by E. F. Benson
Mrs Ames, it may be remembered, had already enjoyed a fortnight’s holiday at Overstrand this year, and the last week of July saw her still disinclined to make holiday plans. They had taken a sort of bungalow near Deal for the last year or two, which, among other advantages, was built in such a manner that any remark made in any part of the house could be heard in any other part of the house. It was enough almost for her to say, as she finished dressing, ‘We are ready for breakfast,’ to hear Parker replying from the kitchen, ‘The kettle’s just on the boil, ma’am.’ This year, however, she had been late in inquiring whether it was vacant for August, and she found, when her belated letter was answered, that it was already engaged.
This fact she broke to her husband and Harry, who had returned from Cambridge with hair unusually wild and lank, with tempered indignation.
‘Considering how many years we have taken it,’ she said, ‘I must say that I think they should have told us before letting it over our heads like this. But I always thought that Mrs Mackenzie was a most grasping sort of person who would be likely to take the first offer that turned up, and I’m sure the house was never very comfortable. I have no doubt we can easily find a better without much bother!’
‘My bedroom ceiling always leaked,’ said Harry; ‘and there was nowhere to write at!’
Mrs Ames had finished her breakfast and got up. She felt faintly in her mind that after the fancy dress ball it was time for her to do something original. Yet the whole idea was so novel … Riseborough would be sure to say that they had not been able to afford a holiday. But, after all, that mattered very little.
‘I really don’t know why we always take the trouble to go away to an uncomfortable lodging during August,’ she said, ‘and leave our own comfortable house standing vacant.’
Major Ames, had he been a horse, would have pricked up his ears at this. But the human ear being unadapted to such movements, he contented himself with listening avidly. He had seen little of Millie this last fortnight, and was beginning to realize how much he missed her presence. Between them, it is true, they had come near to an intimacy which had its dangers, which he really feared more than he desired, but he felt, with that self-deception that comes so easily to those who know nothing about themselves, that he was on his guard now. Meantime, he missed her, and guessed quite truly that she missed him. And, poor prig, he told himself that he had no right to cut off that which gave her pleasure. He could be Spartan over his own affairs, if so minded, but he must not play Lycurgus to others. And an idea that had privately occurred to him, which at the time seemed incapable of realization, suddenly leaped into the possible horizons.
‘And you always complain of the dampness of strange houses, Lyndhurst,’ she added; ‘and as Harry says, he has no place for writing and study. Why should we go away at all? I am sure, after the excitement of the last month, it would be a complete rest to remain here when everybody else is gone. I have not had a moment to myself this last month, and I should not be at all sorry to stop quietly here.’
Major Ames knew with sufficient accuracy the influence he had over his wife. He realized, that is to say, as far as regarded the present instance, that slight opposition on his part usually produced a corresponding firmness on hers. Accentuated opposition produced various results; sometimes he won, sometimes she. But mild remonstrance always confirmed her views in opposition to his. He had a plan of his own on this occasion, and her determination to remain in Riseborough would prove to be in alliance with it. Therefore he mildly remonstrated.
‘You would regret it before the month was out,’ he said. ‘For me, I’m an old campaigner, and I hope I can make myself comfortable anywhere. But you would get bored before the end of August, Amy, and when you get bored your digestion is invariably affected.’
‘I should like to stop in Riseborough,’ said Harry. ‘I hate the sea.’
‘You will go wherever your mother settles to go, my boy,’ said Major Ames, still pursuing his plan. ‘If she wishes to go to Sheffield for August, you and I will go too, and - and no doubt learn something useful about cutlery. But don’t try stopping in Riseborough, my dear Amy. At least, if you take my advice, you won’t.’
Major Ames was not very intelligent, but the highest intelligence could not have done better. He had learned the trick of slight opposition, just as a stupid dog with a Conservative master can learn to growl for Asquith by incessant repetition. When it has learned it, it does it right. The Major had done it right on this occasion.
‘I do not see why Harry should not have a voice in the question of where we spend his vacation,’ she said. ‘Certainly your room at the bungalow, Lyndhurst, was comfortable enough, but that was the only decent room in the house. In any case we cannot get the bungalow for this August. Have you any other plans as to where we should go?’
There was room for a little more of his policy of opposition.
‘Well, now, Brighton,’ he said. ‘Why not Brighton? There’s a club there; I dare say I should get a little Bridge in the evening, and no doubt you would pick up some acquaintances, Amy. I think the Westbournes went there last year.’
This remarkable reason for going to Brighton made Mrs Ames almost epigrammatic.
‘And then we could go on to Margate,’ she remarked, ‘and curry favour there.’
‘By all means, my dear,’ said he. ‘I dare say the curry would be quite inexpensive.’
Mrs Ames opened the door on to the verandah.
‘Pray let me know, Lyndhurst,’ she said, ‘if you have any serious proposition to make.’
It was Major Ames’ custom to start work in the garden immediately after breakfast, but this morning he got out one of his large-sized cheroots instead (these conduced to meditation), and established himself in a chair on the verandah. His mental development was not, in most regards, of a very high or complex order, but he possessed that rather rare attainment of being able to sit down and think about one thing to the exclusion of others. With most of us to sit down and think about one thing soon resolves itself into a confused survey of most other things; Major Ames could do better than that, for he could, and on this occasion did exclude all other topics from his mind, and at the end return, so to speak, ‘bringing his sheaves with him.’ He had made a definite and reasonable plan.
Harry had communicated the interesting fact of his passion for Mrs Evans to the Omar Khayyam Club, and was, of course, bound to prosecute his nefarious intrigue. He had already written several galloping lyrics, a little loose in grammar and rhyme, to his enchantress, which he had copied into a small green morocco notebook, the title page of which he had inscribed as ‘Dedicated to M. E.’. This looked a Narcissus-like proceeding to anyone who did not remember what Mrs Evans’ initials were. This afternoon, feeling the poetic afflatus blowing a gale within him, but having nothing definite to say, he decided to call on the inspirer of his muse, in order to gather fresh fuel for his fire. Arrayed in a very low collar, which showed the full extent of his rather scraggy neck, and adorned with a red tie, for socialism was no less an orthodoxy in the club than atheistic principles and illicit love, he set secretly out, and had the good fortune to find the goddess alone, and was welcomed with that rather timid, childlike deference that he had found so adorable before.
‘But how good of you to come and see me,’ she said, ‘when I’m sure you must have so many friends wanting you. I think it is so kind.’
Clearly she was timid; she did not know her power. Her eyes were bluer than ever; her hair was of palest gold, ‘As I remembered her of old,’ he thought to himself, referring to the evening at the end of June. Indeed, there was a poem dated June 28, rather a daring one.
‘The kindness is entirely on your side,’ he said, ‘in letting me come, and’ - he longed to say - ‘worship,’ but did not quite dare - ‘and have tea with you.’
‘Dear me, that is a selfish sort of kindness,’ she said. ‘Let us go into the garden. I think it was very unkind of you, Mr Harry, not to come to my
dance last week. But of course you Cambridge men have more serious things to think about than little country parties.’
‘I thought about nothing else but your dance for days,’ said he; ‘but my tutor simply refused to let me come down for it. A narrow, pedantic fellow, who I don’t suppose ever danced. Tell me about your dress; I like to picture you in a fancy dress.’
She could not help appearing to wish to attract. It was as much the fault of the way her head was set on to her neck, of the colour of her eyes, as of her mind.
‘Oh, quite a simple white frock,’ she said; ‘and a few pearls. They - they wanted me to go as Cleopatra. So silly - me with a grown-up daughter. But my husband insisted.’
The fancy dress ball had not been talked about at Mrs Ames’ lately, and he had heard nothing about it in the two days he had been at home. Both his parents had reason for letting it pass into the region of things that are done with.
‘Did mother and father go?’ he asked. ‘I suppose they felt too old to dress up?’
‘Oh, no. They came as Antony and Cleopatra. Have they not told you? Cousin Amy looked so - so interesting. And your father was splendid as Mark Antony.’
‘Then was Dr Evans Mark Antony too?’ asked Harry.
‘No; he was Timon of Athens.’
‘Then who was your Mark Antony?’ he asked.
Mrs Evans felt herself flushing, and her annoyance at herself made her awkward in the pouring out of tea.
She felt that Harry’s narrow, gimlet-like eyes were fixed on her.
‘See how stupid I am,’ she said. ‘I have spilled your tea in the saucer. Dear Mr Harry, we had heaps of Cleopatras: Mrs Altham was one, Mrs Brooks was another. We danced with Hamlets, and - and anybody.’
But this crude, ridiculous youth, she felt, had some idea in his head.
‘And did father and mother dance together all the evening?’ he asked.
She felt herself growing impatient.
‘Of course not. Everybody danced with everybody. We had quadrilles; all sorts of things.’
Then, with the mistaken instinct that makes us cautious in the wrong place, she determined to say a little more.
‘But your father was so kind to me,’ she said. ‘He helped me with all the arrangements. I could never have managed it except for him. We had tremendous days of talking and planning about it. Now tell me all about Cambridge.’
But Harry was scenting a sonnet of the most remarkable character. It might be called The Rivals, and would deal with a situation which the Omar Khayyam Club would certainly feel to be immensely ‘parful’.
‘I suppose mother helped you, too?’ he said.
This was Byronic, lacerating. She had to suffer as well as he … there was a pungent line already complete. ‘But who had suffered as much as me?’ was the refrain. There were thrills in store for the Omar Khayyam Club. After a sufficiency of yellow wine.
‘Cousin Amy was away,’ said Mrs Evans. ‘She was staying at Cromer till just before my little dance. That is not far from Cambridge, is it? I suppose she came over to see you.’
Harry spared her, and did not press these questions. But enough had been said to show that she had broken faith with him. ‘Rivals’ could suitably become quite incoherent towards the close. Incoherency was sometimes a great convenience, for exclamatory rhymes were not rare.
He smoothed the lank hair off his forehead, and tactfully changed the subject.
‘And I suppose you are soon going away now,’ he said. ‘I am lucky to have seen you at all. We are going to stop here all August, I think. My mother does not want to go away. Nor do I; not that they either of them care about that.’
Mrs Evans’ slight annoyance with him was suddenly merged in interest.
‘How wise!’ she said. ‘It is so absurd to go to stay somewhere uncomfortably instead of remaining comfortably. I wish we were doing the same. But my husband always has to go to Harrogate for a few weeks. And he likes me to be with him. I shall think of you all and envy you stopping here in this charming Riseborough.’
‘You like it?’ asked Harry.
‘How should I not with so many delightful people being friendly to me? Relations too; Cousin Amy, for instance, and Major Ames, and, let me see, if Mrs Ames is my cousin, surely you are cousin Harry?’
Harry became peculiarly fascinating, and craned his long neck forward.
‘Oh, leave out the “cousin”,’ he said.
‘How sweet of you - Harry,’ she said.
That, so to speak, extracted the poison-fangs from the projected ‘Rivals’, and six mysterious postcards were placed by the author’s hand in the pillar box that evening. Each consisted of one mystic sentence. ‘She calls me by my Christian name.’ By a most convenient circumstance, too apt to be considered accidental, there had here come to birth an octosyllabic line, of honeyed sweetness and simplicity. He was not slow to take advantage of it, and the moon setting not long before daybreak saw another completed gem of the M. E. series.
Mrs Evans that afternoon, like Major Ames that morning, ‘sat and thought,’ after Harry had left her. Independently of the fact that all admirers, even the weirdest, always found welcome in her pale blue eyes, she felt really grateful to Harry, for he had given her the information on which she based a plan which was quite as sound and simple as Major Ames’, and was designed to secure the same object. Since the night of the fancy dress ball she had only seen him once or twice, and never privately, and the greater vitality which, by the wondrous processes of affinity, he had stirred in her, hungered for its sustenance. It cannot be said that she was even now really conscious in herself of disloyalty to her husband, or that she actually contemplated any breach of faith. She had not at present sufficient force of feeling to imagine a decisive situation; but she could at most lash her helm, so to speak, so that the action of the wind would take her boat in the direction in which she wished to go, and then sit idly on deck, saying that she was not responsible for the course she was pursuing. The wind, the tide, the currents were irresistibly impelling her; she had nothing to do with the rudder, having tied it, she did not touch it. Like the majority in this world of miserable sinners, she did not actively court the danger she desired, but she hung about expectant of it. At the same time she kept an anxious eye on the shore towards which she was driving. Was it really coming closer? If so, why did she seem to have made no way lately?
Today her plan betokened a more active hand in what she thought of as fate, but unfortunately, though it was as sound in itself as Major Ames’, it was made independently and ignorantly of that which had prompted his slight opposition this morning, so that, while each plan was admirable enough in itself, the two, taken in conjunction, would, if successful, result in a fiasco almost sublime in its completeness. The manner of which was as follows.
Elsie, it so happened, was not at home that evening, and she and her husband dined alone, and strolled out in the garden afterwards.
‘You will miss your chess this evening, dear,’ she said. ‘Or would it amuse you to give me a queen and a few bishops and knights, and see how long it takes you to defeat me? Or shall we spend a little cosy chatty evening together? I hope no horrid people will be taken ill, and send for you.’
‘So do I, little woman,’ he said (she was getting to detest the appellation). ‘And as if I shouldn’t enjoy a quiet evening of talk with you more than fifty games of chess! But, dear me, I shall be glad to get away to Harrogate this year! I need a month of it badly. I shall positively enjoy the foul old rotten-egg smell.’
She gave a little shudder.
‘Oh, don’t talk of it,’ she said. ‘It is bad enough without thinking of it beforehand.’
‘Poor little woman! Almost a pity you are not gouty too. Then we should both look forward to it.’
She sat down on one of the shrubbery seats, and drew aside her skirts, making room for him to sit beside her.
‘Yes, but as I am not gouty, Wilfred,’ she said. ‘It is no use wishing I was. A
nd I do hate Harrogate so. I wonder -’
She gave a little sigh and put her arm within his.
‘Well, what’s the little woman wondering now?’ he asked.
‘I hardly like to tell you. You are always so kind to me that I don’t know why I am afraid. Wilfred, would you think it dreadful of me, if I suggested not going with you this year? I’m sure it makes me ill to be there. You will have Elsie; you will play chess as usual with her all evening. You see all morning you are at your baths, and you usually are out bicycling all afternoon with her. I don’t think you know how I hate it.’
She had begun in her shy, tentative manner. But her voice grew more cold and decided. She put forward her arguments like a woman who has thought it all carefully over, as indeed she had.
‘But what will you do with yourself, my dear?’ he said. ‘It seems a funny plan. You can’t stop here alone.’
She sat up, taking her hand from his arm.
‘Indeed, I should not be as lonely here as I am at Harrogate,’ she said. ‘We don’t know anybody there, and if you think of it, I am really alone most of the time. It is different for you, because it is doing you good, and, as I say, you are bicycling with Elsie all the afternoon, and you play chess together in the evening.’
