by E. F. Benson
He put it back on the shelf, and stood there for a moment, looking wistfully at the books. Then he raised his hand to them, and stroked their backs with a loving but puzzled air.
“How is it I can’t understand them?” he said. “They mean nothing to me. Well, well, when I am better, I shall be able to read them again; I think I shall be better soon.”
For the next three days he was very quiet I persuaded him to leave his writing at least once a day, and come for a stroll with me in the warm soft air. Spring was bursting out in all its fulness, and morning by morning in the row of elms in front of my window, some fresh tree stood enveloped in a sweet green mist of early leaves. Once as we came in he stopped at the house opposite, where we used to live, and said to me:
“Do you remember asking me whether Achilles had any right to drag Hector’s body round the walls? That was the first time I saw you; you had just come back from school. And then there came a snowy Sunday, when you sat with me at home. I had just got as far as Demeter then.”
After that day he got very much worse. The puzzled look in his eyes, which I dreaded to see, was always there. He would stretch out his hands very piteously, as if he was blind, and all night he would keep talking to himself, saying he had not much time; and one morning they found him lying very quiet, when they went to awake him, and the puzzled look had gone from his eyes and the groping hands were at rest.
He had often spoken to me about the publication of his work; it was that mainly for which he wished to have me with him; and after his death I sent it all to a friend of mine, who had made a special study of the subject, and was considered the best living authority on it. But it was as I feared; the Professor’s work was altogether antiquated; it was patient, laborious, honest, all that good work should be, but perfectly useless.
I do not think I realised the enormous pathos of his whole life, until I heard that. Those long hours, the ungrudged unremitting toil, the loneliness, the failure of power, they were lost, unrewarded; but it was the other loss that seems to me most pitiful. That one as delicately sensitive, as unerringly sympathetic as he, should have known nothing of this “warm kind world,” should have lived in the ashes of dead fables, falsely reconstructed; it was this that seemed so hopeless. Even if his work had been supremely successful, if he had shown the way, not followed the old abandoned grass-grown road that led nowhere, even then would it have been worth while? Even had he throned Zeus for ever on an eternally appropriate throne, and analysed Athene from the top of her helmet to the tail feathers of the owl that sits at her feet, would it have been worth the sacrifice, for he weighed the world against it, and found it wanting? Life is given us that we may live, and that we may know, and is not only a space of time allotted to learn in. But for the gentle, there is surely a gentle school, and for the loving, somewhere and somehow, love. Even if it were not so, at any rate he lies now in a very peaceful place, on no rock-summit, but in what seems to me a more appropriate country, in a quiet green churchyard, where trees whisper and lean together, facing a southern sea, where snow and storm seldom come, where he will learn to be still, and where his sleep will be sound, for he was very tired.
POOR MISS HUNTING- FORD
THE intelligent foreigner who happened to ask his hostess who that quiet, nice looking girl was, whom he saw at lunch but not at dinner, would in nine cases out of ten be told that it was “only the governess.” Governesses usually only appear at lunch, they have their breakfast with the children, and of course “one cannot have one’s governess down to dinner.” If you ask why, you will be told that it is quite impossible.
I was staying the other day with a certain Mrs. Naseby, whose father as we all know was a successful soap-boiler in Liverpool. She was the only child; she had an enormous fortune, and in course of time was sacrificed on the altar of younger sons, and is now an honourable, and will probably be a countess before she dies, as her husband’s elder brother has no children, and is rapidly drinking himself to death. The effect of all this is, that she is aristocratic to the tips of her finger-nails, and is quite unconscious of her governess’s presence.
Personally I always make a point of talking to governesses, because nobody else ever talks to them. Our acquaintance began at lunch. I came in rather late, on the first day on which I was there, and saw that there were two places vacant. One of these was some way off, at the other end of the table, but I had reason for choosing it.
Naturally I had two neighbours, one was a pretty child of about twelve years old, who inherits all her mother’s beauty — nobody has ever thought of saying that Mrs. Naseby is not wonderfully handsome — the other was a woman of about thirty, dressed quite irreproachably in a gown of a sober hue. Governesses, like footmen, are obliged to be irreproachably dressed, when they appear in public, for like footmen, they are part of the household, which reflects creditably or discreditably on the hostess.
There are certain Madonnas, in which you will find no idealised beauty; the mother of God is a simple peasant woman, with a sweet patient face, a face such as the grave serious artists of old must often have seen in their quiet Italian villages. They are evidently drawn from the life, and I imagine from women to whom life was a dim ever-present responsibility, for the explanation they were willing to wait, and in the meantime to go about their small repeated duties with resignation and perhaps cheerfulness. Such a habit of life produces a very distinct type of face, and the woman next whom I sat was a good representative of it. These faces are not often noticed, and there are more of them than we think, for they have no beauty of line or colour, they are only very patient and very sweet, and sweetness and patience are at a discount just now.
Her eyes — but nobody is supposed to notice that a governess has eyes — were of that particular shade of grey which, as the Irish say so well, look as if they had been put in with a smutty finger. About her neck she wore a string of olive-wood beads, which had that peculiarly dowdy appearance which is common in trophies from the Holy Land. She had a submissive attentive air, which is characteristic of governesses, and she was eating a slice of hot boiled beef, with carrots, turnips, and a suet dumpling. It is possible to conceive a foreigner so intelligent as to remark that there is a diet which indicates a governess as clearly as her quiet submissive manner. It has often been noticed that governesses like black currants, and the remark is profoundly true. Why they like black currants, is hard to explain but easy to perceive. It is simply part of that eternal fitness, which strings the events of this world together like the beads which governesses wear round their necks. Boiled beef is equally characteristic, especially with suet dumpling, and so also is cake, particularly seed-cake. It is worth while to eat seed-cake and drink water just once, when you have finished the sweet course at lunch, for if you do that, in a receptive spirit, you will learn something about the position of governesses, which it is hard to know from outside, as it were, from mere observation or instruction. The spirit, as we know, is accessible through the “subtle gateways of the body,” and seed-cake and cold water produce their definite ethical effect, just as brandy, haschish or opium.
There was no black currant tart or black currant pudding at lunch, but there was a sago pudding, and the governess took some. As she helped herself to it, she accidentally knocked a wine-glass off the table, which crashed in pieces on the floor, and there was a moment’s silence.
Mrs. Naseby looked up, saw what had happened, and said in audible tones:
“Very awkward.”
The poor governess began to murmur some apology, but I gave myself the pleasure of interrupting her.
“I am so sorry, Mrs. Naseby, I am afraid I have broken one of your glasses.” Mrs. Naseby had beautiful manners. She took my word for it, and smiled gracefully.
“I don’t think I shall forgive you,” she said. “I shall stop your pocket-money.” The governess turned a submissive eye towards me. Her lips moved, but the words were inaudible. A slight blush had spread over her face, but it was a hot da
y, and it may only have been the effect of stooping down to pick up the fragments of the wine-glass. The footman does not pick things up for the governess.
As ill-luck would have it, there was sitting opposite to me, a certain Miss Grantham, to whom I had expounded that morning some of my views on the position of governesses. She caught my eye, smiled maliciously, and took a custard from the tray which a footman was handing. Then she turned to the man and said, “I am so very much obliged to you.” The footman was too well bred to stare, and passed on.
The governess did not hear, and consequently the shot fell harmless.
But Miss Grantham did not intend to be baulked of her scene. She had a morbid craving for small scenes, which made other people rather uncomfortable. With her most winning air she addressed the governess directly.
“Edith tells me you are doing the first canto of the ‘Faerie Queene’ with her, Miss Huntingford. I am so fond of the ‘Faerie Queene.’ What a treat for both of you. I wish you would allow me to read it with you some morning. How one longs for the age of chivalry to return. It is so rare in these horrible fin de siècle days.”
That shot went home. Miss Huntingford was not wise, she was not even foolish, and either quality would have been sufficient. But she was only sensible and sensitive. Consequently she blushed more deeply, and drank a little water.
“I’m sure I should be very glad,” she murmured.
The unusual sound of a voice that has not been heard before, caused one or two people to stop talking and look up. Miss Grantham went on with an infernal sweetness of manner, unable to deny herself the pleasure of making a scene even at the expense of a governess.
“I never thought the age of chivalry was really over,” she said, addressing me directly. “I know it’s the fashion to say that it’s a lost virtue or vice, whichever it may be. But it certainly has dwindled, though, of course, you see isolated instances of chivalry now and then. Why has it dwindled so? Are women less charming than they used to be, or are men less susceptible?
“Chivalry defends women from men,” I said. “The age in which it was needed has passed. What there is room for and need for, is a new chivalry which will defend women from women.”
“How interesting,” said Miss Grantham. “Yes, I daresay you are right. You mean, that you can’t expect chivalry to flourish when women treat women as no man would think of doing.”
“Exactly,” said I. “But there never yet was a chivalrous woman. I don’t suppose there ever will be. They defend their own sex, when the attack is general, but they never defend an individual.”
Miss Grantham never got angry. I had put myself at a great disadvantage, or the governess at a greater.
She laughed.
“I didn’t know you were so well up in the subject,” she said. “So men are still chivalrous to women. I wonder how long it will last.”
She picked up a claret glass, and deliberately snapped the stem in half. There was again a sudden silence, and Mrs. Naseby looked up enquiringly.
“Well?” said Miss Grantham, addressing me.
I did not answer her, and she laughed again.
“The habit of breaking things is infectious,” she said to Mrs. Naseby, “and the age of chivalry is over. It stopped about half-a-minute ago.”
There was a great laugh from Miss Grantham’s immediate neighbours, who had followed the scene from the beginning, and as lunch was over, Mrs. Naseby collected eyes, and the people dispersed.
I happened to be the last to leave the dining room, and the governess was standing in the hall.
“Thank you very much,” she said, “for trying to shield me, but I wish you hadn’t done it.” And she went hurriedly upstairs.
When I went into the drawing-room, Miss Grantham was giving her mother and Mrs. Naseby a moderately accurate account of what had happened.
“It’s too delicious,” the latter was saying. “Really a very pretty piece of fence.”
She gave a little gush of laughter.
“Here is the squire of distressed dames,” said Miss Grantham, as I entered.
“It really is very funny,” said Mrs. Naseby. “But why wouldn’t you do the same for Norah?”
“Because I’m not a distressed dame,” said Miss Grantham. “Isn’t it so?”
“Of course,” I said. “But you were very cruel to her.”
“Really it is very funny,” said Mrs. Naseby. “We are a lady short. Shall I tell her to come down to dinner? What’s her name, by-the-way? She only came yesterday.”
“Edith told me,” said Miss Grantham, “it’s Miss Huntingford.”
At any rate governesses have, as a rule, one consolation. Their business is to look after children, who may be thoughtless and troublesome, but are probably still child-like. Half the time, at any rate, they live in an atmosphere which is not vitiated, a sort of oasis, in this wilderness of those who do not care. But Miss Huntingford had not even that solace. Edith was twelve years old, but a woman of the world. She wished to be treated as if she was grown up; she did not care for fairy stories; they seemed to her to be most improbable, as indeed they are. She used to go to the pantomime at Christmas, but she always came away before the harlequinade. She spoke French very well, almost as well as Miss Huntingford, and her musical tastes lay in the direction of Wagner. She was altogether quite up-to-date. Poor Miss Huntingford! Even some one with the best intentions in the world, had done something “she wished he hadn’t.”
Miss Grantham always smoked cigarettes after lunch. We went down to a lake in front of the house until the day got a little cooler, and she sat on a pile of cushions in a broad flat-bottomed punt, and made cynical remarks. Her silver cigarette case was in an insecure position on the edge of the boat; her face was turned away from it, and as she felt for it with her hand, she managed to knock it off into the deep water. It was no use quarrelling with her.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’m afraid I’ve knocked your cigarette case overboard.”
THE DEFEAT OF LADY GRANTHAM
SIR Robert Grantham’s house in London has a garden attached to it of sufficient size to enable Lady Grantham to give garden parties. Her duties as a hostess on these occasions are limited to sitting under the charming cedar tree which stands just behind the house, and making scornful remarks to her guests. However, the affability of Sir Robert is universally acknowledged to be enough for two. Lady Grantham is Spanish by birth, and dislikes English people. I got there rather late, and the guests were beginning to go. The remainder were grouped together round Sir Robert, who was pointing out to them the superiority of his garden to all others in London, not by praising his own, but by depreciating the rest.
“I don’t know what I should do without a bit of a garden where I can sit and smoke a cigar of an evening,” he was just saying. “I often wonder why any one ever comes up to London, if they have to live in a stuffy house like a barrack, with no garden attached, or a garden like Lord Orme’s. I often say to him, ‘Now my dear fellow, why on earth don’t you buy up those two houses next you, and run a wall along from the corner? You’d get quite a decent little garden if you did that, whereas now you’ve scarcely got room to smoke a cigarette.’”
Lady Grantham was sitting as usual under her cedar tree reading her French novel, and Miss Grantham, who had found it impossible to talk to people any longer, apart from the fact that her father was addressing everyone who remained collectively, was sitting by her, and eating strawberries with an absent air. Lady Grantham looked up vindictively as I approached. “You are very late,” she said. “It is such wretched manners to come just as everyone else is just going away, and your hostess wants to go too. It is far better not to come at all, unless you can manage to come in decent time.”
The only sensible way of treating Lady Grantham is to take your cue from her. If she is not rude, there is no reason why you should be; if she is, there is no reason why you should not. Besides we are old friends.
“I didn’t come to talk to
you,” I said. “Please go away if you want. Or go on with your book if you like. You must have read a good deal this afternoon; you always read at your own parties, I believe.”
Lady Grantham smiled.
“Nora will talk to you, if you want to talk,” she said. “Talk, Nora.”
“What shall we talk about,” said Miss Grantham. “Have some strawberries. Oh, by-the-way, do you remember Miss Huntingford last year at the Nasebys’? You were very chivalrous to her on that occasion I remember.”
“Yes, I remember. She’s married.”
“That is what I was just going to tell you. How did you know?”
“It’s no secret I imagine, I saw her the other day.”
“She married the eldest Naseby. Her dear mother-in-law is furious.”
Lady Grantham looked up.
“Do you mean the governess, Nora?”
“Yes, the one who broke the wine glass.”
“It serves that woman right. I told her so this afternoon.”
“I have no doubt you did,” I gave myself the satisfaction of saying.
“She used to have her down to the drawing room to play after dinner,” continued Lady Grantham. “Now I always keep my governess in her proper place.”
“You treat her like an under housemaid, as far as I remember,” I said.
“You’d better not say much more, mother,” said Miss Grantham. “He’s got a passion for governesses.”
“That’s not quite true,” said I, “only I don’t see why they should be treated like servants.”
Lady Grantham yawned.
“Why should we talk about governesses?” she said.
“Well, you will have to talk to a governess soon, I expect,” remarked Miss Grantham.
“Why?”
“Well, to an ex-governess; Mrs. Naseby told me she was coming when I saw her this morning.”
“Why did you ask her?”
“You told me to; you went down to Ascot on Harry Naseby’s coach last week you know.”