind. ’Tis fear of her as makes him curtain the windows, so’s night can’t look in, and when your Willie’s hoisted him up to bed, sometimes he’ll go pacing about his chamber by the hour, for Willie had a savage tooth t’other night, and heard him walkin’ and walkin’, till he bawled to him to stop it, else he’d leave Aunt Mollie’s room and bed with yo
u. Grandfather thinks she’s got a down on him, though whatever can that be for?”

  “God, I reckon you’ve hit it,” said Dennis, remembering Nancy’s disclosure to him: “but ’tis not to be spoken of. Dr. Symes, he knows, too.”

  “Well, I’ll not ask then,” said Nell; “but that’s the way of it. And that’s why there’s no prayers o’ Sunday night, for fear they’d rile her.”

  She broke off suddenly.

  “Them’s dark things, and we’ll speak of them no more,” she said. “And bless me, with all this talking, ’tis time I put the boy cool and comfortable in the shade, where he’ll have his sleep, and I shouldn’t wonder if I snoozed too. I’ll give him his bottle first, and a chew at a morsel of raw meat in a bit of muslin for him to suck the goodness out of it. What’ll you be doing?”

  “Just a turn in the sea,” said Dennis, sitting up.

  “Nay, don’t go and bathe again, for your stomach’s a jumble o’ victuals, and you’ll get the cramp in it, and sink like a stone,” said Nell.

  “There’s twiddling ,talk!” said he. “Why, my victuals have nourished me fine, and they’re safe stowed in my blood by now. Or shall I come and sleep with you in the shade?”

  She got up laughing.

  “That you won’t,” she said. “Go and have your dip then.”

  The sun had wheeled westwards, and the sandy beach was half -covered with the flood tide, when Dennis carried the child up the steep scramble of rock above. Here he dusted and dried his feet, and put on his shoes, and with the child on his arm, while Nell carried the empty basket, they strolled slowly up the darkling hillside. Instead of the brisk sea breeze of the morning there now streamed down the combe the warmer tide of the land breeze. The air had hovered motionless over fields and gardens and gorse for the still sunny hours of the afternoon, and now the scents of blossom and of green things had soaked thick into it, and it blew laden with fertility, with here a streak of cool moisture gathered from the stream, and here a warm breath of gorse-flower, and here a flavour of wood-smoke. In the hamlet the gossips were about their doors, and the women must have a peep at the baby and make cautious inquiries about Dennis’s grandfather, and how things prospered at the farm. There was just a hint of something unspoken below these politenesses, for one hoped that John Pentreath had not been “troubled,” and another said that he looked but middling as he came down to church at St. Columb’s that day, and there were glances and nod dings of heads as they passed on.

  Dusk was falling softly, layer on silent layer, as they crossed the fields at the top of the hill where the daisies were already folded for the night, and when they came to the garden at the farm Nell stopped, looking round puzzled and frowning.

  “Why, whatever’s happened?” she said. “There’s scarce a flower left in the beds. Someone’s been plucking the lot o’ them.”

  Even as she spoke John Pentreath appeared at the door into the house.

  “Come you in: come you in,” he said, “and let’s have all snug and shut up. I’ll have no dallyin’ out there in the dusk, and entering after night. ’Tis wholesomer for all within.”

  Nell carried her baby upstairs. The child was sleepy after his day in the air, and after she had made him comfortable and stowed him in his high-sided crib, she came down into the kitchen. Dennis was laying the table for supper, with Willie to help him, and she made up the fire to heat the broth. John seemed more confident to-night, for the window still stood open, though night was falling.

  “I’ve been fine and busy since church-time this afternoon,” he said, “and I’ve got a relish for my supper, so hurry it on a bit. I’ve plucked all those gauds O’ flowers from the beds, and it’s a barrowful I’ve laid on Mollie’s grave. Three times up and down did I go, with my basket full o’ them: you can’t see the mound beneath for the blossoms I’ve put there. A gay and sweet-smelling garden, indeed.”

  “So that’s what’s come to them,” said Nell. “I saw there was scarce a bloom left.”

  “Aye, and what better could come to them?” he asked. And they’re mine, ain’t they, to do with as I will? They’ll please her, I can fancy her lingering there all night looking at them and smelling o’ them.”

  Nell poured the hot soup into the plates and they sat down.

  “I heard from my mother to-day, Grandfather,” said Dennis. “Fine news from her, too, for she’s married.”

  John thumped the table and laughed. “Well done, Nancy,” he cried. “So she’s trapped him, has she? I reckon we won’t see her in these parts again. A disgrace to the house she was, trapesing about, with her paint on her face, inviting all and sundry, enough to call the wrath o’ God on us all. It’s to that painter chap, I reckon, him as she was baiting last spring.”

  “Yes, that’s he. But you’ll see her again before long, for Mr. Giles’s taken the house he had before. She says you’ll always be welcome to take a drink o’ tea with her.”

  “Why, there’s a bit of graciousness,” said John.

  He looked round.

  “And ain’t I to have no drop o’ drink to-night?” he said, “me that’s been going thirsty all day to the glory of the Lord, and mindful of the dead? ... Why, if the bottle isn’t standing at my elbow all the time, and me not noticing it.”

  He did not trouble the water-jug for his first draught, but drank four fingers of the raw spirits in sips, gargling it round his mouth before he swallowed it.

  “Ah, that’s rare!” he said, “and I feel mettlesome to-night, and happy as ever I’ve done for a long while back, at the thought of the show o’ flowers I’ve made for Mollie. Take a whack, Will, and another when you’ve finished that.”

  He wolfed his cold beef and a lump of cheese, and pushed back his chair.

  “And mark you this,” he said. “We’ll have our prayers to-night same as we used, for ’tis a long while since we’ve had a godly Sunday evening, such as the Lord looks for from His servant. But, to tell the truth—”

  Suddenly his eye fell on the open window.

  “Eh, there’s a careless business,” he cried. “Shut it, Dennis, you lout, and pull the curtains across. To think that we’ve been sitting here this while with the night looking in. What mayn’t ‘a’ got in, while we’ve been talking?”

  He sat huddled in his chair till this was done, then opened the door a chink and stood there listening.

  “All’s still in the house,” he said, “and I reckon we’ll have a prayer, for ’tis a fine flower garden I made for Mollie and that’ll pleasure her all night long. I’ll take a drop more first, and then I’ll speak low and quiet to vex nobody.”

  But hardly had he got to his knees when he scrambled up again. “There’s summat hoverin’ round,” he whispered. “I went on my knees, I tell ‘ee, just to look for my pipe as I’d dropped. Iss sure ’twas for naught else, and that’s for all to hear.”

  CHAPTER XV. THE PURGING BY FIRE

  NANCY had been a bit disappointed about the effect of her resplendent return to St. Columb’s: nobody seemed to think more highly of Mrs. Harry Giles than of Nancy Pentreath. She went up to the farm the day after she arrived, but found no one at home, and so left her card and her husband’s on the kitchen table, hers turned down at the top right-hand corner to show she had been there in person, for that was the London mode. On her second visit she was more fortunate, for Dennis was hoeing in the garden, and presently, after a talk to him, she went indoors, where Nell was doing her ironing in the kitchen. But she was just through with it, and Nell took her upstairs to have a peep at her baby in his crib, who was having his afternoon sleep, and they came back to the kitchen again for a cup of tea. Very smart indeed was Nancy in her London clothes: she rustled richly as she walked, by reason of the silk lining of her skirt, and she was lofty in her manner, as was only proper for Mrs, Henry Giles.

  “I’m sure me and Harry hoped to see Mr. Pentreath down at our little place after I’d left our cards here,” she said; “but there! I’m glad enough to have no form
alities, though I must say I thought he’d have popped down just to be introduced to Mr. Giles, their not having met before, neither the one nor the other. I dessay he never saw the cards.”

  As a matter of fact, he had done so, for he had picked Nancy’s up and read the inscription with a bellow of irony. “Mrs. Henry Giles!” he roared. “And hasn’t the Queen of England come, too? How’s that? Mrs. Henry Giles, the Lord help and deliver us,” and he chucked both of the cards into the grate.

  Nell did not think it necessary to speak of this.

  “It must have slipped his memory,” she said. “And then, you see, Mr. Pentreath isn’t much of a hand at visiting. I doubt if he’s been through the door of another house save his own for a year and more.”

  Nancy was really longing to get on homely terms again, but a bit of swagger first was irresistible.

  “Well, it does seem strange to live like that,” she said, “when I think of life in London, where there’s scarce a night when Mr. Giles and me aren’t either bidden somewhere or it’s a playhouse or a music-hall instead. But I’m not one to be dignified, and you may tell Mr. Pentreath that we’ll both be very pleased to see him. Lor’, it’s queer to be in this little kitchen again, and think of the change that’s come since I was cooking and slaving here last, like you, Nell. And there’s not a day now but what we don’t go out pleasuring when Mr. Giles is through with his morning’s work, for he’s regular at his paints, and often he says to me, I’m a working man, and don’t forget that, girlie.’ It was a drive to St. Orde’s yesterday, and tea at the hotel, for Harry’s hired a victoria and a coachman in livery on the box, and a pair of tall black horses. Such steppers you never saw; and piff! why, we’re at the top of a hill before you’d think you’d commenced the ascent. And then going down that steep hill into Penzance terrible fast, there was Mr. Giles, I thought, having forty winks, so I said to the coachman, ‘Don’t go so fast, Charles,’ I said, ‘for Mr. Giles doesn’t like taking the corners so sharp,’ for I was frightened myself, see? And would you believe it, he wasn’t asleep at all, for he calls out, still with his eyes shut, e Get on a bit quicker, Charles, tor Mrs. Giles hates going like a snail.’ So I was fair had over that. We did have a laugh, to be sure.”