Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  So Georgie sat down again, and the slow movement went on its long deliberate way, and Elizabeth was surfeited with her treat pages before it was done. Again and again she hoped it was finished, but the same tune (rather like a hymn, she thought) was presented in yet another aspect, till she knew it inside out and upside down: it was like a stage army passing by, individually the same, but with different helmets, or kilts instead of trousers. At long last came several loud thumps, and Lucia sighed and Georgie sighed, and before she had time to sigh too, they were off again on the next instalment. This was much livelier and Elizabeth abandoned her wistfulness for a mien of sprightly pleasure, and, in turn, for a mien of scarcely concealed impatience. It seemed odd that two people should be so selfishly absorbed in that frightful noise as to think that she had come in to hear them practise. True, she had urged them to give her a treat, but who could have supposed that such a gargantuan feast was prepared for her? Bang! Bang! Bang! It was over and she got up.

  “Lovely!” she said. “Bach was always a favourite composer of mine. Merci! And such luck to have found you here, dear Lucia. What do you think I came to see Mr. Georgie about? Guess! I won’t tease you. These coming elections to the Town Council. Benjy-boy and I both feel very strongly — I believe he mentioned it to you last night — that something must be done to check the monstrous extravagance that’s going on. Tout le monde is crippled by it: we shall all be bankrupt if it continues. We feel it our duty to fight it.”

  Georgie was stroking his beard: this had already become a habit with him in anxious moments. There must be a disclosure now, and Lucia must make it. It was no use being chivalrous and doing so himself: it was her business. So he occupied himself with putting on the rings he had taken off for fate knocking at the door and stroked his beard again.

  “Yes, Major Benjy told me something of his plans last night,” said Lucia, “and I take quite the opposite line. Those slums, for instance, ought to be swept away altogether, and new houses built tutto presto.”

  “But such a vandalism, dear,” said Elizabeth. “So picturesque and, I expect, so cosy. As to our plans, there’s been a little change in them. Benjy urged me so strongly that I yielded, and I’m standing instead of him. So I’m getting to work toute suite, and I looked in to get promise of your support, monsieur, and then you and I must convert dear Lucia.”

  The time had come.

  “Dear Elizabeth,” said Lucia very decisively, “you must give up all idea of that. I am standing for election myself on precisely the opposite policy. Cost what it may we must have no more slums and no more unemployment in our beloved Tilling. A Christian duty. Georgie agrees.”

  “Well, in a sort of way—” began Georgie.

  “Georgie, tuo buon’ cuore agrees,” said Lucia, fixing him with the compulsion of her gimlet eye. “You’re enthusiastic about it really.”

  Elizabeth ignored Lucia, and turned to him.

  “Monsieur Georgie, it will be the ruin of us all,” she said, “the Town Council is behaving as I said à mon mari just now, as if Tilling was Eldorado and the Rand.”

  “Georgie, you and I go to-morrow to see those cosy picturesque hovels of which dear Elizabeth spoke,” said Lucia, “and you will feel more keenly than you do even now that they must be condemned. You won’t be able to sleep a wink at night if you feel you’re condoning their continuance. Whole families sleeping in one room. Filth, squalor, immorality, insanitation—”

  In their growing enthusiasm both ladies dropped foreign tongues.

  “Look in any time, Mr. Georgie,” interrupted Elizabeth, “and let me show you the figures of how the authorities are spending your money and mine. And that new road which nobody wants has already cost—”

  “The unemployment here, Georgie,” said Lucia, “would make angels weep. Strong young men willing and eager to get work, and despairing of finding it, while you and dear Elizabeth and I are living in ease and luxury in our beautiful houses.”

  Georgie was standing between these two impassioned ladies, with his head turning rapidly this way and that, as if he was watching lawn tennis. At the same time he felt as if he was the ball that was being slogged to and fro between these powerful players, and he was mentally bruised and battered by their alternate intensity. Luckily, this last violent drive of Lucia’s diverted Elizabeth’s attack to her.

  “Dear Lucia,” she said. “You, of course, as a comparatively new resident in Tilling can’t know very much about municipal expenditure, but I should be only too glad to show you how rates and taxes have been mounting up in the last ten years, owing to the criminal extravagance of the authorities. It would indeed be a pleasure.”

  “I’m delighted to hear they’ve been mounting,” said Lucia. “I want them to soar. It’s a matter of conscience to me that they should.”

  “Naughty and reckless of you,” said Elizabeth, trembling a little. “You’ve no idea how hardly it presses on some of us.”

  “We must shoulder the burden,” said Lucia. “We must make up our minds to economise.”

  Elizabeth with that genial air which betokened undiluted acidity, turned to Georgie, and abandoned principles for personalities, which had become irresistible.

  “Quite a coincidence, isn’t it, Mr. Georgie,” she said, “that the moment Lucia heard that my Benjy-boy was to stand for the Town Council, she determined to stand herself.”

  Lucia emitted the silvery laugh which betokened the most exasperating and child-like amusement.

  “Dear Elizabeth!” she said. “How can you be so silly?”

  “Did you say ‘silly’ dear?” asked Elizabeth, white to the lips.

  Georgie intervened.

  “O, dear me!” he said. “Let’s all have tea. So much more comfortable than talking about rates. I know there are muffins.”

  They had both ceased to regard him now: instead of being driven from one to the other, he lay like a ball out of court, while the two advanced to the net with brandished rackets.

  “Yes, dear, I said ‘silly,’ because you are silly,” said Lucia, as if she was patiently explaining something to a stupid child. “You certainly implied that my object in standing was to oppose Major Benjy qua Major Benjy. What made me determined to stand myself, was that he advocated municipal economy. It horrified me. He woke up my conscience, and I am most grateful to him. Most. And I shall tell him so on the first opportunity. Let me add that I regard you both with the utmost cordiality and friendliness. Should you be elected, which I hope and trust you won’t, I shall be the first to congratulate you.”

  Elizabeth put a finger to her forehead.

  “Too difficult for me, I’m afraid,” she said. “Such niceties are quite beyond my simple comprehension . . . No tea for me, thanks, Mr. Georgie, even with muffins. I must be getting on with my canvassing. And thank you for your lovely music. So refreshing. Don’t bother to see me out, but do look in some time and let me show you my tables of figures.”

  She gave a hyena-smile to Lucia, and they saw her hurry past the window, having quite forgotten to put up her umbrella, as if she welcomed the cooling rain. Lucia instantly and without direct comment sat down at the piano again.

  “Georgino, a little piece of celestial Mozartino, don’t you think, before tea?” she said. “That will put us in tune again after those discords. Poor woman!”

  The campaign began in earnest next day, and at once speculative investments, Lucia’s birthday party and George’s beard were, as topics of interest, as dead as Queen Anne. The elections were coming on very soon, and intensive indeed were the activities of the two female candidates. Lucia hardly set foot in her office, letting Transport “C” pursue its upward path unregarded, and Benjy, after brief, disgusted glances at the Financial Post, which gave sad news of Siriami, took over his wife’s household duties and went shopping in the morning instead of her, with her market-basket on his arm. Both ladies made some small errors: Lucia, for instance, exercised all her powers of charm on Twistevant the greengrocer, and ord
ered unheard of quantities of forced mushrooms, only to find, when she introduced the subject of her crusade and spoke of those stinking (no less) pigsties where human beings were forced to dwell, that he was the owner of several of them and much resented her disparagement of his house property. “They’re very nice little houses indeed, ma’am,” he said, “and I should be happy to live there myself. I will send the mushrooms round at once. . . .” Again, Elizabeth, seeing Susan’s motor stopping the traffic (which usually made her see red), loaded her with compliments on her sable cloak (which had long been an object of derision to Tilling) and made an appointment to come and have a cosy talk at six that afternoon, carelessly oblivious of the fact that, a yard away, Georgie was looking into the barber’s window. Hearing the appointment made, he very properly told Lucia, who therefore went to see Susan at exactly the hour named. The two candidates sat and talked to her, though not to each other, about everything else under the sun for an hour and a half, each of them being determined not to leave the other in possession of the field. At half-past seven Mr. Wyse joined them to remind Susan that she must go and dress, and the candidates left together without having said a single word about the election. As soon as they had got outside Elizabeth shot away up the hill, rocking like a ship over the uneven cobbles of the street. That seemed very like a “cut,” and when Lucia next day, in order to ascertain that for certain, met the mistress of Mallards in the High Street and wished her good morning, Elizabeth might have been a deaf mute. They were both on their way to canvass Diva, and crossed the road neck to neck, but Lucia by a dexterous swerve established herself on Diva’s doorstep and rang the bell. Diva was just going out with her market-basket, and opened the door herself.

  “Diva mia,” said Lucia effusively, “I just popped in to ask you to dine to-morrow: I’ll send the car for you. And have you two minutes to spare now?”

  “I’ll look in presently, sweet Diva,” called Elizabeth shrilly over Lucia’s shoulder. “Just going to see the Padre.”

  Lucia hurried in and shut the door.

  “May I telephone to the Padre?” she asked. “I want to get him, too, for to-morrow night. Thanks. I’ll give you a penny in a moment.”

  “Delighted to dine with you,” said Diva, “but I warn you—”

  “Tilling 23, please,” said Lucia. “Yes, Diva?”

  “I warn you I’m not going to vote for you. Can’t afford to pay higher rates. Monstrous already.”

  “Diva, if you only saw the state of those houses — Oh, is that the Padre? I hope you and Evie will dine with me to-morrow. Capital. I’ll send the car for you. And may I pop in for a minute presently? . . . Oh, she’s with you now, is she. Would you ring me up at Diva’s then, the moment she goes?”

  “It’s a squeeze to make ends meet as it is,” said Diva. “Very sorry for unemployed, and all that, but the new road is sheer extravagance. Money taken out of my pocket. I shall vote for Elizabeth. Tell you frankly.”

  “But didn’t you make a fortune over my tip about Siriamis?” asked Lucia.

  “That would be over-stating it. It’s no use your canvassing me. Talk about something else. Have you noticed any change, any real change, in Elizabeth lately?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Lucia thoughtfully. “She was very much herself the last time I had any talk with her at Georgie’s a few days ago. She seemed to take it as a personal insult that anyone but herself should stand for the Town Council, which is just what one would expect. Perhaps a shade more acid than usual, but nothing to speak of.”

  “Oh, I don’t mean that,” said Diva, “No change there: I told you about the rabbit, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, so characteristic,” said Lucia. “One hoped, of course, that matrimony might improve her, mellow her, make a true woman of her, but eagerly as I’ve looked out for any signs of it, I can’t say—”

  Lucia broke off, for a prodigious idea as to what might be in Diva’s mind had flashed upon her.

  “Tell me what you mean,” she said, boring with her eye into the very centre of Diva’s secret soul, “Not — not that?”

  Diva nodded her head eight times with increasing emphasis.

  “Yes, that,” she said.

  “But it can’t be true!” cried Lucia. “Quite impossible. Tell me precisely why you think so?”

  “I don’t see why it shouldn’t be true,” said Diva, “for I think she’s not more than forty-three, though of course it’s more likely that she’s only trying to persuade herself of it. She was in here the other day. Twilight. She asked me what twilight sleep was. Then hurriedly changed the subject and talked about the price of soap. Went back to subject again. Said there were such pretty dolls in the toy shop. Had a mind to buy one. It’s odd her talking like that. May be something in it. I shall keep an open mind about it.”

  The two ladies had sat down on the window-seat, where the muslin curtains concealed them from without, but did not obstruct from them a very fair view of the High Street. Their thrilling conversation was now suddenly broken by the loud ringing, as of a dinner-bell, not far away to the right.

  “That’s not the muffin-man,” said Diva. “Much too sonorous and the town-crier has influenza, so it’s neither of them. I think there are two bells, aren’t there? We shall soon see.”

  The bells sounded louder and louder, evidently there were two of them, and a cortège (no less) came into view. Quaint Irene led it. She was dressed in her usual scarlet pullover and trousers, but on her head she wore a large tin helmet, like Britannia on a penny, and she rang her dinner-bell all the time, turning round and round as she walked. Behind her came four ragged girls eating buns and carrying a huge canvas banner painted with an impressionist portrait of Lucia, and a legend in gold letters “Vote for Mrs. Lucas, the Friend of the Poor.” Behind them walked Lucy, Irene’s six-foot maid, ringing a second dinner-bell and chanting in a baritone voice, “Bring out your dead.” She was followed by four ragged boys, also eating buns, who carried another banner painted with a hideous rendering of Elizabeth and a legend in black, “Down with Mrs. Mapp-Flint, the Foe of the Poor.” The whole procession was evidently enjoying itself prodigiously.

  “Dear me, it’s too kind of Irene,” said Lucia in some agitation, “but is it quite discreet? What will people think? I must ask her to stop it.”

  She hurried out into the street. The revolving Irene saw her, and, halting her procession, ran to her.

  “Darling, you’ve come in the nick of time,” she said. “Isn’t it noble? Worth hundreds of votes to you. We’re going to march up and down through all the streets for an hour, and then burn the Mapp-Flint banner in front of Mallards. Three cheers for Mrs. Lucas, the Friend of the Poor!”

  Three shrill cheers were given with splutterings of pieces of bun and frenzied ringing of dinner-bells before Lucia could get a word in. It would have been ungracious not to acknowledge this very gratifying enthusiasm, and she stood smiling and bowing on the pavement.

  “Irene, dear, most cordial and sweet of you,” she began when the cheers were done, “and what a charming picture of me, but—”

  “And three groans for the Foe of the Poor,” shouted Irene.

  Precisely at that tumultuous moment Major Benjy came down one side-street from Mallards on his marketing errands, and Elizabeth down the next on her way from her canvassing errand to the Padre. She heard the cheers, she heard the groans, she saw the banners and the monstrous cartoon of herself, and beckoned violently to her Benjy-boy, who broke into a trot.

  “The enemy in force,” shrieked Irene. “Run, children.”

  The procession fled down the High Street with bells ringing and banners wobbling frightfully. Major Benjy restrained an almost overwhelming impulse to hurl his market-basket at Lucy, and he and Elizabeth started in pursuit. But there was a want of dignity about such a race and no hope whatever of catching the children. Already out of breath, they halted, the procession disappeared round the far end of the street, and the clamour of dinner-bells died away.<
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  Shoppers and shop-keepers, post-office clerks, errand boys, cooks and housemaids and private citizens had all come running out into the street at the sound of the cheers and groans and dinner-bells, windows had been thrown open, and heads leaned out of them, goggle-eyed and open-mouthed. Everyone cackled and chattered: it was like the second act of The Meistersinger. By degrees the excitement died down, and the pulse of ordinary life, momentarily suspended, began to beat again. Cooks went back to their kitchens, housemaids to their brooms, shop-keepers to their customers, and goggle-faces were withdrawn and windows closed. Major Benjy, unable to face shopping just now, went to play golf instead, and there were left standing on opposite pavements of the High Street the Friend of the Poor and the Foe of the Poor, both of whom could face anything, even each other.

  Lucia did not know what in the world to do. She was innocent of all complicity in Irene’s frightful demonstration in her favour, except that mere good manners had caused her weakly to smile and bow when she was cheered by four small girls, but nothing was more certain than that Elizabeth would believe that she had got up the whole thing. But, intrepid to the marrow of her bones, she walked across the street to where a similar intrepidity was standing. Elizabeth fixed her with a steely glance, and then looked carefully at a point some six inches above her head.

  “I just popped across to assure you,” said Lucia, “that I knew nothing about what we have just seen until — well, until, I saw it.”

  Elizabeth cocked her head on one side, but remained looking at the fixed point.

  “I think I understand,” she said, “you didn’t see that pretty show until you saw it. Quite! I take your word for it.”

  “And I saw it first when it came into the High Street,” said Lucia. “And I much regret it.”

  “I don’t regret it in the least,” said Elizabeth with shrill animation. “People, whoever they are, who demean themselves either to plan or to execute such gross outrages only hurt themselves. I may be sorry for them, but otherwise they are nothing to me. I do not know of their existence. Ils n’existent pas pour moi.”