Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  “Nor for me either,” said Lucia, following the general sentiment rather than the precise application, “Sono niente.”

  Then both ladies turned their backs on each other, as by some perfectly executed movement in a ballet, and walked away in opposite directions. It was really the only thing to do.

  Two days still remained before the poll, and these two remarkable candidates redoubled (if possible) their activities. Major Benjy got no golf at all, for he accompanied his wife everywhere, and Georgie formed a corresponding bodyguard for Lucia: in fact the feuds of the Montagus and Capulets were but a faint historical foreshadowing of this municipal contest. The parties, even when they met on narrow pavements in mean streets, were totally blind to each other, and, pending the result, social life in Tilling was at a standstill. As dusk fell on the eve of the poll, Lucia and Georgie, footsore with so much tramping on uneven cobblestones, dragged themselves up the hill to Mallards Cottage for a final checking of their visits and a reviving cup of tea. They passed below the windows of the garden-room, obscured by the gathering darkness, and there, quite distinctly against the light within, were the silhouettes of the enemy, and Elizabeth was drinking out of a wineglass. The silhouette of Benjy with a half-bottle of champagne in his hand showed what the refreshment was.

  “Poor Elizabeth, taken to drink,” said Lucia, in tones of the deepest pity. “I always feared for Benjy’s influence on her. Tired as I am, Georgie — and I can’t remember ever being really tired before — have you ever known me tired?”

  “Never!” said Georgie in a broken voice.

  “Well, tired as I am, nothing would induce me to touch any sort of stimulant. Ah, how nice it will be to sit down.”

  Foljambe had tea ready for them and Lucia lay down full length on Georgie’s sofa.

  “Very strong, please, Georgie,” she said. “Stir the teapot up well. No milk.”

  The rasping beverage rapidly revived Lucia; she drank two cups, the first out of her saucer, then she took her feet off the sofa, and the familiar gabbling timbre came back to her voice.

  “Completely restored, Georgie, and we’ve got to think what will happen next,” she said. “Elizabeth and I can’t go on being totally invisible to each other. And what more can I do? I definitely told her that I had nothing to do with dear, loyal Irene’s exhibition, and she almost as definitely told me that she didn’t believe me. About the election itself I feel very confident, but if I get in at the top of the poll, and she is quite at the bottom, which I think more than likely, she’ll be worse than ever. The only thing that could placate her would be if she was elected and I wasn’t. But there’s not the slightest chance of that happening as far as I can see. I have a flair, as Elizabeth would say, about such things. All day I have felt a growing conviction that there is a very large body of public opinion behind me. I can feel the pulse of the place.”

  Sheer weariness had made Georgie rather cross.

  “I daresay Elizabeth feels precisely the same,” he said, “especially after her booze. As for future plans, for goodness sake let us wait till we see what the result is.”

  Lucia finished her tea.

  “How right you are, Georgino,” she said. “Let us dismiss it all. What about un po’ di musica?”

  “Yes, do play me something,” said Georgie. “But as to a duet, I can’t. Impossible.”

  “Povero!” said Lucia. “Is ‘oo fatigato? Then ‘oo shall rest. I’ll be going back home, for I want two hours in my office. I’ve done hardly anything all this week. Buon riposo.”

  The result of the poll was declared two mornings later with due pomp and circumstance. The votes had been counted in the committee room of the King’s Arms Hotel in the High Street, and thither at noon came the Mayor and Corporation in procession from the Town Hall clad in their civic robes and preceded by the mace-bearers. The announcement was to be made from the first floor balcony overlooking the High Street. Traffic was suspended for the ceremony and the roadway was solid with folk, for Tilling’s interest in the election, usually of the tepidest, had been vastly stimulated by the mortal rivalry between the two lady candidates and by Irene’s riotous proceedings. Lucia and Georgie had seats in Diva’s drawing-room window, for that would be a conspicuous place from which to bow to the crowd: Elizabeth and Benjy were wedged against the wall below, and that seemed a good omen. The morning was glorious, and in the blaze of the winter sun the scarlet gowns of Councillors, and the great silver maces dazzled the eye as the procession went into the hotel.

  “Really a very splendid piece of pageantry,” said Lucia, the palms of whose hands, despite her strong conviction of success, were slightly moist. “Wonderful effect of colour, marvellous maces; what a pity, Georgie, you did not bring your paint-box. I have always said that there is no more honourable and dignified office in the kingdom than that of the Mayor of a borough. The word ‘mayor,’ I believe, is the same as Major — poor Major Benjy.”

  “There’s the list of the Mayors of Tilling from the fifteenth century onwards painted up in the Town Hall,” said Georgie.

  “Really! A dynasty indeed!” said Lucia. Her fingers had begun to tremble as if she was doing rapid shakes and trills on the piano. “Look, there’s Irene on the pavement opposite, smoking a pipe. I find that a false note. I hope she won’t make any fearful demonstration when the names are read out, but I see she has got her dinner-bell. Has a woman ever been Mayor of Tilling, Diva?”

  “Never,” said Diva. “Not likely either. Here they come.”

  The mace-bearers emerged on to the balcony, and the mayor stepped out between them and advanced to the railing. In his hand he held a drawing-board with a paper pinned to it.

  “That must be the list,” said Lucia in a cracked voice.

  The town-crier (not Irene) rang his bell.

  “Citizens of Tilling,” he proclaimed. “Silence for the Right Worshipful the Mayor.”

  The Mayor bowed. There were two vacancies to be filled, he said, on the Town Council, and there were seven candidates. He read the list with the number of votes each candidate had polled. The first two had polled nearly three hundred votes each. The next three, all close together, had polled between a hundred and fifty and two hundred votes.

  “Number six,” said the Mayor, “Mrs. Emmeline Lucas. Thirty-nine votes. Equal with her, Mrs. Elizabeth Mapp-Flint, also thirty-nine votes. God save the King.”

  He bowed to the assembled crowd and, followed by the mace-bearers, disappeared within. Presently the procession emerged again, and returned to the Town Hall.

  “A most interesting ceremony, Diva. Quite mediæval,” said Lucia. “I am very glad to have seen it. We got a wonderful view of it.”

  The crowd had broken up when she and Georgie came out into the street.

  “That noble story of Disraeli’s first speech in the House of Commons,” she began —

  CHAPTER V.

  The cause that chiefly conduced to the reconciliation of these two ultimate candidates was not Christian Charity so much as the fact that their unhappy estrangement wrecked the social gaieties of Tilling, for Georgie and Lucia would not meet Mallards and Mallards would not meet Irene as long as it continued, and those pleasant tea-parties for eight with sessions of Bridge before and after, could not take place. Again, both the protagonists found it wearing to the optic nerve to do their morning’s shopping with one eye scouting for the approach of the enemy, upon which both eyes were suddenly smitten with blindness. On the other hand the Padre’s sermon the next Sunday morning, though composed with the best intentions, perhaps retarded a reconciliation, for he preached on the text, “Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity,” and his allusions to the sad dissensions which arose from the clash of ambitions, highly honourable in themselves, were unmistakable. Both protagonists considered his discourse to be in the worst possible taste, and Elizabeth entirely refused to recognise either him or Evie when next they met, which was another wedge driven into Tilling.
But inconvenience, dropping like perpetual water on a stone, eventually wore down dignity, and when, some ten days after the election, the market-baskets of Lucia and Elizabeth came into violent collision at the door of the fishmonger’s, Lucia was suddenly and miraculously healed of her intermittent blindness. “So sorry, dear,” she said, “quite my fault,” and Elizabeth, remembering with an effort that Lent was an appropriate season for self-humiliation, said it was quite hers. They chatted for several minutes, rather carefully, with eager little smiles, and Diva who had observed this interesting scene, raced up and down the street, to tell everybody that an armistice at least had been signed. So Bridge parties for eight were resumed with more than their usual frequency, to make up for lost time, and though Lucia had forsworn all such petty occupations, her ingenuity soon found a formula, which justified her in going to them much as usual.

  “Yes, Georgie, I will come with pleasure this afternoon,” she said, “for the most industrious must have their remissions. How wonderfully Horace puts it: ‘Non semper arcum tendit Apollo.’ I would give anything to have known Horace. Terse and witty and wise. Half-past three then. Now I must hurry home, for my broker will want to know what I think about a purchase of Imperial Tobacco.”

  That, of course, was her way of putting it, but put it as you liked, the fact remained that she had been making pots of money. An Industrial boom was on, and by blindly following Mammoncash’s advice, Lucia was doing exceedingly well. She was almost frightened at the speed with which she had been growing richer, but remembered the splendid career of great Dame Catherine Winterglass, whose picture, cut out of an illustrated magazine, now stood framed on the table in her office. Dame Catherine had made a fortune by her own skill in forecasting the trend of the markets; that was not due to luck but to ability, and to be afraid of her own ability was quite foreign to Lucia’s nature.

  The financial group at Mallards, Mapp & Flint, was not displaying the same acumen, and one day it suffered a frightful shock. There had been a pleasant Bridge-party at Diva’s, and Elizabeth shewed how completely she had forgiven Lucia, by asking her counsel about Siriami. The price of the shares had been going down lately, like an aneroid before a typhoon, and, as it dwindled, Elizabeth had continued to buy. What did Lucia think of this policy of averaging?

  Lucia supported her forehead on her hand in the attitude of Shakespeare and Dame Catherine.

  “Dear me, it is so long since I dealt in Siriami,” she said. “A West African gold mine, I seem to recollect? The price of gold made me buy, I am sure. I remember reasoning it out and concluding that gold would go up. There were favourable reports from the mine too. And why did I sell? How you all work my poor brain! Ah! Eureka! I thought I should have to tie up my capital for a long time: my broker agreed with me, though I should say most decidedly that it is a promising lock-up. Siriami is still in the early stage of development, you see, and no dividend can be expected for a couple of years—”

  “Hey, what’s that?” asked Benjy.

  “More than two years, do you think?” asked Lucia. “I am rusty about it. Anyone who holds on, no doubt, will reap a golden reward in time.”

  “But I shan’t get any dividends for two years?” asked Elizabeth in a hollow voice.

  “Ah, pray don’t trust my judgment,” said Lucia. “All I can say for certain, is that I made some few pounds in the mine, and decided it was too long a lock-up of my little capital.”

  Elizabeth felt slightly unwell. Benjy had acquired a whisky and soda and she took a sip of it without it even occurring to her that he had no business to have it.

  “Well, we must be off,” she said, for though the reconciliation was so recent, she felt it might be endangered if she listened to any more of this swank. “Thanks, dear, for your views. All that four shillings mine? Fancy!”

  It was raining hard when they left Diva’s house, and they walked up the narrow pavement to Mallards in single file, with a loud and dismal tattoo drumming on their umbrellas, and streams of water pouring from the ends of the ribs. Arrived there, Elizabeth led the way out to the garden-room and put her dripping umbrella in the fender. It had been wet all afternoon and before going to Diva’s, Benjy had smoked two cigars there.

  “Of course, this is your room, dear,” said Elizabeth, “and if you prefer it to smell like a pothouse, it shall. But would you mind having the window open a chink for a moment, for unless you do, I shall be suffocated.”

  She fanned herself with her handkerchief, and took two or three long breaths of the brisker air.

  “Thank you. Refreshed,” she said. “And now we must talk Siriami. I think Lucia might have told us about its not paying dividends before, but don’t let us blame her much. It merely isn’t the way of some people to consider others—”

  “She told you she was selling all the Siriami shares she held,” said Benjy.

  “If you’ve finished championing her, Benjy, perhaps you’ll allow me to go on. I’ve put two thousand pounds into that hole in the ground, for, as far as I can see, it’s little more than that. And that means that for the next two years my income will be diminished by seventy pounds.”

  “God bless me,” ejaculated Benjy. “I had no idea you had invested so heavily in it.”

  “I believe a woman, even though married, is allowed to do what she likes with her money,” said Elizabeth bitterly.

  “I never said she wasn’t. I only said that I didn’t know it,” said Benjy.

  “That was why I told you. And the long and short of it is that we had better let this house as soon as we can for as long as we can, because we can’t afford to live here.”

  “But supposing Mrs. Lucas is wrong about it? I’ve known her wrong before now—”

  “So have I,” interrupted Elizabeth, “usually, in fact: but we must be prepared for her being right for once. As it is, I’ve got to let Mallards for three or four months in the year in order to live in it at all. I shall go to Woolgar & Pipstow’s to-morrow and put it in their hands, furnished (all our beautiful things!) for six months. Perhaps with option of a year.”

  “And where shall we go?” asked Benjy.

  Elizabeth rose.

  “Wherever we can. One of those little houses, do you think, which Lucia wanted to pull down. And then, perhaps, as I told you, there’ll be another little mouth to feed, dear.”

  “I wish you would go to Dr. Dobbie and make sure,” he said.

  “And what would Dr. Dobbie tell me? ‘Have a good rest before dinner.’ Just what I’m going to do.”

  With the re-establishment of cordial relations between the two leading ladies of Tilling, the tide of news in the mornings flowed on an unimpeded course, instead of being held up in the eddies of people who would speak to each other, and being blocked by those who wouldn’t, and though as yet there was nothing definite on the subject to which Elizabeth and Benjy had thus briefly alluded, there were hints, there were signs and indications that bore on it, of the very highest significance. The first remarkable occurrence was that Major Benjy instead of going to play golf next morning, according to his invariable custom, came shopping with Elizabeth, as he had done when she was busy canvassing and carried his wife’s basket. There was a solicitous, a tender air about the way he gave her an arm as she mounted the two high steps into Twistevant’s shop. Diva was the first to notice this strange phenomenon, and naturally she stood rooted to the spot in amazement, intent on further observation. When they came out there was not the shadow of doubt in her mind that Elizabeth had let out the old green skirt that everyone knew so well. It fell in much ampler folds than ever before, and Diva vividly recollected that strange talk about dolls and twilight sleep: how pregnant it seemed now, in every sense of the word! The two popped into another shop, and at the moment the Padre and Evie debouched into the High Street, a few yards away, and he went into the tobacconist’s, leaving Evie outside. Diva uprooted herself with difficulty, hurried to her, and the two ladies had a few whispered remarks together. Then the Mapp-Flin
ts came out again, and retraced their way, followed by four eager detective eyes.

  “But no question whatever about the skirt,” whispered Evie, “and she has taken Major Benjy’s arm again. So unusual. What an event if it’s really going to happen! Never such a thing before in our circle. She’ll be quite a heroine. There’s Mr. Georgie. What a pity we can’t tell him about it. What beautiful clothes!”

  Georgie had on his fur-trimmed cape and a new bright blue beret which he wore a little sideways on his head. He was coming towards them with more than his usual briskness, and held his mouth slightly open as if to speak the moment he got near enough.

  “Fiddlesticks, Evie,” said Diva. “You don’t expect that Mr. Georgie, at his age, thinks they’re found under gooseberry bushes. Good morning, Mr. Georgie. Have you seen Elizabeth—”

  “Skirt,” he interrupted. “Yes, of course. Three inches I should think.”

  Evie gave a little horrified squeal at this modern lack of reticence in talking to a gentleman who wasn’t your husband, on matters of such extreme delicacy, and took refuge in the tobacconist’s.

  “And Major Benjy carrying her basket for her,” said Diva. “So it must be true, unless she’s deceiving him.”

  “Look, they’ve turned down Malleson Street,” cried Georgie. “That’s where Dr. Dobbie lives.”

  “So do Woolgar & Pipstow,” said Diva.

  “But they wouldn’t be thinking of letting Mallards as early as March,” objected Georgie.

  “Well, it’s not likely. Must be the doctor’s. I’m beginning to believe it. At first when she talked to me about dolls and twilight sleep, I thought she was only trying to make herself interesting, instead of being so—”