Works of E F Benson

by E. F. Benson

  Marketing was over before they got up to the High Street, but Diva made a violent tattoo on her window, and threw it open.

  “All a wash-out about Dr. Dobbie,” she called out.

  “The cook scalded her hand, that’s all. Saw her just now. Lint and oiled silk.”

  “Oh, poor thing!” said Lucia. “What did I tell you, Georgie?”

  Lucia posted her philanthropic proposal to Elizabeth that very day. In consequence there was a most agitated breakfast duet at Mallards next morning.

  “So like her,” cried Elizabeth, when she had read the letter to Benjy with scornful interpolations. “So very like her. But I know her well enough now to see her meannesses. She has always wanted my house and is taking a low advantage of my misfortunes to try to get it. But she shan’t have it. Never! I would sooner burn it down with my own hands.”

  Elizabeth crumpled up the letter and threw it into the grate. She crashed her way into a piece of toast and resumed.

  “She’s an encroacher,” she said, “and quite unscrupulous. I am more than ever convinced that she put the idea of these libellous dinner-bells into Irene’s head.”

  Benjy was morose this morning.

  “Don’t see the connection at all,” he said.

  Elizabeth couldn’t bother to explain anything so obvious and went on.

  “I forgave her that for the sake of peace and quietness, and because I’m a Christian, but this is too much. Grebe indeed! Grab would be the best name for any house she lives in. A wretched villa liable to be swept away by floods, and you and me carried out to sea again on a kitchen table. My answer is no, pass the butter.”

  “I shouldn’t be too much in a hurry,” said Benjy. “It’s two thousand pounds as well. Even if you got a year’s let for Mallards, you’d have to spend a pretty penny in doing it up. Any tenant would insist on that.”

  “The house is in perfect repair in every respect,” said Elizabeth.

  “That might not be a tenant’s view. And you might not get a tenant at all.”

  “And the wicked insincerity of her letter,” continued Elizabeth. “Saying she’s sorry I have to turn out of it. Sorry! It’s what she’s been lying in wait for. I have a good mind not to answer her at all.”

  “And I don’t see the point of that,” said Benjy. “If you are determined not to take her offer, why not tell her so at once?”

  “You’re not very bright this morning, love,” said Elizabeth, who had begun to think.

  This spirited denunciation of Lucia’s schemings was in fact only a conventional prelude to reflection. Elizabeth went to see her cook; in revenge for Benjy’s want of indignation, she ordered him a filthy dinner, and finding that he had left the dining-room, fished Lucia’s unscrupulous letter out of the grate, slightly scorched, but happily legible, and read it through again. Then, though she had given him the garden-room for his private sitting-room, she entered, quite forgetting to knock and ask if she might come in, and established herself in her usual seat in the window, where she could observe the movements of society, in order to tune herself back to normal pitch. A lot was happening: Susan’s great car got helplessly stuck, as it came out of Porpoise Street, for a furniture van was trying to enter the same street, and couldn’t back because there was another car behind it. The longed-for moment therefore had probably arrived, when Susan would have to go marketing on foot. Georgie went by in his Vandyck cape and a new suit (or perhaps dyed), but what was quaint Irene doing? She appeared to be sitting in the air in front of her house on a level with the first storey windows. Field-glasses had to be brought to bear on this: they revealed that she was suspended in a hammock slung from her bedroom window and (clad in pyjamas) was painting the sill in squares of black and crimson. Susan got out of her car and waddled towards the High Street. Georgie stopped and talked to Irene who dropped a paintbrush loaded with crimson on that blue beret of his. All quite satisfactory.

  Benjy went to his golf: he had not actually required much driving this morning, and Elizabeth was alone. She had lately started crocheting a little white woollen cap, and tried it on. It curved downwards too sharply, as if designed for a much smaller head than hers, and she pulled a few rows out, and began it again in a flatter arc. A fresh train of musing was set up, and she thought, with strong distaste, of the day when Tilling would begin to wonder whether anything was going to happen, and, subsequently, to know that it wasn’t. After all, she had never made any directly misleading statement: she had chosen (it was a free country) to talk about dolls and twilight sleep, and to let out her old green skirt, and Tilling had drawn its own conclusions. “That dreadful gossipy habit,” she said to herself, “if there isn’t any news they invent it. And I know that they’ll blame me for their disappointment. (Again she looked out of the window: Susan’s motor had extricated itself, and was on its way to the High Street, and that was a disappointment too.) I must try to think of something to divert their minds when that time comes.”

  Her stream of consciousness, eddying round in this depressing backwater, suddenly found an outlet into the main current, and she again read Lucia’s toasted letter. It was a very attractive offer; her mouth watered at the thought of two thousand pounds, and though she had expressed to Benjy in unmistakable terms her resolve to reject any proposal so impertinent and unscrupulous, or, perhaps, in a fervour of disdain, not to answer it at all, there was nothing to prevent her accepting it at once, if she chose. A woman in her condition was always apt to change her mind suddenly and violently. (No: that would not do, since she was not a woman in her condition.) And surely here was a very good opportunity of diverting Tilling’s attention. Lucia’s settling into Mallards and her own move to Grebe would be of the intensest interest to Tilling’s corporate mind, and that would be the time to abandon the role of coming motherhood. She would just give it up, just go shopping again with her usual briskness, just take in the green skirt and wear the enlarged woollen cap herself. She need make no explanations for she had said nothing that required them: Tilling, as usual, had done all the talking.

  She turned her mind to the terms of Lucia’s proposal. The blaze of fury so rightly kindled by the thought of Lucia possessing Mallards was spent, and the thought of that fat capital sum made a warm glow for her among the ashes. As Benjy had said, no tenant for six months or a year would take a house so sorely in need of renovation, and if Lucia was right in supposing that that wretched hole in the ground somewhere in West Africa would not be paying dividends for two years, a tenant for one year, even if she was lucky enough to find one, would only see her half through this impoverished period. No sensible woman could reject so open a way out of her difficulties.

  The mode of accepting this heaven-sent offer required thought. Best, perhaps, just formally to acknowledge the unscrupulous letter, and ask for a few days in which to make up her mind. A little hanging back, a hint conveyed obliquely, say through Diva, that two thousand pounds did not justly represent the difference in values between her lovely Queen Anne house and the villa precariously placed so near the river, a heartbroken wail at the thought of leaving the ancestral home might lead to an increased payment in cash, and that would be pleasant. So, having written her acknowledgment Elizabeth picked up her market-basket and set off for the High Street.

  Quaint Irene had finished her window-sill, and was surveying the effect of this brilliant decoration from the other side of the street. In view of the disclosure which must come soon, Elizabeth suddenly made up her mind to forgive her for the dinner-bell outrage for fear she might do something quainter yet: a cradle, for instance, with a doll inside it, left on the doorstep would be very unnerving, and was just the sort of thing Irene might think of. So she said:

  “Good morning, love: what a pretty window-sill. So bright.”

  Regardless of Elizabeth’s marriage Irene still always addressed her as “Mapp.”

  “Not bad, is it, Mapp,” she said. “What about my painting the whole of your garden-room in the same style? A hundr
ed pounds down, and I’ll begin to-day.”

  “That would be very cheap,” said Mapp enthusiastically. “But alas, I fear my days there are numbered.”

  “Oh, of course; Lucia’s offer. The most angelic thing I ever heard. I knew you’d jump at it.”

  “No, dear, not quite inclined to jump,” said Mapp rather injudiciously.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean literally,” said Irene. “That would be very rash of you. But isn’t it like her, so noble and generous? I cried when she told me.”

  “I shall cry when I have to leave my sweet Mallards,” observed Elizabeth. “If I accept her offer, that is.”

  “Then you’ll be a crashing old crocodile, Mapp,” said Irene. “You’ll really think yourself damned lucky to get out of that old ruin of yours on such terms. Do you like my pyjamas? I’ll give you a suit like them when the happy day—”

  “Must be getting on,” interrupted Elizabeth. “Such a lot to do.”

  Feeling slightly battered, but with the glow of two thousand pounds comforting her within, Elizabeth turned into the High Street. Diva, it seemed, had finished her shopping, and was seated on this warm morning at her open window reading the paper. Elizabeth approached quite close unobserved, and with an irresistible spasm of playfulness said “Bo!”

  Diva gave a violent start.

  “Oh, it’s you, is it?” she said.

  “No, dear, somebody quite different,” said Elizabeth skittishly. “And I’m in such a state of perplexity this morning. I don’t know what to do.”

  “Benjy eloped with Lucia?” asked Diva. Two could play at being playful.

  Elizabeth winced.

  “Diva, dear, jokes on certain subjects only hurt me,” she said. “Tiens! Je vous pardonne.”

  “What’s perplexing you then?” asked Diva. “Come in and talk if you want to, tiens. Can’t go bellowing bad French into the street.”

  Elizabeth came in, refused a low and comfortable chair and took a high one.

  “Such an agonizing decision to make,” she said, “and its coming just now is almost more than I can bear. I got un petit lettre from Lucia this morning offering to give me the freehold of Grebe and two thousand pounds in exchange for the freehold of Mallards.”

  “I knew she was going to make you some offer,” said Diva. “Marvellous for you. Where does the perplexity come in? Besides, you were going to let it for a year if you possibly could.”

  “Yes, but the thought of never coming back to it. Mon vieux, so devoted to his garden-room, where we were engaged. Turning out for ever. And think of the difference between my lovely Queen Anne house and that villa by the side of the road that leads nowhere. The danger of floods. The distance.”

  “But Lucia’s thought of that,” said Diva, “and puts the difference down at two thousand pounds. I should have thought one thousand was ample.”

  “There are things like atmosphere that can’t be represented in terms of money,” said Elizabeth with feeling. “All the old associations. Tante Caroline.”

  “Not having known your Tante Caroline I can’t say what her atmosphere’s worth,” said Diva.

  “A saint upon earth,” said Elizabeth warmly. “And Mallards used to be a second home to me long before it was mine.” (Which was a lie.) “Silly of me, perhaps, but the thought of parting with it is agony. Lucia is terribly anxious to get it, on m’a dit.”

  “She must be if she’s offered you such a price for it,” said Diva.

  “Diva, dear, we’ve always been such friends,” said Elizabeth, “and it’s seldom, n’est ce pas, that I’ve asked you for any favour. But I do now. Do you think you could let her know, quite casually, that I don’t believe I shall have the heart to leave Mallards? Just that: hardly an allusion to the two thousand pounds.”

  Diva considered this.

  “Well, I’ll ask a favour, too, Elizabeth,” she said, “and it is that you should determine to drop that silly habit of putting easy French phrases into your conversation. So confusing. Besides everyone sees you’re only copying Lucia. So ridiculous. All put on. If you will, I’ll do what you ask. Going to tea with her this afternoon.”

  “Thank you, sweet. A bargain then, and I’ll try to break myself: I’m sure I don’t want to confuse anybody. Now I must get to my shopping. Kind Susan is taking me for a drive this afternoon, and then a quiet evening with my Benjy-boy.”

  “Tres agréable,” said Diva ruthlessly. “Can’t you hear how silly it sounds? Been on my mind a long time to tell you that.”

  Lucia was in her office when Diva arrived for tea, and so could not possibly be disturbed. As she was actually having a sound nap, her guests, Georgie and Diva, had to wait until she happened to awake, and then, observing the time, she came out in a great hurry with a pen behind her ear. Diva executed her commission with much tact and casualness, but Lucia seemed to bore into the middle of her head with that penetrating eye. Having pierced her, she then looked dreamily out of the window.

  “Dear me, what is that slang word one hears so much in the City?” she said. “Ah, yes. Bluff. Should you happen to see dear Elizabeth, Diva, would you tell her that I just mentioned to you that my offer does not remain open indefinitely? I shall expect to hear from her in the course of to-morrow. If I hear nothing by then I shall withdraw it.”

  “That’s the stuff to give her,” said Georgie appreciatively. “You’ll hear fast enough when she knows that.”

  But the hours of next day went by, and no communication came from Mallards. The morning post brought a letter from Mammoncash, which required a swift decision, but Lucia felt a sad lack of concentration, and was unable to make up her mind, while this other business remained undetermined. When the afternoon faded into dusk and still there was no answer, she became very anxious, and when, on the top of that, the afternoon post brought nothing her anxiety turned into sheer distraction. She rang up the house agents to ask whether Mrs. Mapp-Flint had received any application for the lease of Mallards for six months or a year, but Messrs. Woolgar and Pipstow, with much regret, refused to disclose the affairs of their client. She rang up Georgie to see if he knew anything, and received the ominous reply that as he was returning home just now, he saw a man, whom he did not recognise, being admitted into Mallards: Lucia in this tension felt convinced that it was somebody come to look over the house. She rang up Diva who had duly and casually delivered the message to Elizabeth at the marketing hour. It was an awful afternoon, and Lucia felt that all the money she had made was dross if she could not get this coveted freehold. Finally after tea (at which she could not eat a morsel) she wrote to Elizabeth turning the pounds into guineas, and gave the note to Cadman to deliver by hand and wait for an answer.

  Meantime, ever since lunch, Elizabeth had been sitting at the window of the garden-room, getting on with the conversion of the white crocheted cap into adult size, and casting frequent glances down the street for the arrival of a note from Grebe, to say that Lucia (terrified at the thought that she would not have the heart to quit Mallards) was willing to pay an extra five hundred pounds or so as a stimulant to that failing organ. But no letter came and Elizabeth in turn began to be terrified that the offer would be withdrawn. No sooner had Benjy swallowed a small (not the large) cup of tea on his return from his golf, than she sent him off to Grebe, with a note accepting Lucia’s first offer, and bade him bring back the answer.

  It was dark by now, and Cadman passing through the Landgate into the town met Major Benjy walking very fast in the direction of Grebe. The notes they both carried must therefore have been delivered practically simultaneously, and Elizabeth, in writing, had consented to accept two thousand pounds, and Lucia, in writing, to call them guineas.

  CHAPTER VI.

  This frightful discrepancy in the premium was adjusted by Lucia offering — more than equitably so she thought, and more than meanly thought the other contracting party — to split the difference, and the double move was instantly begun. In order to get into Mallards more speedily, Lucia left Gre
be vacant in the space of two days, not forgetting the india-rubber felting in the passage outside the Office, for assuredly there would be another Temple of Silence at Mallards, and stored her furniture until her new house was fit to receive it. Grebe being thus empty, the vans from Mallards poured tiger-skins and Polynesian aprons into it, and into Mallards there poured a regiment of plumbers and painters and cleaners and decorators. Drains were tested, pointings between bricks renewed, floors scraped and ceilings whitewashed, and for the next fortnight other householders in Tilling had the greatest difficulty in getting any repairs done, for there was scarcely a workman who was not engaged on Mallards.

  Throughout these hectic weeks Lucia stayed with Georgie at the Cottage, and not even he had ever suspected the sheer horse-power of body and mind which she was capable of developing when really extended. She had breakfasted before the first of her workmen appeared in the morning, and was ready to direct and guide them and to cancel all the orders she had given the day before, till everyone was feverishly occupied, and then she went back to the Cottage to read the letters that had come for her by the first post and skim the morning papers for world-movements. Then Mammoncash got his orders, if he had recommended any change in her investments, and Lucia went back to choose wallpapers, or go down into the big cellars that spread over the entire basement of the house. They had not been used for years, for a cupboard in the pantry had been adequate to hold such alcoholic refreshment as Aunt Caroline and her niece had wished to have on the premises, and bins had disintegrated and laths fallen, and rubbish had been hurled there, until the floor was covered with a foot or more of compacted debris. All this, Lucia decreed, must be excavated, and the floor level laid bare, for both her distaste for living above a rubbish heap, and her passion for restoring Mallards to its original state demanded the clearance. Two navvies with pick-axe and shovel carried up baskets of rubbish through the kitchen where a distracted ironmonger was installing a new boiler. There were rats in this cellar, and Diva very kindly lent Paddy to deal with them, and Paddy very kindly bit a navvy in mistake for a rat. At last the floor level was reached, and Lucia examining it carefully with an electric torch, discovered that there were lines of brickwork lying at an angle to the rest of the floor. The moment she saw them she was convinced that there was a Roman look about them, and secretly suspected that a Roman villa must once have stood here. There was no time to go into that just now: it must be followed up later, but she sent to the London Library for a few standard books on Roman remains in the South of England, and read an article during lunch-time in Georgie’s Encyclopædia about hypocausts.