Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “Yes, fifty-one,” said Georgie, “though she’s only fifty. She put an extra one, so that she may get used to being fifty-one before she is.”

  “What a pretty idea! So like her,” said Elizabeth, and shut the window again.

  Benjy with great tact pretended not to have heard, for he had no wish to bring back those hysterical symptoms. A sensational surmise as to the cause of them had dimly occurred to him, but surely it was impossible. So tranquillity being restored, they sat together “ever so cosily,” said Elizabeth, by the fire (which meant that she appropriated his hip-bath chair and got nearly all the heat) and began plotting out the campaign for the coming municipal elections.

  “Better just get quietly to work, love,” said she, “and not say much about it at first, for Lucia’s sadly capable of standing, too, if she knows you are.”

  “I’m afraid I told her last night,” said Benjy.

  “Oh, what a blabbing boy! Well, it can’t be helped now. Let’s hope it’ll put no jealous ambitions into her head. Now, l’Économie is the right slogan for you. Anything more reckless than the way the Corporation has been spending money I can’t conceive. Just as if Tilling was Eldorado. Think of pulling down all those pretty little slums by the railway and building new houses! Fearfully expensive, and spoiling the town: taking all its quaintness away.”

  “And then there’s that new road they’re making that skirts the town,” said Benjy, “to relieve the congestion in the High Street.”

  “Just so,” chimed in Elizabeth. “They’d relieve it much more effectually if they didn’t allow Susan to park her car, positively across the street, wherever she pleases, and as long as she pleases. It’s throwing money about like that which sends up the rates by leaps and bounds; why, they’re nearly double of what they were when I inherited Mallards from sweet Aunt Caroline. And nothing to shew for it except a road that nobody wants and some ugly new houses instead of those picturesque old cottages. They may be a little damp, perhaps, but, after all, there was a dreadful patch of damp in my bedroom last year, and I didn’t ask the Town Council to rebuild Mallards at the public expense. And I’m told all those new houses have got a bathroom in which the tenants will probably keep poultry. Then, they say, there are the unemployed. Rubbish, Benjy! There’s plenty of work for everybody, only those lazy fellows prefer the dole and idleness. We’ve got to pinch and squeeze so that the so-called poor may live in the lap of luxury. If I didn’t get a good let for Mallards every year we shouldn’t be able to live in it at all, and you may take that from me. Economy! That’s the ticket! Talk to them like that and you’ll head the poll.”

  A brilliant notion struck Benjy as he listened to this impassioned speech. Though he liked the idea of holding public office and of the dignity it conferred, he knew that his golf would be much curtailed by his canvassing, and, if he was elected, by his duties. Moreover, he could not talk in that vivid and vitriolic manner. . . .

  He jumped up.

  “Upon my word, Liz, I wish you’d stand instead of me,” he said. “You’ve got the gift of the gab; you can put things clearly and forcibly, and you’ve got it all at your fingers’ ends. Besides, you’re the owner of Mallards, and these rates and taxes press harder on you than on me. What do you say to that?”

  The idea had never occurred to her before: she wondered why. How she would enjoy paying calls on all the numerous householders who felt the burden of increasing rates, and securing their votes for her programme of economy! She saw herself triumphantly heading the poll. She saw herself sitting in the Council Room, the only woman present, with sheaves of statistics to confute this spendthrift policy. Eloquence, compliments, processions to church on certain official occasions, a status, a doctorial-looking gown, position, power. All these enticements beckoned her, and from on high, she seemed to look down on poor Lucia as if at the bottom of a disused well, fifty years old, playing duets with Georgie, and gabbling away about all the Aristophanes she read and the callisthenics she practised, and the principles of psychic bidding, and the advice she gave her broker, while Councillor Mapp-Flint was as busy with the interests of the Borough. A lesson for the self-styled Queen of Tilling.

  “Really, dear,” she said, “I hardly know what to say. Such a new idea to me, for all this was the future I planned for you, and how I’ve lain awake at night thinking of it. I must adjust my mind to such a revolution of our plans. But there is something in what you suggest. That house to house canvassing: perhaps a woman is more suited to that than a man. A cup of tea, you know, with the mother and a peep at baby. It’s true again that as owner of Mallards, I have a solider stake in property than you. Dear me, yes, I begin to see your point of view. Sound, as a man’s always is. Then again what you call the gift of the gab — such a rude expression — perhaps forcible words do come more easily to me, and they’ll be needful indeed when it comes to fighting the spendthrifts. But first you would have to promise to help me, for you know how I shall depend on you. I hope my health will stand the strain, and I’ll gladly work myself to the bone in such a cause. Better to wear oneself out than rust in the scabbard.”

  “You’re cut out for the job,” said Benjy enthusiastically. “As for wearing yourself out, hubby won’t permit that!”

  Once more Elizabeth recalled her bright visions of power and the reduction of rates. The prospect was irresistible.

  “I give you your way as usual, Benjy-boy,” she said. “How I spoil you! Such a bully! What? Dejeuner already, Withers? Hasn’t the morning flown?”

  The morning had flown with equal speed for Lucia. She had gone to her office after breakfast, the passage to which had now been laid with india-rubber felting, so that no noise of footsteps outside could distract her when she was engaged in financial operations. This insured perfect tranquillity, unless it so happened that she was urgently wanted, in which case Grosvenor’s tap on the door startled her very much since she had not heard her approach; this risk, however, was now minimised because she had a telephone extension to the office. To-day there were entries to be made in the ledger, for she had sold her Southern Prefs at a scandalous profit, and there was a list of recommendations from that intelligent Mammoncash for the re-investment of the capital released.

  She drew her chair up to the fire to study this. High-priced shares did not interest her much: you got so few for your money. “The sort of thing I want,” she thought, “is quantities of low-priced shares, like those angelic Siriamis, which nearly doubled their value in a few weeks,” but the list contained nothing to which Mammoncash thought this likely to happen. He even suggested that she might do worse than put half her capital into gilt-edged stock. He could not have made a duller suggestion: Dame Catherine Winterglass, Lucia felt sure, would not have touched Government Loans with the end of a barge-pole. Then there was “London Transport ‘C.’” Taking a long view, Mammoncash thought that in a year’s time there should be a considerable capital appreciation. . . .

  Lucia found her power of concentration slipping from her, and her thoughts drifted away to her party last night. She had observed that Benjy had seldom any wine in his glass for more than a moment, and that Elizabeth’s eye was on him. Though she had forsworn any interest in such petty concerns, food for serious thought had sprung out of this, for, getting expansive towards the end of dinner, he had told her that he was standing for the Town Council. He and Elizabeth both thought it was his duty. “It’ll mean a lot of work,” he said, “but thank God, I’m not afraid of that, and something must be done to check this monstrous municipal extravagance. Less golf for me, Mrs. Lucas, but duty comes before pleasure. I shall hope to call on you before long and ask your support.”

  Lucia had not taken much interest in this project at the time, but now ideas began to bubble in her brain. She need not consider the idea of his being elected — for who in his senses could conceivably vote for him? — and she found herself in violent opposition to the programme of economy which he had indicated. Exactly the contrary policy recomme
nded itself: more work must somehow be found for the unemployed: the building of decent houses for the poor ought to be quickened up. There was urgent and serious work to be done, and, as she gazed meditatively at the fire, personal and ambitious day-dreams began to form themselves. Surely there was a worthy career here for an energetic and middle-aged widow. Then the telephone rang and she picked it off the table. Georgie.

  “Such a filthy day: no chance of its clearing,” he said. “Do come and lunch and we’ll play duets.”

  “Yes, Georgie, that will be lovely. What about my party last night?”

  “Perfect. And weren’t they all astonished when I told them about my shingles. Major Benjy was a bit squiffy. Doesn’t get a chance at home.”

  “I rather like to see people a little, just a little squiffy at my expense,” observed Lucia. “It makes me feel I’m being a good hostess. Any news?”

  “I passed there an hour ago,” said Georgie, “and she suddenly threw the window up and asked me how many candles there were on your cake, and when I said there were fifty-one she banged it down again quite sharply.”

  “No! I wonder why she wanted to know that and didn’t like it when you told her,” said Lucia, intrigued beyond measure, and forgetting that such gossip could not be worth a moment’s thought.

  “Can’t imagine. I’ve been puzzling over it,” said Georgie.

  Lucia recollected her principles.

  “Such a triviality in any case,” she said, “whatever the explanation may be. I’ll be with you at one-thirty. And I’ve got something very important to discuss with you. Something quite new: you can’t guess.”

  “My dear, how exciting! More money?”

  “Probably less for all of us if it comes off,” said Lucia enigmatically. “But I must get back to my affairs. I rather think, from my first glance at the report, that there ought to be capital appreciation in Transport ‘C’.”

  “Transport by sea?” asked Georgie.

  “No, the other sort of sea. A. B. C.”

  “Those tea-shops?” asked the intelligent Georgie.

  “No, trams, buses, tubes.”

  She rang off, but the moment afterwards so brilliant an idea struck her that she called him up again.

  “Georgie: about the candles. I’m sure I’ve got it. Elizabeth believed that there were fifty. That’s a clue for you.”

  She rang off again, and meditated furiously on the future.

  Georgie ran to the door when Lucia arrived and opened it himself before Foljambe could get there.

  “ — and Benjy said there were fifty-one and she thought he wasn’t in a state to count properly,” he said all in one breath. “Come in, and tell me at once about the other important thing. Lunch is ready. Is it about Benjy?”

  Georgie at once perceived that Lucia was charged with weighty matter. She was rather overwhelming in these humours: sometimes he wished he had a piece of green baize to throw over her as over a canary, when it will not stop singing. (“Foljambe, fetch Mrs. Lucas’s baize,” he thought to himself.)

  “Yes, indirectly about him, and directly about the elections to the Town Council. I think it’s my duty to stand, Georgie, and when I see my duty clearly, I do it. Major Benjy is standing, you see; he told me so last night, and he’s all out for the reduction of rates and taxes—”

  “So am I,” said Georgie.

  Lucia laid down her knife and fork, and let her pheasant get cold to Georgie’s great annoyance.

  “You won’t be if you listen to me, my dear,” she said. “Rates and taxes are high, it’s true, but they ought to be ever so much higher for the sake of the unemployed. They must be given work, Georgie: I know myself how demoralizing it is not to have work to do. Before I embarked on my financial career, I was sinking into lethargy. It is the same with our poorer brethren. That new road, for instance. It employs a fair number of men, who would otherwise be idle and on the dole, but that’s not nearly enough. Work helps everybody to maintain his — or her — self-respect: without work we should all go to the dogs. I should like to see that road doubled in width and — well in width, and however useless it might appear to be, the moral salvation of hundreds would have been secured by it. Again, those slums by the railway: it’s true that new houses are being built to take the place of hovels which are a disgrace to any Christian town. But I demand a bigger programme. Those slums ought to be swept away, at once. All of them. The expense? Who cares? We fortunate ones will bear it between us. Here are we living in the lap of luxury, and just round the corner, so to speak, or, at any rate, at the bottom of the hill are those pig-sties, where human beings are compelled to live. No bathroom, I believe; think of it, Georgie! I feel as if I ought to give free baths to anybody who cares to come and have one, only I suppose Grosvenor would instantly leave. The municipal building plans for the year ought to be far more comprehensive. That shall be my ticket: spend, spend, spend. I’m too selfish: I must work for others, and I shall send in my name as standing for the Town Council, and set about canvassing at once. How does one canvass?”

  “You go from house to house asking for support I suppose,” said Georgie.

  “And you’ll help me, of course. I know I can rely on you.”

  “But I don’t want rates to be any higher,” said Georgie. “Aren’t you going to eat any pheasant?”

  Lucia took up her knife and fork.

  “But just think, Georgie. Here are you and I eating pheasant — molto bene e bellissime cooked — in your lovely little house, and then we shall play on your piano, and there are people in this dear little Tilling who never eat a pheasant or play on a piano from Christmas day to New Year’s Day, I mean the other way round. I hope to live here for the rest of my days, and I have a duty towards my neighbours.”

  Lucia had a duty towards the pheasant, too, and wolfed it down. Her voice had now assumed the resonant tang of compulsion, and Georgie, like the unfortunate victim of the Ancient Mariner “could not choose but hear.”

  “Georgie, you and I — particularly I — are getting on in years, and we shall not pass this way again. (Is it Kingsley, dear?) Anyhow we must help poor little lame dogs over stiles. Ickle you and me have been spoiled. We’ve always had all we wanted and we must do ickle more for others. I’ve got an insight into finance lately, and I can see what a power money is, what one can do with it unselfishly, like the wonderful Winterglass. I want to live, just for the few years that may still be left me, with a clear conscience, quietly and peacefully—”

  “But with Benjy standing in the opposite interest, won’t there be a bit of friction instead?” asked Georgie.

  “Emphatically not, as far as I am concerned,” said Lucia, firmly. “I shall be just as cordial to them as ever — I say ‘them’, because of course Elizabeth’s at the bottom of his standing — and I give them the credit of their policy of economy being just as sincere as mine.”

  “Quite,” said Georgie, “for if taxes were much higher, and if they couldn’t get a thumping good let for Mallards every year, I don’t suppose they would be able to live there. Have to sell.”

  An involuntary gleam lit up Lucia’s bird-like eyes, just as if a thrush had seen a fat worm. She instantly switched it off.

  “Naturally I should be very sorry for them,” she said, “if they had to do that, but personal regrets can’t affect my principles. And then, Georgie, more schemes seem to outline themselves. Don’t be frightened: they will bring only me to the workhouse. But they want thinking out yet. I seem to see — well, never mind. Now let us have our music. Not a moment have I had for practice lately, so you mustn’t scold me. Let us begin with deevy Beethoven’s fifth symphony. Fate knocking at the door. That’s how I feel, as if there was one clear call for me.”

  The window of Georgie’s sitting-room, which looked out on to the street, was close to the front door. Lucia, as usual, had bagged the treble part, for she said she could never manage that difficult bass, omitting to add that the treble was far the more amusing to play, a
nd they were approaching the end of the first movement, when Georgie, turning a page, saw a woman’s figure standing on the doorstep.

  “It’s Elizabeth,” he whispered to Lucia. “Under an umbrella. And the bell’s out of order.”

  “Uno, due. So much the better, she’ll go away,” said Lucia with a word to each beat.

  She didn’t. Georgie occasionally glancing up saw her still standing there and presently the first movement came to an end.

  “I’ll tell Foljambe I’m engaged,” said Georgie, stealing from his seat. “What can she want? It’s too late for lunch and too early for tea.”

  It was too late for anything. The knocker sounded briskly, and before Georgie had time to give Foljambe this instruction, she opened the door, exactly at the moment that he opened his sitting-room door to tell her not to.

  “Dear Mr. Georgie,” said Elizabeth. “So ashamed, but I’ve been eavesdropping. How I enjoyed listening to that lovely music. Wouldn’t have interrupted it for anything!”

  Elizabeth adopted the motion she called “scriggling.” Almost imperceptibly she squeezed and wriggled till she had got past Foljambe, and had a clear view into George’s sitting-room.

  “Why! There’s dear Lucia,” she said. “Such a lovely party last night, chérie: all Tilling talking about it. But I know I’m interrupting. Duet wasn’t it? May I sit in a corner, mum as a mouse, while you go on? It would be such a treat. That lovely piece: I seem to know it so well. I should never forgive myself if I broke into it, besides losing such a pleasure. Je vous prie!”

  It was of course quite clear to the performers that Elizabeth had come for some purpose beyond that of this treat, but she sank into a chair by the fire, and assumed the Tilling musical face (Lucia’s patent) smiling wistfully, gazing at the ceiling, and supporting her chin on her hand, as was the correct attitude for slow movements.