Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  Your beloved Olga is back, but I haven’t seen her yet. I asked Signor Cortese to dine and meet her one night, and I asked her to meet him. I thought that would make a pleasant little party, but they were both engaged. I hope they have not quarrelled. Her house, just opposite mine, looks very tiny, but I daresay it is quite large enough for her and her husband. She sings at the opening night of the Opera next week, in “Lucrezia.” I must manage to go even if I can only look in for an act or two. Pepino (so extravagant of him) has taken a box for two nights in the week. It is his birthday present to me, so I couldn’t scold the dear! And after all, we shall give a great deal of pleasure to friends, by letting them have it when we do not want it ourselves.

  Love to everybody at dear Riseholme. I feel quite like an exile, and sometimes I long for its sweet peace and quietness. But there is no doubt that London suits Pepino very well, and I must make the best of this incessant hustle. I had hoped to get down for next Sunday, but Mrs. Garroby-Ashton (I hear he will certainly be raised to the peerage when the birthday honours come out) has made a point of our spending it with them. . . . Good-night, dear Georgino. Me so so sleepy.

  LUCIA.

  Georgie swallowed this letter at a gulp, and then, beginning again, took it in sips. At first it gave him an impression of someone wholly unlike her, but when sipped, every sentence seemed wonderfully characteristic. She was not adapting herself to new circumstances, she was adapting new circumstances to herself with all her old ingenuity and success, and with all her invincible energy. True, you had sometimes to read between the lines, and divide everything by about three in order to allow for exaggerations, and when Lucia spoke of not disappointing dearest Aggie, who had set her heart on presenting her at Court, or of Mrs. Garroby-Ashton making a point of her going down for the week-end which she had intended to spend at Riseholme, Georgie only had to remember how she had been forced (so she said) to be Queen at those May Day revels. By sheer power of will she had made each of them become a Robin Hood or a Maid Marian, or whatever it was, and then, when she had got them all at work she said it was she who was being worked to death over their May Day revels. They had forced her to organise them, they had insisted that she should be Queen, and lead the dances and sing louder than anybody, and be crowned and curtsied to. They had been wax in her hands, and now in new circumstances, Georgie felt sure that dearest Aggie had been positively forced to present her, and no doubt Mrs. Garroby-Ashton, cornered on that terrace of the House of Commons, while sweet Thames flowed softly, had had no choice but to ask her down for a Sunday. Will-power, indomitable perseverance now, as always, was getting her just precisely what she had wanted: by it she had become Queen of Riseholme, and by it she was firmly climbing away in London, and already she was saying that everybody was insisting on her dining and lunching with them, whereas it was her moral force that made them powerless in her grip. Riseholme she had no use for now: she was busy with something else; she did not care to be bothered with Georgie, and so she said it was the dining-room carpet.

  “Very well,” said Georgie bitterly. “And if she doesn’t want me, I won’t want her. So that’s that.”

  He briskly put the letter away, and began to consider what he should do with himself all day. It was warm enough to sit out and paint: in fact, he had already begun a sketch of the front of his house from the Green opposite; there was his piano if he settled to have a morning of music; there was the paper to read, there was news to collect, there was Daisy Quantock next door who would be delighted to have a sitting with the planchette, which was really beginning to write whole words instead of making meaningless dashes and scribbles, and yet none of these things which, together with plenty of conversation and a little housekeeping and manicuring, had long made life such a busy and strenuous performance, seemed to offer an adequate stimulus. And he knew well enough what rendered them devoid of tonic: it was that Lucia was not here, and however much he told himself he did not want her, he like all the rest of Riseholme was beginning to miss her dreadfully. She aggravated and exasperated them: she was a hypocrite (all that pretence of not having read the Mozart duet, and desolation at Auntie’s death), a poseuse, a sham and a snob, but there was something about her that stirred you into violent though protesting activity, and though she might infuriate you, she prevented your being dull. Georgie enjoyed painting, but he knew that the fact that he would show his sketch to Lucia gave spice to his enjoyment, and that she, though knowing no more about it than a rhinoceros, would hold it at arm’s length with her head a little on one side and her eyes slightly closed, and say:

  “Yes, Georgie, very nice, very nice. But have you got the value of your middle-distance quite right? And a little more depth in your distance, do you think?”

  Or if he played his piano, he knew that what inspired his nimbleness would be the prospect of playing his piece to her, and if he was practising on the sly a duet for performance with her, the knowledge that he was stealing a march on her and would astonish her (though she might suspect the cause of his facility). And as for conversation, it was useless to deny that conversation languished in Riseholme if the subject of Lucia, her feats and her frailties was tabooed.

  “We’ve got to pull ourselves together,” thought Georgie, “and start again. We must get going and learn to do without her, as she’s getting on so nicely without us. I shall go and see how the planchette is progressing.”

  Daisy was already at it, and the pencil was getting up steam. A day or two ago it had written not once only but many times a strange sort of hieroglyphic, which might easily be interpreted to be the mystic word Abfou. Daisy had therefore settled (what could be more obvious?) that the name of the control who guided these strange gyrations was Abfou, which sounded very Egyptian and antique. Therefore, she powerfully reasoned, the scribbles which could not be made to fit any known configuration of English letters might easily be Arabic. Why Abfou should write his name in English characters and his communications in Arabic was not Daisy’s concern, for who knew what were the conditions on the other side? A sheet was finished just as Georgie came in, and though it presented nothing but Arabic script, the movements of the planchette had been so swift and eager that Daisy quite forgot to ask if there was any news.

  “Abfou is getting in more direct touch with me every time I sit,” said Daisy. “I feel sure we shall have something of great importance before long. Put your hand on the planchette too, Georgie, for I have always believed that you have mediumistic powers. Concentrate first: that means you must put everything else out of your head. Let us sit for a minute or two with our eyes shut. Breathe deeply. Relax. Sometimes slight hypnosis comes on, so the book says, which means you get very drowsy.”

  There was silence for a few moments: Georgie wanted to tell Daisy about Lucia’s letter, but that would certainly interrupt Abfou, so he drew up a chair, and after laying his hand on Daisy’s closed his eyes and breathed deeply. And then suddenly the most extraordinary things began to happen.

  The planchette trembled: it vibrated like a kettle on the boil, and began to skate about the paper. He had no idea what its antic motions meant: he only knew that it was writing something, Arabic perhaps, but something firm and decided. It seemed to him that so far from aiding its movement, he almost, to be on the safe side, checked it. He opened his eyes, for it was impossible not to want to watch this manifestation of psychic force, and also he wished to be sure (though he had no real suspicions on the subject) that his collaborator was not, to put it coarsely, pushing. Exactly the same train of thought was passing in Daisy’s mind, and she opened her eyes too.

  “Georgie, my hand is positively being dragged about,” she said excitedly. “If anything, I try to resist.”

  “Mine too; so do I,” said Georgie. “It’s too wonderful. Do you suppose it’s Arabic still?”

  The pencil gave a great dash, and stopped.

  “It isn’t Arabic,” said Daisy as she examined the message, “at least, there’s heaps of English too.”


  “No!” said Georgie, putting on his spectacles in his excitement, and not caring whether Daisy knew he wore them or not. “I can see it looks like English, but what a difficult handwriting! Look, that’s ‘Abfou’, isn’t it? And that is ‘Abfou’ again there.”

  They bent their heads over the script.

  “There’s an ‘L,’” cried Daisy, “and there it is again. And then there’s ‘L from L.’ And then there’s ‘Dead’ repeated twice. It can’t mean that Abfou is dead, because this is positive proof that he’s alive. And then I can see ‘Mouse’?”

  “Where?” said Georgie eagerly. “And what would ‘dead mouse’ mean?”

  “There!” said Daisy pointing. “No: it isn’t ‘dead mouse.’ It’s ‘dead’ and then a lot of Arabic, and then ‘mouse.’”

  “I don’t believe it is ‘Mouse,’” said Georgie, “though of course, you know Abfou’s handwriting much better than I do. It looks to me far more like ‘Museum.’

  “Perhaps he wants me to send all the Arabic he’s written up to the British Museum,” said Daisy with a flash of genius, “so that they can read it and say what it means.”

  “But then there’s ‘Museum’ or ‘Mouse’ again there,” said Georgie, “and surely that word in front of it — It is! It’s Riseholme! Riseholme Mouse or Riseholme Museum! I don’t know what either would mean.”

  “You may depend upon it that it means something,” said Daisy, “and there’s another capital ‘L.’ Does it mean Lucia, do you think? But ‘dead’ . . .”

  “No: dead’s got nothing to do with the ‘L,’” said Georgie. “Museum comes in between, and quantities of Arabic.”

  “I think I’ll just record the exact time; it would be more scientific,” said Daisy. “A quarter to eleven. No, that clock’s three minutes fast by the church time.”

  “No, the church time is slow,” said Georgie.

  Suddenly he jumped up.

  “I’ve got it,” he said. “Look! ‘L from L.’ That means a letter from Lucia. And it’s quite true. I heard this morning, and it’s in my pocket now.”

  “No!” said Daisy, “that’s just a sign Abfou is giving us, that he really is with us, and knows what is going on. Very evidential.”

  The absorption of them both in this script may be faintly appreciated by the fact that neither Daisy evinced the slightest curiosity as to what Lucia said, nor Georgie the least desire to communicate it.

  “And then there’s ‘dead’,” said Georgie, looking out of the window. “I wonder what that means.”

  “I’m sure I hope it’s not Lucia,” said Daisy with stoical calmness, “but I can’t think of anybody else.”

  Georgie’s eyes wandered over the Green; Mrs. Boucher was speeding round in her bath-chair, pushed by her husband, and there was the Vicar walking very fast, and Mrs. Antrobus and Piggy and Goosey . . . nobody else seemed to be dead. Then his eye came back to the foreground of Daisy’s front garden.

  “What has happened to your mulberry-tree?” he said parenthetically. “Its leaves are all drooping. You ought never to have pruned its roots without knowing how to do it.”

  Daisy jumped up.

  “Georgie, you’ve got it!” she said. “It’s the mulberry-tree that’s dead. Isn’t that wonderful?”

  Georgie was suitably impressed.

  “That’s very curious: very curious indeed,” he said. “Letter from Lucia, and the dead mulberry tree. I do believe there’s something in it. But let’s go on studying the script. Now I look at it again I feel certain it is Riseholme Museum, not Riseholme Mouse. The only difficulty is that there isn’t a Museum in Riseholme.”

  “There are plenty of mice,” observed Daisy, who had had some trouble with these little creatures. “Abfou may be wanting to give me advice about some kind of ancient Egyptian trap. . . . But if you aren’t very busy this morning, Georgie, we might have another sitting and see if we get anything more definite. Let us attain collectedness as the directions advise.”

  “What’s collectedness?” asked Georgie.

  Daisy gave him the directions. Collectedness seemed to be a sort of mixture of intense concentration and complete vacuity of mind.

  “You seem to have to concentrate your mind upon nothing at all,” said he after reading it.

  “That’s just it,” said Daisy. “You put all thoughts out of your head, and then focus your mind. We have to be only the instrument through which Abfou functions.”

  They sat down again after a little deep breathing and relaxation, and almost immediately the planchette began to move across the paper with a firm and steady progression. It stopped sometimes for a few minutes, which was proof of the authenticity of the controlling force, for in spite of all efforts at collectedness, both Daisy’s and Georgie’s minds were full of things which they longed for Abfou to communicate, and if either of them was consciously directing those movements, there could have been no pause at all. When finally it gave that great dash across the paper again, indicating that the communication was finished, they found the most remarkable results.

  Abfou had written two pages of foolscap in a tall upright hand, which was quite unlike either Daisy’s or Georgie’s ordinary script, and this was another proof (if proof were wanted) of authenticity. It was comparatively easy to read, and, except for a long passage at the end in Arabic, was written almost entirely in English.

  “Look, there’s Lucia written out in full four times,” said Daisy eagerly. “And ‘Pepper.’ What’s Pepper?”

  Georgie gasped.

  “Why Pepino, of course,” he said. “I do call that odd. And see how it goes on— ‘Muck company ‘, no ‘Much company, much grand company, higher and higher.’”

  “Poor Lucia!” said Daisy. “How sarcastic! That’s what Abfou thinks about it all. By the way, you haven’t told me what she says yet; never mind, this is far more interesting. . . . Then there’s a little Arabic, at least I think it’s Arabic, for I can’t make anything out of it, and then — why, I believe those next words are ‘From Olga.’ Have you heard from Olga?”

  “No,” said Georgie, “but there’s something about her in Lucia’s letter. Perhaps that’s it.”

  “Very likely. And then I can make out Riseholme, and it isn’t ‘mouse,’ it’s quite clearly ‘Museum,’ and then — I can’t read that, but it looks English, and then ‘opera,’ that’s Olga again, and ‘dead,’ which is the mulberry tree. And then ‘It is better to work than to be idle. Think not—’ something—”

  “Bark,” said Georgie. “No, ‘hard.’”

  “Yes. ‘Think not hard thoughts of any, but turn thy mind to improving work.’ — Georgie, isn’t that wonderful? — and then it goes off into Arabic, what a pity! It might have been more about the museum. I shall certainly send all the first Arabic scripts to the British Museum.”

  Georgie considered this.

  “Somehow I don’t believe that is what Abfou means,” said he. “He says Riseholme Museum, not British Museum. You can’t possibly get ‘British’ out of that word.”

  Georgie left Daisy still attempting to detect more English among Arabic passages and engaged himself to come in again after tea for fresh investigation. Within a minute of his departure Daisy’s telephone rang.

  “How tiresome these interruptions are,” said Daisy to herself, as she hurried to the instrument. “Yes, yes. Who is it?”

  Georgie’s voice had the composure of terrific excitement.

  “It’s me,” he said. “The second post has just come in, and a letter from Olga. ‘From Olga,’ you remember.”

  “No!” said Daisy. “Do tell me if she says anything about—”

  But Georgie had already rung off. He wanted to read his letter from Olga, and Daisy sat down again quite awestruck at this further revelation. The future clearly was known to Abfou as well as the past, for Georgie knew nothing about Olga’s letter when the words ‘From Olga’ occurred in the script. And if in it she said anything about ‘opera’ (which really was on the c
ards) it would be more wonderful still.

  The morning was nearly over, so Daisy observed to her prodigious surprise, for it had really gone like a flash (a flash of the highest illuminative power), and she hurried out with a trowel and a rake to get half an hour in the garden before lunch. It was rather disconcerting to find that though she spent the entire day in the garden, often not sitting down to her planchette till dusk rendered it impossible to see the mazes of cotton threads she had stretched over newly-sown beds, to keep off sparrows (she had on one occasion shattered with a couple of hasty steps the whole of those defensive fortifications) she seemed, in spite of blistered hands and aching back, to be falling more and more into arrears over her horticulture. Whereas that ruffian Simkinson, whom she had dismissed for laziness when she found him smoking a pipe in the potting-shed and doing a cross-word puzzle when he ought to have been working, really kept her garden in very good order by slouching about it for three half-days in the week. To be sure, she had pruned the roots of the mulberry tree, which had taken a whole day (and so incidentally had killed the mulberry tree) and though the death of that antique vegetable had given Abfou a fine opportunity for proving himself, evidence now was getting so abundant that Daisy almost wished it hadn’t happened. Then, too, she was beginning to have secret qualms that she had torn up as weeds a quantity of seedlings which the indolent Simkinson had just pricked out, for though the beds were now certainly weedless, there was no sign of any other growth there. And either Daisy’s little wooden labels had got mixed, or she had sown Brussels sprouts in the circular bed just outside the dining-room window instead of Phlox Drummondi. She thought she had attached the appropriate label to the seed she had sown, but it was very dark at the time, and in the morning the label certainly said ‘Brussels sprouts.’ In which case there would be a bed of Phlox at the far end of the little strip of kitchen garden. The seeds in both places were sprouting now, so she would know the worst or the best before long.